Persona 4 advice

[Burley]

Okay, here's the deal: I work at a video game store, and this gives me special priveleges. Namely, a discount and the ability to check out games for 'sales research'.
I've had a few very, er... Dedicated people come in asking when the game would come out, and showed up the night it did, cash in hand, buying up every manga/game guide we had. While talking to them, like any good salesman would, I discovered that most of them love the Kingdom Hearts series (my favorite games ever) and were also very excited about the re-release of Chrono Trigger (my second favorite games ever, and first game I ever played).

Anyways, I'm inclined to pick the game up, though, I'll probably not have any time to play it.
So, sell it to the salesman: Why should I get Shin Megami Tensai: Persona 4?

[Calemyr]

The first thing you have to understand is that this is a very different game from most RPGs. It's practically identical to Persona 3 (which is a good thing), but there's nothing that even comes close otherwise.

The basic plot: You play the role of Silent McProtagonist, a young man who grew up in some big city or another in Japan. Your parents are being sent overseas to work for the next year, and so you're being stuck with your uncle and cousin in a podunk town in rural Japan until they get back. What should have been an incredibly boring freshman year, however, becomes much more interesting when a string of mysterious deaths start leaving corpses hanging in the darnedest places every time a fog goes through town. To make matters stranger, rumors abound about a legend where staring into a turned off television on a rainy midnight will allow you to see the image of your soul mate - or perhaps simply the next to die. Through a series of strange events, you and some classmates from school end up being the only ones who can stem this tide using the powers of your mind and soul, your Persona.

Here are the defining traits of P4:
1) The battlefield is mental - You are not fighting roaming monsters that keep the civilians penned into tiny villages like most games. You are battling against the incarnations of all the hates, fears, worries, and other negative emotions of humanity. Fortunately, you also have aspects of your own personality, called Persona, that allow you to fight these things, granting you special combat skills, traits, and magic. The modern world goes on completely oblivious to the trials you regularly face.

2) The modern world goes on - Your war with the Shadows of humanity does not mean you get a pass from gym class. Besides risking life and limb in a psuedo-real dimension, you also have to balance classes, friends, possibly even a part time job. Because of this, the game kinda splits into two, the classic dungeon crawler RPG where you're fighting Shadows and a strange, almost dating-sim-esque where you have to decide when to study, when to hang out with friends, and when to pick up your sword and go cracks some heads. This effects your combat game because the stronger your bonds with your friends are, the more powerful your Persona (as well as theirs) become.

3) The calender goes on - The game is framed over a year, with you having to decide how to spend each day. Anything you do takes time, meaning that events will come whether or not you're prepared for them. Make sure you keep holidays, weekends, and final exams in mind, as well as the weather, for reasons that quickly become apparent.

4) Persona..mon - Your main character has the unique ability to shift Persona at will, calling out different aspects as the situation demands. You can collect new Persona after combats in a card game, or get a strange man named Igor to fuse them together into new ones. It can get quite addicting (and, at times, frustrating) to chase after the perfect Persona.

5) Legitimately Japanese - Despite excellent localization, the setting is still in Japan, meaning that genuine Japanese culture is rife in the game. Characters address eachother using honorifics (-san, -sempai, -sama, etc), sleep on futons, and eat at comically short (from an American perspective) tables. Whether this is off-putting, hard to get used to, or just plain fascinating will depend on who's playing.

6) To each his own - Each party member beyond our transfer student has their own life to attend to, which means that unless you call your friends up to go clubbin', you're usually just in charge of your own lonesome self instead of some supernatural manager of everyone's affairs. In battle they'll generally do whatever they feel like, though they will follow any orders you give them, be they general ("don't waste your SP on these peons!") or specific ("use spell A on monster B!"). This allows you to feel like you're playing one person, while still allowing some strategic party combat. Also the game only (and always) ends if the main character falls (this being your story). So be sure to protect yourself.

