Visiting a game i used to love as a young teen can be painful, sometimes. As much as I used to adore this game, a replay a decade later really hurt my perception of it. Easily my least favorite in the set of modern Persona games.
A lot of character development and writing seems to cross back on itself; characters arcs culminate in them "accepting their true self", but largely find themselves turning right back to the life they were resigned to before. Accepting your true feelings is different from resigning yourself to your fate, and almost no one in the game seems to /really/ want to change their situation. It rubs me the wrong way that the theme of the game is accepting yourself, your differences, and how you truly feel, only for characters to swallow their own feelings back down and 'overcome' their problems by becoming comfortable with what had hurt them in the first place.
Another issue I have with Persona 4 is one well known; homophobia and misogyny run rampant through the game as gags, and even for a 2008 game, it can definitely go far beyond uncomfortable (hello, camping trip assault joke!). I don't really need to talk more about this- it's been talked about time and time again, and plays into the same issue I have with the rest of the character arcs.
There's things I still like about this game- the music is fantastic, and the country town setting feels perfectly isolated and empty, paving way for the high-school friendships to feel like they mean more. The later third of the game where the fog sets in, Magatsu-Inaba, and Hollow Forest look and feel amazing. I really wish the game had leaned more into this, rather than a majority of the game being spent whittling days away just.. hanging out and doing goofy anime high-schooler things.
I also have to give special note to the Dojima family- Nanako and Dojima's dynamic is easily my favorite part of the game, far more than any of the relationships between the Investigation Team, which I find pretty one-note.
All in all, I just.. don't love this game anymore. It's a somber feeling to say I honestly actively dislike something that was so important to me for so long. But some parts of it are still fun and enjoyable, and some form of nostalgia and warmth keeps me from calling it a bad game with my full heart.
A lot of character development and writing seems to cross back on itself; characters arcs culminate in them "accepting their true self", but largely find themselves turning right back to the life they were resigned to before. Accepting your true feelings is different from resigning yourself to your fate, and almost no one in the game seems to /really/ want to change their situation. It rubs me the wrong way that the theme of the game is accepting yourself, your differences, and how you truly feel, only for characters to swallow their own feelings back down and 'overcome' their problems by becoming comfortable with what had hurt them in the first place.
Another issue I have with Persona 4 is one well known; homophobia and misogyny run rampant through the game as gags, and even for a 2008 game, it can definitely go far beyond uncomfortable (hello, camping trip assault joke!). I don't really need to talk more about this- it's been talked about time and time again, and plays into the same issue I have with the rest of the character arcs.
There's things I still like about this game- the music is fantastic, and the country town setting feels perfectly isolated and empty, paving way for the high-school friendships to feel like they mean more. The later third of the game where the fog sets in, Magatsu-Inaba, and Hollow Forest look and feel amazing. I really wish the game had leaned more into this, rather than a majority of the game being spent whittling days away just.. hanging out and doing goofy anime high-schooler things.
I also have to give special note to the Dojima family- Nanako and Dojima's dynamic is easily my favorite part of the game, far more than any of the relationships between the Investigation Team, which I find pretty one-note.
All in all, I just.. don't love this game anymore. It's a somber feeling to say I honestly actively dislike something that was so important to me for so long. But some parts of it are still fun and enjoyable, and some form of nostalgia and warmth keeps me from calling it a bad game with my full heart.