Persona 4 First impressions
Been a long time since my last post, but between laziness and stuff occupying me it’s been hard to post !
Anyway, I managed to get an imported copy of Persona 4 a game I was anticipating since it was announced, and like its predecessor is one heck of a JRPG.
Technically is very similar to P3 with only slight improvements, but since the art style is as great as before it’s a very good looking game considering its platform (PS2). The music is also pretty good, but more on that later.
The basic concept of the game is the same as Persona 3. The main character is a student stuck in some mysterious stuff, and as such it still has to work on it’s daily activities as well as dungeon crawling.
This concept has been thoroughly tweaked though. You have 5 attributes to develop, Understanding, Diligence, Knowledge, Courage and Expression, which not only are needed to start some social links but are also needed to advance some of them past certain points or to give some answers that lead to faster progression. Fortunately several activities raise more than one attribute and some social links include attribute training as well.
Social links work pretty much like before but this time around all your party members have a corresponding social link and depending on the rank it will give them bonus in battle. The stories themselves are pretty good, in general at the level of the P3FES ones.
Combat again is also very similar with one very important change, since you know can control all the party members directly which is a huge boon considering how many screw ups the AI sometimes manages to make. One thing to notice is that it’s much harder to make back attacks on shadows.
Probably the biggest improvement in the game is it’s dungeons. No longer do you have a huge tower that is only slightly different as you go up. Now you have many small(ish) dungeons each one themed according to the person that created it together with accompanying theme song and all. It makes a world of difference.
The one part where I can’t decide if the game improved or not is in it’s story and plot. In P4 each character had one small window of development, it’s a deep development but it’s still a small window of it, and if you want to know more you have to develop the social link. The main plot itself also advances very very slow (I’m nearing the end of the game and still have no idea of what is happening). P3 pace was much better with many more interesting developments through the whole plot and there was constantly some character development even if you where not working on the social links (for those that had them).
So far I don’t really think that has a whole P4 is better than P3 but I will save that judgement for when I finish the game, I mean it has to be a couple of twists in there somewhere 
Tags: JRPG, Persona, Persona 4, PS2
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23 January, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Been there, completed it.
But you’re dead wrong on the pacing. You had about one event per month in P3 while the rest of the time had you doing S.Links or doing tartarus which added unneeded time to the game. P4 has many more events and is really much better paced though this can be an annoyance if you’re trying for 100% S.Links. The characters all have S.Links, something that P3 should have done but didn’t. This left characters like Ken or Shinjiro somewhat shallow. Less for Akihiko since his past was a bit integrated into the storyline. But that alone adds a lot more to the game.I found that each character’s dungeon, even if for that pre-fight convo, did a lot more for setting the personality of each member quite easily.
I didn’t think it was better than P3 until I objectively saw these points but it took me at least 50 hours to do that.
PS : You’r e near the Heaven dungeon, right? There’s three more big twists if you count the True Ending with it though you won’t understand too much without reading a bit on the Persona series and why it’s a spin-off of SMT.
23 January, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Dead wrong ? How can some ones opinion be wrong ? You can agree or disagree but do not call it wrong.
The way I played P3 and how I’m playing P4 I am going to the dungeons about as many times as I went to Tartarus. I’m going more often now because I’m finishing S.Links and have free days, something that happened much later in P3
As for the dungeons yes I’m near Heaven dungeon but not there yet, good thing there are twists coming because until now the main plot has been really poor, and considering that I have more than 70 hours in it that’s saying something.
The stories around each individual dungeon are pretty nice yes, really well done, but I don’t like how they condense such huge amount of development of each character in each dungeon. In P3 you get to know each character slowly by their connection with the main plot, and that is a style that I vastly prefer. You can say that the amount of development is similar and I would say, yes it is, but the pacing isn’t and that’s what I don’t like
24 January, 2009 at 12:29 am
I’m sorry but your comments on pacing are factually wrong. P3 had one storyline event per month while P4 has several events per month which leads to more story and less downtime. You uncover a part of the story every month while P3’s erratic Strega appearences every two or three months were not enough to pace it. You knew nothing about the real story of P3 until the final three months where Ryouji comes out of nowhere. Also, Ikutsuki also came out of nowhere while the true culprit of P4 has tons of hints spread out for you to find.If you think one dungeon provides too much character development you’re really not used to RPG’s. Yes, P3’s characters were devloped at a slower pace but most of them were badly developed at best thru a couple of lines. Getting to know a character through their SLink is vastly superior. Tell me that Junpei or Akihiko have a tenth of Yousuke’s depth or how Rise’s SLink could have been done in the story or the like.
It’s one thing if you like the pacing of P3 better, that’s perfectly fine. I understand why. But P4’s pacing is smoother and more story focused with breaks between long periods of time to allow you to know the characters better. Even regarding time, while you could easily pour 80 hours into one playthrough of P3, P4 can be done in 50 hours or less. That speaks loads for the downtime you have in P3 that could have been used for more events while cutting back on the SLinks a bit like P4 does.
24 January, 2009 at 3:19 pm
I’m sorry but I had to strike a sentence from you comment. Please understand that while you are free to disagree with me and show your arguments, for which I thank you, you have no right to call judgement on anyone’s opinion.
And yes you are right I’m not used to playing RPG’s. Everyone that knows me is always criticizing my mindless taste for shooters. Right guys ?
Oh and I prefer Junpei over Yousuke any day. That’s the wonderful thing about having different opinions. Variety.
I don’t agree with your opinion that P4 pace is smoother but heck different people see different things. I don’t like how they force you to develop the social links (which are ultimately optional even if it’s dumb to ignore them) to get to know them better.
Regardless, it’s a wonderful game.
26 January, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Can’t wait to play P4 but will only play it when the pal version is released. I’m loving P3, probably the most unique RPG I’ve played so far