Why do I do this to myself? It’s been years since I played Persona 4, I think I played it back in 2020 in my first semester of college. I’ve had countless hours to sit and really marinate on my thoughts on this game, and figure out just how much I dislike it. But I can’t write a proper review for a game I played almost 4 years ago, so I chose to bite the bullet and replay Persona 4 again. And frankly, I still don’t like it. It feels insane to feel this way because I see boundless praise for Persona 4, and yet I look at this game and I see countless issues. I really want to express why I dislike Persona 4 as much as I do so that I can close the book on this game for myself, and allow myself to move on.
Before I get into the negatives though, I do want to mention what I do like about the game. There are a few, and I think it’s important to mention them, so that I don’t seem fully negative here. First of course is the game’s music. Persona as a series just seems to be on point with the music, and I don’t think there’s ever a time that I heard a bad music track. There’s some locations where the music is really cozy, especially in the times where that’s meant to be the vibe. I think if anything the only issue I have with the music is that one track gets overplayed a lot, and is a very quick music track so it oftentimes feels repetitive, but even then it’s a good music track all the same.
And of course because this is an Atlus RPG, it’s mechanically really fun. Combat is really good, and I do really like the idea of the other party members not being controlled by you. Sometimes it backfires, one of your allies using an attack that the enemy reflects or absorbs, or an ally not using the skill that would be best. While these occurrences can be frustrating for sure, they also create interesting scenarios that likely wouldn’t occur if you could control them yourself. And of course I absolutely adore the fusion mechanics. Being able to fuse Personas to create a stronger Persona is really fun, especially in how you can customize these fused Personas. As well, the fact that there’s multiple types of fusion is another fun aspect as you have so many options to how you can fuse your Personas. I spent a good while just fusing Personas to craft some really fun ones.
I also really like the idea of the day-to-day life that the game has. I’ll describe why I specify the idea of it later on, as I don’t want to get into the game’s negatives yet. Either way, having to do a daily routine each and every day, interacting with people, doing activities, etc, is all really nice. Yet again it creates this sort of cozy setting that I think Persona 4 is going for. Especially as it’s located in a small town, it creates a unique vibe that not many other games pull off. And in a similar vein to this, I like the idea of the Social Links, and how that ties in to the day-to-day life of the game.
And of course there’s still a couple other positives I’ve yet to mention. I really like the aesthetics of Persona 4, and I love the look of late 2000’s games, so graphically the game is charming to me. I really like how the dungeons look especially. But I’ll be honest this is all the praise that I can give towards Persona 4 without having to acknowledge everything I dislike about it. And believe me, there is a lot, so let’s just start.
While I think the dungeons are visually great, that’s really the only positive I can give them. I like the idea that dungeon’s layouts are randomly generated, but that also makes the dungeons suffer as a result. For I’d say 90% of the time you’ll ever be in dungeons, the dungeon will be empty hallways with nothing going on. Visually the dungeons are diverse, but exploring them you see that that’s really the only major difference. No matter the dungeon, you’ll be going through about 10 floors of long corridors and the occasional small room until you find the stairs to the next floor. On rare occasion though there is an idea in these dungeons. One dungeon has a single floor where the light go out, another dungeon has a single floor where you get booted out if you fight an enemy. It makes those floors in particular really interesting, and I would’ve loved to see more of these. But because they’re so few and far between, the dungeons feel needlessly long and really boring.
And speaking of needlessly long, I feel the game’s pacing is ridiculously slow. And this is what I mean when I mentioned that I liked the idea of the day-to-day life. I think conceptually it’s really good, but the game does not execute it well. The game sort of has two halves, the Murder Mystery plot, and the day-to-day life. While it’s easily possible to have both, I feel as if the day-to-day life of the game is far more overwhelming than the murder mystery plot. And at least to me, the murder mystery plot is far more interesting, but it’s not able to really develop because of how much of the game’s time is focused on the day-to-day life. The murder mystery plot moves at an absolute snails pace, taking until the game’s third dungeon until you have any proper hint or clue about the nature of the murderer. And on top of it, the only real twists of the murder mystery plot are red herrings, which would be fine if there were any other interesting twists. I don’t really think the reveal of who the murderer is is interesting either, I’d honestly argue one of the red herrings has a far more interesting motivation.
