Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

Persona 3 was a new experience for JRPG gamers, introducing a new style of play that was radically different anything seen before it, in a world where everyone waits to copy the new Final Fantasy Atlus dared to ask themselves “What would WE find fun,” the result is Persona 4.

Persona 4 continues the style of Gameplay introduced in 3, though it is a lot more polished. Each day your character attends school, you can study to increase knowledge, read books to increase other traits, work to increase diligence, hang out with friends to increase social links or you can go dungeon crawling. There is a very apparent routine for the majority of the game, that is each event pops up within 2–5 weeks and must be finished within that time, you can finish it before the deadline and have the remainder of the time to spend on other stats or grinding if that is your thing. Social links are most useful as each Persona is attributed to an arcana, as is each social link. The higher your level in that social link the more XP your persona gains when you fuse it. To put this in context, throughout the game you will gain “Personae”, basically they are monsters which you use to fight (think pokemon), to get higher level persona you can fuse two or more together, this will carry moves over from your current persona.

Storywise, you need not have played Persona 3 to play Persona 4. There are references to the previous game though they do not have any effect on the overall plot. If you like murder mystery, detective stories, high school drama and scifi/fantasy you will love this, in my personal opinion it is the best story in any JRPG.

In conclusion, Persona 4 is a great game, if you do not buy it you are missing out on one of, if not the, best JRPG on the ps2 and perhaps ever. If I could give it 10 stars I would!

Persona 4 takes Persona 3 and goes two steps further. It imporves on all espeacts of the game. The battle system is much better now that you have the option to control all your Party Members. The Social Sinks also bring in more detail as they can impact on rather or not a Party Member will help you when you need it. The story can really suck you in with its Murder Mystery appouch. (It at times can give off a real Silent Hill feel to the game). The setting is a more rural town this time around, as to the big city in the thrid game. Characters are interesting and each have there own personality which can really bring out the feel of the situations which are going on.

The music is very J-Pop and not as much rap this time around. The game may not seem to have its Darker Tone at first but its there. Its also alittle more slow starting then Persona 3 in terms of explertaion, but theres plenty to suck you right fromt he start.

This Game had been called The Playstation 2 last stand in for RP. And if this is true its a great way to go out,

However this game won'tpe for everyone. though it is RP, there is alot of Sim type style play. None the less any RP fan needs to give this game a good chance. This game has plenty to do in it, and should keep everyonhappy until the end.

I am a huge fan of RPGs but this game takes the cake, as the saying goes. This game has all the traditional RPG elements that both veterans and newcomers have learned to love and also, exciting new features that make for excellent gameplay!

This game takes place in the the town of Inaba, where the protaganist (Silent, as in all of the Shin Megami Tensei games) moves to live with his uncle, a police officer, while his parents are working abroad. You hear a rumour about the mysterious Midnight Channel, The TV show that only plays on a rainy night at midnight. The rumour goes that the person shown is you soul mate.....

If only that were true, the game would last 10 mins!

The only things I found slightly annoying about the game is that it takes about a good 2 hours before you get into the fully controlled game. During these two hours you're either guided by cutscenes or dialogue that leads to a singular battle and the fact that the dating system seems to have been removed.

Dating was a feature in PS3 and was quite an ingenious addition to the sim aspect, but I have playing this game for 6 hours and have seen no head or tail of this system, apart from a singular textbox asking who is more my type.

In summation, this game is an amazing game to both veterans and newcomers to RPGs, having things to please both parties.

Story 8/10
Graphics 10/10 (best I've seen on PS2)
Gameplay 10000000/10 (Play it. You'll understand then!)
Soundtrack 7/10 (Traditional J-Pop but always gives the feel needed for whatever situation your in)

Like the Persona games before it, P4 is an excellent JRPG. It's kind of hard to know where to start in describing the game; but basically it's a RPG set in a Japanese high school. In the town you live in, people have been murdered, and there's rumours about a magical channel that appears on TV at midnight. To solve the mystery you need to delve into dungeons – combat follows a somewhat standard JRPG formula – that is, it's turn based and strategic, but it nonetheless has unique elements such as monster summoning – and create social links with your schoolmates and other NPCs. These social links are Persona's version of side-quests in a way. They don't DIRECTLY relate to the main storyline, but nonetheless create a deep sense of immersion. P4 is one of the few games where I actually felt a connection, and cared for the ingame characters. Moreover, they affect what monsters you can summon and fuse in combat.

The soundtrack is well polished. It has a strong J-Pop feel to it, which may sound bad to some people, but I urge you to give it a go, it does actually fit really well.

Overall, if you don't like RPGs, especially JRPGs this probably won't convert you. But, for everyone else, give it a go! It's definitely my top RPG of the last decade.

As a small caveat, for those of you using HDTVs it does have some pretty bad motion blur, due to the low framerate if your TV doesn't have a special mode for it. Lots of them do, but its worth checking first.

Yeah yeah another review telling you to buy it, but seriously if you have only a string of love for console rpg's you have no real excuse. This is as close to jrpg perfection as it gets. To truly love it you need to play through twice to completely find everything possible and it never gets old or too easy. My only complaint (like 3) is the lack of Japanese voice overs but that is a minor quibble considering the English voice overs do a solid job (for a change). This is in my pantheon of favourite games worth reserving a month or two of gaming holiday for.