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FlyingEggplant

My first imperssions of Persona 4 Golden (No spoilers)

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Hello everyone, so i recently bought a PS Vita and Persona 4 Golden (a little christmas gift for myself) I've only heard good things about this game so decided to pick it up and i wanted to share my first imperssions of the game with you guys.

 

I'm not very far into the game, i've only played for a few hours (12 to be exect) so i'm only at the second dungeon but i hope i'm only at the beginning of the game (if you guys know let me know how much of the game i have left)

 

I'll be going over Story, Graphics, Music and more, giving a score to each category. So let's start

 

Please excuse my bad english and my(probably)bad use of punctuation

 

Story.

The story so far is nothing special it's basically "You're a guy moving to the little town of Inaba, someone is murdered and you and your friends try to figure out who did it and then stuff happens " nothing special but it is engaing it makes you wonder what will happen next. Since i haven't finished the story i can't give it a score yet.

 

Graphics.

The graphics are really good the game really looks like it was made for the PS Vita.(i haven't played the original or seen any videos of it so i don't know if/how much they have changed the graphics) The character models looks great, The animations are great, The spells looks really good, basically everything looks good. My favorite graphic effect is the effect around the screen when you are in a dungeon it really adds to the feeling of being in a dangerous and scary place. The only thing i don't like about the graphics is when you are in the overworld there is kinda strange effect when you move your character around and it makes my dizzy sometimes, i don't know how to explain it but it's kinda like a motion blur but not really. The graphics gets 9/10 from me

 

Gameplay.

Now here is where the game really shines, it's like your standard JRPG with it being turn based, the one with highest speed going first, party of four that kinda stuff but the game adds it's own little twist to it to spice things up, let me explain whenver you are in a battle you can use an attack that the enemy is weak against which makes you deal more damage and then the enemy falls over letting you have another move your turn but beware the enemis can do the same thing to you, this is a really fun mechanic and adds more strategy to the gameplay it can also make weak enemies a threat if they manage to exploit your own weakness. also if you manage to make every enemy fall over on your party's turn you can do an "All out attack" (i think it's called that") were your whole party rush the enemies dealing huge damage AND it doesn't use up your party members turn so if you manage to trip all the enemies on your first turn and do an "All out attack" but you don't kill all the enemies your party still gets use their turns to attack and sometimes they do an team attack. I briefly mentioned that you can use spells but not in the traditional sense because you character is not a mage he's just a regular Japanese high school student and he doesn't have a staff/wand but he does have... a Persona. What is a Persona? you may ask well a Persona is as the game states "A mask for an individual to use to face hardships". From a gameplay standpoint a Persona is basically a Pokemon (You can also think of the as Stands from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure), you get them from defeating the main enemies in the game called Shadows which are the opposites of a Persona. The Personas are used for spell casting and the Persona you have equiped also determines what element you character is weak to and since you can switch Persona in the middle of battle without using up your turn this creates this thinking of "Should i use a Persona that has the spells the enemy is weak to  or should i use a Persona that makes me resist the enemy attacks but doesn't have the spells the enemy is weak to" i think this is great. Oh i forgot to talk about it but when you defeat an enemy you gain experience points like any regular JRPG but when you level up you only get increased HP and MP but no new spells or abilites but when your Persona levels up they gain stat increses and new spells for you to use in battle. there is one more fun mechanic with Personas... you can fuse them together to make even stronger Personas, you can either fuse two or three Personas together and when you fuse Personas you can chose to take some spells from the Personas you decided to fuse together and transfer them to new one this enables you to custom create Personas but you can't just take your most powerful Personas and fuse them together to make a level 999 Persona to steam roll the whole game since you can only make Personas which are the same level as you and not any higher, Also when you fuse Personas they may gain additional moves or levels depending on the Fusion Forecast and your Social Link level with that particular type of Persona this is great segway into another topic of the gameplay... Social Links. Since you are just a regular high school student you need to go to school and at school you can hang out with your friends which creates bonds between you and your friends which in turn makes thier and your Persona stronger and also gives you party members special abilites in battle like being able to heal status conditions or help up a tripped party member so improving these is great but you can also create social links with other people not just your party members, you might join a club at school and meet someone whom you can create a social ink with or maybe by spending sometime with your 7 year old cousin you can get closer to eachother but beware as you can only do this once a day and then you need to go home and sleep til the next day OH forgot this as well. The game is centered around a time system, you wake up in the moring and go to school then it becomes afternoon were you can choose to do a bunch of diffirent things like spending time with one of your friends and strengthen the bond between you? or do you want to study for the upcoming test to increase your knowledge? or maybe you want to take up a part time job to earn some extra money. Doing any of these things makes the time automatically go from Afternoon to Evening were the game forces you to go home were you can sleep til the next day, read a book to learn something new (like fishing) or study the whole night (also if you go to a dungeon after school to grind and then leave the game forces you to go to sleep since "You are to tired after exploring the dungeon") this creates a"what do you want to with your life" situation and i love it, it makes you feel like a student but don't think you can just do anything you want for eternity since the game usually wants you to complete a specific task before a specific date or it's game over and when that happens you can either load a save file or get set back a week. The gameplay gets a Infinite/10. Now that's enough talk about the gameplay.

