Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Players: One
Age Rating: Mature

Persona 4, in one word, is natural.

To gain reference, one needs to look back at Persona 3, Atlus' 2007 breakout hit. Persona 3, my first console RPG, did alot of things right. It was a densely packed game, stuffing so much game into so few locations. Instead of endless sprawl, it was focused, changing and using the locations themselves rather than making new locations the player would visit for five minutes before getting whisked off, again. This density gave Persona 3 a sense of tangibility, that the world didn't exist for you, just that you existed in the world.

This was pretty ironic, given that, with enough time, you could become the center of Persona 3's world. This juxtaposition is what makes Persona 3 work, even if it does make it come off as unnatural in a fairly natural world. The contrast in many aspects of the game is what made me latch on to its leg, anyways.

But that's Persona 3. This is about Persona 4!

Coming so soon after Persona 3, many people had concerns over Persona 4. Afraid it was going to be a cash-in, afraid it wasn't going to be loving crafted, afraid it was going to, frankly, suck.

Persona 4 is none of this. It isn't Persona 3, but I don't feel that's what the developers were going for. They were making a game with flow, that just continually moved, and by doing that, Persona 4 feels natural.

The story this time around is that when watching a television screen at midnight on a rainy night, you see your soulmate in the screen, dubbed the Midnight Channel. However, the protaganist and his group of friends realize a different correlation; people who go missing end up on the Midnight Channel, and when they're off the air, they're dead. A recent streak of murders in the town of Inaba have all followed the same pattern: people go missing for a few days, and then they end up strung up on antennas. Discovering that they can enter the television at will and explore the world of the Midnight Channel, they take the lead and try to figure out the mystery.

Where Persona 4 excels is in the handling of the story. Each person that gets that gets tossed into the TV world has their own personalized dungeon, based around the inner thoughts [spoiler]OK, not really the inner thoughts if you get the True Ending[/spoiler] of that person. Going through the dungeon, the end result is to help a person come to grips with the perception of who they are. The motif of Persona - "be true to your mind: - hasn't been so beaten into players head as brutally as it is here, and losing the subtly of former Persona games somewhat discourages the long talks around a smokey table about what certain elements mean, but the difference is in the delivery.

You see, you have to get through these dungeons by a certain date, otherwise the person in the TV gets murdered and you've failed your self imposed mission. The beauty of this is that is allows the player so much more control over the flow of the story. No longer do players have to push through days to get to the full moon; here, with leaving progression up to the player, Persona 4 maintains that flow I was talking about earlier. By letting the player experience the game at their own pace, there are practically no slow spots in the game. As a result, Persona 4 is much shorter than Persona 3 - both in actual playing time and in how long it feels.

Visually, Atlus has incorporated bright colours onto this Persona game. It's vibrant and alive, playful even. Some old demons from the previous SMT games come back as Personas - namely, Matador! - along with some older gameplay mechanics, discussed later. The dungeons, however, are wildly imaginative; representing the psyche of the kidnapped person, they range from stripclubs to 8-bit RPGs to, literally, Heaven. Twisted with Atlus' penchant for the weird, they easily define the look of Persona 4. Inaba itself is well realized, too, and it is home to some of the most tense and atmospheric moments of the game. Like all Atlus games, they aren't technical graphical stunners, but it works, and plays off the artstyle very well.

Aurally; it's Meguro, with a soundtrack that absolutely plays off the brighter visual style. Bouncy and similarly alive, it's a treat to the ears, although never as subtle as the music in SMT: Nocturne. Again, the dungeon music is top notch, with some tracks bound to become legendary. The "Heaven" track is among my favourites. It's a shame the full soundtrack wasn't included with the game, but the disc that is there has many of the great ones. The voice acting is top notch, and, like everything in Persona 4, natural.

The combat is improved relative to Persona 3, in the eyes of most. The game used a modification of the "Once More" system in Persona 3, itself a modification of the "Press Turn" system in SMT: Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga. A recap:

In Persona 3, like other PS2 SMT titles, if you hit an enemy's weakness, you get an extra turn for the character that just attacked. The difference in Persona 3, however, is that the enemy is in a "downed" state, and will waste the next turn getting up so they cal attack on the next turn. However, in Persona 3, you can continually hit an enemies weakness to get extra turns - there's no limit like the other SMT games. Once all the enemies are downed, you can hit with an unblockable, "All Out Attack" which does massive damage to the enemy.

Persona 4 brings the system a little more back in line with the other SMT games. Hitting an enemy's weakness will bring them to a downed state, like in Persona 3, but the difference is that on the enemies turn, getting up from the downed state doesn't waste the enemies turn. However, once they are down, you can attack them again to make them dizzy, which will cause them to lose a turn. In addition, you can only hit an enemies weakness twice - then your turn ends.

These are little nuances, changes that result in a slightly different pace than Persona 3. Because of the difference in downed states, you can no longer breeze through battles getting unscathed. You will get hit more often, and it makes Persona 4 a touch harder in that regard.

The major difference, however, is that now you have full control over all the members in your party; in Persona 3, your allies were regulated to AI control. Now, I had no problem with the AI control - as long as you managed your tactics effectively, they did what you wanted to. What was great about the AI control was that is allowed the player to see the character's personality; each character had a certain battle strategy, and it was interesting to see the differences in characters shine through. Persona 4 loses this; while you can revert to AI commands, it's almost a handicap and one you end up avoiding.

Despite this, Persona 4 still manages to keep that inherit flow in all SMT games; becoming the arm-chair commander, the wonderful clicks of going through the menus becomes a game of itself, keeping a rhythm, keeping the game going.

Much like Persona 3, there's a limit on how much of the dungeon you can explore per day; however it's handled much more naturally this time around. SP healing items are still difficult to come by, but the difference this time is that you will not heal SP by going back to the base of the dungeon. You can pay for healing, but this is expensive until you reach a certain point. Persona 3 handled this limit by giving your character a condition which was pretty arbitrary, as you couldn't see when a team member was going to get tired. Persona 4 ditches this and makes SP the sole factor. If a player can pay for the SP refill, they can keep going; otherwise, that ends your dungeon exploring for today. It's much more natural, less arbitrary.

This feeling, this natural feeling, is felt strongest with the characters. No longer archetypes, Persona 4 casts Real People dealing with Real Problems. Isolation, societal pressures, sexuality, it's all explored in Persona 4 with such grace, without the hammy fists of other RPGs. There isn't the "rich badass" and "dominatrix" of Persona 3; there are just people, in a natural world.

You cannot believe how perfect this feels. It's so expertly realized, with just the right amount of fiction to reality, that it feels there; that you connect with the characters to the point where, for me anyways, they feel alive. At the end of the game, the last scene nearly made me cry, not because it was sad, but because I was leaving my friends.

That is how natural Persona 4 feels.

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Ratings


Graphics: B+ just like Nocturne, technically, not the best, but the art design is amazing
Sound: A excellent and memorable, from the music to the voice acting.
Gameplay: A+ probably the best permutation of the Press Turn system yet.
Replayability: A- there are a few different endings, but you can easily cheat the system with multiple save files. But the world is so engrossing, you'd probably play through it again anyways.

OVERALL: A+ play it, just to experience how alive it feels.

Ah, sorry, I keep forgetting to reply to this until I get off the computer, at which point, I suddenly remember.

Anyway, you've certainly sold me on this. I'll be getting it once I beat P3. Very nice review.

How cares about the review. I get enough crap talk about persona through out the day that has me interested. I will probably barrow from my friend who has the game.