7) Strategery - Everyone, ally and foe alike, has a set of strengths and weaknesses. Hit a person's strength, they take little or no damage. Hit a person's weakness, they get knocked on their ass and you get a free turn. Play your cards right, and you can wipe out swarms of Shadows without ever giving them a chance to act. Play your cards wrong and they'll tapdance on your thick skull. This means using the right persona at the right time can mean the difference between winning in style and decorating random high-up locales with your broken carcass.

8) Seperate Story - Persona 4 is largely isolated from previous Persona games. Beyond some sidebar references and a cameo or two from background characters from Persona 3, you don't need to play the previous games to understand this one. You really should, though, because they're all remarkably good (especially P3 if you enjoy this one, since the gameplay mechanics are virtually identical).

Personal Opinion: The very Japanese setting, the very strange spell names (zio, agi, bufu, and garu are the four initial elemental spells), and the very unusual "daily life" element of the game are all aspects that may turn off people who shun the unfamiliar, but are also keys to creating a game that is unlike anything outside of the Persona series. The story is deep, mature, and intruiging, the presentation polished, the characters likable as well as surprisingly believable (well, except Teddie, who still manages to be likeable despite being the non-human mascot character...), and the combat fast paced and addictive.

Just a warning, though, the game is both difficult at times and rather complicated to master. It's not nearly as hard as most MegaTen games, but the enemies can still clean your clock in a heartbeat if you screw up.

tl;dr version: If you couldn't be bothered to figure out what I just said, don't bother getting Persona 4. It's not your average mindless JRPG and requires some mental investment to really enjoy.

[Burley]

Wow... Calemyr, that's fantastic. Thanks so much for such an in-depth reply. I'll have to check it out, now. It sounds really great.

[Terraoblivion]

If it is similar to the third game in the series it is impossible for it to not be awesome. Persona 3 was the best JRPG i've ever played, not the least of which due to the great characters, from silly side characters such as the history teacher to your party members. So if the writing and setting design is as good in Persona 4 you can definitely expect me to get it as soon as i get the money and it is released over here.

[Tengu_temp]

Persona 3 was the best JRPG i've ever played

While I'm still playing this game and haven't finished it yet, so far I second this notion.

[RPGuru1331]

I prefer Persona 2, but m ostly because I wanted Persona 3 to be Persona 3, not a really neat tangentially related game.

The only Persona 4 advice, because I haven't seen fit to buy it just yet, is avoid shouting BEARSONA at the top of your lungs after Teddy joins. Because he's going to, and it's god damned addictive

[Xefas]

Well, you've only gotten information on what makes the games good so far, so maybe I should point out some flaws? I haven't played Persona 4, but if it's exactly like Persona 3 (and it seems to be), then I feel the need to speak up.

While the storytelling, characters, and dating sim segments of the game are all top-notch, the combat is still...well, its a turn-based JRPG where everyone stands in a line and whacks each other one right after another. For me, that's already a point against.

Second, fights are extremely one sided. You either win trivially with only the most bare concept of strategy required, or you die instantly without a chance to even react. This is not hyperbole.

In Persona 3, there have been many many instances in which I enter a battle, the enemy goes first, and all of the opposing force immediately spams the element my main character is weak to and kills him before my option menu even comes 'round. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that save points are so infrequent. You end up having to go through an excessive number of levels of a dungeon to get to a single save point, or else you can sometimes randomly happen upon teleporters that give you the choice to save, but you have to do the entire dungeon over again.

The first time I lost 4 levels, a rare set of armor, a couple personas, and countless yen because of a fight that I literally had no control over, I almost just chucked the game then and there.

Another problem you'll run into because of the element system, is that some bosses are strongly aligned with an element, and so your entire team needs to be resistant to that element or you simply lose. This sounds okay at first, except that you can't customize the non-main characters at all- they always have the same weaknesses, resistances, and abilities.