 

Music.

Just listen to it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxEwTU_KjZU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnORxdWTGiA

Do i need to say anymore. 10000000000/10

 

Characters and Voice acting.

I just need to talk about this. This is probably the best english dub i've heard the voices really fit the characters the voice actors did an amazing job. i'm one of those people who prefer the original Japanese voices over the English becasue for the most part (In my opinion) the english voices never ever fit the characters only english dub i like (except this game) is Kingdom Hearts and Death Note.

The only thing i don't like about the voice acting is whenever they say Japanese words sounds it just sooooo stupid, Hearing a english speaking person saying "Senpai" 3 times every sentence makes me want to jump of a building, but enough of the voice acting let's talk about the characters.

 

I'm going just going to give a brief explination of the main characters.

 

The Player: This is your character

Yosuke Hanamura: The comic relief character

Chie Satonaka: Tsundere and then one who is going to become my girlfriend in game (yes you can become grilfriends and boyfriends with some characters)

Yukiko Amagi: The shy girl that everyone hits on

Kanji Tatsumi: The Manliest of Manly Men

Naoto Shirogane: i haven't really met this person yet

Rise Kujikawa: I haven't her yet

Teddie: A bear and he's Un-Bear-able hehehe

 

Also shout out to Nanako Dojima for being the most cutest and likeable character in this whole game.

 

Thanks for reading my first imperssions of this game the only thing i can add to this is that this game is tied to being my favorite game of all time together with Kingdom Hearts 2

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The game does have a slow beginning and you're not even close to the end

 

The story gets much much MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH better once you're done with rescuing Kanji Tatsumi as that's when things starts to really kick in

 

Keep going and trust me the game gets better as you progress

 

Note:DO AS MANY SOCIAL LINKS AS YOU CAN cuz not only you'll be able to fuse better Personas by finishing those social links,it'll also cut the time of grinding for the persona you fuse within the arcana of the social link you've completed

 

You can start social links with your party member as soon as they join you although some of them later might require a higher level for some of your character's attributes like Courage,intelligence.....etc(which you can raise through doing some activities around town..........some social links are hidden in both school clubs and the part-time jobs so make sure you take as many part-time jobs as you cuz not only it's gonna give you a good amount of money(which trust me you'll need A LOT cuz some items are quite expensive)but like I said some of them contain hidden social links

 

 

Another note:Later on you'll be able to start a social link with Adachi(whom you can find inside Junes).....DO NOT IGNORE HIS SOCIAL LINK FOR A LONG TIME.....

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The game does have a slow beginning and you're not even close to the end

 

The story gets much much MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH better once you're done with rescuing Kanji Tatsumi as that's when things starts to really kick in

 

Keep going and trust me the game gets better as you progress

 

Note:DO AS MANY SOCIAL LINKS AS YOU CAN cuz not only you'll be able to fuse better Personas by finishing those social links,it'll also cut the time of grinding for the persona you fuse within the arcana of the social link you've completed

 

You can start social links with your party member as soon as they join you although some of them later might require a higher level for some of your character's attributes like Courage,intelligence.....etc(which you can raise through doing some activities around town..........some social links are hidden in both school clubs and the part-time jobs so make sure you take as many part-time jobs as you cuz not only it's gonna give you a good amount of money(which trust me you'll need A LOT cuz some items are quite expensive)but like I said some of them contain hidden social links

 

 

Another note:Later on you'll be able to start a social link with Adachi(whom you can find inside Junes).....DO NOT IGNORE HIS SOCIAL LINK FOR A LONG TIME.....

