Once again, the latest installment of the Persona series does anything but disappoint. I’ve already run over the point that Persona 3 completely changed the way the series functioned; It allowed you to control your character’s entire life for one full year. This mechanic, along with several others, are carried over into Persona 4. That being said, I’ll start with what is similar between the two games.

First, both games drop you off into unfamiliar surroundings and give you a year to play through the game and interact with the world in the main character’s shoes. The Social Links return on steroids. Not only do you receive a bonus when fusing new Personas, but those in your party gain abilities as their Social Links raise to higher levels. Allies can perform follow-up attacks, help knocked down players, and even withstand attacks that would have otherwise incapacitated them. Persona 4 beefs up the characteristics system by expanding the areas of focus. Expression and Understanding are added in Persona 4 and become important parts of the game. Previously you would mostly be restricted on actions due to a lack of courage, but in Persona 4 people within the world won’t talk to you unless certain characteristics are high enough level. Joining clubs, hanging out with friends from school, and dating return intact. Aside from those mechanics and the obvious facts that the games look identical graphically and that you are fighting shadows, the rest of the game is refreshing and different. Let’s get into the new mechanics after the video break.

Let’s play nice and not shoot ourselves in the head! Welcome to Inaba. You’re here staying with your uncle and cousin for a year while your parents tend to business. Shortly after your arrival an international celebrity shows up dead hanging upside down after an intense fog coats the town. Not only does this woman show up dead, but rumors surface alongside which say that if you stare into your TV when it is turned off on a rainy night that you will see the person you are supposed to marry. The second victim, a girl from your high school, sparks a personal tie to the murders through your association with fellow classmate Yosuke.

Before you know it you’re reaching into televisions and no one believes you; that is until they see it for themselves and you’re knocked into a department store TV along with Yosuke and Chie, the girl you sit next to in class. Inside the TV you meet a bear who has no explanation for the world inside the TV or his own existence. The bear does however offer to aid you in return for your help. From this point the story takes off and you slowly accumulate a band of friends that becomes a murder mystery solving and victim rescue team. Its up to you and your friends to put an end to the murder attempts and bring peace back to the small town of Inaba.

To avoid spoiling the entire story, which I’m dying right now to do, I’ll get into the game’s mechanics. In contrast to Persona 3’s “Dark Hour”, in Persona 4 you can only explore the TV when the department store Junes is open during the day. Not only does exploration take place during the day now, but if you explore the TV during the day you will be too tired to focus on studying or any other activities that open up to you at night except from Social Link activities within the house. This breaks down that during the day you can shop, explore the TV, go to club meetings, go out to eat, and so on. Night is reserved for more character development than anything else. Your character is allowed to accept jobs from the billboard in town and you can work at night. Not only does work raise certain characteristics, but most jobs also pay you for your services. Any extra money is good money, and in the early stages of Persona 4 money is tight.

The most notable gameplay mechanic that has changed is the replacement of the moon cycle system. Instead of watching moon activity you are now focused on weather activity. You’re given until the fog sets in to save the current victim, but you’re never told exactly what day the fog will set in. You’re only clue as to when this will happen is the weather pattern. The fog usually sets in after a few days of consecutively heavy rain, but at times the fog it is harder to predict. All in all the potential onset of fog keeps you on your toes unlike in Persona 3, where you knew the exact date of a boss encounter and could fully prepare. Another new mechanic is the “detective” system. After the first few rescue missions the group is sent around town to search for clues about the current victim so that they can be pinpointed with the world inside the TV.

The tower crawling system was, in my opinion, the biggest problem with Persona 3. Even then, it wasn’t much of a problem. I just found myself tiring of the surroundings after a few hours of play and would need to either return to the city for a few days or step away from the game for a while. Persona 4’s world follows the same stair-crawling scheme, but each section of the game has its own theme which succeeds in keeping your surroundings fresh and interesting. On the topic of dungeon wandering, your team now always sticks together. I didn’t find myself telling my party to split up often in Persona 3 anyway so this is a feature that doesn’t bother me personally. I’ve yet to hear anyone complain about the lack of the party split command.

