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[Dr. Buni]

It isn't, it is decent but nothing more. There are many better MegaTen games.

This! Seriously, this game is so overrated. It is decent at best. The only thing outstanding in the game is the soundtrack.

Based Meguro.

Also, there are likable characters in the game for sure, but the game also has the worst part member EVER. Aka Yosuke. Teddie sucks too.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

Suggesting anything from SMT other than P3P/P4/P4G to people who only have a fringe interest in JRPGs is insane to me.

When did I recommend anything aside of P3/4 to the OP? did you misquote me?

 

[Macnair]

This is one of the games you actually care about the NPCs. I still can't stand the emo drama girl.

 

[Duster]

As you can tell it's mostly the characters and setting mixed with a strong overall package.

One of the main things that help is that it takes part over a calender year, the rhythm of the seasons and the way the characters and their relationships evolve over time makes it all seem more real (as real as a game like this can be anyway).

Edit: Oh I see you bought it, just a warning that it gets better after the first couple of hours.

 

[Fattony12000]

It has things that happen it in.
It is a good video game.
I love it just for the UI design.

 

[EVOL 100%]

Found a physical copy online for £18. So just gone and bought it gaf Only physical game I have for my vita now haha so this will be permanently stuck in my machine. I'll let you know how I get on when it arrives. I'm very open minded so should be an interesting venture into this type of game!

Edit: For people saying Waifu... Wtf is Waifu?! Lmao

The weeaboo term for 'wife'. Basically means vapid love interests in fictional material that you self insert for. They mostly are of Japanese origin

Which reminds me of another reason why I don't enjoy it anymore. But hell OP, a lot of people enjoyed the game, and I sure did when I first played it. You'll probably like the game

 

[Teppic]

The dungeons is a bit of a slog, but everything else is sublime.

 

[random25]

There's something about it that makes even people who do otherwise not care about JRPGs appreciate it. Sure, if you try to explain it, the premise sounds ridiculous, but nearly everyone I know who tried it got sucked into it very quickly.

I think it has to do with a modern take on an RPG + relatable characters to a certain degree + less fighting and more about exploring relationships + groovy music. That basically is Persona in a nutshell.

To be honest, some of its core RPG elements are not really good. Slow fights, dull dungeons and not much interesting battles. But it has a very strong story and cast of characters that give it its own unique charm. Persona series is one of the best RPGs right now, and its latest outputs are certainly demolishing the latest Final Fantasy games (basically, the FFXIII trilogy).

Persona 3 FES is still the epitome of Persona for me. It's only weakness against Persona 4 and P4: Golden is that only the MC is controllable in battle, and a weaker set of characters sans MC and Aigis. Other than that, everything is much better. Excited for Persona 5.

 

[Ironjam]

I've played both FES and Portable several times and Portable > FES.

Yup, being able to control your party + FeMC makes P3P superior.
Edit: Also you cant get tired in Tartarus while exploring, only the next day in p3p. Fuck getting tired in P3/Fes, pissed me off :lol.

To OP: Game has great presentation and music, story is very unusual for a jrpg and its better than most as well. Gameplay is simplistic but solid, Persona fusion is addicting (think Pokemon, gotta fuse em all). Imo characters and your interactions with them (which is 90% of the game) is what sets it apart from other jrpgs and that part is amazing.
As others have said, only the dungeons are average but you can finish them very fast if you are playing very easy/easy.

 

[Bayonettasbuddy]

It's because everything you do in the game ties into something else. There's very little in the game that feels meaningless, while time is important.

You are given a wealth of things to do in your spare time, each will impact your game in different ways. Battles can be different if you max out different social links ect.

Good writing is there too, so while you may prefer Chie to Riise, maxing the latter's is more important for when your in battle - this kinda gives you a struggle when picking what you do. Basiacally, you are never bored.

 

[FSLink]

I find it weird how people consider a game "amazing" (or even good) when they didn't enjoy the gameplay... at least that's the impression i've gotten from a lot of posts in this thread.

