AngryExpo
Really fun, but the performance is pretty bad
This is a weird one to rate because on the one hand, 3/4s of the game is repetitive dungeon crawling with mid battling and little to no story. However, I played the P3 route, in this route the P3 gang get way more development as a group, not only this but the last 1/4 of the game actually has a mindblowing twist and hits very hard personally. Also the voice acting, music and graphics (for the 3DS) is pretty superb, and Zen and Rei are some of my favourite Persona characters. So despite these issues, I'm still really happy I played this to be honest, it's inconsistency reminds me of Persona 3 giving it a lob sided feel to the game, but like Persona 3 the last bit of the game does justify the game for me.
The shooting is trash and the puzzles suck.
2020
One of the best open world games I've ever experienced. There is a lot to love about this game. The combat is so good, it's basic light and medium attack are the base but this is built upon by weapon switching stances, staggering, parrying, dodging and special moves like the heaven strike and blade dance, with all these options combat feels interesting and intense. Parrying feels especially fun. Stealth is lame though, wind chimes feel mediocre to use, enemy ai isn't very adaptive or smart, the layouts don't feel well designed for stealth. But this is fine, I rarely did stealth and it rarely forced you to do stealth so this was ignored. Sometimes with combat the camera can interfere, and sometimes Jin can get stuck occasionally, feels slightly rough around the edges, but it's still amazing. Open world activities are very run of the mill sort of. Enemy camps, and stuff to collect. A lot of the activities like the hot springs or the honour monuments dont offer much besides just going to them and collecting your reward. However other activities like the bamboo strike or shrines offer more, especially the shrines as they offer platforming challenges. The side quests are pretty fantastic, most if not all of them have proper stories, all fully voice acted with unique characters and stakes. Some side quests are ongoing throughout the game like Masakos story. These side quests feel very well designed and high effort, they are very good. The graphics are insane like most Sony exclusives, except it has very beutiful Japanese scenery to look at and it's open world, unlike something like TLOU2 where that game is linear so it's not as technically impressive as this game. However the downside is the framerate is way more inconsistent, this only happens during overworld traversal, during combat it's a non issue, the framerate is serviceable. The story is pretty damn excellent, a game about sacrificing honour to save the land, using poison and dishonourable strategies to win, and how Jin deals with this and accepts it over the course of the game and how other characters react like his uncle and Yuna. Overall, this is one of the best Sony exclusives ever made and definitely 2020's best game not including rereleases. Raw game.
This is one of the best 3DS games ever made. There is so much thats great about this game. First of all, the gameplay. I think it's mostly really well designed, braving and defaulting allows you to play either really fast or really slow depending on the enemy. Play carefully and default or spam brave points and nuke everything, the game encourages each play style. The job system also encourages you to play how you want. This has like over 20 jobs, each job is very unique and most are viable to play as. There are dozens of party configurations, and different strategies, this allows you to play how you want. This also makes it so if you fight a boss you a struggling against a change in job strategy will most likely help you beat it rather than grind. Dungeon design is kinda boring, it's better than the first game since it has more gimmicks like the mist area that gives different status buffs per area, but mainly it's just basic corridor sections you run around in with random encounters. Also another mild criticism is that I feel like the game is a tad too easy. The graphics for a 3DS game a pretty great, I love the hand drawn backgrounds, it makes it feel like a story book almost. The music is damn good since it's Square Enix. The story is really interesting. The game is very cheesy with it's story, like a lot of characters are one note tropes, and a lot of characters can't be taken seriously. However I feel like this makes it charming when paired with the serious nature of the game when it comes to the world and it's politics. The cast is spectacular, really well balanced. They all bounce off eachother really well, Tiz is way more interesting than in the first game. Edea is Edea so she's awesome, Yew's growth throughout the game and his underdog attitude is endering, and Magnolia is funny and kind. I would say it has a better cast than the first game. The story for the first 3/4s is great since it tackles Yews past, the villains and their motivations, the politics of the Church and the state, and the sins of your forefathers. It's really interesting world building. Then the last 1/4 happens... This is where the game reaches peak fiction moments, like the first game towards the end it gets meta, like really meta. But it takes it up to another level. Not gonna spoil anything but I was amazed at the final boss. So overall, for a 3DS game it's pretty incredible and worthy of your time. A worthy sequel to the first game.
2019
This review contains spoilers
What isn't there to say about this game that already hasn't been said? It's a masterpiece, an almost flawless piece of fiction.
