Persona 4: Wait for a rainy midnight stare at a blank television and enjoy
Following the highly reviewed RPG/SRPG (Social Role Playing Game) Persona 3, which was released in August of 2007 and it's "sequel" Persona 3 FES, which was released in April of 2008 comes Persona 4. The forth game in the series follows a whole new set of characters as they try to solve the mystery behind a series of bizarre murders that begin to rattle the residents of the small rural town of Inaba. With Persona 4 leaving out the controversial "shoot yourself in the head" method of casting spells does it live up to its predecessor or does it deserve to be shot in it's proverbial head.
The story follows a young nameless (you get to name him) protagonist as he moves to the small town of Inaba to live with his uncle and cousin for a period of one year because his parents are away on business. On your first night you have a dream and meet a man named Igor who tells you that this year will be a turning point in your destiny. After that for a short while life progresses as you would expect in a small town. You go to school, try to make friends, come home and study. But soon the town becomes a buzz when a famous new anchor is found dead and hanging upside down from a power line with no apparent cause of death. Around school there is a rumor about something called "the midnight channel," a "television program" that appears on rainy nights at midnight if you stare at a turned off television. On a whim the protagonist decided to test the rumor one night. And sure enough a blurry image of a person appears. The protagonist reaches for the T.V. and discovers that he is able to enter it. Shortly after this discovery yet another victim is found dead and hanging in the same exact manner as the previous victim. Soon the protagonist and his small band of friends enter the T.V. world together and so begins their attempt to unravel the mystery behind the murders.
The real bread and butter of any good RPG is the story and Persona 4 does not disappoint. There are twists and turns at every juncture. Just when you think things are resolved the game points out something that you over looked. Although the story has you acting as a detective of sorts you are really not able to make any meaningful judgement calls about the case. You merely observe as the case unfolds. It is an RPG after all and not a point and click dialogue based game. So it really is not a big deal. There are also undertones about the two faced nature of human beings and how everyone has sides that they try to hide from others. It really is a rewarding and thought provoking story.
I think this is worth mentioning. The developers really try hard to put you in the role of the protagonist. There are points when you can choose the dialogue as well as how to spend your day. Even during the cutscenes, which are few and far between, the protagonist never speaks. They really want you to feel like you are the protagonist. And for the most part it works. Although during some cutscenes his lack of a voice seems odd.
Aside from the main story there are about a dozen smaller stories that help add depth to your in game friends. As I've said before this is not only an RPG but an SRPG. When you are not busy dungeon crawling and solving the big mystery you go about life as a normal high school student. You can pick who you hang out with as you do so you become closer to them and learn more about them. You are even able to get a girlfriend. These are known as social links and as you level them up you can fuse stronger persona, which are the "ego" (in terms of Freud) that aids in the protagonist through his fights. Although this whole social link thing may sound tedious it becomes quite addictive since the little stories are actually really interesting.
That leads me to the next thing I really love about the game. The localization for the it is great. The script is intriguing and the colloquialism is done spot on at least in my opinion. The voice talent for the game is also amazing and they all do a great job delivering the dialogue. At least to my ear it is the way I can hear High school students speaking. But then again it is put out by Atlus and they have always been very consistent in the quality of their localizations. And for that I give Atlus kudos.
The main gameplay is basically your run of the mill RPG formula. You fight your way through different dungeons in a turn based style. There really is nothing revolutionary in terms of the fighting system. You can summon a Persona to cast healing or damage spells. The more interesting mechanic is the ability to fuse multiple personas to create new ones. This lends the game some Pokemon-esque elements in the sense that you want to try to get create all the personas.
There have been several improvements since the previous game in the series. For one you are able to control everyone in your party manually. Whereas in 3 you were forced to rely on the shoddy AI for your allies during the battles, which could sometimes become frustrating. A major improvement in my opinion is the pacing of the game. The script for this game is said to be 1.5 times longer than the previous game however the game can be completed in a shorter time. The previous game running me well over 100 hours at which point I lost interest and stopped.
But as with all good things there are some things that are not perfect. The only thing I really did not like about the game was the quests that you could undertake. Although some of them were meaningful to the story many of them were not. Most of the quests forced you to retread previous dungeons in search of an item that would drop off of a certain monster. These quests seem like a ploy to artificially extend the length of the game. The rewards for the quests were pretty negligible.
I would have also liked to see more of the anime style cutscenes. But that isn't really a complaint per se. The few cutscenes that they did have were all beautifully done. When the colors needed to be dull and glib they were. When they needed to be bright and warming they were. So really they were so good I wish there were more. Hence not really a valid negative on the game's part.
Although at first glance the game's story may not seem as grand as say stories of the final fantasy series, I think it happens to be a much deeper story. And in some senses it may be even more epic than the stories of the FF series. That's why if you are a fan of RPGS I think Persona 4 is a must buy. Playing a good RPG is like reading through a book. It's only as strong as the plot allows it to be. Persona 4 has a great plot that is expertly written. There are occasions when the game can start to feel a little tedious but opened ended social links allow you to switch things up and not feel like you're wasting time. Atlus gives us a polished to a mirror shine game that is simply a joy to play. So if you call yourself an RPG fan do everyone a favor and go out and buy Persona 4 and support a great developer/publisher.
