Persona 4 Golden – Review
For those among us who already went through Persona 4 on the PS2, that score at the top of this page is probably either acceptable or too low. The game is simply amazing, period. Okay, that would be an extremely short review of a game, so let met clarify what exactly makes this game one of the best games on the PS Vita.
Story
You play a transfer student coming from the big city to spend your time in the small town of Inaba. As it’s quite unusual for Inaba to have students from the city coming over, you’re soon surrounded with a pack of teenagers who’d like to hear you out. You’ll meet Yosuke, a clumsy but goodhearted fellow and soon becomes, among others, your sworn friend.
There’s a rumor going around town. If one watches a certain channel at midnight on a rainy day, the watcher will see strange things. Teenagers will be teenagers so of course, you and your group decide to test it out and indeed, some weird stuff is shown on screen. It gets even more disturbing as the town of Inaba gets plagued by murders and the group of friends soon find out that there‘s some kind of connection between the Midnight Channel and those unexplained murdered victims. Time to investigate!
The story is one of the key elements in Persona 4 Golden. You’ll notice that the developers really thought this through and that they tried to keep the tension going until the last part of the game. Although there are multiple endings, I found that the shortest ending wasn’t satisfactory at all so I cheated a bit (shame on me right) and reloaded the game to the point where a certain choice had to be made. I can say that the other ending adds a lot more content and closure to your adventure, but this mustn’t stop you from experiencing the other ending as well.
Overall, Persona 4 has a sublime narrative that’ll keep you hooked for quite a while.
Graphics
As this is was originally a PS2 title, the in game graphics are not 100% crisp and sharp but it doesn’t bother whatsoever. Besides, the cut scenes in anime style look simply splendid. For its remake on the Playstation Vita, Persona 4 Golden has been polished up and things like backgrounds and such look a lot more satisfactory compared to the original.
Sound
I must say this: the intro song of Persona 4 Golden is catchy, very catchy. Once it starts when booting up the game, I always try to resist the urge to listen to the whole thing as it eats away my actual playtime. Besides the intro, the music in the game is alright but after having played around 50 hours, it tends to get repetitive.
The sound effects in battle however never get old. They add a lot to the atmosphere and let you feel very awesome when you blast a fireball or lightning bolt at a pack of monsters. Thumbs up! The voice-overs are more than decent but alas, there’s no option to choose the original Japanese voices which would’ve been a welcome extra.
Gameplay
In Persona 4, the gameplay is divided into two totally different settings. One moment, you’ll be guiding the main character through dungeons crawling with monsters and another, he’ll be sitting at a school desk, performing his duties as a student (a.k.a. following lessons, taking tests, socializing with your school buddies and so on). Wait, wait, before you start thinking “High School Simulator” I can assure you that it’s all pretty well connected to each other, more of that later in this review.
Let’s take a look at the dungeons and fighting mechanism. Each level consists of multiple floors where you’ll have to fight your way through. This isn’t just a walk in the park because the levels are infested with Shadows (crawling monsters on the ground) which can be evaded or fought. As evading them doesn’t really help to level up, you’ll end up confronting them most of the time. The Shadows are fought with your Persona’s (projected images of your inner self) and they come in all forms and colors. You can even fuse Persona’s together to get even stronger ones. All of them have strengths and weaknesses which you’ll have to keep in mind (a Persona with wind anxiety isn’t any good against a Shadow who mostly uses wind attacks). It’s clear that this game is influenced by Pokémon, but luckily it’s original enough to create its own identity.
Persona 4 works with a turn-based fighting system. The key of winning a battle is to strike a Shadow in the back when you see it crawling in front of you. Doing this will gain you “Player Advantage” which gives you an extra turn before the enemy can strike. Every sort of Shadow has his own weaknesses (like your Persona’s have) and it’s of the upmost importance that you find out what it is as this will give you a flawless victory most of the time. Sometimes however, a Shadow is so powerful that it can resist or repel all kinds of attack and then it can become quite dangerous so one could consider trying to escape (which will leave you with no experience or money whatsoever, but hey, you’re still alive!).
At the top floor of each dungeon, a huge nasty Shadow is awaiting you. I warn you right now that here you’ll find yourself dying quite a lot. All the boss fights require some strategy and it’s very important that you bring the right Persona’s with you. It can take a while to defeat a boss and sometimes you’ll have to grind some more to gain more experience and thus getting stronger. If you don’t like grinding a lot then maybe this game isn’t for you, but at least try it out!
Okay, so much for the dungeons levels, let’s talk a bit more about the “real life” aspect of Persona 4. As already mentioned, half of the time you’ll be acting, like you already did or still do in real life, as a teenager. It’s actually a nice diversion of taking out monsters and it gives you the opportunity to flesh out your “social links”. I can highly recommend doing so as this will make your Persona’s a lot stronger when fusing them together. Besides that, it’s just plain fun to go to a festival with your buddies or setting up a concert.
Conclusion
Unfortunately the Vita hasn’t seen a whole lot of system sellers which will push people over the edge of buying one, but if you like RPG’s, this is really the best you can get. I got mine solely for this game and as I’ve put loads of hours into Persona 4, I can honestly say this is one of the best games I’ve ever played. Even if you’re not a big fan of Pokémon or turn-based games, the game handles everything so good that it’s hard to dislike it.
Persona 4 Golden - Review,
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