Story
The story is pretty spectacular from start to finish, it starts off with one of the best arcs in the game with Kamoshida. The starting characters of Ryujji, Ann and Morgona get you immediately invested in the story. These characters feel real in their motivations and goals, and feel very distinct and unique in their personalities. The same is true for the rest of the cast, each character is really well written. Some characters dont shine as well in the main story like Haru due to lack of screentime and importance in the story besides one arc, but this is where the social links come in to flesh out the characters. So either way, each cast member gets the attention they deserve.
The villains are pretty good, most aren't the deepest characters in the world but they get the job done. I was a little dissapointed by Shido though, he felt a tad forgettable, however this is only a minor flaw. The third semester villain trumps all of the villains for me due to his complex motivations and ideology, it's great because he's not a bad person, he just has a different perspective to the thieves. This makes him very sympathetic in the game, definitely one of my favourite villains in fiction.
There is only a couple of sore spots in the story for me, like the dreaded Morgona arc where he leaves because he thinks he is useless. This felt very contrived to me and forced since it's extremely clear from start to finish he isn't useless, and his reasoning for feeling useless is frankly idiotic, and Morgona gets overly angry in a short time span too, it went from 0 to 100 way too quickly. Ryujjis treatment of him didn't help for me either. The only other sore spots in the story is Shido as the big bad and some very minor scenes that feel very off to me, like the scene where they leave Shidos palace and everyone thinks Ryuji is dead, and they play it off as a weird gag right after. These weird tone shifts are rare though and thats the only occasion where it's really a problem.
Presentation
The music... 10/10. You don't need a review on the music. It's spectacular, one of the best soundtracks in gaming. The graphics? Despite being based off a PS3 game, it's still a looker. The art style is clean, quite a lot of detail but still very "anime". The animated cutscenes can sometimes look a little "cheap"? However the in game cutscenes look amazing, like when Ann almost kills Kamoshida. Shit is excellent looking.
Gameplay
Like the previous two Persona games, the gameplay is split into dungeon crawling and daily life gameplay. Daily life gameplay involves you spending time with your friends by levelling up their social link rank, this is the most important thing. All the other social gameplay revolves around this, like social stats like "Knowledge" or "Guts". That's important since social links can have barriers to entry if lets say your "Guts" wasn't high enough. You can level up social stats by doing various activities of your choosing So the daily life gameplay involves managing your time so you can max out as many social links as possible. There is a lot of strategy in spending your time, if you are good enough (and abuse Chihaya's ability enough) you can max out everyone. The social gameplay is really well done too since doing these links effect dungeon gameplay, like making you gain more EXP when fusing Personas of the same arcana, or confidant abilities that give you more options. However, I wish these abilities were optional in some cases when you get them, I will explain why later.
Dungeon gameplay is the other half. This involves exploring palaces and Mementos with shadows dotted around the place. Palaces are awesome, unlike previous Persona games, they are properly designed areas with puzzles, exploration and layouts. All of the palaces are well designed layout wise and puzzle wise mostly, there are some annoying puzzles like the air lock puzzles but these are inoffensive. There are also will seeds which are collectables that when you gather three of them, you get a very useful accessory. Adds a bigger reason to explore palaces more so I appreciate that. They also restore your SP, I don't like this because it makes SP management a bit too easy, luckily, I collect will seeds on the day of infiltration so it's not an issue for me. Mementos is like the previous games with randomly geneated floor layouts, this was terrible in vanilla Persona 5, but thanks to the stamps collecting and new music it's way better. Battling is amazing turn based combat. Striking weaknesses is very important just like the other Persona games for a "One more", but you also have technicals and baton pass which add another layer to gameplay. However, recently I've been feeling mixed on baton passing. For boss fights, I love baton passes because they allow for a lot of strategy within the boss fights, and bosses are hard and challenging, they feel well designed around baton pass. However, for enemy encounters, I don't think I like them. Because to me, it feels a bit too easy to knock down all the enemies with baton passing, it's a bit too versatile and makes enemy encounters feel too linear? With baton passing, you can make it so enemies barely get the chance to act, especially if you ambush them. I would call this is a criticism, but I can do something called "Just dont use baton pass lol", so really, it's nice it's an option for people who do like it. So yeah, the battle system is amazing, the best turn based combat ever. However, there is one fatal flaw with this game, perhaps the biggest in this game that holds back the battling for me.