I want to give Persona 4 a perfect score but I feel like Atlus can still do even better if they decide to continue the franchise. So on that note I am going to give Persona 4 a 9.5/10 (yes I am doing the score with a decimal point and will probably do so from here on in)
The story follows a young nameless (you get to name him) protagonist as he moves to the small town of Inaba to live with his uncle and cousin for a period of one year because his parents are away on business. On your first night you have a dream and meet a man named Igor who tells you that this year will be a turning point in your destiny. After that for a short while life progresses as you would expect in a small town. You go to school, try to make friends, come home and study. But soon the town becomes a buzz when a famous new anchor is found dead and hanging upside down from a power line with no apparent cause of death. Around school there is a rumor about something called "the midnight channel," a "television program" that appears on rainy nights at midnight if you stare at a turned off television. On a whim the protagonist decided to test the rumor one night. And sure enough a blurry image of a person appears. The protagonist reaches for the T.V. and discovers that he is able to enter it. Shortly after this discovery yet another victim is found dead and hanging in the same exact manner as the previous victim. Soon the protagonist and his small band of friends enter the T.V. world together and so begins their attempt to unravel the mystery behind the murders.
The real bread and butter of any good RPG is the story and Persona 4 does not disappoint. There are twists and turns at every juncture. Just when you think things are resolved the game points out something that you over looked. Although the story has you acting as a detective of sorts you are really not able to make any meaningful judgement calls about the case. You merely observe as the case unfolds. It is an RPG after all and not a point and click dialogue based game. So it really is not a big deal. There are also undertones about the two faced nature of human beings and how everyone has sides that they try to hide from others. It really is a rewarding and thought provoking story.
I think this is worth mentioning. The developers really try hard to put you in the role of the protagonist. There are points when you can choose the dialogue as well as how to spend your day. Even during the cutscenes, which are few and far between, the protagonist never speaks. They really want you to feel like you are the protagonist. And for the most part it works. Although during some cutscenes his lack of a voice seems odd.
Aside from the main story there are about a dozen smaller stories that help add depth to your in game friends. As I've said before this is not only an RPG but an SRPG. When you are not busy dungeon crawling and solving the big mystery you go about life as a normal high school student. You can pick who you hang out with as you do so you become closer to them and learn more about them. You are even able to get a girlfriend. These are known as social links and as you level them up you can fuse stronger persona, which are the "ego" (in terms of Freud) that aids in the protagonist through his fights. Although this whole social link thing may sound tedious it becomes quite addictive since the little stories are actually really interesting.
That leads me to the next thing I really love about the game. The localization for the it is great. The script is intriguing and the colloquialism is done spot on at least in my opinion. The voice talent for the game is also amazing and they all do a great job delivering the dialogue. At least to my ear it is the way I can hear High school students speaking. But then again it is put out by Atlus and they have always been very consistent in the quality of their localizations. And for that I give Atlus kudos.
The main gameplay is basically your run of the mill RPG formula. You fight your way through different dungeons in a turn based style. There really is nothing revolutionary in terms of the fighting system. You can summon a Persona to cast healing or damage spells. The more interesting mechanic is the ability to fuse multiple personas to create new ones. This lends the game some Pokemon-esque elements in the sense that you want to try to get create all the personas.
There have been several improvements since the previous game in the series. For one you are able to control everyone in your party manually. Whereas in 3 you were forced to rely on the shoddy AI for your allies during the battles, which could sometimes become frustrating. A major improvement in my opinion is the pacing of the game. The script for this game is said to be 1.5 times longer than the previous game however the game can be completed in a shorter time. The previous game running me well over 100 hours at which point I lost interest and stopped.
But as with all good things there are some things that are not perfect. The only thing I really did not like about the game was the quests that you could undertake. Although some of them were meaningful to the story many of them were not. Most of the quests forced you to retread previous dungeons in search of an item that would drop off of a certain monster. These quests seem like a ploy to artificially extend the length of the game. The rewards for the quests were pretty negligible.
I would have also liked to see more of the anime style cutscenes. But that isn't really a complaint per se. The few cutscenes that they did have were all beautifully done. When the colors needed to be dull and glib they were. When they needed to be bright and warming they were. So really they were so good I wish there were more. Hence not really a valid negative on the game's part.
Although at first glance the game's story may not seem as grand as say stories of the final fantasy series, I think it happens to be a much deeper story. And in some senses it may be even more epic than the stories of the FF series. That's why if you are a fan of RPGS I think Persona 4 is a must buy. Playing a good RPG is like reading through a book. It's only as strong as the plot allows it to be. Persona 4 has a great plot that is expertly written. There are occasions when the game can start to feel a little tedious but opened ended social links allow you to switch things up and not feel like you're wasting time. Atlus gives us a polished to a mirror shine game that is simply a joy to play. So if you call yourself an RPG fan do everyone a favor and go out and buy Persona 4 and support a great developer/publisher.
I want to give Persona 4 a perfect score but I feel like Atlus can still do even better if they decide to continue the franchise. So on that note I am going to give Persona 4 a 9.5/10 (yes I am doing the score with a decimal point and will probably do so from here on in)
Comments