Seeking the truth can be tough! (Persona 4 in review)

     What does it mean to really seek the truth of any given situation? There are so many subjective and objective truths about situations that it's really hard to tell the difference, and sometimes it can be a lot more trouble than you think. The truth is really worth it, of course, as the characters in Persona 4 found out. I need to get off my chest right away that I really liked this game and I highly recommend it to everyone, even though there were a few moments in this game that were really rough and hard to watch. One moment in particular I especially hated, but once I got through it, I ended up really liking the game as a whole. I've talked about Persona 5 before, and I'll go ahead and say on the record that I still like that one a lot better, but 4 is an extremely solid entry. Let the record show that when I completed the game, it was part of the new rerelease of Persona 4 Golden on PS4.  Now, let's begin this post and join the search for the truth. 

Welcome to Inaba!

    In this game, you play as a high schooler who has to move from his life in the city to the small town of Inaba when his parents have to leave for work. You move in with your uncle, who is a detective in the town, and his adorable daughter, Nanako. Everything looks to be normal as you begin your small town life, but after the first day, a mysterious murder occurs and a famous TV announcer is found dead on a foggy day right after a scandalous affair is announced. Not only is she dead, but she's displayed in a pretty obvious place in town, though I'll spare the details to not get too gross in this post. Two days later, the first girl, a high school student who was the first one to discover the body is murdered and displayed in the same way as the first victim. Long story short, (and without giving too many spoilers) the answer to this troubling case exists inside television. People are being kidnapped and put inside this world where they have to face off against another version of themselves which represents something that they don't like about themselves. If they don't accept that aspect, their "other self" will kill them, which is what happened with these two murders that kicked the story off. Pretty psychological stuff, don't you think? It's up to your protagonist character and his friends to go into the world and save whoever is put in danger. Once you and your partners have faced your other selves, you're able to use the power of your "Personas" to take on the shadows inside this other world. Even though your whole party is made up of high school students, you're the only ones who truly understand what is happening with the mysterious murders that have to do with the fog. It's hard to really describe what this game is like without giving away major plot points, but I think it should suffice to just talk about the intro here, what really shines in my opinion is the characters.

You get by with a little help from your friends!

    Your party in this game is a very eclectic group, to say the least. Throughout your game, you get acquainted with a girl who loves steak and kung fu movies, a boy who is the son of a successful store manager, a girl who works at her family's inn, and is expected to take care of the business one day, a thug with a secret soft side, a pop idol who's looking for a normal life, and a young detective looking to find themselves. Each one of these characters is really interesting in their own ways, and their social link conversations really flesh these characters out. Each one is able to be raised to rank 10, with different perks for each that benefit you in the "dungeon crawling" side of the game. This is the same sort of system that they kept for Persona 5, still based on tarot cards as well. I should mention that it isn't just your teammates, but many other people as well that you meet outside of school through different jobs and other after-school activities, which also help you in some way, as well as just make the game seem much more fleshed out. I could talk about the Social Link system all day, and I think more games could benefit from incorporating some elements into their games. 

    The gameplay in the other world is very different from Persona 5, which was my first exposure to the series as a whole. That game had completely laid out "Palaces" (which were dungeons), and then once you beat one, the Palace was destroyed and you would move on to the next one. The only way to encounter the enemies from that dungeon would be Mementos, a randomly generated map that you moved deeper and deeper through as you went through the game. Persona 4 has the same idea with the dungeons, but once you beat one, the dungeon remains there for you to run through whenever you want. The dungeons all pretty much act like Mementos, with random floor layouts, but they're each themed after whoever is in danger in that case. This is also cool since a lot of the victims are your party members going forward, which allows some elements of characters to be shown that wouldn't be normally present. The combat is tougher in this game, as is the start of battles. In Persona 5, you could be much more stealthy down the halls and get an "Ambush attack" (which just means that you sneak up and catch the enemy by surprise, giving you an extra turn before they can go) on an enemy much more easily. In this game, however, all of the pathways are basically halls, so there's not much to hide behind. There is still the possibility of an ambush attack, but it's much more difficult in this game than in its successor. The combat in this game is about the same as Persona 5, though there is no Nuclear or Psychic element here, and the baton pass feature, which allows another party member to swap in after a weakness has been exploited, is also not here. This means that the battles can be much more drawn out than in the later game, which did definitely get annoying in some regards, but it was nice to have the combat a little less complicated considering only four types of elemental moves (Fire, Ice, Wind, and Electric) as well as light and dark instead of the 6 (7 including gun) from Persona 5.

The year's end...

    This game was a tough one, but as always, getting through Persona games, and especially getting to the end is a very bittersweet point. The games are so long that you really feel as though you know a lot about each individual character by the time that the credits roll, and more than that, you want the best for them going forward. Without giving too much of a spoiler, this game did that, and did it really well. In the end of the game, after the trials and tribulations of the year, your character returns home to the city with all of his friends and adopted family wishing him off. I made sure to follow all of the steps to get the best ending, and the game sees your character returning to Inaba after some period of time, and you get to see what the characters are doing, and how things have changed for the better. It's a wonderful send-off for a great group of characters, somewhat akin to what Atlus did for the next game, Persona 5, which is followed by a direct sequel, Persona 5 Strikers. All of the characters in this game are fantastic in their own ways, and even though I found a few of them to be very similar in terms of their mannerisms towards the beginning, they're all given enough personality and differences to play as very different characters, with some even being completely different from how they first appear.

    I loved this game, and I would recommend this game to almost anyone, even though the gameplay is definitely less user-friendly than Persona 5. It should really say something to my friends that know I'm not great at RPGs, especially turn-based ones, that I've now written about three games in the Persona series. These are very long RPGs and yet I'm always happy to finish them because of the interesting stories that are provided. It's not often that I find a game that I can identify with on such a personal level with these characters, but here I did it pretty often. All of us have felt the emotions expressed in here in one way or another. Am I living up to the potential of what my family is expecting of me? Is this the right role for me to play in society? Is it okay to feel the way that I do about this subject matter? Who am I really?  There are so many questions like these that are examined in this game, and that's the core of the story. Finding the truth of each situation, whether objective or very subjective, is a deep premise, and one that Persona 4 tackles with grace and sincerity.

    Thank you so much for reading this post, friends! Persona 4 Golden was just rereleased about a month ago, and I'm so glad that I was finally able to play it. I have heard from a lot of people that it's their favorite game in the franchise, and while I think I still like Persona 5 better, I can absolutely see why it would be their favorite. Have you played this game or any game in the Persona series? There's some talk about Persona 6 potentially releasing soon, but I don't think it'll come anytime soon. I would be happy to be wrong, but I don't really see it happening. Either way, I hope you all have a great week and thanks again for all the support! I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed truth seeker, and I'll talk to you again soon.