Persona 4 Review (PS2)

Persona 4 (or Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 to give it‘s full name) is a spin off from the Shin Megami Tensei rpg series developed by Atlus Japan, which has been gaining in popularity with each instalment and as proof this entry in the series is being published by the rpg gods themselves Square-enix.

Set in a fictional town in the Japanese countryside named Inaba, the story follows a group of high school students who do battle with demons as they attempt to solve a serial murder case that revolves around the weather.

The basic game play is probably best described as demonic Pokemon meets a dating sim, each character has a Persona which they can summon to fight for them except for the main character (which you name) who can hold multiple Personae, this can be obtained manly as rewards from battle but also by becoming friends in the games dating sim like side quests known as social links, the dungeons are all randomly generated including layout, monster placement and treasure placement, while this ensures that it’s a new experience every time it also means not many unique feature can be added.

 In the game you will live a year of normal Japanese school life (well except for fighting demons) with classes to attend, friends to hang out with and after school clubs all of which has to be expertly balanced with solving the murders by going into the TV to battle the forces of evil (which can only be fought in the afternoon), however you are always free to decided what you want to do.

As the pic says ATTACK!

 The combat system is a very traditional turn based system, however it has many unique elements to it, such as rush mode, which if you exploit an enemies weakness will allow your whole party to jump on the enemy complete with cartoon dust clouds obscuring the fight, the social links see you conversing with your party members and other inhabitants of Inaba (including a fox!) and gradually becoming closer to them if you choose the right conversation options, complete these links allow you to fuse seriously strong persona’s  as well as bonuses in combat.

As well as levelling up you party, Persona, social links you will also have to level up stats on you character that are not used for combat such as Academics and understanding (among others), which will grant you access to new social links, which leads to new persona’s

The script is very well written, full of twist and turns while managing to be genuinely funny in places, characterisation is also excellent, your party has well fleshed out stories and personalities that can be explored in the games social links, with particular praise given by many to Kanji who on the surface seems to be a mean bully but is really struggling with his sexuality, which while occasionally made fun of by Yosuke (which is perfectly in character for him) is handled very well.

The graphics are impressive, are have a nice anime style, the only let down being the dungeons, which while each has a different theme representing the inner emotional problems of the next potential murder victim, reuse the same scenery for every room.

The music is also very good and included in the game is a soundtrack cd featuring all the main themes from the game, personally while Persona 4 has a great soundtrack I preferred the sound track from Persona 3 however this will come down to personal taste.

Overall if this is to be the Playstation 2’s last big game it couldn’t ask for a finer effort it manages the tricky art of knowing what worked and made the serious popular, while also pushing the concept forward and expanding to incorporate new ideas.