Persona 4

Video Game Review

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PersonaCover

What can I say about this game… maybe I could say that it has taken hours and hours of my life whilst playing it…. or maybe that it was the last banzai! for the PS2 before it is well and truly over shadowed by the PS3… either way, please read on for my review of Persona 4 for the PS2.

Characters

PrTedNao

First of all it must be mentioned that there are three parts to this game really… a murder mystery aspect, RPG aspect and a dating simulation aspect, all of which are critical to the flow of the storyline. Therefore, the characters and character development is very good for this game. Within the game there are three types of characters, the main characters which you can play with during the game, the school friends that you meet by joining clubs etc and the miscellanious friends who you meet through jobs and talking with them.

First off is the main character, cleverly known as ‘Protagonist’. Before you start the game, you are given the option of choosing both a First and Last name for him, which is honestly a nice touch using both first and last names so you can feel like it is really you. We don’t really recieve much background history on him as everyone else except for the fact that he has been transferred numerous time due to his parents work. He is also silent so except for the times when you choose dialogue, you don’t actually see him have any discussions you can read.

The other main characters include Yosuke Hanamura, Chie Satonaka, Yukiko Amagi, Kanji Tatsumi, Rise Kujikawa, Naoto Shirogane and Teddie. These are all characters you can play with during the game and therefore, once you recieve them in your party, they get the highest amount of character development, especially characters like Teddie who are unknown entities to the rest of the characters. Personalities are pretty much diverse with the shy Yukiko to the possibly sexually-confused Kanji. They are definately not been-there-done-that personalities during the discussions.

The school friends generally vary depending on what clubs you join. In the game there are four clubs and you must choose one cultural and one sporting club. So for example if you choose the music club then you form a social link with Ayane but if you decide to do drama instead, then you can form a link with Yumi.

Other main characters include family members such as Nanako and Dojima and other misc character such as Hisano and Fox (Is actually a fox). Most of these characters, althrough not all allow you to form a social link with them.

and yes, you can do something as crazy as having 8 girlfriends at once in this game without severe problems.

Storyline

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Turn On, Tune In, DROP DEAD!

A rumour is going around school that by looking at a TV screen at 12:00AM on a rainy night, the face of your soulmate will be revealed. But is that all? A chain of murders appears to be connected to the rumour, and you and your team of persona users must brave the mysterious TV world before another soulmate dies.

The protagonist has just been forced to live in Inaba for a year due to his parents work. On his first day at school the school goes into lockdown due to a murder occuring nearby. It is late discovered that a famous person had been found tangled up in some wires. Also he learns about the midnight channel which while looking innocent, despite a bit creepy at first, he learns that whoever appears on there will die. Therefore he and his group of friends brave the TV world in order to save the other person from the world of their own creation and help them brave their true self.

However at the same time as rescuing and fighting alongside new friends, there is also the story of a life in a Japanese High School, so you do have the Cultural Festivals, Campout, the annual school trip etc all with funny and/or interesting results.

Every character has their own storyline as well. For example, Nanako being left at home alone all the time and feeling lonely without her dad around and Yousuke feeling lonely now that Saki had suffered being murdered.

It is all pretty good material, nothing I can really complain about except maybe the first hour of the game after playing it once, when there is no battles and very little in regards to socialising with friends.

Music

The music for this game is very very good! About 80-90 percent of the songs are performed by Shoji Meguro with other songs submitted by Atsushi Kitajoh and Ryota Kozuka. The vocals were done by Shihoko Hirata. As you can see the music is basically all like the OP song above, catchy and modern. There is a wide variety of songs that the game comes with and it shouldn’t get too repetitive. Infact, I think I have listened to the music of this game more than any other game and I still enjoy it.

