What a game. Absolutely incredible experience.

Story
This game manages to be both another step on Ichiban's journey while also being the "last" step on Kiryu's. Seeing their respective experiences and views on the events of the story simultaneously is incredible.

This game feels the most like a sequel more than any other Yakuza/LAD game has, with so much building off of 7 and a bit of Gaiden and 6. And it works well in that respect. Seeing what everyone has been up to since 7 is fun, seeing tbe direct results of this whole 6, 7, Gaiden arc of this universe and how they apply to the events of 8 makes for an amazing overarching journey for this series.

The mystery in this game is incredible, the new characters Tomizawa and Chitose are both amazing additions to the cast, I loved both of their journeys in this game.

Honolulu is a great setting, story wise I love how the real world situations of tourism, pollution, poverty, the economy etc. All tie in to how Hawaii is presented and used in the story. RGG has always been great at openly criticizing the conditions of Japan in their games, so seeing that they're able to branch out and still act with the same criticism is great.

Kiryu and Ichiban work well together as a duo, both standing on their own and supporting each other while having a natural flow and bond. Their respective personality traits and tendencies work well together while also having some contrasting traits that make them distinct.

My only notable issues with the story is that one character should have been in it more, but from what I understand they originally weren't going to be at all so I guess it's good we got what we did.

Also the climax overall is good, but definitely not my favorite and I found 7's was a lot more emotional and better executed. Similarly with the main villains, again they're good, just not up with the best in the series.

Characters
Mostly going to focus on the new additions here, Chitose and Tomizawa were great additions to Ichiban's party, I love Tomizawa as a "normal guy" perspective looking at the insane things Ichiban and Kiryu do regularly, he gives the audience someone to relate to if they need it. And his own story was great. Chitose I was surprised as she's like, nearly the third protagonist of this game with how important she is. Both her and Tomizawa work incredibly well with Ichiban and his established patterns as a character. And Seonhee, a welcome addition as well, making her playable was a great decision as she is a fun member of the cast, all of her interactions are so entertaining and I found her interesting quickly. I hope all these new characters stick around for the next game.

Other new characters not playable, were great too. Yamai and Eiji especially I enjoyed their stories a lot.

The returning cast of 7 remained good even if they didn't have as much to do in this game. They're just a great group to follow.

Gameplay
As the second turn based game in the series, the improvement to the depth of the combat is astounding. There is so much going on in every action you take now that takes full advantage of how unique LAD's approach to turn based combat is. The positioning of your party and enemies, the environment around you, the physics engine, so many things influence even just one basic attack, it's possibly the best turn based combat system I've ever played. And that's not even mentioning all the new jobs, old jobs, skills, weapons, items etc. That all have their own contributions as well.

Overall the gameplay outside of combat has just unbelievable amounts of content to it. There's essentially a pokemon and animal crossing game inside of this one. Those are the two larger minigames but there's a ton of smaller ones as well. There's so much to do always on the map that you will always feel like you're keeping busy. Whether it's the main story, substories, Sujimon, Dondoko Island, smaller minigames, bond conversations, collectibles etc. There's so much content packed in here I'm genuinely baffled.

A few things I don't like would be not having Skill Shortcuts, I kinda get why they were removed but I really feel like thy could have stayed. They were appreciated in 7 as starting fights with one move you want is always nice, not having to scroll 12 skills down for the one you want is nice.

I feel like crafting materials for endgame weapons should be more available without grinding minigames/the dungeons. I didn't need everyone to have maxed out weapons, but it would have been cool.

I feel like I have to end this soon, there's legitimately so much I could talk about STILL. But will leave for another time. Yakuza/LAD has never failed to make a game I will like at the bare minimum and love to death at the maximum, and this is in the "love to death" end. I think for now at least it's certainly my favorite in the series even if other games do some things better like the villains and climax.

I'm still I'm awe at what this game pulled off, and am looking forward to the future of the series as always. I'm with you till the end of the line, Ichiban Kasuga.

Persona 4 was probably the most miserable I have ever been while going through a main storyline in a video game in recent memory. Coming fresh off Persona 3, a game that I adored greatly for just how character focused its main story was (it wasn’t even my favorite video game at the time of starting P4), and hearing the sheer amount of praise this one received on Twitter during its re-release on Steam, I was shocked at how mind numbing this was as an experience.