And yet again I feel like I need to reiterate, I think the day-to-day life conceptually is really good. I just think there’s too much of it. Sometimes it takes over a month of in game days for the game to return to the murder mystery plot, making it feel improperly balanced. There are some great character moments in the day-to-day life sections, but there’s also some really bad moments too. I just think the game should’ve done more to balance out the time spent with the day-to-day life, and time spent with the murder mystery plot.
I think now it’s time to finally describe one of the most complicated aspects of the game, and of course the one where I have the most issue with. And believe me, I’ll be going in depth with this, explaining every single issue I have here. And this of course is about the characters. The main cast of Persona 4 has a ridiculous amount of potential, when they shine are great characters, they really are great. But outside of those great moments, they often get flanderized, or have character arcs that feel antithetical to the idea of what Persona 4 is about, which is (to me) facing the truth and becoming one’s true self. The best way I have of describing it is that these characters are victims to the game’s narrative, not being allowed to be as good as they could be. And yes, I’m gonna list the entire main cast here, and my issues with all of them.
Yosuke… I really want to like Yosuke. He’s the sort of archetypical best friend character that can really work in games like this. I think his Social Links are some of the strongest character moments in the game, but outside of the Social Links, he really suffers as a character. For a lack of a better term, he becomes a horndog, though not the worst example of one in the game (I’ll get to him later). But what makes Yosuke suffer is how blatantly homophobic in the game as well. There’s little to no acknowledgement of his homophobia. I know that there was plans for Yosuke to be a gay romance option, which would entirely recontextualize all of Yosuke’s homophobic remarks, but because the plans to make him gay were scrapped, he’s just simply homophobic.
Chie is a character that I really don’t have much to talk about. After the first dungeon her presence in the game sort of fades a bit, taking less of the spotlight than she should. She’s a character that definitely gets flanderized as the story progresses. Outside of her Social Links, she’s mainly characterized as a carnivore who’s aggressive and that’s really it. Her Social Links are pretty good, but that’s really all she gets.
I wish Yukiko was in a better game. Yukiko’s character arc had so much potential, but it all gets ruined by what the game’s narrative decides for her. Her whole arc is about being able to make choices for herself, not being trapped in tradition, being able to write her own narrative. Hell, her Shadow explicitly mentions that she doesn’t want to inherit the inn, and the Shadows are the repressed thoughts that the characters don’t want to accept. This all could lead to a really strong character arc for this character, and has potential to really say something. But then the social links for her really ruin it. It starts out great, by having her job search, and try to figure out what she wants to do in life herself. But then she fails one time to a comical degree, and after stopping a rumor TV show from making an episode about the inn she doesn’t want to inherit she then decides “well I guess it’s better if I inherit the inn!”. Which is entirely contradictory to what her whole deal with her shadow was about, and it feels like she’s sort of regressed a character.
Kanji is probably the best character in the game writing wise. Even then there are issues tied to him that I wish the game didn’t have. I really dislike how the game deals with his shadow. In particular, they characterize Kanji’s shadow as an offensively stereotypical gay man, which truth be told I don’t even know why. Kanji’s whole character arc though is about figuring out that he doesn’t have to be overly masculine, and he can still be respected if he doesn’t have masculine traits. But this constantly gets messed up by the game making him the target of not only homophobic jokes, but just a lot of jokes in general. It feels as if the narrative doesn’t respect Kanji, even though his character arc is about how he won’t be disrespected by having the interesting he does.
Rise is another character that in a better game, she would be allowed to have a proper character arc. Much like Yukiko, her character arc has ridiculous potential. She’s a celebrity who wants to get out of the job because it’s destroying her sense of self. This alone could lead to a really good arc for her character if the game allowed it. First off, once you’re done with her dungeon, she immediately becoming heavily flanderized. Basically, outside of her social links her main character trait is being attracted to the player character, and not really much else. And her Social Links are a worse version of Yukiko’s. It ends her with going back into stardom, but the social links also noticeably guilt trip her into doing so. There’s multiple times where the game basically tells Rise “think about how sad the fans will be!!!”, and convinces her to not prioritize her own wellbeing. It’s a really bad conclusion for this character.