So, for instance, you'll get to a boss that spams AoE fire spells on your whole party. Oh, but you spent the entire game playing with one character who is weak to fire. Even though they're at level 45, you need to chuck them and spend hour after tedious hour leveling some douchebag you don't care about from level 18 up to 45 just to get past a friggin' midboss.

Even then, this might be all okay, but even victory seems hollow. Winning basically means that the entire opposing team never got a turn. If you get hit with the element you're weak against, you lose a turn. So the optimal strategy is always to spam an AoE element that your enemy is weak against and then kill them before they get to act. This is tedious and boring.

In summation, the combat system is garbage. The characters, plot, setting, etc are all amazing, and the social system is very fun to engage in. The sheer number of Personas and the fusion system will be great if you're a "collector" type, but if you've ever, in your entire history of gaming, quit a game out of frustration, then you should think long and hard about getting Persona 3/4.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Yeah, but there is a simple way to avoid easy losing in Persona 3, at least. Always ambush the enemy. It's trivial to sneak up behind them on the dungeon map so you go first instead of them. Like you said, though, for most of the game, that's "instant win" if you're decently equipped, but it's better than the alternative. You have to be very unprepared or caught unaware to be insta-gibbed in Persona 3.

To the elemental bosses, that's a fact of JRPGs, which you seem to dislike as a genre, so I won't dwell on it. I would also like to posit that they're there to encourage you to keep your party evenly leveled (not difficult, but a bit annoying), and that you don't have to have everyone immune to a boss's element to win. Frankly, boss fights are ridiculously easy until the very end of the game, so you don't have to minmax for them - you can afford one weak character if they're high enough level. Oh, and there are elemental-immunity items, but they're very rare and a pain to get if you don't like grinding high-level Personas.

In short, Persona's combat system is meh. While we're picking on it, Persona 3's dungeon (singular) and enemies have about zero variety to them, however I'm led to believe this aspect was fixed in Persona 4.

Persona 3 (and presumably 4) is still a phenominal game, easily among the best in its genre. Just don't play it for compelling combat.

[Calemyr]

I have to comment on the elemental weaknesses issue, because it was a serious problem last time and they've done some things to clear it up this time around.

The case he cites actually occurs. Chie, one of the initial 3 members on your team, is strong to ice and weak to fire. Unfortunately in the first full dungeon you get set against what for all intents and purposes is a phoenix that. Naturally, good ol' Chie both shines and sucks in this fight as she can mop the floor with the enemy the phoenix summons, but the fire being flung around usually ends up being aimed at her. This can really suck.

Two additions really help here. The first is the addition of the "Guard" command. You don't attack in this round, but you cover your weaknesses so that Little Miss Hot Stuff doesn't get her free turn. Sucks to be you, birdy! Also, they added a line of new "wall" spells (red wall, white wall, etc) that ups a target's resistance to a particular element by one stage for three rounds. That way Chie can act without getting constantly cooked. The persona Slime learns it pretty early, so you can usually get it easily enough.

(Unfortunately Slime itself is weak to fire, so you want to fuse it with the Persona Sandman to create Orobas - Don't start the fusion, though, unless Orie has Red Wall and Garu, though. Just exit out of the fusion and reselect the pair until you get the skills you want. This, combined with an Omoikane(with Bufu and Zio) created by fusing Izanagi(with Zio) and Asparas(with Bufu), will get you a 4-Element Lillim at level 10, which is an awesome asset.)