Despite the intriguing premise, the main narrative is something I could only describe as factory produced. It quickly establishes a basic formula, that greatly detracts from both the emotional depth of the themes the story attempts to portray and the intricacy of the murder mystery, to create a predictable, repetitive slog of a campaign. Outside of an incident towards the end of the game, there’s little to no tension as you go through arcs with the exact same structure ad nauseam. Once the cast decide to devote themselves to catching the killer after the first arc, the “mystery” element quickly devolves into basic, deductive reasoning with no creative input required.

P4 decided to change from P3 how it would handle the time between each major event within the story. In P3, this time was filled with the cast’s introspection regarding their current circumstances and the further development of their characters arcs. In P4, this is replaced with wacky, anime high schooler hijinks that dwells more on the overall vibe between the cast rather than the individual journeys of each character. And this approach isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I can respect the greater focus on an upbeat tone, as I actually think it works pretty well and distinguishes this game from any other in this regard. And I can see why this is something that’s endeared countless people to this game. To its credit, I can say a lot of these moments do help the Investigation Team feel like a genuine group of friends. My biggest issue would lie in the fact that many of these scenes are unfunny at best and blatantly problematic at worst.

Whether it be the camping trip, where we see Yosuke blatantly accuse a sexually confused Kanji of planning to “do things” to him in his sleep solely because he’s potentially interested in men. Or in the next scene, where Yosuke pressures his female friends into wearing swimsuits so he can gawk at them. Or the cultural festival, where Yosuke signs them up for a swimsuit competition without their consent, despite the fact that one of them has made it very clear that they are extremely conscious about their feminine body... ᴵ’ᵐ ⁿᵒᵗᶦᶜᶦⁿᵍ ᵃ ᵗʳᵉⁿᵈ ʰᵉʳᵉ...

In conjunction with my lack of care for the goofy antics and the narrative’s lack of focus on organic characterization, it leaves the main story itself feeling incredibly vapid. You may be thinking “god fucking damn, he hates this game. 3/5 stars? Stop lying 😭” and yeah, I think that myself sometimes too. But I do have to remind myself that the underlying qualities of Persona 4 are really fucking good.

I think most social links do an amazing job at genuinely pushing the messages the game wants to communicate. In particular, I think they fantastically highlight the importance of self confrontation; the difficulties of acknowledging our own faults, the pain that comes with, and the betterment that we attain as a result. These stories contain the exact heartfelt writing I look for in this franchise, some of them still being among my favorites to this day. Shoutout to Dojima and Kanji in particular. My fuckin beloveds.

And I find the atmosphere, while not being something I personally clicked with, is still something I greatly respect. It’s what you’ll hear literally everyone praise this game for and for a damn good reason. A comfy small town is a genius idea that heavily contrasts with the typical big city environments we see from this franchise. The game does a good job at occasionally meshing the setting of Inaba with the motivation of individual characters and other elements within the story. And the upbeat J-Pop tracks of the overworlds sell the feel-good nature of the game’s tone perfectly.

Talking about Persona 4 makes me realize that it’s just… hard for me to talk about this game without comparing it to other entries within the series. It's hard to look back in retrospect without thinking about how this game represents everything I dislike about the series and its current direction. Not made anymore easy when recognizing that this is still technically a follow up to my favorite game ever. It turns many of Persona 3’s captivating ideas that were used to push its unique themes (The Fool’s Journey, the calendar system, the overall gameplay loop) into formulaic elements to craft a narrative that has little in common with Persona 3. And this is something that I find continues to plague the series, as Persona 5 occasionally falls into the same trappings. But at the end of the day, it’s still important for me to recognize the strengths of Persona 4. With the charming atmosphere of Inaba and consistent character writing, I still find it to be a competent, standalone game. And regardless of my faults with what I think is a flawed approach, I can still see why this could be someone’s favorite game ever.

I plan on revisiting Persona 4 some day, but through the original PS2 version. I’ve seen many discussions online regarding how Golden’s added scenes heavily detract from the atmosphere of the game. Mostly through how Inaba is now seemingly only an hour drive away from the biggest attractions in Japan. And the added padding in general is something I never really cared for. It’s important to me, as like I said earlier in the review, Persona 4’s atmosphere is something that I didn’t really click with, despite how much I respect the approach. I hope that playthrough helps me focus on this game’s strengths, as this is something that I want to like, despite the constant complaining I direct at it.