Persona 4 Golden: Review

I am pleased to announce... that I have finally (after 3 years) finished persona 4!!!!!!!!!! Wow it's been a long time coming! I began the game back when I was 18. I'd just got my hands on a ps2 and obviously persona 4 was THE ONLY GAME I WANTED TO PLAY. But ps2's need a tv and I didn't have one of those. Limiting my play time to... well... whenever my parents were out. My parents who work from home. Playing during those times or having to play with your dad sitting in the room asking why you’re chasing black things is difficult but I made my way past the castle, through the bathhouse, to brave the strip club. I even got through the video game to the secret hide out... only to give up completely when I started university. (ahaha 1 hit KO’s). Last year I got a psvita and decided to retry on a portable console, which has been ten times easier. Although I started on normal mode it was taking me too long to repeat all of the dungeons I'd already beaten. So, after I finished my exams I switched to super easy and whizzed through the game. As you can see my playtime ended up at almost 40hrs. Considering my first ps2 playthrough is at 30 and my first vita is probably at around 20 this puts me up to just under 90 hrs which is uh... shameful. but Anyway I have no finished the game and would like to type up some thoughts!! 

So here is my review of sorts!

Story

A**** for story. I loved P4's story, all the horrors of a town dealing with murder with a fun scooby doo feel!! GO INVESTIGATION TEAM! If I hadn't been spoilt on who the killer was early on I don't think I would've guessed them! The aspects of school life were well balanced with dungeons I think which was good too (unlike p3 and never ending tartarus) the school trips added to the feeling of the characters being a group of FRIENDS too, not just people in the same dorm. I just wish the tarot cards had been explained, or why Yu never faced his own shadow? Apparently this is dealt with if you hit no to save a new game + but I didn't do that ;;

Side note: Persona's

I really enjoyed the mythical references of persona's names this time round Yukiko's being ameterasu, Yu's being Izanami! Calling Rise's persona Himiko was FANTASTIC NEVER FORGET QUEEN HIMIKO. Naoto's as Yamato Takeru was... um... questionable but I'm gonna let that slide (whats next genji?)

Characterisation 

I love persona 4. I love it so much more than Persona 3 and I think I know the big reason. The characters. Don’t get me wrong the characters in persona 3 are great but they don’t... seem like friends? at least not believable friends. They act like they HAVE to put up with each other. You got Yukari rolling her eyes at Stupei (actually you have everyone rolling their eyes at stupei) while Mitsuru tries to keep it together and Akihiko just eats meat. The protag just dates everyone and anyone while Ken cries and Aigis follows her around. They just didn’t seem like friends. I think persona 3 was too heavy for a strong friendship to form between these characters it went from bad to worse and I felt like there wasn’t enough character development when it came to interacting with one another.

But Persona 4 characterised perfectly! I'm usually not a fan of silent protagonists (unless they're Ludger) but I didn't mind being Yu Narukami if I got to spend every day with his amazing friends. I wasn't a big fan of them in the beginning, but I feel like their social links really helped me to understand them and gave them really great character arcs! I was really impressed by Yosuke's arc, for a game with such heavy themes (murder duh) Yosuke really portrayed that well. His whole arc was about his grieving process and I really appreciated that, he started off with a silly idolising crush and then learnt to accept it for what it was and not treat it as a bad thing and he made friends along the way it was great! Other social links I enjoyed were Yukiko's, Rise's and Kanji's. I think Nanako's could've been a tiny bit better, Chie's was pretty eeh and I didn't like Naoto at all. I feel like she joined the game too late for me to love her. Also that trope about girls needing to be boys is so overdone now. 

Golden add Ons

I wasn't very impressed with these at all. The TV thing was cool, it fit in with the theme of Persona 4 nicely but it really wasn't needed. Marie's social links made me cringe so bad I just stopped bothering. Okina city was nice (I enjoyed buying all those outfits too! I think I used the cheer set and the butler set most!! OH AND THE DRAG SET THAT WAS AMAZING). Hmm what else is there? going out in the evening was a nice way to gain extra social link points! It really added to that feeling of friendship

I play games for the story more often than not so I'm not really going to comment on the game play, it was functional and enjoyable so I have nothing more to say really. 

I really enjoyed persona 4 and I'm glad I've completed it. I cannot WAIT for persona 5. -bounces-