There have also been a lot of alterations to the engine to make the game better:
1) You can now open up the map screens at any time (when not in a dungeon) with the Square button.
2) You no longer can ask your operator to analyze the enemies, but the operator remembers what has worked on a particular enemy in the past, so you can easily refresh your memory. Both a really nice feature and a bit of a bummer.
3) While the game's dungeons are again all in the same psuedo-plane, the individual dungeons are unique. They're more like the full-moon levels from P3, but a whole lot bigger. While there is still some palette-swapping going on, there seem to be a lot more enemy models that before.
4) A lot of the Persona have shuffled Arcana. Pixie, for instance, is now Magician rather than Lovers.
5) Your allies are not all angst-ridden basket cases. They still have emotional issues, of course, but they're now more realistic - such as jealousy of a friend, a desire to be free from parental expectations, and confusion over sexual orientation. They're just generally driven by more down-to-earth concerns, more akin to Junpei and Fuuka in P3 than, well, anyone else.
6) Only one mascot. It's like they took Koromaru, Aigis, and Ken and fused them together to create Teddie, who reminds me of an ewok costume for a Star Wars amusement park. Teddie isn't too bad for a "cute" character, though he does seem to rival Ikutski for horrible puns.
7) No evokers, just cards they destroy in their own personal ways. Evokers did an excellent job of portraying Minato as guano crazy, but it's nice not having to explain why my characters are putting guns to their heads in order to cast spells.

On the flip side, here are some other warnings of things to wary of:
1) J-Pop - The songs they have aren't bad, per se. They could even be pretty cool. They are played constantly and can get more than a little old.
2) Operator Overload - Teddie is a nice little guy, but he doesn't know when to shut the hell up. Yes, you dumb bear, I did hit that guy's weakness. Just like the other four enemies lying on the ground next to him, which you had to individually congratulate me on! Now keep that trap zipped!
3) Persona Fusing - Properly creating a kickass persona will take you a lot of time and likely create a great deal of frustration. Ending up with a swiss army knife of psychological warfare might be priceless, but while crafting it you may wonder if it's worth the cost.

Uh, that's all I can think of at the moment.

[Rogue 7]

I read the Let's Play of Persona 3 recommended on TV Tropes, and it was fantastic. This is the first game that's really made me seriously want a PS 2, but we'll have to see about that, because I really want to play Persona 4. I guess I'll try and see how cheap I can get one, if I can.

[Alair]

Second, fights are extremely one sided. You either win trivially with only the most bare concept of strategy required, or you die instantly without a chance to even react. This is not hyperbole.

There's a hard mode initially selectable from the getgo this time around and the difficulty feels just about perfect with it to me. Of course, I also went through most of the other PS2 SMT games.


In Persona 3, there have been many many instances in which I enter a battle, the enemy goes first, and all of the opposing force immediately spams the element my main character is weak to and kills him before my option menu even comes 'round. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that save points are so infrequent. You end up having to go through an excessive number of levels of a dungeon to get to a single save point, or else you can sometimes randomly happen upon teleporters that give you the choice to save, but you have to do the entire dungeon over again.

1: If the enemy's going first, it is kind of your fault since encounters are on the map rather than being random. That said though there's a couple things that make that less likely now and your teammates can each jump in front of you to save you once from an otherwise lethal attack. The best way to avoid it though is just to keep in mind what enemies in the area like to attack with and change your persona selection to counter it.

2: The dungeons aren't like in P3, you can escape at any time with the use of a trivially cheap item and you can always resume on the last floor you were on. The most limiting factor in your dungeon-diving this time around tends to be running out of sp since there's no easy way to restore everyones short of calling it a day.


Another problem you'll run into because of the element system, is that some bosses are strongly aligned with an element, and so your entire team needs to be resistant to that element or you simply lose. This sounds okay at first, except that you can't customize the non-main characters at all- they always have the same weaknesses, resistances, and abilities.

*Everybody* needs to be resistant to the bosses' attacks? When has that ever been necessary? A character with a specific vulnerability to attacks the boss likes to throw out can be a liability but there's ways around even that now (x wall spells or just judicious use of guarding). If the boss is simply pitching out too much damage it's a better idea to turn to -nda or -kaja spells that weaken an enemy's attributes/boost yours temporarily or just wander awhile gathering materials for a little bit and then come back another day with better equipment.