How has Teddie not been imprisoned for Sexual Harassment? While I say that somewhat jokingly, that is also the innate issue with Teddie as a character. He is the ultimate horndog, constantly trying to get women in revealing clothing, constantly flirting with women, and overall purposefully causing problems for others. There’s a scene during the Summer Vacation where Teddie actively tries to forcibly undress the female characters, and he gets zero comeuppance for it. I have to ask, am I supposed to find this endearing? I can’t help but hate Teddie because of the actions that he continues to do throughout the game. And his social links are at least interesting in the vein of him trying to find out who he is and what his identity is, but I couldn’t bring myself to care much about him because of how perverted he is.
And probably the most complicated character of the game is Naoto. Naoto has a similar situation to Rise and Yukiko, where Naoto’s character accepts something he doesn’t want, than try to become his true self. And in the case of Naoto, it’s far worse. It feels safe to me that Naoto’s character arc is completely transphobic just down to its core. The game so clearly lays out that Naoto has gender dysphoria. The fact that Naoto’s ideal detective, and which to him would be his ideal self is a man I think lays out enough. And I have to question why exactly they chose to go down the route for Naoto? They could’ve easily just examined how people don’t respect him for being a child detective, as he’s not an adult and there would be an interesting character arc with that alone. Adding all of the transphobia there is just, really gross.
And that’s really a problem that Persona 4 faces with these character arcs. The game feels like it’s unable to actually say that these characters should embrace their true selves, and if they do (in the case of Kanji) they noticeably suffer because of it. It feels like Persona 4’s message isn’t to accept your true self, but to resign yourself to the bad parts of life, and don’t try to change things. And if you do try to change, be prepared to be ridiculed. Character arcs like Yukiko, Rise, and Naoto all suffer from this, and it makes me wish they were in a game with a narrative that properly allowed them to grow.
There’s also a lot of other characters that I haven’t interacted with. There’s a social link for every single major arcana in a Tarot Deck, and aside from 2 of them, they’re all tied to unique characters. I primarily focused solely on the investigation team, so there’s a good number of characters I simply never met. I bring this up to acknowledge that there may be some amazing character arcs I’ve never seen, or some potentially horrendous ones. But with how much I dislike the character writing of the main cast, I wouldn’t be surprised if the writing is fumbled for other characters as well.
And I’m still not done examining this game’s story. When it comes to the shadows of these characters, primarily Kanji’s and Rise’s, I really have to ask, why are they as sexualized as they are? Even in the case of Rise, it doesn’t really fit with the arcs that these characters go through, or the truths about themselves that they’re too afraid to admit. Especially in the case of Kanji, whose whole arc is about being okay with not hiding his interests if they’re not masculine. The sexualization of their shadows don’t really provide any substance to the arcs, and feels like the game is being sexual for the sake of being sexual and nothing more. Adding the fact that the ages of these characters range between 15-16, it’s really gross.
And outside of the shadows, the game still has this issue to some extent, but tries to hide it under the guise of comedy. Which at least me, makes it even worse. I already expressed one of those moments when talking about Teddie, and to some extent, I think Yosuke’s homophobic remarks are intended to be comedy as well which is… weird to say the least. There’s just so many moments like this that I not only just find unfunny, but I have to ask why this is here in the first place. It makes characters like Yosuke and ESPECIALLY Teddie extremely unlikeable. And there’s no way to avoid these sections either. The game gives you the illusion of choice, having a dialogue option where you’re reasonable but the game still drags you into these scenes. These scenes really take away from the actually good character moments that happen during the game, and it’s really disappointing.
And Persona 4 has so much potential to do a lot more I feel. Playing the game again, the actual concept of The Midnight Channel and its connection to the Murder Mystery plot feels severely underutilized. There are some characters who speak rumors and such, but aside from the occasional mention, there’s nothing that comes from it. But there’s a whole lot of potential there! The idea that murder victims appear on TV before they get murdered, there could be an examination of the voyeuristic nature that comes from it. People are already voyeuristic about crimes that occur in real life thanks to True Crime channels, that idea could be examined here, too. They could delve further into the rumors brought about by the Midnight Channel, or they could examine how those who survive are affected socially with what’s seen on the Midnight Channel. There’s so much potential that’s simple not there, and it’s really disappointing. And I think that’s what bothers me a lot about Persona 4, it has the potential to say a lot, but it ends up saying very little.