The biggest flaw of this game
Whats this big flaw? Well, you may have noticed that I have restricted myself in a lot of ways in this playthrough in an attempt to make it harder. Like not collecting will seeds, not using baton pass, and I even don't use SP items too. I don't see these as flaws since I can easily just not use them and players who want to use them can do so. However, remember the confidant abilities? Well I want to max them all out because it gives purpose to the social gameplay, most confidant abilities are well balanced. However, there is one I do not like. Mishima's. When levelled up, Mishima gives the ability to increase XP you earn by a lot. Why is this an issue though? Less grinding right? Well true, but what if you like the battle system though? Mishima's social link maxed out makes it so only a couple of battles can make enemies a joke around you. Thus this makes battling repetitive and linear since enemies are no longer a threat, you don't have to be strategic as much, this with Ryujjis insta kill ability makes it so you can automatically get XP without even battling. For some people, they love this, it makes it so they do less battling and want to finish the palace quicker and get to the story. But for me, who wants to battle more, for me who wants to manage SP management and resources more often, Mishima removes that. This is why I feel confidant abilities should be toggleable. Despite this, I still really love the gameplay, in future playthroughs I will avoid doing Mishima's social link since before I didn't know he could negatively impact the playthrough this much.
Royal additions
Since this is basically a definitive edition over the original Persona 5, would I say the new additions are worth it? Yes. 1000%. There are so many good additions, it changes palace layouts, adds will seeds, adds technicals and changes up boss fights in the gameplay department. I love these additions, it makes the gameplay so much better over vanilla, it's like an improved remix. Story wise this has added a lot too. Kasumi is an excellent addition to the game, her struggle for identity and moving on from the past really hits hard. Her social link is one of the best in the game. The villain as I said is amazing for so many reasons. And then there is Akechi... To be frank, he SUCKED in vanilla. Here, they really fleshed him out as a person both in the base game with his brand new social link and his use in the third semester. Akechi is incredible in this game, certainly one of the best characters in this game.
Conclusion
Despite the difficulty complaint and some minor complaints, this is indeed perhaps my favourite game of all time. After this, I am planning to replay Persona 4 Golden too, this is to decide which game takes hold as my top 1 game. This has already shot past Danganronpa V3 and retook it's place as my top 1, now it's up to P4G on whether it can surpass this game or not. Overall, Atlus, you have created one of the best pieces of fiction in existence, I applaud you.
10/10
Story
The story is pretty spectacular from start to finish, it starts off with one of the best arcs in the game with Kamoshida. The starting characters of Ryujji, Ann and Morgona get you immediately invested in the story. These characters feel real in their motivations and goals, and feel very distinct and unique in their personalities. The same is true for the rest of the cast, each character is really well written. Some characters dont shine as well in the main story like Haru due to lack of screentime and importance in the story besides one arc, but this is where the social links come in to flesh out the characters. So either way, each cast member gets the attention they deserve.
The villains are pretty good, most aren't the deepest characters in the world but they get the job done. I was a little dissapointed by Shido though, he felt a tad forgettable, however this is only a minor flaw. The third semester villain trumps all of the villains for me due to his complex motivations and ideology, it's great because he's not a bad person, he just has a different perspective to the thieves. This makes him very sympathetic in the game, definitely one of my favourite villains in fiction.
There is only a couple of sore spots in the story for me, like the dreaded Morgona arc where he leaves because he thinks he is useless. This felt very contrived to me and forced since it's extremely clear from start to finish he isn't useless, and his reasoning for feeling useless is frankly idiotic, and Morgona gets overly angry in a short time span too, it went from 0 to 100 way too quickly. Ryujjis treatment of him didn't help for me either. The only other sore spots in the story is Shido as the big bad and some very minor scenes that feel very off to me, like the scene where they leave Shidos palace and everyone thinks Ryuji is dead, and they play it off as a weird gag right after. These weird tone shifts are rare though and thats the only occasion where it's really a problem.
Presentation
The music... 10/10. You don't need a review on the music. It's spectacular, one of the best soundtracks in gaming. The graphics? Despite being based off a PS3 game, it's still a looker. The art style is clean, quite a lot of detail but still very "anime". The animated cutscenes can sometimes look a little "cheap"? However the in game cutscenes look amazing, like when Ann almost kills Kamoshida. Shit is excellent looking.
Gameplay
Like the previous two Persona games, the gameplay is split into dungeon crawling and daily life gameplay. Daily life gameplay involves you spending time with your friends by levelling up their social link rank, this is the most important thing. All the other social gameplay revolves around this, like social stats like "Knowledge" or "Guts". That's important since social links can have barriers to entry if lets say your "Guts" wasn't high enough. You can level up social stats by doing various activities of your choosing So the daily life gameplay involves managing your time so you can max out as many social links as possible. There is a lot of strategy in spending your time, if you are good enough (and abuse Chihaya's ability enough) you can max out everyone. The social gameplay is really well done too since doing these links effect dungeon gameplay, like making you gain more EXP when fusing Personas of the same arcana, or confidant abilities that give you more options. However, I wish these abilities were optional in some cases when you get them, I will explain why later.