Personally, I love pretty much everything about P4. I'd even consider it my favorite JRPG (though admittedly, I still have to catch up on some classics). Story and gameplay are intertwined perfectly and it's just really addictive and engaging.

For me P3 and P4's gameplay was amazing until I figured out the rest of the MegaTen series existed. Persona Q with the Etrian Odyssey style dungeons is welcomed and I kinda hope they steal it for P5.

 

[jamsy]

Just started this game myself (after finally giving up on P3P) and so far my main impression is....Chie's voice acting makes me want to kill myself.

 

[BeberMan]

Read it as - "Why is Persona 4 so Golden?"

 

[bobawesome]

Just started this game myself (after finally giving up on P3P) and so far my main impression is....Chie's voice acting makes me want to kill myself.

You would've already been dead had you been forced to listen to Chie's old voice instead.

 

[Mr. Tibbs]

I just got the game the other day but I'm still waiting for my OLED Vita to arrive. I hope I love it. It's going to be my first j-rpg since Dragon Quest V.

 

[stryke]

Edit: For people saying Waifu... Wtf is Waifu?! Lmao

You will come to understand the brilliancy of the waifu as you play the game.

 

[Sparrowhawk]

Yup, being able to control your party + FeMC makes P3P superior.

Ugh, NOW I remember why P3 bothers me so much. Not being able to control your party was an absolutely horrible decision. I mean, the rest of the game makes up for it and you get used to it after a while, but thank God they fixed it in P3P.

 

[gngf123]

Found a physical copy online for £18. So just gone and bought it gaf Only physical game I have for my vita now haha so this will be permanently stuck in my machine. I'll let you know how I get on when it arrives. I'm very open minded so should be an interesting venture into this type of game!

Edit: For people saying Waifu... Wtf is Waifu?! Lmao

Female characters.

You'll soon find out that the Persona fanbase spends more time arguing over who is best girl than actually talking about the game.

 

[Venfayth]

When did I recommend anything aside of P3/4 to the OP? did you misquote me?

I was agreeing with you.

You'll soon find out that the Persona fanbase spends more time arguing over who is best girl than actually talking about the game.

It's ok, because every Persona thread attracts a bunch of SMT purists who understand it's their duty to inform everyone playing them that they suck and aren't representative of true SMT.

 

[elhav]

The characters and the interaction between them make the game so good.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

I was agreeing with you.

My bad then, I love mainline SMT but I would never recommend those games to anyone like OP who doesn't seem to want to get into a hardcore JRPG.

 

[flohen95]

Female characters.

You'll soon find out that the Persona fanbase spends more time arguing over who is best girl than actually talking about the game.

Funnily enough, my favourite character out of all the Persona games is Kanji - I guess I'm an oddball here.

Spoiler

no homo tho

 

[gngf123]

Funnily enough, my favourite character out of all the Persona games is Kanji - I guess I'm an oddball here.

Spoiler

no homo tho

Spoiler

He is my favourite as well.

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

Found a physical copy online for £18. So just gone and bought it gaf Only physical game I have for my vita now haha so this will be permanently stuck in my machine. I'll let you know how I get on when it arrives. I'm very open minded so should be an interesting venture into this type of game!

Edit: For people saying Waifu... Wtf is Waifu?! Lmao

Goooood.

Waifu is used to refer to the posters favourite female character. Social links are from all types of people even animals.

Funnily enough, my favourite character out of all the Persona games is Kanji - I guess I'm an oddball here.

no homo tho

You do know the waifu thing is just about females. I mean if you were to ask who where Persona gaf's favourite characters or look at the polls you will see that Persona fans don't just talk about waifu's.

 

[Teppic]

Just started this game myself (after finally giving up on P3P) and so far my main impression is....Chie's voice acting makes me want to kill myself.

Turn off voices for a better experience. Also, turning off voices makes the music play at full volume all the time instead of being half-way muted when people talk.

 

[ryanofcall]

It has a lot of visual novel mechanics wich fits in very well with the rest of the game. The characters are funny and likeable. there's a lot of depth to the gameplay and a lot to explore.
The story is really foreseeable though imo. The characters just act really stupid story-wise even if things are very obvious.

