Persona 4

[Yuri-G]

Coming out in a week. Who's gonna pick it up?

Official Persona 4 Website

Couple of videos:

Trailer - YouTube - Atlus USA Trailer: Persona 4

Opening - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko3EC5RvMIw

Some screenshots:

http://www.rpgfan.com/pics/persona4/ss-004.jpg
http://www.rpgfan.com/pics/persona4/ss-003.jpg
http://www.rpgfan.com/pics/persona4/ss-001.jpg
http://www.rpgfan.com/pics/persona4/ss-002.jpg

Screenshots shamelessly jacked from rpgfan.

Wiki info on Persona 4:

- Persona 4's gameplay and style stays similar to Persona 3's. Persona 4 has kept the social links and dungeon crawling gameplay and it appears to be running on the same engine as its predecessor. Features such as Community (Social Link in English localization,) One More and All-out Attack from Persona 3 return. The glasses, given by Kuma, play an important role in the game, and allow the party to see through the heavy mist inside Mayonaka TV and decrease stamina loss. Apparently Kuma, who is basically a shadow, does not need them. The pistol-like Evokers of Persona 3 are replaced by tarot cards, which the main characters shatter in order to summon their respective Persona. The battles also have some similarities, such as the one more system, all out attack, and the AI controlled support characters. However, characters can be set to take commands from the player, deviating from Persona 3's system.

- However, several major changes have been made. The player now has 5 stats in contrast to P3's 3 and lacks the health status, enabling players to explore dungeons continuously. Only now, the constraint is SP. HP and SP will not be restored when the player goes back to the dungeon entrance, but the player can choose to restore SP by talking to the fox (who will join the group after some time into the game).

- Battle-wise, P4 is more forgiving. This is partly due to a new tactic in battle enabling you to directly control the actions of the other party members. This time you can continually exploit an enemies weakness, as they will stay down instead of getting up after the second consecutive exploitation of their weakness. Battles now occur after school instead of at midnight like in P3. This gives the player less time in which to do social activities. Post battle card shuffles have been revamped with the addition of arcana chance (which can bring you good or bad status depending on the Arcana).

- Social Links now have a greater effect on battle. For example, for level 1, the player's allies occasionally protect the protagonist from a deathblow (If the HP of the protagonist becomes zero, the game will be over.) For level 3, if the protagonist successfully makes the shadow knocked down, the allies will occasionally offer to have a follow- up attack which can 100% knock down and paralyzes another shadow. For the maximum level, the persona of the corresponding ally will evolve into another persona. The biggest change is the status of the persona. Some persona retain or even lose weaknesses and can be immune to certain kind of magic attacks. All allies who have their corresponding Social Link levels maxed out have a chance to survive an otherwise fatal attack, leaving them with 1 HP.

To sum it up:
- You can control your characters directly now.
- 5 social stats instead of 1, but there are more ways to raise them, and some methods raise more than one stat.
- Social links have a much greater effect on battle, and you can build social links with your individual party members.
- Social links are easier to raise, although not to the point that you're likely to max them all in your first run-through.
- You now have the option of being friends or dating girls. If you choose not to date them, you can still max out their social link. The main character is still exclusively heterosexual. Oh well, maybe in Persona 5...
- New "Guard" ability in battles that nullifies your weakness.
- No more getting tired (fuck yes). But now, SP will not recharge automatically at the base of the dungeon (d'oh).

Basically, the game is Persona 3, but better. And yellow. And you use your tarot cards instead of guns to summon the personas. And there's no Junpei, unfortunately (but there is at least one returning character from Persona 3...)

[Elcura]

Fuck, another 80 hour game that I need to play. I have enough in my backlog already... definitely getting this though.

[Julian]

Already pre-ordered (Yes, I actually payed for this game, holy shit!)

Can't wait =)

[Yuri-G]

Already pre-ordered (Yes, I actually payed for this game, holy shit!)