At this point I’m just glad I never have to touch Persona 4 again. I can see the aspects of the game that people like so much about it, but there’s so much I dislike, and so much wasted potential that I simply can’t ignore. Yet again, I feel insane for disliking this game as much as I do, when I see constant praise for it. I wish the character writing was better, I wish the dungeon design was better, and I wish the game actually allowed its characters the growth they deserve. I do hope that I’ll have time to play the other Persona games, I honestly think I’ll enjoy them much more than I did Persona 4. I’m honestly just glad to be done with this game for good.
Before I get into the negatives though, I do want to mention what I do like about the game. There are a few, and I think it’s important to mention them, so that I don’t seem fully negative here. First of course is the game’s music. Persona as a series just seems to be on point with the music, and I don’t think there’s ever a time that I heard a bad music track. There’s some locations where the music is really cozy, especially in the times where that’s meant to be the vibe. I think if anything the only issue I have with the music is that one track gets overplayed a lot, and is a very quick music track so it oftentimes feels repetitive, but even then it’s a good music track all the same.
And of course because this is an Atlus RPG, it’s mechanically really fun. Combat is really good, and I do really like the idea of the other party members not being controlled by you. Sometimes it backfires, one of your allies using an attack that the enemy reflects or absorbs, or an ally not using the skill that would be best. While these occurrences can be frustrating for sure, they also create interesting scenarios that likely wouldn’t occur if you could control them yourself. And of course I absolutely adore the fusion mechanics. Being able to fuse Personas to create a stronger Persona is really fun, especially in how you can customize these fused Personas. As well, the fact that there’s multiple types of fusion is another fun aspect as you have so many options to how you can fuse your Personas. I spent a good while just fusing Personas to craft some really fun ones.
I also really like the idea of the day-to-day life that the game has. I’ll describe why I specify the idea of it later on, as I don’t want to get into the game’s negatives yet. Either way, having to do a daily routine each and every day, interacting with people, doing activities, etc, is all really nice. Yet again it creates this sort of cozy setting that I think Persona 4 is going for. Especially as it’s located in a small town, it creates a unique vibe that not many other games pull off. And in a similar vein to this, I like the idea of the Social Links, and how that ties in to the day-to-day life of the game.
And of course there’s still a couple other positives I’ve yet to mention. I really like the aesthetics of Persona 4, and I love the look of late 2000’s games, so graphically the game is charming to me. I really like how the dungeons look especially. But I’ll be honest this is all the praise that I can give towards Persona 4 without having to acknowledge everything I dislike about it. And believe me, there is a lot, so let’s just start.
While I think the dungeons are visually great, that’s really the only positive I can give them. I like the idea that dungeon’s layouts are randomly generated, but that also makes the dungeons suffer as a result. For I’d say 90% of the time you’ll ever be in dungeons, the dungeon will be empty hallways with nothing going on. Visually the dungeons are diverse, but exploring them you see that that’s really the only major difference. No matter the dungeon, you’ll be going through about 10 floors of long corridors and the occasional small room until you find the stairs to the next floor. On rare occasion though there is an idea in these dungeons. One dungeon has a single floor where the light go out, another dungeon has a single floor where you get booted out if you fight an enemy. It makes those floors in particular really interesting, and I would’ve loved to see more of these. But because they’re so few and far between, the dungeons feel needlessly long and really boring.
And speaking of needlessly long, I feel the game’s pacing is ridiculously slow. And this is what I mean when I mentioned that I liked the idea of the day-to-day life. I think conceptually it’s really good, but the game does not execute it well. The game sort of has two halves, the Murder Mystery plot, and the day-to-day life. While it’s easily possible to have both, I feel as if the day-to-day life of the game is far more overwhelming than the murder mystery plot. And at least to me, the murder mystery plot is far more interesting, but it’s not able to really develop because of how much of the game’s time is focused on the day-to-day life. The murder mystery plot moves at an absolute snails pace, taking until the game’s third dungeon until you have any proper hint or clue about the nature of the murderer. And on top of it, the only real twists of the murder mystery plot are red herrings, which would be fine if there were any other interesting twists. I don’t really think the reveal of who the murderer is is interesting either, I’d honestly argue one of the red herrings has a far more interesting motivation.
And yet again I feel like I need to reiterate, I think the day-to-day life conceptually is really good. I just think there’s too much of it. Sometimes it takes over a month of in game days for the game to return to the murder mystery plot, making it feel improperly balanced. There are some great character moments in the day-to-day life sections, but there’s also some really bad moments too. I just think the game should’ve done more to balance out the time spent with the day-to-day life, and time spent with the murder mystery plot.
