In spite of my own major reservations for a few specific scenes re: Atlus’ treatment of certain characters, I nevertheless had a fantastic time playing Persona 4 Golden, and it remains one of my favourite experiences playing an RPG ever.

The murder mystery storyline is tied together incredibly well, and the main cast is very, very likeable. I’m a major stickler for great character interactions in media, and this game has that in spades. They genuinely felt like a real friend group, and the camaraderie they had with each other made me want to root for them even more to solve the mystery.

P4G is the game that introduced me to Shin Megami Tensei’s monster-collecting & fighting mechanics, which – as a once-major Pokémon fan – I found very appealing. And while I have my own nitpicks about not being able to have more than 2 time slots to increase stats or level up ranks with other characters (or to go fishing, which I consider a highly underrated mechanic), the rest of the game was so engaging to me that I’m mostly able to overlook this.

All of the above factors together combined made this game a major time-sink for me, and it got me invested, not just in Persona & the SMT franchise, but in exploring more JRPGs as a whole, and as someone that didn’t have a huge amount of interest in them until that point, I consider that an achievement.

Reviewed on Jun 05, 2021


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