Persona 4

I have been playing the Persona game just recently and have completed 3 4 and 5. I haven't played the first two entries but this game is awesome and was the first persona game I have ever played. It's gameplay is like a Sims/Final fantasy game in which you explore various dungeons in the game to acquire new items and fight against the shadows of the game. You also explore japan in the real world (Since you do fighting in the TV world) in which you talk to people, make social links with other people to improve your stats and relationships with the people you talk to. The Story is a really good murder mystery in which you have to find a serial killer killing a bunch of school students and being transferred to this world in the TV. It's really bizarre for sure but it's so interesting at the same time. The graphics and it's art style look really great with it being colourful and full of life, the music is great, the sound effects get the job done well, the battle system is a fun Turn Based system that works really well and the game is packed full of content. It can take you around 60 to 70 hours to finish the main story alone. The characters are likable, interesting and are often quite funny. The voice acting in English is very good also, they sound quite believable in various scenes and even tho the main character doesn't speak much he does say a few words in combat. This is one hell of an awesome JRPG that's fun, challenging, full of heart and humor, it's dark, light-hearted and just absolutely worth your time

Persona 3 was my favorite game of all time, and surpassing it was going to be difficult, so I allowed myself no expectations and went into this one with an open mind.

It started out well enough. A nameless protaognist moves into a rural town where grisly murders occur. You and your new friends discover that the murders are linked to a world behind the TV screen, and that a channel called the Midnight channel, which on rainy nights is supposed to show you your true lover, actually shows the next victim. Can the case be solved? Fortunately, your friends have beings called Personas awakened in the TV world to fight it's shadow residents.

The game system follows Persona 3 pretty closely, dungeon crawling mixed with dating sim(called social links which with advancement can increase the power of your and your character's Persona) Social linkinbg involves going through a scenario with a character and choosing the right response when given the option, choosing the right one allowing the relationship to advance. It's mostly common sense so there's no real difficulty. However the way the gameplay is set up makes the entire game suffer.

Levelling up is a ridiculously painstakingly long process, and you need to level up more then ever with these extremely difficult boss fights. It becomes more of a chore then it needs to be. Not to mention the fact you have to choose to either social link/up your stats(stats that can affect what social links you can have and how you can interact with them) or level grind, making the game horribly inbalanced. If you want to stand a chance, you need to spend most of the time level grinding. In general it's just far less fun having to choose between the two on a daily basis rather then being able to do both in a single day. I mean, in real life if I wanted to go see a friend, study, and go home dungeon crawling on Warcraft, I could easily schedule all in. Why this game limits you is beyond me.

The voice acting and soundtrack are quite good, up to par with Persona 3 while remaining distinct enough. Not a weak performance to be found here. The graphics are nice to look at, not as highly detailed as more powerful consoles but they have their own appeal.

Now for the storyline. The story started out incredibly.The first half was pretty damn good even. However after awhile the story falls apart. I'll list some flaws, some fatal, some minor.

1.Some events just mirror Persona 3 way too closely, practically ripping it off at points. The story certainly didn't need to do that, and it comes off a bit worse for it. Minor complaint.

2.Far too many unrelated events. The occasional happy go lucky cut scene of them just having fun is fine, but they often rarely relate to the plot, and it becomes tiring as so much of the game's story ends up going nowhere for it. Big flaw.

3.In the second half the actual story really begins taking a nose dive, with the final few twists being entirely disappointing and pretty much killing the momentum of the story. They're not dramatic, they're not compelling, they're ridiculous. Fatal flaw.

4.It get's very repetitive at times, like they have to follow an exact formula for certain sequences of events. Minor Flaw.

5.The initial character development of each character was great. Problem is, that's all the character development they get in the main storyline. After that, they just stop developing and remain static. Seeing as P3 easily managed at least a few if not several arcs of development for each of their characters, there is no excuse for P4 not being able to pull off more. Fatal flaw.

Overall, it's not a terrible game, but it's nowhere near as good as it's made out to be. It could've been so much better but it appears to have been rushed. It had all the means to be fantastic but some weak writing and lack of gameplay balance hurt it. I'm sure rabid fans will rate this review not helpful to get back at me but I just do not think this should be rated higher then Persona 3.

5/10

What is that picture on the game cover lol either than that 9/10

Yes, I was not expecting to enjoy this game more than part three, I was more expecting maybe enjoying this one about the same. However, I liked this one a bit more than Persona 3. One of the biggest improvements is a better story overall. I liked some aspects of Persona 3's story a little more, but this one has a murder mystery that I absolutely loved. As your character comes to town a body is found hanging from a telephone pole. Your character befriends some people and you and your friends must try to unravel the case and ultimately find out who was responsible for the killings. In this incarnation of Persona you and your friends travel to a television world to try and find those who for some reason end up hurled in this realm, if they are not rescued in a certain number of days when the fog returns to town that person will die and the game will be over. Thankfully, I had the strategy guide otherwise I am sure I would have been cussing up a storm at certain aspects of the game as there are a couple of apparent endings to the game that if you do not do right you will not get to the true ending of the game. The fighting is much like it is in Persona 3, however, you now have the option of controlling every character and quite frankly this makes the game a bit easier as now you do not have to worry about your characters doing stupid things that will screw you up royally during a fight. You can also explore the television world as much as needed on any give day which helps to as now you can get that out of the way and work on your social links which remains virtually the same as part three. However, once again I am very glad to have had the strategy guide as it was much easier leveling up your social links this time too as I had nearly all of them maxed out by the last boss instead of only the seven or eight I had maxed out in part three. So for a fun game that has mystery, horror and some comedy this game packs all those features into one quite nicely. For an added bonus you also get to go to the town from Persona 3 for a field trip and you get to see a couple of familiar characters as well during this trip. You also get to go to the club and proceed to watch a couple of your characters act a little crazy, and the characters are once again very colorful and likable.