The game also comes with a special soundtrack comprised of 24 songs which includes a large number of good songs such as Pursuing My True Self, Your Affection, Reach Out to the Truth and Heaven. The only problem is I found at least was that when putting it on my ipod, the songs were untitled for some reason. Still, if you want to take the 2-3 minutes to add the song name/artist/album then it is definately worth it!

Graphics

Risepush

Lets be honest here, the graphics don’t match PS3/XBox360 quality as obviously, it is only a PS2 game. BUT having said that, it is definately one of the most beautifully designed PS2 games I have ever played! It is hard to describe it but there are very few graphical errors, the cutscene face displays are very good quality, despite being a bit limited and generally, everything runs smoothly with no graphical lag.

They did a really good job with graphics in regards to the system.

Gameplay

The gameplay as mentioned above is split into murder mystery, RPG and dating simulation kinda thing. I will review each of this aspects seperately.

Murder Mystery

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Honestly, sometimes it feels like the murder mystery component is drowned out by the other two, but at certain points in the game, it requires you to deduce who the person is that is throwing people into the TV’s and at the end, if you didn’t cheat by reading ahead, you have to use this knowledge to identify the killer, so it is best to pay attention to all the scenes lest you be stuck with the bad ending. Could have dug a bit more into the murder mystery genre, but still pretty good.

RPG

Ziogroup

Okay, this is where the game succeeds. Each character you rescue has a dungeon, most of them are odd in some way such as video game, sauna… you get the point. Anyway, when you enter them, the game randomises everything in the dungeon so every day you enter, a different paths have been formed. Throughout the dungeon, there are shadows which you must defeat. All characters have weaknesses and resistances against elements such as Yukiko being weak to ice.

Taking that into consideration, you must either protect your characters against shadows who use that spell, whilst defeating the shadows using your persona, either via magic or physical attacks. Magic attacks drain SP and physical attacks drain HP. For once in a game, SP will usually be the main cause of why you have to leave a dungeon early.

The system is pretty good like an updated version of the Final Fantasy X battle system, which I really like overall! The boss battles are also some of the most challenging I have ever played, and it seemed like they got easier over time… the first two dungeon bosses were very very hard in comparison to the ones later on. Really good system for the game!

Dating/Life Simulation

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Something not often found in most RPG’s. The dating simulation system ties into the RPG system since you can form social links with other characters, one for each of the forms of tarot cards (This is known as Arcana). For example, The Magician is linked to Yosuke whilst Justice is linked to Nanako. The three benefits that can be gained from this are:

  1. Personas created under that arcana get a big EXP boost the higher the Social Link is.
  2. Party characters, once they hit level 10, get an upgraded persona with new resistances and/or weaknesses removed.
  3. More interesting scenes as the link follows, both directly and indirectly related to the character.

The one problem is that once you get a girlfriend, it can sometimes be challenging to form links with other female characters as sometimes the girlfriend walks in on you two, even if it is only level 2 of your social link…. Yukiko did that to me a few times during the game! If you are game, you can try and become a boyfriend of every female character in the game, which is also possible. Overall another successful system.

Replayability

This is really up to you if you wish to replay the game again. I say that as whilst you can replay and get new interactions, new equipment, new personas, secret boss fights and the ability to see what would have happened if you selected that option in the last time…. it takes about 60 hours + to finish the game the first time around so be prepared to dedicate another 40 or so hours to finish the game a second time. I would still recommend it, and I am going to play it again until I get Persona 3.

Personal Opinion

To sum this up nicely, it is one of the best games I have ever played, potentially taking up the spot as my favourite game from Star Ocean 3. Apparantly it has been believed that Persona 5 is going to be released on the PS3 in the near future according to a Japanese magazine article. Fingers crossed!

Total Score

Characters: 10/10
Storyline: 15/15
Music: 15/15
Graphics: 13.5/15
Gameplay: 19/20
Replayability: 9/10
Personal Opinion: 15/15

[review pros="Nearly everything in the game." cons="I don't believe there are any problems what-so-ever" score=96.5]

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.

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