I've been trying to do most of the Social Links but i've been focusing on Chie for the most just because i really like her and yesterday (in game time) i was able to start the social link with Adachi but i didn't do it that time since i wanted to do my part time job at the daycare (which led to a social link with a one of the kids step mom :D) but i'll start him as soon as i can thanks for the tips.

 

Also do you know anyway to raise courage? only i've found so far was it at a special but it's diffirent everyday and it seems i need courage to say/do romantic stuff with Chie

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I've been trying to do most of the Social Links but i've been focusing on Chie for the most just because i really like her and yesterday (in game time) i was able to start the social link with Adachi but i didn't do it that time since i wanted to do my part time job at the daycare (which led to a social link with a one of the kids step mom :D) but i'll start him as soon as i can thanks for the tips.

 

Also do you know anyway to raise courage? only i've found so far was it at a special but it's diffirent everyday and it seems i need courage to say/do romantic stuff with Chie

Oh you chose Chie for your romantic partner just like me ^_^...I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Chie ^_^

 

Anyway,to raise courage,there are some magazines you can buy from the bookstore that raises courage and other different attributes..........eating in the resturant do raises courage sometimes by a good amount especially if they're serving meat bowl which raise more than one attribute

 

As for Adachi,this is a veeeery minor spoiler,but once you hit level 6 or up in his social link,it's gonna progress automatically later down the road so don't freak out when at some point you might not be able to do level 8 or higher SLs with Adachi later on

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Oh you chose Chie for your romantic partner just like me ^_^...I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Chie ^_^

 

Anyway,to raise courage,there are some magazines you can buy from the bookstore that raises courage and other different attributes..........eating in the resturant do raises courage sometimes by a good amount especially if they're serving meat bowl which raise more than one attribute

 

As for Adachi,this is a veeeery minor spoiler,but once you hit level 6 or up in his social link,it's gonna progress automatically later down the road so don't freak out when at some point you might not be able to do level 8 or higher SLs with Adachi later on

Thanks :)

 

Chie is the best waifu :D

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Thanks :)

 

Chie is the best waifu :D

#ChieBestP4Girl ^_^

 

 

Glad I helped you even if little since Persona 4 is my favorite game of all time alongside Persona 3 and Shin Megami Tensei IV(welp my top 3 games are from the same franchise lol xD)

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#ChieBestP4Girl ^_^

 

 

Glad I helped you even if little since Persona 4 is my favorite game of all time alongside Persona 3 and Shin Megami Tensei IV(welp my top 3 games are from the same franchise lol xD)

I have Shin Megami Tensei IV on my 3DS but i've only played it for a few hours and then i stopped because i didn't like the demon recruitment system, it just felt to random to point of it just being frustrating for me. The gameplay was good though but i feel like Persona series which is a spin-off of Shin Megmai Tensei has more polish

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I have Shin Megami Tensei IV on my 3DS but i've only played it for a few hours and then i stopped because i didn't like the demon recruitment system, it just felt to random to point of it just being frustrating for me. The gameplay was good though but i feel like Persona series which is a spin-off of Shin Megmai Tensei has more polish

SMTIV isn't less polished or shit but it's more different,and ironically the demon negotiation is much less random than the shuffle times of Persona since you know where you can find a specific type of demons.........sure at first it's a bit hard but as you progress you can buy stuff that makes it waaaaaaaaaaaay easier cuz trust me people are blowing this out of proportion especially since demon negotiation is in Persona 1 and Persona 2 too

 

Besides,demon negotiation is just a first step cuz you get the majority of your demons by fusion

 

If anything the difficulty in SMTIV is the most balanced so far,sure it starts hard but you can say the same about all SMT games since it gets easier as you progress

 

It has the same difficulty as Persona 4 if you ask me if not easier cuz the demons you get from fusion later on are so OP and broken like Vishnu and Mara

 

 

*Sigh* I won't bother convincing people cuz no one listens to me regarding this and I kinda feel lonely that I'm one of the veeeeeeeeeeery few people who loves the mains series

Edited by Smash Mega Koopa

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SMTIV isn't less polished or shit but it's more different,and ironically the demon negotiation is much less random than the shuffle times of Persona since you know where you can find a specific type of demons.........sure at first it's a bit hard but as you progress you can buy stuff that makes it waaaaaaaaaaaay easier cuz trust me people are blowing this out of proportion especially since demon negotiation is in Persona 1 and Persona 2 too