So, for instance, you'll get to a boss that spams AoE fire spells on your whole party. Oh, but you spent the entire game playing with one character who is weak to fire. Even though they're at level 45, you need to chuck them and spend hour after tedious hour leveling some douchebag you don't care about from level 18 up to 45 just to get past a friggin' midboss.

Generally you are and always have been better off with with a variety of characters a little bit behind you rather than just a couple that are just as high leveled. The amount of xp an ally or persona gets from a fight though is adjusted by their relative level so characters you haven't used in awhile will level up pretty rapidly.


Even then, this might be all okay, but even victory seems hollow. Winning basically means that the entire opposing team never got a turn. If you get hit with the element you're weak against, you lose a turn. So the optimal strategy is always to spam an AoE element that your enemy is weak against and then kill them before they get to act. This is tedious and boring.

That was one part of P3 I tended to dislike but it's much reduced here again. That there's no easy way to restore sp for everyone encourages a bit of thrift and it's a lot less common to encounter groups where every enemy has the same weakness. Being hit by a crit/weakness also *does not* lose you a turn anymore, knockdown just removes your ability to evade and makes it so you take a bit more damage while you're down. Having it happen twice in a row makes you dizzy which is more like it used to be but it takes a double-whammy for it to happen to you and tends to be more of a waste of energy when you're pitching it out.

[Nerd-o-rama]

So it seems that, except for the J-pop (which is tolerable) and the annoying-ass operator who won't shut up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p0gGj5iATw) (whom I love anyway), most of my complaints about Persona 3 have been addressed in 4. I'm definitely thinking about picking it up, myself, though I still need to actually finish the last couple of weeks of P3...and The Answer...and replay it to get all the secrets...dammit.

Heh. "It seems you have to defeat this one to win."

[Calemyr]

It is worth noting that this time the inevitable operator upgrade goes from cute-yet-annoying character to... well... attractive girl, which is the reverse of P3. It's like starting with Fuuka for a few levels and then going to Mitsuru for the rest. This is nice, because Rise (though not any less repetitive) is at least a fair bit easier on the ears.

[Tengu_temp]

and the annoying-ass operator who won't shut up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p0gGj5iATw)

Hey, it's Yotsuba who was supposed to be obsessed with The Enemy, not Fuuka!

[KKL]

7) No evokers, just cards they destroy in their own personal ways. Evokers did an excellent job of portraying Minato as guano crazy, but it's nice not having to explain why my characters are putting guns to their heads in order to cast spells.

wot

I loved Evokers. Burning your Dread is awesome when guns you put to your head spurt glass instead of brains.

[Nerd-o-rama]

It is worth noting that this time the inevitable operator upgrade goes from cute-yet-annoying character to... well... attractive girl, which is the reverse of P3. It's like starting with Fuuka for a few levels and then going to Mitsuru for the rest. This is nice, because Rise (though not any less repetitive) is at least a fair bit easier on the ears.Hey, Fuuka's cute in a Ranka Lee, oh god what is with that hair sort of way. Mitsuru's voice is much less annoying, though, I admit.

[Tengu_temp]

wot

I loved Evokers. Burning your Dread is awesome when guns you put to your head spurt glass instead of brains.

For some reason, this gave me the idea of guns that shoot glass. And guns that shoot brains, shortly afterwards.

[KKL]

goddamn no that was bad

[hanzo66]

I read the Let's Play of Persona 3 recommended on TV Tropes, and it was fantastic. This is the first game that's really made me seriously want a PS 2, but we'll have to see about that, because I really want to play Persona 4. I guess I'll try and see how cheap I can get one, if I can.
*raises hands for adding that there*...

[Andras]

Persona 3 was the best JRPG i've ever played

I'd have to put the other PS2 Shin Megami Tensei games (especially Nocturne) before it, personally, but it was quite good.

