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Persona 4//Atlus - Review - PS2


Let's talk about Persona 4. It's a game that I've been anticipating with excitement since I first heard of its announcement, and that is a rare thing because any gamer that follows release announcements knows that anticipation is so often the kiss of death for fun. I'm happy to report that Persona 4 did not disappoint and that I have been playing it with a fervor that no Japanese RPG has left me with for quite some time.

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/salivate

I'm hoping my copy is on my doorstep when I get home in about 30 minutes. I'm supposed to help put up the Christmas Tree but I'm trying to figure out a way to play P4 instead.

Hooked up the PS2 for this.  Yay.  I got a free art book too at Gamestop, but it looks like they spilled something on it.  Smells like pesticides.

It's worth mentioning that this game has a LOT of content.  I've logged about 75 hours so far and there's still quite a lot to do.

Ok. I've played about 6-8 hours.

I like what they've done with most aspects of the game. I'm playing on pussy (beginner difficulty) my first time through and I'm glad I did as even rescuing my first person was a bitch after I slogged my way through the dungeon.

If I have any complaints it's that I'm not as fond of the NPCs as I was in P3. There is something...missing. It seemed like all of the NPCs in P3 had definable personality quirks that made them stand out. But I'm very, very early in so maybe things will improve in the characterization area.

They do.

Play this game for Teddie.

Play this game - For the Awesome! :awesome_for_real:

Teddie's about the only thing I don't like. I'm a little further in it. I went back about 10 days in gameplay to improve a stat that I wanted higher before one of the events or I'd be even further. The characters are definitely starting to grow on me more. Chie kind of reminds me of the Team Captain from P3 and she was one of my favorite "side romances". I like Yukiko too and am quite happy I just flat out asked for her cell phone number. *Yay courage!* I'm splitting my time between this game and LOTRO or I'd be further.

You don't know it yet, but you're playing the game for Teddie.

Well, my Teddie stuffed animal is propped next to the PS3 and stares at me the whole time I play. (Yeah, I'm the nerd who bought the Amazon "Social Link Expansion Pack".

Aaaaaaalmost done with this now.  Don't be alarmed, but I've logged 98 hours.

In the last 58ish hours you've played that game for 24?

How many socks did you fill?

We have a PS3 in the bathroom.

Of course you do, what was I thinking?

Curious - any chance someone has a wallpaper-sized version of the headline pic? :awesome_for_real:

Also...this game is just all-out superior to P3. Almost makes it look like amateur hour.

spoiler: But 3 or 4 endings? Really? Damnit Atlus! /spoiler

PS: for some reason, I don't have permission to use big-boy spoilers.

First bonus boss is HARD.  Well, not exactly hard, but it'll fucking one shot you when you get to half health unless you have a particular spell or have leveled quite a bit more than you'd need for the first regular boss.

Still, this game is amazing.  There's just so much to do.

stocking stuffer ahoy.  Thx for the write-up.

Wallpaper sized? Hmm...

Most of the bosses in this game are tough, and I played it on normal difficulty.  I found the second dungeon to be the hardest in the game, by the way.  After you learn the skill Cool Breeze (small HP/SP recovery after battle) and spam it to a few personas leveling up and grinding yen becomes much easier.

I'm glad to hear that. The second dungeon was kind of a bitch and I was wondering if they'd made the game that much harder. I'm probably a few days in-game from going into the third dungeon. The next victim has been introduced but I haven't seen her appearance on the midnight hour yet.

I need to go to gamefaqs and find myself a persona fusing guide I think. So far, I haven't managed to get myself any cool personae. Where do you get this Cool Breeze skill from?

He just boarded a plane. But I think he got it at random from a fusion forecast, the lucky bastard. We didn't start seeing it again until the level 45s-50s. Heh.

Hmmm...so in other words I need to start going by the velvet room every 2 days or so and checking the forecast?

Phil can be....obsessive about stat grinding.

Nope, it's a natural skill on one of the personas from the common arcana (strength, magician, etc) around level 40.  And I didn't start using a fusion guide until level 60 or so.

The first bonus boss is a bitch...I could kill him if he wouldn't randomly kill off 1-4 party members with Rampage.

Guess I'll grind u for an hour and try again.

I just killed him after the next boss.  When you're at around lvl 23 he hits for like 10 dmg on rampage.

That or you try to find a persona that's immune to physical and auto-attack.  I didn't go back to kill him until I was almost done with the second area.

After some tinkering, I just went back in with a Jack Frost and beat him in a war of attrition at lvl 16/17. Debuff his accuracy/evasion, buff yourselves when you can, and I just had my main + Chie just cast Bufu/Mabufu constantly, Yosuke just buffing when he could or healing, and Yuki healing or guarding.

In the end I got him low enough to try to just burn him down with anything....then Yosuke goes and crits for one of those pile-on attacks.

BTW, the prize for beating this guy is just disgusting if you are sub-20.

Yeah, you get great shit from the optional bosses.

Well, I'm alot further in now. Early September or so in the game. I'm using one of those max s-link guides mostly so I'll see most of the storylines in context.

Teddie...eh.I'm still not a fan even with his new "body". I like all the other characters and find some of the dialogue quite amusing.