 

Besides,demon negotiation is just a first step cuz you get the majority of your demons by fusion

 

If anything the difficulty in SMTIV is the most balanced so far,sure it starts hard but you can say the same about all SMT games since it gets easier as you progress

 

It has the same difficulty as Persona 4 if you ask me if not easier cuz the demons you get from fusion later on are so OP and broken like Vishnu and Mara

 

 

*Sigh* I won't bother convincing people cuz no one listens to me regarding this and I kinda feel lonely that I'm one of the veeeeeeeeeeery few people who loves the mains series

I'm not saying it's bad what i meant with the more polish thing was that in Persona 4 everything is in 3D there is no area which is played out with just character art like in SMTIV and every battle is in 3D while SMTIV has only sprites which (at least for me) makes it feels less polished but hey maybe that's the style of the whole SMT series i've never played any game in the series except SMTIV and i'm sure i would love the game if i got past the demon recruitment stuff since i love the gameplay and the art style

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All I wanna say is,give it a second chance since you already have the game,and I'll be more than happy to help since I already did 6 playthroughs,got all the endings,did 2 speedruns and beat the DLC superbosses so I'm ready to help anytime ^_^

I'm not saying it's bad what i meant with the more polish thing was that in Persona 4 everything is in 3D there is no area which is played out with just character art like in SMTIV and every battle is in 3D while SMTIV has only sprites which (at least for me) makes it feels less polished but hey maybe that's the style of the whole SMT series i've never played any game in the series except SMTIV and i'm sure i would love the game if i got past the demon recruitment stuff since i love the gameplay and the art style

it's just an artistic choice,SMT3 Nocturne on Ps2 is entirely in 3D,here  they went with sprites cuz that's their choice especially since the game has 400+ demons which would be really hard to render on a 3DS with a story-driven game

 

just because it's sprites doesn't mean it's not polished........and in most cases 2D ages better than 3D

Edited by Smash Mega Koopa

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All I wanna say is,give it a second chance since you already have the game,and I'll be more than happy to help since I already did 6 playthroughs,got all the endings,did 2 speedruns and beat the DLC superbosses so I'm ready to help anytime ^_^

it's just an artistic choice,SMT3 Nocturne on Ps2 is entirely in 3D,here  they went with sprites cuz that's their choice especially since the game has 400+ demons which would be really hard to render on a 3DS with a story-driven game

I think i'll give it another try after i've beaten P4

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I think i'll give it another try after i've beaten P4

Well Persona 4 is quite the long game............it's almost as long as Xenoblade chronicles while SMTIV takes around 25 to 30 hours on your first playthrough depending on whether you got Law,Chaos or Neutral routes

Btw regarding the critique about the whole senpai thing.....................you do know the game takes place in a country town IN JAPAN and while what we hear is English even if the voice actor himself is not Japanese.....what they actually speak among themselves is Japanese so suffixes used to address people like -kun,-san,-senpai....etc is part of the Japanese language and culture..........calling it "soooooooooooo stupid" is a bit harsh and sound a liiiiiiiiiiittle bit racist cuz there are languages other than English y'know

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Well Persona 4 is quite the long game............it's almost as long as Xenoblade chronicles while SMTIV takes around 25 to 30 hours on your first playthrough depending on whether you got Law,Chaos or Neutral routesBtw regarding the critique about the whole senpai thing.....................you do know the game takes place in a country town IN JAPAN and while what we hear is English even if the voice actor himself is not Japanese.....what they actually speak among themselves is Japanese so suffixes used to address people like -kun,-san,-senpai....etc is part of the Japanese language and culture..........calling it "soooooooooooo stupid" is a bit harsh and sound a liiiiiiiiiiittle bit racist cuz there are languages other than English y'know

I know it takes place in Japan and that's why I would LOVE if I could play the game in Japanese so it sounds right when, English people say Japanese words it just sounds weird that's what I meant, also it's not racist since Japanese people are not a different race Edited by FlyingEggplant

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I know it takes place in Japan and that's why I would LOVE if I could play the game in Japanese so it sounds right when, English people say Japanese words it just sounds weird that's what I meant, also it's not racist since Japanese people are not a different race

Well it's different nationality with different culture and people so it kinda counts................sorry I didn't find the right word to explain it

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