Dungeon gameplay is the other half. This involves exploring palaces and Mementos with shadows dotted around the place. Palaces are awesome, unlike previous Persona games, they are properly designed areas with puzzles, exploration and layouts. All of the palaces are well designed layout wise and puzzle wise mostly, there are some annoying puzzles like the air lock puzzles but these are inoffensive. There are also will seeds which are collectables that when you gather three of them, you get a very useful accessory. Adds a bigger reason to explore palaces more so I appreciate that. They also restore your SP, I don't like this because it makes SP management a bit too easy, luckily, I collect will seeds on the day of infiltration so it's not an issue for me. Mementos is like the previous games with randomly geneated floor layouts, this was terrible in vanilla Persona 5, but thanks to the stamps collecting and new music it's way better. Battling is amazing turn based combat. Striking weaknesses is very important just like the other Persona games for a "One more", but you also have technicals and baton pass which add another layer to gameplay. However, recently I've been feeling mixed on baton passing. For boss fights, I love baton passes because they allow for a lot of strategy within the boss fights, and bosses are hard and challenging, they feel well designed around baton pass. However, for enemy encounters, I don't think I like them. Because to me, it feels a bit too easy to knock down all the enemies with baton passing, it's a bit too versatile and makes enemy encounters feel too linear? With baton passing, you can make it so enemies barely get the chance to act, especially if you ambush them. I would call this is a criticism, but I can do something called "Just dont use baton pass lol", so really, it's nice it's an option for people who do like it. So yeah, the battle system is amazing, the best turn based combat ever. However, there is one fatal flaw with this game, perhaps the biggest in this game that holds back the battling for me.
The biggest flaw of this game
Whats this big flaw? Well, you may have noticed that I have restricted myself in a lot of ways in this playthrough in an attempt to make it harder. Like not collecting will seeds, not using baton pass, and I even don't use SP items too. I don't see these as flaws since I can easily just not use them and players who want to use them can do so. However, remember the confidant abilities? Well I want to max them all out because it gives purpose to the social gameplay, most confidant abilities are well balanced. However, there is one I do not like. Mishima's. When levelled up, Mishima gives the ability to increase XP you earn by a lot. Why is this an issue though? Less grinding right? Well true, but what if you like the battle system though? Mishima's social link maxed out makes it so only a couple of battles can make enemies a joke around you. Thus this makes battling repetitive and linear since enemies are no longer a threat, you don't have to be strategic as much, this with Ryujjis insta kill ability makes it so you can automatically get XP without even battling. For some people, they love this, it makes it so they do less battling and want to finish the palace quicker and get to the story. But for me, who wants to battle more, for me who wants to manage SP management and resources more often, Mishima removes that. This is why I feel confidant abilities should be toggleable. Despite this, I still really love the gameplay, in future playthroughs I will avoid doing Mishima's social link since before I didn't know he could negatively impact the playthrough this much.
Royal additions
Since this is basically a definitive edition over the original Persona 5, would I say the new additions are worth it? Yes. 1000%. There are so many good additions, it changes palace layouts, adds will seeds, adds technicals and changes up boss fights in the gameplay department. I love these additions, it makes the gameplay so much better over vanilla, it's like an improved remix. Story wise this has added a lot too. Kasumi is an excellent addition to the game, her struggle for identity and moving on from the past really hits hard. Her social link is one of the best in the game. The villain as I said is amazing for so many reasons. And then there is Akechi... To be frank, he SUCKED in vanilla. Here, they really fleshed him out as a person both in the base game with his brand new social link and his use in the third semester. Akechi is incredible in this game, certainly one of the best characters in this game.
Conclusion
Despite the difficulty complaint and some minor complaints, this is indeed perhaps my favourite game of all time. After this, I am planning to replay Persona 4 Golden too, this is to decide which game takes hold as my top 1 game. This has already shot past Danganronpa V3 and retook it's place as my top 1, now it's up to P4G on whether it can surpass this game or not. Overall, Atlus, you have created one of the best pieces of fiction in existence, I applaud you.
10/10
2012
After playing Persona 5 Royal and Persona 4 Golden back to back, I came to the conclusion that I prefer Persona 4 Golden. Why is this? Well I'll explain.
Story
This is my favourite story of all time, why is this? Character writing. Each character in this game is fully developed in their own way, most characters to me have relatable struggles of identity and finding themselves. This makes the game more personal to me since the characters are so grounded, easy to empathise with and easy to relate to. Even freaking Teddie has an incredible arc of realising that it doesn’t matter what you are or how you were born, it’s how you can change and creating meaning for yourself. Even the villain feels relatable in a sense since he's a lesson on what happens if you live without actually living, end up being alone, and blame the world and people around you for your problems.
