[ENG] Persona 4 Golden - Review

(Polska Wersja Dostępna Tu! - [PL] Persona 4 Golden - Recenzja)

(Minor spoiler warning – both attached screenshots and few fragments of text can contain minor spoilers so... Proceed at your own risk.)

(I will often compare Persona 4 to Persona 5, because there are some things P5 did better but there also things that P4 did much better so... I think it's worth pointing them out.)

Ooookay, first things first – I think that everything that could be said about Persona 4 and Persona 4 Golden has been already said, after all it's quite old game that caused quite a stir back then as well as recently. But I'm still going to share my opinion about it, I probably won't say anything new, but I still want to share my feelings after completing another masterpiece in the Persona franchise. With that out of the way, let's go!

Persona 4 was originally released in 2008 for PlayStation 2 and 3 and then Persona 4 Golden was released on PlayStation Vita in 2012. Very recently, in June of this year, Persona 4 Golden was released on PC. Which... Suffice it to say caused quite a stir in the gaming community and gave hope that other parts will be released in the future. I never had a Vita and thus I didn't really have a chance to experience Persona 4, so I after I completed Persona 5 and realized that P4 is releasing just in a few days... I was really excited to say the least.

And thanks to PC port, the game is now available in resolutions up to 4K and unlocked framerate!

(Our protagonist fresh off the train)

We assume a role of a nameless protagonist (In Persona 4 Anime he is called Yu Narukami and in game we can give him name for ourselves so... For the simplicity I will either call him Protagonist, Hero or very occasionally Yu), who is forced to move to a small, rural town for a year. We will be staying at our uncle's place in the seemingly peaceful town of Inaba. Not so long after his arrival, our protagonist starts having weird dreams and hears a rumor about a mysterious Midnight Channel, where supposedly you can see your soulmate. Our protagonist decides to check the Channel out and what he discovers is... Not what he expected, he is able to stick his hand inside the TV.

(About aforementioned anime - It's pretty good, though... You know, it's forcing a 50+ hours story into a 8-9 hour anime series so... There are a lot of holes or missing situations, but the anime overall is quite good!)

Shortly after, a mysterious murders start taking place in the very town of Inaba. Due to our protagonist's accidental discovery, he decides to share it with few people he have already met. They don't believe him but still decide to head out to electronics department in store. When protagonist successfully places his hand inside the TV, his friends start to panic and eventually all of them fall into the TV in effect discovering an entirely new world... A world of Shadows.

(A mysterious resident of the TV world - Teddie)

This is the basic explanation of what happens in around first two hours of the game. In the TV world we often need to rescue people who were thrown inside there, but before we'll be able to do so, these people often need to face their own Shadow. A manifestation of unconscious feelings of a certain person or conscious ones that the person tried to reject and forget. These Shadows are bosses we need to fight and... Many of them are a decent challenge, but I also felt that I am a tad bit overleveled for the entire time. It's quite contrary to Persona 5 where I constantly felt underleveled. When certain person finally accepts their Shadow – they can be safely taken out from the TV world.
Each time the fog covers Inaba, another body appears so most deadlines are set before the rainy days, as the fog comes after a few continuous days of rain. People's Shadows are representations of various problems – loneliness, sexuality, gender... Problems that many people are still facing nowadays.

Whereas in Persona 5 there were pre-made dungeons in form of Palaces and a randomly-generated enormous one in form of Mementos, in Persona 4 there is no Mementos-like thing, there are only dungeons. The base is pre-defined like Castle, Secret Laboratory, Heaven etc. but most of the floors in these dungeons are randomly-generated (Most, because some of them have pre-defined rooms that are needed to progress the story).

(A mysterious, grotesque murders begin shortly after Yu arrives in Inaba)

And so, these are two parts of the game – in the real world we attend to school, spend time with friends, work part-time job, read books and so on, and so on; in TV world we fight with Shadows (fight is turn-based, from what I know it doesn't change from Persona 3, 4 and 5 so... It's more or less the same thing as in other Personas) and rescue people that have been thrown into it. But there's another part. Velvet Room and Fusing Personas. From what I know, Velvet Room works mostly the same across all parts. Fusing Personas is an essential part of the game, since without fusing we can't get access to the most powerful Personas that will make our life a bit easier in the Shadow Realm.

Though... The game took me around 60 hours to complete fully with True Ending, whereas Persona 5 took me more than 100. It's not a bad thing, honestly I was expecting that since... Truth be told, there aren't as many things to do here as in Persona 5 – especially during rainy days our possibilities of spending time are quite limited. Plus there was nothing like Mementos from Persona 5 which... Certainly took several hours from my playthrough. I'm not saying that there are too little things to do, quite the contrary – often it's hard to decide how exactly you want to spend time that day.

(Fusing Personas)

Soundtrack is amazing. I don't really have to say anything else, just give it a listen. Tracks are beautifully intertwined into the game and it enhances all the emotions you will get. I personally prefer calmer soundtrack of Persona 5, but comparing the two soundtracks accomplishes nothing since it's like comparing two different music genres. Each is good in their own way. (Still, many tracks in Persona 4 were amazing, but Beneath The Mask from P5 remains as my favorite).

