Persona 4 Golden was easily my most wanted game for my PlayStation Vita. Despite the game obviously having a much earlier release originally on the PlayStation 2, this game was my entry into the world of Persona as a whole. So did the game manage to draw me in as a newcomer to the series? Let’s see, shall we?
Story
The plot of Persona 4 Golden follows the story of a silent protagonist, who you can name as whatever your heart desires. Well, as long as it falls into the amount of letters you can put in on the naming screen. He moves from the hustle and bustle of the big city to the sleepy town of Inaba for a year to live with his uncle and cousin. However soon after he move there, the sleepy life that he was sure to have is shattered by a series of grisly murders. Oh, but it turns out that him and his friends are the only ones who can actually save people from becoming further victims and also stop the killer completely. You see, the killer throws people into television sets and when it gets foggy in the real world… well that’s when people turn up dead, hanging in weird poses from rooftops like Charles Manson’s application to the Tate Modern.
So the protagonist and his friends take it upon themselves to figure out who the killer is, before stopping him, all whilst trying to get through high school, part-time jobs and other issues. And trust me when I say it is most assuredly not an easy task trying to juggle all that.
The characters in this game really give it its heart. They all have some degree of issues, from gender issues to not knowing where they want to go with their lives or what they’re doing with it. As you spend more time with these other characters, you find out more about them and help them come to terms with these parts of themselves they dislike so much. It really makes the characters resonate with you more since you see them grow and develop into better people. You also get to have a girlfriend in the game to spend various holidays with, such as Christmas Eve and Valentine’s Day. And of course I romanced Rise, the idol character. If I can’t date an idol in real life, I’ll have my video game one instead.
Persona 4 Golden is not only a port of the PlayStation 2 release, but adds new things for you to explore, such as a new ending, the ability to start and build on new Social links with characters and some more dates to play the game through.
Gameplay
Persona 4 Golden is a JRPG at the heart of it all. The whole level up yourself, and your party, whilst equipping new and better gear is all there. You have two different settings to play in; the TV world and the real world. The different dungeons are all randomised as far as the layout is concerned, but the amount of floors you need to traverse to reach the top and the boss does stay the same. The randomised nature of the floor layout does add a bit of variety when you’re having to wander the same location, getting experience points or looking for things to give to people for quests (I’m glaring at that one girl who wanted crosses from all over the TV world from over here). However after a while it can get a bit grating when all you want to do is find the stairs and move on and instead you’re wandering around being chased down by a bunch of enemies and opening every door you can just trying to find the stairs.
In Persona you control a thing called a Persona (funny that), which can basically be summed up to being a part of your soul. Whilst your friends in-game can only have one persona, you have the ability to have the ability to have a whole plethora of different Personas to play with. Having this ability means that you can switch between different Personas during combat to deal with whatever comes your way. You got an enemy that’s weak to a certain element? You just switch to the Persona that uses that element. Need to go on the defensive? Maybe work more on buffing your party up? Just switch your Persona over and stop your party from getting decimated by that one boss. As you move on in the game, you’ll start combining and fusing Personas to learn better spells, attacks and stats.
As usual there are some monsters that have weaknesses to certain elements, such as darkness, wind, fire or physical, and as such also have resistances to others. Some also have no weaknesses, so it’s sometimes a lot of trial and error to find what works well on what. At least until you get an upgrade for Rise later on, but I digress.
A lot of Persona 4 Golden relies on you maintaining good time management. You have to work on getting your skills up by doing things like studying or working and making sure you keep up with friends and family. Getting a little bit too real there, Persona. Although it also relies on you making sure to save people from the TV in a timely manner before the rain stops and the fog sets in. If that happens, well I’m afraid it’s game over. Trying to juggle everything can get difficult, especially when you’re trying to save people whilst 3 of your friends come over to beg you to spend time with them.
By spending time with other characters in the game (outside of fighting in the TV world) you build what is known as a social link. Whilst these help build up the story of the side characters, they also help out a lot in various other ways in gameplay terms. Levelling up any social link provides you with more access to different Personas as well as giving experience boosts to new Personae that you fuse together. So while that’s all well and good, it’s when you start building your social links with party characters that it really becomes rewarding. You see, as their social links build, they can help you more in battle. They can block attacks that would deal a fatal blow, or negate certain effects enemies give you, like rage or when you get knocked down.
Sound
Now the music is interesting. It has a catchy beat with almost all of the different tracks in the soundtrack, some of which get stuck in my head for ages.
To my joy of joys, the game is voice acted. Now I love it when there’s voice acting in a game. Despite the game being set in Japan, the characters all talk in English without the option to change to the Japanese voice acting at all. And you know what? Even so, it’s actually really good voice acting. So I’m usually a form of elitist who prefers to have a game in its original language. But despite that, I have a hard time imagining the same characters with any voices other than the English ones.
Graphics
The game features a 3D world to run around in. For a game taken from a PlayStation 2 title, initially released in 2008 and then put on the smaller screen of the Vita, it looks really good. It runs smoothly too. The game also features fully animated cut scenes for certain events, which look like they were cut right out of an anime.
Each of the different dungeons you explore have a distinctly different feel and appearance to the previous ones; pertaining to the person who was trapped within it, their feelings and emotions. This makes each zone a new experience once you get there. There are some based on interesting locations such as Japanese style bath-houses, video game inspired worlds and even a place called Heaven, which I’m sure you can guess on its overall appearance.
Characters are rendered in 3-D, as is the world around you. However, when you enter into dialogue with notable characters you get a 2-D version of them pop up above the dialogue box. Characters you’re chatting to have different expressions based upon what is going on in the conversation, if they’re happy, they’ll look happy, if they’re sad they look sad. It’s a nice touch when I’ve seen and played games that don’t give quite as much effort.
Is it fun?
Persona 4 is a long game. While you are able to speed your way through the dungeons, some bosses will wipe the floor with you if you’re not levelled enough. I ended up spending around 65 hours getting through the entire story whilst also ensuring I was appropriately levelled. You can pick up Persona 4 Golden for around £20 in the UK at the time of writing.
Most games don’t leave me with what feels almost like a void after I’ve completed them. The only game that has ever left me sitting there for a few days, slowly watching the credits scroll along and wondering what to do with my life now, ignoring the shelves of games around me, was Mass Effect 3. Whilst it was to a lesser extent than that, I was still left wondering what I’m going to do now. The game does have a feature called new game plus which allows you to take your previously completed game and almost start afresh with some additional bonuses to your character. Despite this, the story still stays basically the same which leads to fast-forwarding through the conversation trying to get to some choice you hadn’t already picked the first time round, or maybe romancing one of the girls you didn’t the first time.
As a frequent RPG player, Persona 4 Golden hooked me in with its murder mystery plot, the fun and likeable characters, and the enjoyable variety of different gameplay elements. Persona 4 Golden adds to the world of Persona 4 on the PlayStation 2 whilst also turning out to be a pretty good jumping-off point for someone who’s not played a game from this universe before, as it was for me.
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