I think now it’s time to finally describe one of the most complicated aspects of the game, and of course the one where I have the most issue with. And believe me, I’ll be going in depth with this, explaining every single issue I have here. And this of course is about the characters. The main cast of Persona 4 has a ridiculous amount of potential, when they shine are great characters, they really are great. But outside of those great moments, they often get flanderized, or have character arcs that feel antithetical to the idea of what Persona 4 is about, which is (to me) facing the truth and becoming one’s true self. The best way I have of describing it is that these characters are victims to the game’s narrative, not being allowed to be as good as they could be. And yes, I’m gonna list the entire main cast here, and my issues with all of them.
Yosuke… I really want to like Yosuke. He’s the sort of archetypical best friend character that can really work in games like this. I think his Social Links are some of the strongest character moments in the game, but outside of the Social Links, he really suffers as a character. For a lack of a better term, he becomes a horndog, though not the worst example of one in the game (I’ll get to him later). But what makes Yosuke suffer is how blatantly homophobic in the game as well. There’s little to no acknowledgement of his homophobia. I know that there was plans for Yosuke to be a gay romance option, which would entirely recontextualize all of Yosuke’s homophobic remarks, but because the plans to make him gay were scrapped, he’s just simply homophobic.
Chie is a character that I really don’t have much to talk about. After the first dungeon her presence in the game sort of fades a bit, taking less of the spotlight than she should. She’s a character that definitely gets flanderized as the story progresses. Outside of her Social Links, she’s mainly characterized as a carnivore who’s aggressive and that’s really it. Her Social Links are pretty good, but that’s really all she gets.
I wish Yukiko was in a better game. Yukiko’s character arc had so much potential, but it all gets ruined by what the game’s narrative decides for her. Her whole arc is about being able to make choices for herself, not being trapped in tradition, being able to write her own narrative. Hell, her Shadow explicitly mentions that she doesn’t want to inherit the inn, and the Shadows are the repressed thoughts that the characters don’t want to accept. This all could lead to a really strong character arc for this character, and has potential to really say something. But then the social links for her really ruin it. It starts out great, by having her job search, and try to figure out what she wants to do in life herself. But then she fails one time to a comical degree, and after stopping a rumor TV show from making an episode about the inn she doesn’t want to inherit she then decides “well I guess it’s better if I inherit the inn!”. Which is entirely contradictory to what her whole deal with her shadow was about, and it feels like she’s sort of regressed a character.
Kanji is probably the best character in the game writing wise. Even then there are issues tied to him that I wish the game didn’t have. I really dislike how the game deals with his shadow. In particular, they characterize Kanji’s shadow as an offensively stereotypical gay man, which truth be told I don’t even know why. Kanji’s whole character arc though is about figuring out that he doesn’t have to be overly masculine, and he can still be respected if he doesn’t have masculine traits. But this constantly gets messed up by the game making him the target of not only homophobic jokes, but just a lot of jokes in general. It feels as if the narrative doesn’t respect Kanji, even though his character arc is about how he won’t be disrespected by having the interesting he does.
Rise is another character that in a better game, she would be allowed to have a proper character arc. Much like Yukiko, her character arc has ridiculous potential. She’s a celebrity who wants to get out of the job because it’s destroying her sense of self. This alone could lead to a really good arc for her character if the game allowed it. First off, once you’re done with her dungeon, she immediately becoming heavily flanderized. Basically, outside of her social links her main character trait is being attracted to the player character, and not really much else. And her Social Links are a worse version of Yukiko’s. It ends her with going back into stardom, but the social links also noticeably guilt trip her into doing so. There’s multiple times where the game basically tells Rise “think about how sad the fans will be!!!”, and convinces her to not prioritize her own wellbeing. It’s a really bad conclusion for this character.
How has Teddie not been imprisoned for Sexual Harassment? While I say that somewhat jokingly, that is also the innate issue with Teddie as a character. He is the ultimate horndog, constantly trying to get women in revealing clothing, constantly flirting with women, and overall purposefully causing problems for others. There’s a scene during the Summer Vacation where Teddie actively tries to forcibly undress the female characters, and he gets zero comeuppance for it. I have to ask, am I supposed to find this endearing? I can’t help but hate Teddie because of the actions that he continues to do throughout the game. And his social links are at least interesting in the vein of him trying to find out who he is and what his identity is, but I couldn’t bring myself to care much about him because of how perverted he is.