The games’ theme of truth also is relatable, sometimes it's easier to live a peaceful lie rather than accept the truth of reality. In a sense, a world full of shadows would be peaceful, where no-one thinks for themselves, believing what they want to believe, living in ignorance to the world around them. Ignoring your problems, running away from yourself, thinking everything is fine when it's not. But facing the truth shows strength of character, in a way it's a precursor to the third semester in Persona 5 Royal, it's an interesting idea the game plays with.
The game also has a lot of levity, it's the funniest game out of modern Persona trilogy due to how well the group dynamics are written, the voice acting and the weird scenarios. The game has a lot of funny moments, the most in the series, but this is balanced out because this game can have very dark, twisted scenes sometimes like confronting the true culprit for the first time and seeing how his twisted mind sees things or December 3rd. I do admit the darker aspects aren't as common though, but they hit harder due to their scarcity and the highs the game has. I wouldn't go as far to say it's "darker than Persona 3" but the dark moments felt darker for me than Persona 3 or 5 if that makes sense.
Another thing I like about the story is how dense it feels. I’ll explain, with Persona 3, the main story is basically about the mystery of Tarturus, at least for the first half. This is fine, but it sometimes makes the story feel a little sparse. With Persona 5, it’s about the short term villain arcs and the mystery of mementos. Persona 5 feels quite dense too, Persona 4 has the mystery of the TV world, the murder mystery aspect and the short term character arcs in the story when you go to rescue them. There are a lot of initial “hooks” in the story which keep you engaged and wanting to see more, this to me shows structurally the story is great.
We cannot forget about the social links though, these are basically side stories to the main story. These social links allow you to further explore a party members inner struggles and helps you even overcome them. Like helping Kanji to be more honest about his hobbies and not caring what others think or helping Rise realise her “Idol self” was never fake and was always a part of her, or helping Yosuke face the reality of Sakis death. These party member social links are so well written, they are the best in the series, Persona 5 had some excellent party member social links but some were questionable like Ann’s social link (still was entertaining though). The non party member social links are also consistently good and the best in the series. Some are incredible dark, like helping Saikis brother coping with his sister’s death and the reaction of people around him to that or the Death social link which explores the guilt of Hisano when she wished for her husband to die due to him suffering from dementia and forgetting she even existed. Or Nanako and Dojimas social link which explores what “family” is and exploring how isolation hurts yourself and the people you care about. The social links are so good, there are two forgettable ones like Eri’s and Shu’s, however even these have some heartfelt moments at times and aren’t bad at all. So yeah, this has my favourite social links in the series.
Presentation
Lets start with the graphics. This is a PS2 game plain and simple, but, I think it’s aged incredibly well. Character models are clean and simple, the character designs are so iconic so that helps too. Environments look simplistic and slightly low resolution, especially in more rural areas of Inaba, but it has this charm to it.
The music… It’s literally Persona, of course the music is incredibly good. Amazing battle theme, amazing overworld music, amazing music all around. Maybe the opening isn’t my favourite but that’s about it. I love the J-Pop vibe the soundtrack has, it fits the game due to it prominently featuring media and Rise existing.
Gameplay
I love the gameplay a ton. The Persona formula is so excellent. The time management aspect is so fun for me since it’s actually quite strategic, loads of little decisions are always made like if I should see a certain social link today, or level up my social stats, among other decisions which can affect how efficient you are with your time.
What about dungeon gameplay? Since it’s divided into two halfs, the dungeon and social sim aspect, it provides a good balance. Is battling and dungeon exploration fun? Yes. Basically, dungeons consist of randomly generated paths you go through, it’s simple, kinda lazy, and nowhere near as engaging as handmade dungeons like Persona 5’s. But it gets the job done, floors don’t feel tedious to explore like Tarturus since there are less floors than Tarturus (but floors are bigger though), and you can fast travel to the stairs once you find the stairs which you cant in Tarturus. It would be nice to have handmade dungeons but this certainly isn’t bad.
