Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

[ertyu]

Comes out in a week! =D Anyone else getting it? I'm excited beyond belief. Must have clocked in 100+ hours on persona 3 so this is right up my alley.

Discuss!

[Zimbabwe Justice]

It's on my Christmas list. I've never played a SMT game before. Is it around $30 like P3FES?

[Exoduso]

I'm sooooooo excited.

About 6 months ago Kazen made me play P3:FES, played both the Journey and the Answer and completely fell in love with the game and the series alike.

Definitely picking this up.

[ertyu]

It's on my Christmas list. I've never played a SMT game before. Is it around $30 like P3FES?

Yes, 40 bucks. Go pick up FES if you haven't ever played one before, it was definitely a top contender for GOTY for RPG fans.

[Hitoshura]

Not really excited for this considering it really doesn't look too different from P3. Might try it out on Swap.

[Mayareira]

Yep, I am so RPG hungry at the moment.
And a huuuuuuge fan of Megaten. Nocturne had a punishing difficulty but yeah, still fun(except broken joypad parts, of course).

[Yuri-G]

I can see this is going to be a common occurrence with threads that are started within the RPG sub-board, since it already happened with the SMT: Imagine thread, but yeah, I already posted some stuff about this. I put up pictures, links to videos, and info too.

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

[ertyu]

Fack, I completely missed that thread D: I'm sorry, mods can lock this if they see fit.

But yeah, incase anyone didn't know, Johnny Yong Bosch is the voice actor for the main character!

[Exoduso]

Fack, I completely missed that thread D: I'm sorry, mods can lock this if they see fit.

But yeah, incase anyone didn't know, Johnny Yong Bosch is the voice actor for the main character!

As in, DMC4 Nero and .hack Kuhn Johnny Yong Bosch? That's just awesome... but I assumed the main char would be silent like he was in P3. >.>

[Elcura]

Main character might be silent, even in P3 the MC had some lines (like summoning persona etc).

[Yuri-G]

Fack, I completely missed that thread D: I'm sorry, mods can lock this if they see fit.

But yeah, incase anyone didn't know, Johnny Yong Bosch is the voice actor for the main character!

Meh it's fine, I'm thinking the RPG forum is just going to die since this type of thing seems to happen a lot. I'll just port my post over here.

[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 3, 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...)

[Jefe]

I always <3 P3 (never liked the others)., eventually I'll get this...

[Hitoshura]

How do you like Persona series at all and not like 2? 2 easily blows away these garbage entries. With that being said, unless a lot has drastically changed to my surprise, I won't be playing this.

[ertyu]

Errrr, 2 was good, yes.

But come on, P3 was awesome. P4 looks promising too.

[Yuri-G]

I wanted to like Persona 2 more than I did but the translation was awful. Some of the dialogue was so awkward it's like it was translated directly from Japanese to English without any kind of localization or editing for grammar and usage. I had issues with the battle system too - I give them credit for trying something different and interesting, but it could have been a lot more streamlined. Other than that, the game was fantastic - great story, intriguing atmosphere, and very interesting characters.

I did only get about 10 hours in before I just plain lost interest, and I will probably pick it up again someday, but due to the dialogue alone I prefer Persona 3: FES. That could change when I finally finish Persona 2, but unless the dialogue problems get fixed later in the game, I doubt it.

[Exoduso]

How do you like Persona series at all and not like 2? 2 easily blows away these garbage entries. With that being said, unless a lot has drastically changed to my surprise, I won't be playing this.

Why are you so anti P3? It was a very good game..

[Hitoshura]

Stand alone yes, it was a pretty good game. But compared to the rest of the Persona series it was a big disappointment to me. I dunno, they just changed so many things and to me it was for the worst.

[Exoduso]

Stand alone yes, it was a pretty good game. But compared to the rest of the Persona series it was a big disappointment to me. I dunno, they just changed so many things and to me it was for the worst.

I get that, but why not just play and enjoy it for what it is rather than comparing it to the other titles in the series?

Either way, I got to play P3 and FES by pure luck (thanks kazen lol) and I liked it alot.. excited to see what 4 will bring to the table.

[ertyu]

3 had the best atmosphere and everything about the game lended itself to that atmosphere. The music, the dialogue, little details, was probably my most fav game last year and I played the shit outta FES when that came out too. I'm hoping they release some kinda expansion for 4.... maybe? =X

Anyways, got my art book today, only 4 more days!