 

[Aressa]

Go play it already and you'll know why its the best thing on the system and why its praised as one of the best RPGs.

This game manage to exceed my ridiculous expectation and save the Vita purchase for me.

story and characters specially are above everything I've experienced in a game before.

 

[flohen95]

You do know the waifu thing is just about females. I mean if you were to ask who where Persona gaf's favourite characters or look at the polls you will see that Persona fans don't just talk about waifu's.

Not that I am against "Waifu" talk (I hate the term though), it's just that that aspect overshadows a lot of other stuff that the game has going for it when it comes to game discussion (I don't know how it is on GAF, just talking from my personal experience). For example, I was chatting with some guy a few days ago and he found out that I'm a big fan of P4G, immediately asked me "What's your favourite character?" and went on about how he couldn't decide which girl to go for. When I then said "Kanji Tatsumi" he was like "ō_ō" and I had a bit of explaining to do.

 

[Dad's Home]

Ugh, NOW I remember why P3 bothers me so much. Not being able to control your party was an absolutely horrible decision. I mean, the rest of the game makes up for it and you get used to it after a while, but thank God they fixed it in P3P.

Despite it jacking up the difficulty and adding frustrations to the combat, I actually really liked the fact that you didn't have the option to control party members. It made me feel like I was *part* of a group instead of controlling one.

I dunno, given the option I’ll always break and take direct control of the party members, but there was something brutally fun about P3 only letting me make suggestions to part members.

 

[mdubs]

The best game ever, the story and characters are fantastic. Play it on easy for no grinding necessary, that's what I did and it was tons of fun that way.

 

[Lusankya]

Ugh, NOW I remember why P3 bothers me so much. Not being able to control your party was an absolutely horrible decision. I mean, the rest of the game makes up for it and you get used to it after a while, but thank God they fixed it in P3P.

I don't know I actually really loved the fact you couldn't directly control them. Makes the battles somewhat faster and no chore. If you know what yo do then the AI characters will do what you want 99.999% of the time.

 

[MidBoss]

Funnily enough, my favourite character out of all the Persona games is Kanji - I guess I'm an oddball here.

Spoiler

no homo tho

Same. He was voiced really well too. Probably my favorite Troy Baker performance.

 

[Sodding_Gamer]

Turn off voices for a better experience. Also, turning off voices makes the music play at full volume all the time instead of being half-way muted when people talk.

Should I play with voice overs on or off then? I thought the voice acting was good in this game?

 

[Mendrox]

Music and waifus. Great story and character development.

Spoiler

Rise

Your waifu is a

Spoiler

slut

.

Marie & Yukiko > All

 

[blackjaw]

Characters, music, story, demon fusing, setting

All of those are top tier in P4G. One of my favorite games of all time.

 

[Lusankya]

Should I play with voice overs on or off then? I thought the voice acting was good in this game?

Voice acting is superb, don't turn it off!

 

[flohen95]

Should I play with voice overs on or off then? I thought the voice acting was good in this game?

Keep it on. If it becomes grating on you, turn it off. Some people just like to whine over

Spoiler

every non japanese

voice acting for some reason

 

[Griddlelol]

Like you OP, I don't play JRPGs. I've put maybe hundreds of hours into different games, but I don't think I've ever finished one.

P4G is pretty good, everything about it screams style and substance...except for the combat. The combat is a huge fucking chore, the dungeons are long with homogeneous hallways and the bosses are tedious. The thought of going back and doing that any more after 50 hours fills me with dread.

So, OP, if you don't like JRPGs, you probably won't like P4G, it's far too long for something that feels like a chore to play once you get in a dungeon. Everything outside the dungeons is just gravy though.

 

[family_guy]

I fell for the hype and never finished the game. I don't know how anyone can keep chugging through those terrible dungeons. Might as well just watch the story elements on Youtube. Maybe if it had more exploration. I would love for them to do a Persona game that takes place in an explorable city like Shenmue.

 

[Sodding_Gamer]

Voice acting is superb, don't turn it off!