What about the battling though? I love the battling in this game. The game feels very balanced with enemy encounters, each encounter is mostly fair, and can be beaten with any number of strategies. Going for all out attacks feels satisfying, I love the reliance on follow up attacks since you can make educated guesses on when they’ll usually appear and plan around that, abusing status ailments (especially dizzy) is sometimes necessary, it’s not always about all out attacks, sometimes it’s better to not go for an all out attack. The game on very hard mode is indeed very hard throughout the entire game, this difficulty makes battling fun since it makes me feel like each decision matters. If a game is too easy then it makes me feel like decisions don’t matter in the end. This is one problem I had with Persona 5 because in the second half it gets way too easy. So due to this, despite having less mechanics than Persona 5, Persona 4 feels more balanced so I actually prefer the gameplay of Persona 4 which is probably strange. I will say though, sometimes enemies can be bullshit, like one time I literally did an enemy encounter, and it used Megidola, wiping out my entire party before I could even act. This is rare though, on very hard mode you are underlevelled most of the time, but due to how good the combat is, most enemy encounters are still beatable if you play carefully.
However, I actually haven’t spoken about bosses yet. On hard mode and below, bosses feel mostly fair and balanced, besides one stupid ass baby boss you must deal with. But on very hard mode, grinding is basically required, especially Ameno Sagiri which had me grinding for hours. So for bosses, I’d recommend turning the difficulty down since no matter how much strategy you use, if it can wipe out your entire party in one strike, it doesn’t matter in the end. Bosses aren’t fun to fight anyways, and feel mostly very bullet spongey and rely on basic strategies like “Guard when it uses a super move”. Bosses are definitely a weaker aspect of the game, although they aren’t bad. Persona 5 Royal has better boss fights yet the enemy encounters are too easy, these take up most of the game so I’d rather have engaging enemy encounters over engaging boss fights personally.
Final thoughts
Overall, I have to say, I think this game is my favourite game ever made. I was able to do two playthroughs back to back to collect all the achievements, and never ONCE felt burnout, I was able to do the same somewhat with Persona 5, but due to how easy that game is and some weaker arcs like Okumura’s arc, I think it’s clear to me Persona 4 Golden is slightly better than Persona 5 Royal but not by much. Thank you for reading my rambling if you made it this far bruh lmao
Story
This is my favourite story of all time, why is this? Character writing. Each character in this game is fully developed in their own way, most characters to me have relatable struggles of identity and finding themselves. This makes the game more personal to me since the characters are so grounded, easy to empathise with and easy to relate to. Even freaking Teddie has an incredible arc of realising that it doesn’t matter what you are or how you were born, it’s how you can change and creating meaning for yourself. Even the villain feels relatable in a sense since he's a lesson on what happens if you live without actually living, end up being alone, and blame the world and people around you for your problems.
The games’ theme of truth also is relatable, sometimes it's easier to live a peaceful lie rather than accept the truth of reality. In a sense, a world full of shadows would be peaceful, where no-one thinks for themselves, believing what they want to believe, living in ignorance to the world around them. Ignoring your problems, running away from yourself, thinking everything is fine when it's not. But facing the truth shows strength of character, in a way it's a precursor to the third semester in Persona 5 Royal, it's an interesting idea the game plays with.
The game also has a lot of levity, it's the funniest game out of modern Persona trilogy due to how well the group dynamics are written, the voice acting and the weird scenarios. The game has a lot of funny moments, the most in the series, but this is balanced out because this game can have very dark, twisted scenes sometimes like confronting the true culprit for the first time and seeing how his twisted mind sees things or December 3rd. I do admit the darker aspects aren't as common though, but they hit harder due to their scarcity and the highs the game has. I wouldn't go as far to say it's "darker than Persona 3" but the dark moments felt darker for me than Persona 3 or 5 if that makes sense.
Another thing I like about the story is how dense it feels. I’ll explain, with Persona 3, the main story is basically about the mystery of Tarturus, at least for the first half. This is fine, but it sometimes makes the story feel a little sparse. With Persona 5, it’s about the short term villain arcs and the mystery of mementos. Persona 5 feels quite dense too, Persona 4 has the mystery of the TV world, the murder mystery aspect and the short term character arcs in the story when you go to rescue them. There are a lot of initial “hooks” in the story which keep you engaged and wanting to see more, this to me shows structurally the story is great.
We cannot forget about the social links though, these are basically side stories to the main story. These social links allow you to further explore a party members inner struggles and helps you even overcome them. Like helping Kanji to be more honest about his hobbies and not caring what others think or helping Rise realise her “Idol self” was never fake and was always a part of her, or helping Yosuke face the reality of Sakis death. These party member social links are so well written, they are the best in the series, Persona 5 had some excellent party member social links but some were questionable like Ann’s social link (still was entertaining though). The non party member social links are also consistently good and the best in the series. Some are incredible dark, like helping Saikis brother coping with his sister’s death and the reaction of people around him to that or the Death social link which explores the guilt of Hisano when she wished for her husband to die due to him suffering from dementia and forgetting she even existed. Or Nanako and Dojimas social link which explores what “family” is and exploring how isolation hurts yourself and the people you care about. The social links are so good, there are two forgettable ones like Eri’s and Shu’s, however even these have some heartfelt moments at times and aren’t bad at all. So yeah, this has my favourite social links in the series.
