Finished Persona 4 the other day. I got the "true" ending after 118 hours. My main guy was level 83 with a roster of pretty much only max social link personas. I think I had Satan, Beelzebub, Scathach, Mada, Futsunushi, Hachiman, Ongyo-Ki. I had some other top personas but didn't feel like paying for them in the Compendium.
This is definitely one of the best RPGs ever.
STORY/ATMOSPHERE/VOICE ACTING (A): Best in class. It puts 99.99999% of games to shame, 100% of JRPGs to shame, and is even better than most of the best stories of this generation. As in Persona 3, it's not so much about the plot itself (though it's pretty awesome in its own right) but about the nearly perfect writing and localization. You get the sense that this was written by smart people. When playing, it's like you're dealing with actual people. There is so much opportunity for cliche, but it never feels cliched. Even after the obligatory "the girls have to put on swimsuits" section that every "realistic" Japanese game and anime must have.
It's all about trying to solve and prevent murders in a Japanese small town. As before, it's interesting to learn about Japanese culture without having it be exaggerated like crazy as in all other games. The murder plot itself is really good. It kept me guessing until the bitter end for sure. The pacing is a lot better than in Persona 3. The game was never slow at the beginning; it pretty much got into it right away. There was a slow period in the summer, but that was a much better time for it anyway -- all the social links mechanics have been opened up, so you have more to do in the down time.
The voiceovers are also some of the best in the business. I actually can't think of even one VA who wasn't pitch-perfect. Some people don't like Chie... but the VA is expressing her character perfectly. This isn't something I can say of even some of the much-vaunted games like Mass Effect 2 which usually have at least one ear-damaging wooden performance like Miranda's VA.
My only criticism which is purely personal is only in comparison to Persona 3. And that's the fact that this was a pretty light-hearted game by comparison. All the murders notwithstanding, Persona 3 was so brutal. People suddenly got shot dead, you were constantly climbing a dark tower with bleeding walls and no end in sight, and the final threat really seemed like the end of everything. Plus, let's not forget the characters shooting themselves in the head EVERY TURN in battle. That was rather edgy, as was the game's ending. This... wasn't. I actually don't get why this was rated M. There was no blood or gore or F words; there were some sexual references but nothing harder than what you see in prime time network TV.
On the other hand, the is-he-or-isn't-he-gay stuff with Kanji pushed the envelope. Though I never really did his social link, so I wonder what his deal is after all.
GAMEPLAY (A-): Like Persona 3, the gameplay here is half hanging out in the city and advancing your personal characteristics and relationships to friends, half killing shadows in another world. And of course, said relationships with friends/girlfriends bleed into the creation of Personas for the battle part of the game. I don't know of any other game like this, so even though it's very very similar to Persona 3, it's still awesome.
All the basics are back. The Social Link mini-game is as addictive as ever, though it's interesting that being a prick never brings any good results... for best results, you have to say what they want to hear. It's no Mass Effect that way. There are 5 personality stats which can be improved in a wide variety of ways, and weather contribtues to that, too. As for the battle system, it's the same and still excellent. None of the annoying hiding of information a-la Final Fantasy; everything is clean and clearly explained. Persona Fusion is like a more adult version of collecting Pokemon. It's pretty awesome to fuse a badass Persona like Tam-Lin or Satan, especially if you use the calendar-based fusion bonuses.
I am glad they did not change radically from P3. That game deserved to be copied at least once. The thing is, they've gotten rid of every annoying thing about P3 that I could think of. Seriously, every bad thing is gone. Direct control of teammates is here. Persona fusion is way way more predictable (P3's fusion felt like I needed three guides open at the higher levels before I could really get what I want); it's simpler without being simplistic. The dungeons are somewhat more varied. You discover enemy weaknesses by actually discovering them, instead of just a scan. You can zoom around the city with ease instead of ceaseless running around and pressing X. No quests have time limits. And you don't have to fucking talk to a character to change his/her equipment. It's all quite streamlined and helps playability so much.
There are definitely some changes. P3 got difficult kind of in the middle, whereas P4 is difficult almost at the start, until you realize exactly when the fog comes in. I was actually really fucked in the Kanji segment. I got a Fog Game Over, and my last save was only 2 days before. I had to cram like crazy and was barely able to get out of it. After that, though, I was vigilant and never had any trouble again. But the biggest change is that you have to choose between your social life and battling. It can be agonizing to choose, in a good way, especially since you can get boxed in if you're not careful. In Persona 3 it was either study or go fight -- an easy choice -- and you couldn't get tired on the last day, so you were never really screwed.
This would be damn near a perfect Persona game, but unfortunately it can't get rid of all the tedium. The dungeons are smaller than in Persona 3, but (a) they are still kind of boring and the same after the 1st floor, and (b) you are heavily encouraged to go through each one twice, instead of once. You have to have some grind in a JRPG, but this whole "go through dungeon twice" thing is pretty shameless game length extension. In general, the game was too long. A 60-hour game is great, 80 is fantastic, but 100+ is a little much unless it's spell-binding all the way.
GRAPHICS (C+): Even by PlayStation 2 standards, this is not a great-looking game. The hand-drawn anime characters are fantastic as always, and the "real world" and the characters in it look just fine. The problem is the dungeons and the enemies. Sure, some of the art direction is pretty cool -- the video game dungeon is pretty funny -- but it always wears thing so quickly. Then what you're left with is draw distance of 10 feet in front of you (it fits the story, but it still looks like ass) and endlessly recycled enemy models. Hell, most of the enemies are actually recycled from Persona 3, which is kind of lame. To top it off, some of the late-game boss locations are not nearly as epic looking as they should be. It seems like the Persona 3 graphics engine was reused without improvements, but the art style is less epic.
MUSIC (B): Overall good but disappointing in comparison to Persona 3. I guess it's the same thing as the story: it's less "hip" or edgy, or something like that. Actually it sort of makes sense, since the setting of the game is also less "hip" or edgy (small town vs. big city). It's competent, but other than the battle music (which was better in P3 also) nothing really sticks in the mind.
VALUE (A): Well, 120 hours. For a faster player, I can see this lasting 100 hours or 80 if you don't go through each dungeon twice and generally don't maintain a high level. You can't really ask for much more than that. New Game+ would be fun, too, if I weren't burnt out on the whole thing. I would definitely enjoy doing all the social links I missed maxing. (I maxed Ai, Yumi, Daisuke/Kou, Yukiko, Chie, Yosuke, nurse, Fox. Kanji and Naoto would be interesting for sure. Also curious how the damn Nanako and Dojima social links end up in the end. The game yanked them away from me at almost the last moment.)
OVERALL (A): It's a smart, complete game. It's very similar to Persona 3 but superior to it in many little ways in terms of gameplay. The story is a nearly total departure (despite structural similarity) and needs to be experienced. It's sad that this kind of JRPG is out of the mainstream. I mean the critics liked it a lot, obviously, but it seems like relatively lame FF clones like whatever Sakaguchi ever works on get more attention, even with their stereotypical writing and 20-year-old gameplay systems.