My current pattern is doing the major dungeon stuff in one night with this pattern:

1) Get quest items
2) Clear out bonus boss from previous dungeon
3) Go kill current boss

I'm sure that's pretty much how you guys do it. I'm umm..40ish right now. I'm not sure if I'm in the sweet spot for levels or not. I'm going in to rescue the person that I believe is probably the last member of my team. I'm sort of stubbornly sticking with Yusoke, Yukiko and Chie as my fighting party.

I clear the dungeons that way as well...makes doing the re-run of dungeon 2 + initial run of dungeon 3 a huge bitch. So happy I did the dungeon 3 boss encounter in 1 go. (yay for upright Judgement chance card)

Also what sucks is that since there are no more minibosses with teleport points, I don't remind myself to back out and save....kind of nerve wracking when you're on floor 10 and crap feels like throwing mudo/hama at you.

If you use a Goho M to leave the dungeon, or have a persona with Traesto, you can immediately return to the highest floor you climbed to.  The only exception to this is that once you beat an area, when you come back to kill the optional boss you need to go throw the dungeon one more time.

Also, fuck that price-gouging Fox.

Yeah, I know, and it's a great feature...just one I forget to use.

And yeah, fuck that fox....28k to recharge my SP? pfffft

Actually, I use the fox alot. My current thing is to blow through the dungeon and when I get to the save point, heal up with the last of my SP, then use the fox to fill up and then go kick the bosses ass.

I'm in November now.

Once you've maxed his S-Link it becomes more manageable, but I always found myself with a shortage of yen and the fox was never worth it.  Plus, as I said before Cool Breeze is the shit.

Loving the shit out of this game.  :drill:

My grinding strategy has been to grab a persona with Invigorate 2, which heals 5sp for the main character every round in battle. I then use mostly physical attacks with the other 3, nuking and healing with the main as necessary. I first had the Invigorate on a crappy healer persona, but managed to fuse it onto a physical powerhouse so it's going much better now.

I've got over 300,000 yen right now. Cool Breeze rocks but only for me mc and only if I stick with the personae it's on and I tend to do a lot of going for weaknesses in battles. Also, my other characters tend to run out of SP about 3/4ths of the way through a dungeon.

I got an ending last night. I would tell you guys about it but I can't post spoilers here for some reason. Let's say I'm pretty sure it's a bad ending or at most a neutral ending and I skipped over about 6 months of gametime after what happened and so a lot of stuff went unresolved.

Getting the good ending is actually pretty tricky.

Hint: there is always something unresolved.

In this endings case literally everything was unresolved. The fool social link stayed at 9, Teddie left, I never found out why certain things started happening in November. About all I got was the satisfaction of killing a person who angered me.

(http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/39720/games/persona/IMG_2012.jpg)

There's tons of funny shit in this game. A recent one for me is Kanji threatening to beat up Yosuke for again implying he is gay.

This game is great.  Just finished it up tonight with the big long involved ending after the ending route.  Pretty much every issue I had with Persona 3 (which I still loved and picked up after reading a lot of positive shit on this board) was fixed or adjusted.  Not a big fan of Teddie though as a character and as a combatant. At least I could backseat him once Rise took over the support role.

I got many more links done without FAQing it up compared to 3 but just like last time I'm kinda wishing I followed a link guide because some of the ones I left at 5-6 could have been interesting.  Then again that ruins all the fun.  I'm tempted to give FES a go once I'm ready for this sort of game again.

FES is definitely worth it if only for the add-on epilogue storyline.

I finished this too and was quite happy. I felt like they wussed out with one particular character's fate. It felt very hollywood to me but eh...I'll let them get away with it.

I'm now back to replaying Final Fantasy X to see if I can actually be arsed to finish it this time and then I've got err...some kind of new PS2 RPG my daughter got me. Ar Tonelico or Atlier Iris. I literally can't remember which one. I think it's Atlier Iris 2 but I'm not 100% positive about that.

BTW, going back and playing a Final Fantasy after SMT? Rough. I keep chafing at how linear things are and how little I'm in charge of my interactions with NPCs.

Go play Nocturne, then.

It's like Persona, only with more completely awesome.

It's like Persona except 3 times as difficult and 3 times as repetitive. It's still completely awesome. And I'm pretty sure he's played it.

Not yet. My major SMT exposure comes through the Personas and Digital Devil Saga.

It's a brutal, mean, son of a whore that requires about 5 times more grinding than any other Atlus game. Megaten mainline titles are just mean.

Unfortunately as I get older I have less patience with grinding so that probably rules it out for me.

I played Nocturne first and it burnt me out very quickly.  That's not to say I wouldn't enjoy it now that I know the system and am prepared for it, but I didn't like it when it was released.

It's not that bad. Plus, the story is way better, and the press turn system is simply more interesting.
It doesn't require much grinding.
Maybe 4 levels for Matador, early in the game, and that's that. Lucifer is a pussy.

The Matador was a motherfucker...  I just wrapped up a play-through on Nocturne and did the first 3 labyrinth levels as soon as they unlocked.  It leveled me up enough to where most fights were easily winnable.  If you consider the labyrinth grinding then yeah i guess you have to do a lot.