Presentation
Lets start with the graphics. This is a PS2 game plain and simple, but, I think it’s aged incredibly well. Character models are clean and simple, the character designs are so iconic so that helps too. Environments look simplistic and slightly low resolution, especially in more rural areas of Inaba, but it has this charm to it.
The music… It’s literally Persona, of course the music is incredibly good. Amazing battle theme, amazing overworld music, amazing music all around. Maybe the opening isn’t my favourite but that’s about it. I love the J-Pop vibe the soundtrack has, it fits the game due to it prominently featuring media and Rise existing.
Gameplay
I love the gameplay a ton. The Persona formula is so excellent. The time management aspect is so fun for me since it’s actually quite strategic, loads of little decisions are always made like if I should see a certain social link today, or level up my social stats, among other decisions which can affect how efficient you are with your time.
What about dungeon gameplay? Since it’s divided into two halfs, the dungeon and social sim aspect, it provides a good balance. Is battling and dungeon exploration fun? Yes. Basically, dungeons consist of randomly generated paths you go through, it’s simple, kinda lazy, and nowhere near as engaging as handmade dungeons like Persona 5’s. But it gets the job done, floors don’t feel tedious to explore like Tarturus since there are less floors than Tarturus (but floors are bigger though), and you can fast travel to the stairs once you find the stairs which you cant in Tarturus. It would be nice to have handmade dungeons but this certainly isn’t bad.
What about the battling though? I love the battling in this game. The game feels very balanced with enemy encounters, each encounter is mostly fair, and can be beaten with any number of strategies. Going for all out attacks feels satisfying, I love the reliance on follow up attacks since you can make educated guesses on when they’ll usually appear and plan around that, abusing status ailments (especially dizzy) is sometimes necessary, it’s not always about all out attacks, sometimes it’s better to not go for an all out attack. The game on very hard mode is indeed very hard throughout the entire game, this difficulty makes battling fun since it makes me feel like each decision matters. If a game is too easy then it makes me feel like decisions don’t matter in the end. This is one problem I had with Persona 5 because in the second half it gets way too easy. So due to this, despite having less mechanics than Persona 5, Persona 4 feels more balanced so I actually prefer the gameplay of Persona 4 which is probably strange. I will say though, sometimes enemies can be bullshit, like one time I literally did an enemy encounter, and it used Megidola, wiping out my entire party before I could even act. This is rare though, on very hard mode you are underlevelled most of the time, but due to how good the combat is, most enemy encounters are still beatable if you play carefully.
However, I actually haven’t spoken about bosses yet. On hard mode and below, bosses feel mostly fair and balanced, besides one stupid ass baby boss you must deal with. But on very hard mode, grinding is basically required, especially Ameno Sagiri which had me grinding for hours. So for bosses, I’d recommend turning the difficulty down since no matter how much strategy you use, if it can wipe out your entire party in one strike, it doesn’t matter in the end. Bosses aren’t fun to fight anyways, and feel mostly very bullet spongey and rely on basic strategies like “Guard when it uses a super move”. Bosses are definitely a weaker aspect of the game, although they aren’t bad. Persona 5 Royal has better boss fights yet the enemy encounters are too easy, these take up most of the game so I’d rather have engaging enemy encounters over engaging boss fights personally.
Final thoughts
Overall, I have to say, I think this game is my favourite game ever made. I was able to do two playthroughs back to back to collect all the achievements, and never ONCE felt burnout, I was able to do the same somewhat with Persona 5, but due to how easy that game is and some weaker arcs like Okumura’s arc, I think it’s clear to me Persona 4 Golden is slightly better than Persona 5 Royal but not by much. Thank you for reading my rambling if you made it this far bruh lmao
2009
The female MC route is better than the base game imo
Unique, expressive protagonist with more depth than the average Persona protagonist. New social links over the base game which are way better and help you to know the party members more and other characters like Ryoji. Amazing, new music for her route, although I do prefer Mass Destruction.
However there are some downsides to this route. Despite thinking Ken's social link is good and above average for Persona 3, the fact you can date him is fucked up and should be called out. And you can save characters lives who are supposed to die which goes against the themes of the game.
The gameplay is boring, 1/10, nowhere near as good as future games, bad battling and too many floors. The visuals are lame as shit too, miss animated cutscenes.
Overall, thanks to the female MC route, I really love this game now, I'm so happy this exists, for me it's a clear upgrade over the original experience, I sure hope the eventual P3 remake includes it but I doubt it. Despite being held back by it's gameplay and visuals, I appreciate this awesome game.