Noted!

Like you OP, I don't play JRPGs. I've put maybe hundreds of hours into different games, but I don't think I've ever finished one.

P4G is pretty good, everything about it screams style and substance...except for the combat. The combat is a huge fucking chore, the dungeons are long with homogeneous hallways and the bosses are tedious. The thought of going back and doing that any more after 50 hours fills me with dread.

So, OP, if you don't like JRPGs, you probably won't like P4G, it's far too long for something that feels like a chore to play once you get in a dungeon. Everything outside the dungeons is just gravy though.

I don't not like JRPG's, I've just not played many, or any good JRPG's for that matter apart from FF7 ofc. I'm totally open to playing them when I have the time.

 

[mdubs]

Like you OP, I don't play JRPGs. I've put maybe hundreds of hours into different games, but I don't think I've ever finished one.

P4G is pretty good, everything about it screams style and substance...except for the combat. The combat is a huge fucking chore, the dungeons are long with homogeneous hallways and the bosses are tedious. The thought of going back and doing that any more after 50 hours fills me with dread.

So, OP, if you don't like JRPGs, you probably won't like P4G, it's far too long for something that feels like a chore to play once you get in a dungeon. Everything outside the dungeons is just gravy though.

I fell for the hype and never finished the game. I don't know how anyone can keep chugging through those terrible dungeons. Might as well just watch the story elements on Youtube. Maybe if it had more exploration. I would love for them to do a Persona game that takes place in an explorable city like Shenmue.

Play it on easy mode and you don't have to worry about any of that.

 

[Balb]

Like you OP, I don't play JRPGs. I've put maybe hundreds of hours into different games, but I don't think I've ever finished one.

P4G is pretty good, everything about it screams style and substance...except for the combat. The combat is a huge fucking chore, the dungeons are long with homogeneous hallways and the bosses are tedious. The thought of going back and doing that any more after 50 hours fills me with dread.

So, OP, if you don't like JRPGs, you probably won't like P4G, it's far too long for something that feels like a chore to play once you get in a dungeon. Everything outside the dungeons is just gravy though.

I don't like JRPGs other than Pokemon and I love P4G for what it's worth. It has a great setting and has an illusion that anything can happen during your first play through. The overall story is perhaps too conventional but the character arcs and set pieces are extremely entertaining.

 

[BillGaitas]

OP, you're going to have a great time with this game.

I played the PS2 version without knowing anything about the series and now Persona 3 and 4 are some of my favourite games of all time. I don't really like JRPG's that much, I just played because everyone was crazy about the annoucement of new Persona games in November 2013, so I just checked to see what the fuzz was all about.

 

[sono]

I gave up at the very first fight after retrying it three times. Any game that does this to me without training you I can't be bothered with.

 

[flohen95]

Play it on easy mode and you don't have to worry about any of that.

This! Very Easy difficulty has been my go-to for replaying the game, since the actual RPG component is only decent while the visual novel/dating sim aspect of the game, imo, is fantastic.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

I gave up at the very first fight after retrying it three times. Any game that does this to me without training you I can't be bothered with.

I'm sorry, but this is hilarious. You do mean the very first fight, right? Not the boss fight?

 

[Alebelly]

This game has been a shock to my system.

Everyone talks this and that about inclusion, depth, writing, story, gameplay ...

It's a masterpiece

 

[Andodalf]

Amazing soundtrack, engrossing world.

 

[AcademicSaucer]

Good, well-designed dungeons. Like, you know, in those Shin megami tensei games.

Yeah , my problem with persona 4 was that the actual dungeon crawling parts of the game bored me to tears .

 

[Bill S. Preston. Esq.]

This! Very Easy difficulty has been my go-to for replaying the game, since the actual RPG component is only decent while the visual novel/dating sim aspect of the game, imo, is fantastic.

Shit! I didn't think about this! I'm about 8 hours in and the dungeon parts are zzzzzzz for me, I haven't touched it in a month as I can't be bothered but I suppose if I play on easy I can blast through the dungeons and enjoy the story etc!

Might give it another go!