And probably the most complicated character of the game is Naoto. Naoto has a similar situation to Rise and Yukiko, where Naoto’s character accepts something he doesn’t want, than try to become his true self. And in the case of Naoto, it’s far worse. It feels safe to me that Naoto’s character arc is completely transphobic just down to its core. The game so clearly lays out that Naoto has gender dysphoria. The fact that Naoto’s ideal detective, and which to him would be his ideal self is a man I think lays out enough. And I have to question why exactly they chose to go down the route for Naoto? They could’ve easily just examined how people don’t respect him for being a child detective, as he’s not an adult and there would be an interesting character arc with that alone. Adding all of the transphobia there is just, really gross.
And that’s really a problem that Persona 4 faces with these character arcs. The game feels like it’s unable to actually say that these characters should embrace their true selves, and if they do (in the case of Kanji) they noticeably suffer because of it. It feels like Persona 4’s message isn’t to accept your true self, but to resign yourself to the bad parts of life, and don’t try to change things. And if you do try to change, be prepared to be ridiculed. Character arcs like Yukiko, Rise, and Naoto all suffer from this, and it makes me wish they were in a game with a narrative that properly allowed them to grow.
There’s also a lot of other characters that I haven’t interacted with. There’s a social link for every single major arcana in a Tarot Deck, and aside from 2 of them, they’re all tied to unique characters. I primarily focused solely on the investigation team, so there’s a good number of characters I simply never met. I bring this up to acknowledge that there may be some amazing character arcs I’ve never seen, or some potentially horrendous ones. But with how much I dislike the character writing of the main cast, I wouldn’t be surprised if the writing is fumbled for other characters as well.
And I’m still not done examining this game’s story. When it comes to the shadows of these characters, primarily Kanji’s and Rise’s, I really have to ask, why are they as sexualized as they are? Even in the case of Rise, it doesn’t really fit with the arcs that these characters go through, or the truths about themselves that they’re too afraid to admit. Especially in the case of Kanji, whose whole arc is about being okay with not hiding his interests if they’re not masculine. The sexualization of their shadows don’t really provide any substance to the arcs, and feels like the game is being sexual for the sake of being sexual and nothing more. Adding the fact that the ages of these characters range between 15-16, it’s really gross.
And outside of the shadows, the game still has this issue to some extent, but tries to hide it under the guise of comedy. Which at least me, makes it even worse. I already expressed one of those moments when talking about Teddie, and to some extent, I think Yosuke’s homophobic remarks are intended to be comedy as well which is… weird to say the least. There’s just so many moments like this that I not only just find unfunny, but I have to ask why this is here in the first place. It makes characters like Yosuke and ESPECIALLY Teddie extremely unlikeable. And there’s no way to avoid these sections either. The game gives you the illusion of choice, having a dialogue option where you’re reasonable but the game still drags you into these scenes. These scenes really take away from the actually good character moments that happen during the game, and it’s really disappointing.
And Persona 4 has so much potential to do a lot more I feel. Playing the game again, the actual concept of The Midnight Channel and its connection to the Murder Mystery plot feels severely underutilized. There are some characters who speak rumors and such, but aside from the occasional mention, there’s nothing that comes from it. But there’s a whole lot of potential there! The idea that murder victims appear on TV before they get murdered, there could be an examination of the voyeuristic nature that comes from it. People are already voyeuristic about crimes that occur in real life thanks to True Crime channels, that idea could be examined here, too. They could delve further into the rumors brought about by the Midnight Channel, or they could examine how those who survive are affected socially with what’s seen on the Midnight Channel. There’s so much potential that’s simple not there, and it’s really disappointing. And I think that’s what bothers me a lot about Persona 4, it has the potential to say a lot, but it ends up saying very little.
At this point I’m just glad I never have to touch Persona 4 again. I can see the aspects of the game that people like so much about it, but there’s so much I dislike, and so much wasted potential that I simply can’t ignore. Yet again, I feel insane for disliking this game as much as I do, when I see constant praise for it. I wish the character writing was better, I wish the dungeon design was better, and I wish the game actually allowed its characters the growth they deserve. I do hope that I’ll have time to play the other Persona games, I honestly think I’ll enjoy them much more than I did Persona 4. I’m honestly just glad to be done with this game for good.