Unique, expressive protagonist with more depth than the average Persona protagonist. New social links over the base game which are way better and help you to know the party members more and other characters like Ryoji. Amazing, new music for her route, although I do prefer Mass Destruction.
However there are some downsides to this route. Despite thinking Ken's social link is good and above average for Persona 3, the fact you can date him is fucked up and should be called out. And you can save characters lives who are supposed to die which goes against the themes of the game.
The gameplay is boring, 1/10, nowhere near as good as future games, bad battling and too many floors. The visuals are lame as shit too, miss animated cutscenes.
Overall, thanks to the female MC route, I really love this game now, I'm so happy this exists, for me it's a clear upgrade over the original experience, I sure hope the eventual P3 remake includes it but I doubt it. Despite being held back by it's gameplay and visuals, I appreciate this awesome game.
2011
A decent small game, nothing mind blowing. Some cool levels and boss fights, great music too. Presentation and story sucked though.
2019
This game is a gem. It screams light hearted fun. Simple fun entertaining beat em up combat. Light, but funny story and characters. Amazing music, character designs and graphics. Perfect 9 hour length. Highly recommended
For the first game in the series, it's decently good. The story is somewhat interesting, mainly the setting and the plot twists towards the end. Maki is probably the best character in this game. The rest of the cast is decently good but not super deep. Battling is mid but it's easy so it was painless, encounter rate is too high though. Graphics are pretty good for a PS1 game. Finally, the lesson of finding what you live for and accepting yourself resonated with me somewhat so I appreciate that the most about this game. Also soundtrack is full of bangers.
2020
For a "spinoff", this is way better than I expected. I expected a game with fun combat and fun interactions with a story that isn't that interesting. I am happy to report I am wrong, this is a true sequel to Persona 5. Sophie and Zenkichi are amazing characters, some of the best phantom thief writing within the context of P5, especially Sophie because she reminds me of Aigis but more developed. The villains are surprisingly well written too, they are more sympathetic compared to Persona 5, however they are held back by lack of screentime somewhat. Gameplay is hype as shit, best musuo combat I've ever played due to the mix of tactical Persona combat mixed in, it's basically an action RPG. Amazing combat. Jails are pretty fun to explore, they are very linear but feel very big in scale. Some jails feel very small and rushed like Kyoto or the World Tree but in general I like the jails. Music is amazing, it's Persona 5 music, of course it's peak. Content wise it's decently big, almost 60 hours to almost get all the achievements. Side quests are simplistic but fun in nature. Graphics wise it looks great, especially on PC, it runs well too. My only criticisms are sometimes the camera sucks and the ending felt slightly rushed but other than that this game is fantastic. More than a worthy sequel to one of my favourite games ever.
2020
One of the best indie game ever made, its not even close. Sunny, is one of the best written characters ever, and he doesn't even utter a word. His story of separating himself from his emotions to deal with trauma, facing the truth of his selfish actions and overcoming his trauma of what he did is all done with visual and auditory story telling. The other characters and their struggles are great too, but this story is mainly about Sunny and his headspace which uses the world as a visual metaphor for how he is in his literal headspace. This game is amazing at essentially psychologically torturing you because it wants to make you feel fear like Sunny. It's terrifying and unironically gave me nightmares. Gameplay is decent, on the easy side but it's got some depth certainly. Music is great and the mix of multimedia for it's art style is so unique and serves the story well.
To conclude, this solos Mother 3 lol
To conclude, this solos Mother 3 lol
This game is simply a masterpiece . The story is incredible, indeed it has one of the best protaganists ever written, this is complimented with a party full of incredibly well written companions with their own struggles and backstories. All the characters intertwine with the main character so well. My personal favourite side characters are Zhao and Joon Gi Han. The important characters like Arekawa and the villains are also incredibly well written and complex. And the ending was one of the best I've ever seen, incredible. Gameplay is excellent JRPG combat, it isn't peak, peak JRPG combat by any means but it has a lot of depth, and has real time elements to make it spicy. Super fun and loads of classes to mess around with. The amount of side content is also insane, and can keep you busy for hours. Overall, this game is in fact one of the best JRPGs ever made, the story alone would give it a 9.5 but the excellent gameplay truly makes it peak for me.
This game is gas, it's one of my favourite Sonic games. Great level design, surprisingly fun to run through, a bit linear but I dont mind. Music is great as always, graphics are nice for a Wii game. Story is one of the best in the series, short and sweet, great characterisation of Sonic, one of the best villains in the franchise. One of the best final bosses in gaming too, raw game.