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I've never been that big of fan of high fantasy. Something about castles, dragons, wizards and acres of green grass just fails to excite me in any way. That's why I prefer my games to have a bit of technology, but not full-blown sci-fi. In fact, if you can set that nonsense in the everyday, turning the world I live in seven day a week into something fantastic, well, I'm on board. Unfortunately, you either end up with some nonsense about mercenaries or soldiers, shooting our latest fears, or some kind of dull resource management game. Or, you end up with something magical like Persona 4.
Persona 4 takes a lot from its predecessor title, Persona 3; the battle system, the social link system, the day-to-day high school living. What it adds is a lot of refining, a new story and general mythos change, and a broader style of play that offers far too much to do is a short time. In a word; progress. If you liked Persona 3, you'll love this. If you haven't tried it, get on board. P4 ranks as the best RPG to come out this year.
Go back to school after the jump
The set-up is you're a typical high school student from the city who has recently moved in with his uncle in the country because his parents are away on business. His uncle is the town lead detective, and shortly after you arrive, two women are found dead. At that very same time, you find that you're able to travel into a mysterious TV land, and met a weird teddie bear thing. You and your newfound friends put two and two together and wager that this weird place is causing the deaths, and so you put it upon yourself to save everyone who finds themselves in this horrible world.
Of course, it turns out that the TV world's enemies are bred out of the subconscious thoughts of people in the world, and those that find themselves in the world run into versions of themselves that are out to kill them. These villains can be brought under control to become personae, but only after their creators accept them. Naturally, they won't at first, so you usually have to fight them. The conflicting personality aspect adds a lot of tone and maturity to the game, even if some of the later shadow characters are...bizarre.
Your time in game will be split between two tasks, living in the real world and fighting in the TV world. In the real world, you have to take mid-terms, hang out with friends, take part-time jobs, participate in sports clubs, study, etc. As before, all these activities either net you cash, improve some statistics that are needed to initiate some social links, and of course develop said links. The more time you spend with a particular person or group, the more powerful certain personae become.
In addition, the social links of your teammates have an added benefit in combat, as they more they like you, the more they'll help you. They will leap into the way of an attack that would kill you, do a special attack after you knock someone down, etc. The first ability is especially helpful, as it prevents the unfortunate game over that Persona 3 had, even if not all the time.
The battle system also went through numerous tweaks, and listing all of them would be insufferably dull. In effect, it's better; it's less likely you'll be completely trashed by an unfortunate battle, and you can start at the highest floor you reached in a particular dungeon automatically, meaning you can quit whenever you like with a major consequence. There are also multiple areas to explore, instead of one large tower, all of which have a particular theme. It makes exploration a bit more interesting, and it's viable to return to old areas.
The characterization and voicework feel a little off at first, but eventually grow on you. The game's camera is a lot more active, instead of being as static as it was in Persona 3, and it takes a minute to get it to work for you in the dungeons. The artwork is your standard anime fare, but it still looks good most of the time. The music is excellent, an odd J-Pop-Rap that permeates throughout.
The game isn't perfect though. It takes an unnaturally long time to get to the main action, and the writing is a bit more boorish this time around. The main excursions into the television happen after school now, instead of in the middle of the night, so you often are conflicted with the option of saving somebody's life or hanging out with a friend. Also, if you explore during the day, you're too tired at night to do anything, so it often eats an entire day of activities. Also, the events are based upon the weather, which you can only get about a week in advance, so it's hard to tell when you'll be out of time.
But these shortcomings are minor; you still end up with a fantastic, gorgeous, addictive game. While most companies are infusing RPGs with real-time elements and upgrading to fancier consoles even when unprepared, Atlus continues to deliver a simple, deep, and intense original console experience, keeping what works, fixing the broken, and expanding on the concept. While it would be nice to see Atlus step up to the plate and try to create for a game for the PS3 or Xbox 360, if this is the quality of work they create on what many assume is a dead console, I'm not going to rush them.
Final Score: A
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