Persona 4 article

Retr0gamer

Small but decent article on what makes Persona 4 unique and so good. To sum it up, it's awesome and if you haven't bought it or the prequel you are an idiot.

http://www.gamespite.net/toastywiki/index.php/Games/Persona4ThinkingSmall

There's a Shin Megami Tensei and a Suikoden article coming up as well soon in this gamespite quarterly.

seraphimvc

just finished persona4. have to say i am impressed maybe i will throw out a review soon. and yes, i have so much love for the game is because the true ending is so satisfiying!!! that said, if you get the bad end/normal end you are probably gonna feel depressed like i did =_=

play this game if you like jrpg, have alot of time to immerse yourself in a modern high schooler life story which involved developing many connections with many different people in a lively town(50% of this game is basically SLG/dating sim lol). solely from a rpg aspect, especially given if you enjoy jap anime/manga, this game is defo a top class jrpg, probably wont be appealing to most western players i suppose tho.

time to dig up my SMT III:Nocture to give it a play hah!

p/s: total 100hours game time @_@ man.....this is probably my new record in my 1st run of rpgs...

RedXIV

Question is, should I play the others before I play this one?

I really like the look of 4 but not so pushed on the others. I know, I know, I'm a graphics whore but can't help it!

Retr0gamer

You don't need to have played the other games in the series. Persona 1 and both Persona 2 games play very differently from Persona 3 and 4 and aren't really linked with only the odd reference. Persona 3 and 4 are very similar.

You are best to start off with Persona 3. It's very similar to Persona 4. Both Persona 3 and 4 are probably the best JRPGs made in the last decade and are amazing. Also don't see where you are getting the older Persona games are bad looking. Persona 1 and both Persona 2 games still look gorgeous with some excellent 2D art and Persona 3 looks as good as Persona 4 and runs on the same engine.

RedXIV

My bad, I just realised I was looking at a completely different game

Persona looks alot better than I thought

Retr0gamer

Whatever you do don't miss out on playing Persona 3 and 4.

seraphimvc

fyi i didnt play PE3 :P i heard that PE12 are kinda like 1 big series, PE3 has some links to PE12 and PE4 barely has any connection to PE123 (except the personas and the velvet room obviously). i purposely skip PE3 because i dont have a psp so i cant play PE3:FES which has a 30hours extra content from the original pe3.

i just realised that i have the digital saga devil 1 i remember it made me fall asleep....

Retr0gamer

You visit the Persona 3 school in P4. Also the PSP version of Persona 3 doesn't have the additional FES content. And to add to that the FES content isn't worth playing. It's far too difficult and ends up frustrating rather than harsh but fair like P3 vanilla.

seraphimvc

i got them mixed up lol what i had in mind was if i wanna play p3 then i better off get the psp version(P3P) since it is like an updated version, the friend told me last time. and i think ps2 vanilla p3 is harder to get than p3:fes atm

Retr0gamer

You're better off with FES then since it's an update of the original game with the FES 30 hour game on top of it.

megaten

Had P4 for over a year but I'm only about 20 hours in.
Any word on a euro release for P3P? I'm trying to use my limited funds to only support companies that actually do a euro release.

Retr0gamer

Atlus released it on PSN but didn't give it a boxed release. Atlus have no European distribution network so can't release games. It's not their fault but the fault off all the other publishers passing it up for release.

megaten

Ah well, I thought I heard ghostlight was gonna pick it up.

Retr0gamer

They might still, it took nearly a year for them to publish the megaten games here.

noodler

Word of caution that they are slogs.

You will spend as much time pointlessly running about on (rarely interesting) social distractions and watching the loading screens of the dates and times going by. Whole thing could do with some editing in my opinion - both P3 and P4 could be 20 hours shorter if some really stupid nits were taken out and or streamlined.

The music and battle system is excellent though.

GothPunk

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Atlus released it on PSN but didn't give it a boxed release. Atlus have no European distribution network so can't release games. It's not their fault but the fault off all the other publishers passing it up for release.

Sorry to be a smartarse Retr0 but Atlus USA have released games on the EU PSN now, it's how I got Persona PSP.

noodler wrote: »

Word of caution that they are slogs.

You will spend as much time pointlessly running about on (rarely interesting) social distractions and watching the loading screens of the dates and times going by. Whole thing could do with some editing in my opinion - both P3 and P4 could be 20 hours shorter if some really stupid nits were taken out and or streamlined.

The music and battle system is excellent though.

Sounds like you would have enjoyed Persona 3 Portable more than the original version, as it has been streamlined a lot. Not that I have anything against the original version, I guess where some people see tedium others may find solace or humour.

noodler

Some of the "social" interactions were just pointless grinding.

I mean, lets say sports training after school, every now and again there would be a subplot to further with your sports buddy but most of the time you would just be going through a pain in the hole "you decided to go sports training - everyone enjoyed putting in 100% effort - have a piece of pie for your efforts".

Actually, thats something I would love to change:

Sometimes you would decide to go sports training to further tat particular subplot and NOTHING would happen (and hence no progress would be made on that social link). When that happened it seemed like a waste of an afternoon - if the game has something more than a red exclamation mark over the subplot characters' heads (something like "this subplot is ready to be furthered") then it would have made the game more enjoyable for me.

Retr0gamer

GothPunk wrote: »

Sorry to be a smartarse Retr0 but Atlus USA have released games on the EU PSN now, it's how I got Persona PSP.

I know that. They've no distribution network to bring out boxed games.

noodler wrote: »

Some of the "social" interactions were just pointless grinding.

I mean, lets say sports training after school, every now and again there would be a subplot to further with your sports buddy but most of the time you would just be going through a pain in the hole "you decided to go sports training - everyone enjoyed putting in 100% effort - have a piece of pie for your efforts".

Actually, thats something I would love to change:

Sometimes you would decide to go sports training to further tat particular subplot and NOTHING would happen (and hence no progress would be made on that social link). When that happened it seemed like a waste of an afternoon - if the game has something more than a red exclamation mark over the subplot characters' heads (something like "this subplot is ready to be furthered") then it would have made the game more enjoyable for me.

I actually really loved all the social aspect to the game. Loved the sub plots and some were very moving. You do know that you level up social links quicker if you have a persona of the same type as the social link in your possession. No progress is made on the social link because the higher levels take longer to level up. It's not like nothing is happening it's just you haven't put enough time into the social link to level it to the next level. You just have to accept the fact that you aren't going to complete all social links and concentrate on the ones you like. I probably enjoyed the social stuff more than the dungeon crawling.

megaten

I actally prefered the social link aspect of the games far more than the dungeon crawling, apart from the fantastic battle music.

seraphimvc

i did mention that if you enjoy a SLG(simulation game) then p4 is such a nice fusion. the most famous slg atm would be Love plus :P

tbh everyone should play the social links in p4 as they choose/naturally, that way you will feel more about the (true) ending.