Can't wait =)

Me too, I hope the pre-order bonus actually comes with the game (I used Gamestop, and half the time when you get there they're like "duhh what pre-order bonus? I don't know nothin' bout no pre-order bonus")

[zard1977]

Played the Japanese version. It was like Persona 3 with every aspect improved.

Best PS2 rpg of 2008 hands down.

[Exoduso]

http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/gamin...rsona-4-a.html

And how do you like it compared to P3? I mean, I just killed Kunji's shadow, but it seems like the story is very meh compared to the epic story in 3... then again it's still pretty early so i'm not quick to judge it.

[Kaylia]

3 was meh until pretty far, even if the character were likeable. Almost nothing happened in the first 6 months.

[Exoduso]

I guess... it's just that i'm starting to see the pattern here (person gets kidnapped, you save him/her, they get persona, join the team)... so they'll do that for what, 3-4 more months? Then what?
Guess i'll keep playing heh... I'm towards the end of May, just rescued Kanji and waiting on him to get better.

I did really like Strega's involvement in P3 though, so hopefully there's something like that here too.

[Julian]

I only have 4 characters so far and I already noticed that pattern >_>

Characters ARE gonna run out soon though

[Exoduso]

Exactly my point. I'm only a few in-game weeks ahead of you. from the coverart, it looks like there are 3 more characters (other than the first 4), so at the latest that'll be over and done with on August.
Now, assuming the game ends on March like P3, that's almost 50% of the game left. Hopefully that pattern stops once you get all your party members, it seems rather boring.
Once I know there's a character in the tv world, I go and rescue him within 2-3 days... and then the rest of the month is just boring as hell, other than climbing back up to the top floor again and killing the random shadow they put there at the top as an extra boss (first one wasn't that hard, I assume they will all be pretty decent + a shitton of HP)..

So far I like P3 better, but we'll see.

[Insanecyclone]

Necro I guess but here's a secret boss in persona 4
YouTube - P4 - Secret Boss ~ マーガレット "M&M vs Margaret Expert Solo" (P01/03) notice the persona you get for the fight...

[Jefe]

-.-

[Exoduso]

And you get this fight how exactly? Raising her SL to 10?

[Insanecyclone]

And you get this fight how exactly? Raising her SL to 10?

quoting from a gamefaq's guide

Found at: Heaven Paradise, on 2nd Playthrough, on the true ending |
|Route after clearing the Bonus Boss on Heaven Paradise.

[Kaylia]

About to start this game on normal mode, is there anything I'm going to miss out? Actually, is there any missable at all (beside the social link that are probably impossible to cap out on a first game)

[Jefe]

^Read this thread instead: http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/gamin...rsona-4-a.html Should answer most of your questions.

[MisterBob]

There's very few missable things aside from social links. Make sure to do the void quest and whatnot.

Also, Social Links are way easier to cap in this game. You have over a month of leftover time if you don't do them perfectly.

Also, if you've played Persona games before, I highly recommend switching it to Expert if you want the same experience.

[Exoduso]

Play expert either way, it's not as rough as P3FES's Hard mode..

[Kaylia]

I would rather be rapped by a giant dildo than play a Persona game on expert again. Unless I'm missing out on something (quest, more summon..etc), I don't see the point. Wasting 30min because you got sneak attacked, reloading to pick a better setup to kill a boss, grinding xp twice as much...I don't consider those thing to be really fun.

Guess I will try to beat the game without using a faqs if there is no missable, it's more fun this way (until you realized you missed a ton of stuff anyway <_<)

[Exoduso]

I would rather be rapped by a giant dildo than play a Persona game on expert again. Unless I'm missing out on something (quest, more summon..etc), I don't see the point. Wasting 30min because you got sneak attacked, reloading your game to pick a better setup to kill a boss, grinding xp twice as much...I don't consider those thing to be really fun.

Guess I will try to beat the game without using a faqs if there is no missable, it's more fun this way (until you realized you missed a ton of stuff <_<)

Expert is far more forgiving than P3FES's Hard mode was... and besides, you can control all your party members so the likelihood of you dying is extremely low (and you can just buy some escape items from the shop to ensure you always get out, they're 100% except for boss fights..)