The battle system has been altered and only for the better in Persona 4. Tactics seemed to be an issue in Persona 3 and your teammates wouldn’t continue assaults on multiple enemies if they had an ability that foes were weak against. Now your allies are smarter and will systematically knock each enemy down instead of targeting one enemy twice in a row, good move! But wait, there’s more! Are you a control freak and want to tell everyone exactly what to do? Now you can! You can set your party tactics to direct commands and issue commands directly to each person in your party. I found that this has made boss encounters less stressful, but it seems that boss encounters have been beefed up to account for human control of all the players on the battlefield. Not only do boss encounters seem more intense, but there are optional bosses which will move into areas that you’ve already cleared. Make your way back through areas you’ve already been to and get rewarded with a boost in both experience and courage.

On several game review sites I cross-posted my Persona 3 review and gave it a 4.5 out of 5, or a 9 out of 10. The lack of a 5 out of 5 rating was due to the sometimes monotonous crawling of Tartarus and the fact that your own teammates would make decisions that turned the tide of a battle to the worst. The latest installment has a fresh story line, great new gameplay mechanics, and even slips in some great tie-ins that will excite Persona 3 players. With all that being said, Persona 4 does not hold itself back from a rating of 5 out of 5.

This article is a repost from my old blog. Since it was one of the most active posts from the old website I decided to repost here. This is also a good lead-in for an entry I am posting soon.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 showed me that the RPG world can still be rocked by the smaller companies and original franchises to compete with larger franchises such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. While I consider the Final Fantasy games to be very solid in story, gameplay, and interest, they don’t give me the impression of style. I am a big Final Fantasy fan, but with the mainstream games, Square Enix sticks with their system of doing things and that both works well for them and is familiar to the Final Fantasy veteran. In steps Persona 3. From the second you load the DVD into your Playstation 2 until the second you decide to quit playing for the night, Persona 3 bleeds its originality and style. Even the first menu screen you see as well as all of those within the game are carefully crafted to reflect the feel of the game.

So I am ranting on about the style of the game, and if you haven’t payed Persona 3 you probably won’t understand it until you actually witness or play the game in person. The art team spent a lot of time on developing the world and characters in Persona 3 and one of the lead artists actually commented on how they first created the main character of the game and built the entire rest of the game’s art and characters in order to compliment the main character. You play yourself (well the main character has no default name, so you’re expected to use your name), a high school student who just transferred to a new school at the beginning of your Junior year. I don’t want to spoil too much of the plot, but one thing leads to another within the first few days of your arrival and you end up on the roof watching one of your dorm mates attempt to shoot herself in the head while a giant shadow monster is approaching you. She is reluctant to pull the trigger and the shadow monster knocks the gun out of her hands, so what do you do? You pick up the gun and shoot yourself in the head of course!

That’s right! Did I fail to mention that the characters strengths rely on inner dwelling powers known as “Persona”, which can only be released when the user shoots them self in the head with a special pistol called an Evoker. Well thats just fantastic. Shadow monsters roaming around during some time called the “Dark Hour”, mysterious things happening within the community and your school, and to top it off high school kids shooting themselves in the head in order to defeat the monsters.

All of this is tied together into a game with original art, story, and gameplay. The gameplay works in a similar fashion to Harvest Moon. If you are familiar with the Harvest Moon franchise then you know that your goal is to bring a farm back to life, usually within one year, but you can also venture into town to pick up goods, learn about the residents, create social ties, and develop relationships. In Persona 3 the main character attends school on a daily basis, except for Sundays, and while in school is able to make friends, increase his knowledge, raise his social status, join one of several clubs, hit on girls, or make after school plans with classmates. These bonds you create with other students help strengthen your own inner power and persona abilities. You are given one year (April 2009 – April 2010) to play the game. You get to go through every day, spending as you so choose, making all of the decisions on your own and not stuck to a static line of events. Taking a couple days off from fighting is encouraged when your friends become sick or tired from battle and need time to recuperate. When you’re done with the daily school and club activities and any other errands or things your have planned then you can get down to the fighting RPG side of things and explore the strange tower which only appears during the “Dark Hour” every night. This fighting portion of the game is in essence the game’s main purpose and objective, but with all of the other game elements mixed in you have a constant variety in what you can do.

If you’re interested in an RPG / life sim hybrid that allows you to control what, when, and how you act throughout the game then give Persona 3 a try. As an added bonus, every copy comes with an art book and a copy of the soundtrack. Remember all of the style I was talking about earlier? The soundtrack is amazing in itself, really sealing the deal on the entire game with fresh music that is rarely seen in RPGs, let alone any games.