[gdfstyrh]

Okay, here's the deal: I work at a video game store, and this gives me special priveleges. Namely, a discount and the ability to check out games for 'sales research'.
I've had a few very, er... Dedicated people come in asking when the game would come out, and showed up the night it did, cash in hand, buying up every manga/game guide we had. While talking to them, like any good salesman would, I discovered that most of them love the Kingdom Hearts series (my favorite games ever) and were also very excited about the re-release of Chrono Trigger (my second favorite games ever, and first game I ever played).

Anyways, I'm inclined to pick the game up, though, I'll probably not have any time to play it.
So, sell it to the salesman: Why should I get Shin Megami Tensai: Persona 4?





Yeah, i think so. you can do it as you like please do it as that. i am sure you can do. :smalltongue: http://www.internetgameservice.com/phantasystaruniverse.php this game gold is cheap for me.

[FullPlateJacket]

I'd have to put the other PS2 Shin Megami Tensei games (especially Nocturne) before it, personally, but it was quite good.

Well, the non-Persona SMT games aren't JRPGs in the traditional sense, setting-wise. In terms of games that take place in modern Japan and in which the party consists almost entirely of high school students, the Persona series is unmatched.

[Andras]

Well, the non-Persona SMT games aren't JRPGs in the traditional sense, setting-wise. In terms of games that take place in modern Japan and in which the party consists almost entirely of high school students, the Persona series is unmatched.

That is true...but jrpg usually encompasses quite a bit more than "in modern japan" settings.

...also, Nocturne does take place in modern Japan (albeit warped), and your party (being one person) is a high school student.

[Nerd-o-rama]

*raises hands for adding that there*...You are my hero.

[Rogue 7]

You are my hero.

Amen. Best damn Let's Play I've ever read.

[hanzo66]

Yes, and that's why I added that there. It would be interesting to see if someone is willing to do a LP for Persona 4 in a similar style...

[RPGuru1331]

...also, Nocturne does take place in modern Japan (albeit warped), and your party (being one person) is a high school student.

No, it takes place in the Demon Apocalypse. I agree that Nocturne rocks, but the simple fact is that it shares less similarity with tokyo or Japan then NYC does. District names do not a city make.

OP, buy PErsona 4. I must admit that I have enjoyed myself greatly. I'm going to second the mentions of improvements to 3. My only lasting irritation, besides the presence of a Navi (Even a sexy operator is one I don't want to listen to all the time), has been that the death of the main character is game over. I have other humans; I have no business getting a game over just because I go down; Acceptable with a party of demons, not so much with a party of humans. Hell, even SMT1 let you live as long as the LAw or Chaos Hero was standing.

...Oh, and it's easy as hell. Only the boss of Void Quest was vaguely irritating, and then only because I didn't realize Guarding blocked statuses. Yes, I am on hard. Granted, I am comparing this to, oh, I don't know. Red Capote/Sukunda/Andalucia without easy access to Dekaja/-nda, which is unfair, but it is still fairly easy.

[Ozymandias]

...Oh, and it's easy as hell. Only the boss of Void Quest was vaguely irritating, and then only because I didn't realize Guarding blocked statuses. Yes, I am on hard. Granted, I am comparing this to, oh, I don't know. Red Capote/Sukunda/Andalucia without easy access to Dekaja/-nda, which is unfair, but it is still fairly easy.

Persona games (3 and 4, at least) aren't difficult so much as frustrating. 4 is a little better than 3, but it's really lame to have four or five floors erased because an enemy cluster got the jump on you and used Maragi-> One More!-> Mazio-> One More!-> Zionga-> Au revoir, Main character!

You can always grind more, I guess, but I am always underlevelled and I don't particularly enjoy repeating the Magic-Knockdown-All-Out Attack chain more than is necessary. The novelty of the battle system adds some depth but all too often becomes "find the weakness and exploit it".

[Moonshadow]

There are 4 characters weak to fire? I must not be far enough up Tartarus in 3 then :smallconfused:


Try to get a 4 element Persona early on though, it really helps.