Persona 4 is a tad bit more clunky in few aspects, but it's easy to get used to them. Plus, Persona 5 offered a lot of quality of life changes and graphical improvements which... Is nice, but Persona stands with story and characters and... One of these two is significantly better than in Persona 5, I'd even risk saying that Persona 4 does both things better (Despite my personal preferences of story presented in P5).

(Maxed out Links with Persona-users will in effect 'upgrade' their respective Personas)

Now for the thing that really caused me to question one aspect of Persona 5. Characters. Whereas I really wasn't comparing things between Persona 4 and 5, Story and Characters stood out to me the most. Don't get me wrong. I liked characters in Persona 5, I really did, but after witnessing those in Persona 4... I really believe that they could have been done waaay better. Characters in Persona 4 really behave like teenagers – they argue, joke, spend time with themselves and... This game really knows how to introduce a comic relief when the last few hours were too heavy. Teddie, one of the characters... His jokes are terrible, but overall as a character, Teddie serves as a brilliant comic relief, though saying that only Teddie is doing his relief part would be an understatement.

I could really get emotional with these characters – I was genuinely laughing at many situations or dialogues; crying whenever the emotions were too heavy... Once again, don't get me wrong – I felt emotional in Persona 5 as well, especially during the endgame segment, but... Man, Persona 4 just hit different. When I was watching the credits... I really felt like I just said goodbye to a good friends, it was... Emotional. To say the least.

I thought that characters in Persona 5 are too often too serious... Yes, serial killer in town is a serious and mysterious problem, but Persona 4 knows when to get serious and when to give you a breathing space.

And man... Character interactions and dialogues between them were so much better and enjoyable than in Persona 5.

Character relations are something more than dialogues and scenarios. What I am talking about are Social Links. Relations and plots of certain characters were a bit more interesting to me than in Persona 5 and... I feel like it was much easier to progress through the Social Links. So much so that I had over 10 Links maximized in the endgame. Buuut there is a thing that Persona 5 did better in that aspect. Namely – relations with non-Persona users/side-characters could be really beneficial in battle but in Persona 4... Relations with non-Persona users really have no other usage than learning their story and maximizing another Link. On the other hand, relations with Persona-users in Persona 4 was... Maybe I'm wrong but I think they were much more beneficial than those in Persona 5. Either way – if characters and Social Links in Persona 5 weren't so serious and stiff... I really think that Persona 5 could be better in every aspect. Story could be a bit better as well, but I really enjoyed Persona 5 storyline so I won't really complain here.

Plus, there are school clubs that allow us to create new Social Links and raise some of our stats.
Aaaand there are a lot, and I mean A LOT more 'school events' like festivals, concerts, trips etc. and even a ton more events involving the entire Persona team... I dunno, the entire school life segment in Persona 4 felt much more like a proper school life, I couldn't feel this in Persona 5 so much – of course, there were some events, but... It's another aspect that Persona 4 does a little bit better.

(As I said, it took me a bit less than 60 hours to complete. Note - important info has been very professionally censored!)

Due to Persona 4 Golden's PC release it's significantly easier to take screenshots of your favorite moments (I'm looking at you Persona 5). And I'm really hoping for Persona 3 and 5 to get ported to PC as well so there would be no problems of catching your favorite moments.

Persona 4 has it's fair share of endings, a lot of bad ones, a good one and True Ending... Aaand to be honest, you really need to work for it whereas in Persona 5 it was quite easy to set yourself on the path to True Ending.

Yes. Persona 5 is much more aesthetically pleasing, but in terms of storytelling, characters and climate... Persona 4 is much better in all these aspects. After a month of release on Steam, it already has around 20k reviews, from which over 90% are positive. We can only hope that Atlus and Sega will notice it and consider porting other installments.

Aaaand by playing Persona 4 I started noticing easter eggs I glanced over in Persona 5 soo... Well, if I finally get to play Persona 3 I am sure that I will notice even more easter eggs I have glanced over in Persona 4 and 5. But there are things that don't change – being a transfer student, a year in new school and city, Velvet Room, aaaand... Few other things but it's venturing waaay too far into spoiler zone.

Currently I'm thinking of looking for my old PSP and getting myself a Persona 3 Portable or emulate a Persona 3 FES... Oooor I can wait and see if Atlus has any plans of porting P3 to modern PCs.

There's no denying that Persona 5 is absolutely gorgeous in every aspect, but... Persona 4 just hit different in many of them. And Persona 4 for PC costs barely 20€. I... Let's be honest, it almost sounds like a scam that such an amazing game is available for so cheap.

Going with my line of thinking that there were less things to do in Persona 4, but characters were much better... I won't be surprised if in Persona 3 there are even less things to do, but characters are even better (I'm not expecting anything better. If I receive it – I will be really happy, if not... I will probably still be happy since Persona 4 and 5 have proven to me how amazing this franchise can be, so either way it's a win-win situation!)

I... I really can't think of a single reason why you shouldn't buy this masterpiece. Especially given it's improvements on PC and a really low price!

Solve the mystery behind a serial killer in Inaba, save people from getting succumbing to their own Shadows and build unbreakable bonds with your friends!

Kind Regards,

Wing.