Hey, curious. Has anyone got a chance to spend some time with P4 game? What do you think?  I'm having fun, but I really miss P3's supporting characters. I hope we get to see a great cast in this game. I hear my beloved Chihiro makes an appearance, so looking forward to it.

I played it for six hours, got bored and returned it to Gamefly. The characters are great, the story is interesting, the random dungeons and endless grinding are a real drag. It's the same problem I had with Persona 3, where it would make a more entertaining book than a game. Not a fan of the social interaction aspect either.

i prefer P3 soundtrack over this one, especially if you include the P3 FES tracks. its like meguro had more time to work on it over P4. P4 isnt as invogorating as P3 was, and it lacks the wonderful battle-tracks of P3, like mid-boss and last battle. i finished P4 a while ago and could barely remember any of its music. heres hoping we'll get a nice arrange-cd sometimes soon.

Wow, another Chihiro fan! I'm actually playing P4 at the moment and just met Chihiro. The effect MC from P3 had on her is very well portrayed.

I can't pass any judgment before I complete the game, but so far I think P3 is superior in terms of overall atmosphere. That doesn't mean P4 is poor, P4 is actually more polished and streamlined, and it's not really worse in terms of story, it's just different than P3.

There is one thing that really irks me. Teddie. Seriously, Teddie is one of the most annoying video game characters ever.

Why you gotta hate? You don't like his puns? Or how he unabashedly hits on Yukiko?

Yup, it gets really tiresome. I agree with Yosuke on this matter, if you know what I mean.

Haven't played P4 yet, but with P3 I'd say there's not much more "grinding" than with any other great RPG (like FF6 for example). There's something about the random dungeon aspect that really makes people single out P3 as a "grinder" in a way that I think is very unfair, because they forget that in many other classics of the genre, grinding is just as omnipresent.

Also, if the characters are great and the story is is interesting, I'm surprised you returned the game. I mean, isn't those aspects what a RPG is supposed to deliver? And the Personas deliver in spades in these categories. You could say they "would make better books than games" about any story/character-heavy RPG, really. Its like returning a shoot-em-up or FPS because there's too much action in it, or something.

That's just crazy talk. Seriously, I agree that P3's battle themes were rawer and more intense, but in every other aspect P4's soundtrack is way superior, IMO. I have hundreds of hours of emotional attachment to P3 OST by gameplay and haven't even played P4 yet, but I still think P4's OST is much better. Just my opinion, though. But it seems that people often forget that besides the battle themes, there very much deadpan filler material on the P3 OST. Also, Meguro didn't have more time to work on it: it was released just a few months after his soundtrack for Kuzunoha Raidou in 2006. He had more time to work on P4's OST (and it shows, IMO).

I'm also hoping for a P4 arrange album, seeing how great the OST was. ...The inevitable question, though, is: how do you improve on something that perfect...? The sound quality and production was perfect to begin with, most major themes already seem to be fully developed tracks rather than just "BGM"... Maybe there's just no need for an arrange album here. It'd be interesting to have one in order to see what they'd come up with, though...

Is that the beachball dude? From what little I've seen of him and heard of his squeaky voice, I already f---ing hate him. I have the feeling that he's gonna annoy the hell out of me, too. >_<

But seriously guys, PLEASE stop derailing the thread like this. It usually doesn't bother me that much, but I started this thread to discuss Persona 4's soundtrack, not the game. Please respect the fact that there are people interested in the music who haven't played the game yet, and would rather not have the plot spoiled. OK...?

Idolores: if you wanna discuss the game, please start a new thread in the Gaming Forum about it. Sorry if I sound harsh here, but I'm greatly looking forward to playing P4, and I don't want the experience spoiled beforehand. The thread derailing and bumpings to include every minor thing that is even remotely connected to a game in the same thread have gotten quite bad around here lately (not saying that that's happened in this thread yet, but there's the possibility).

Actually, scratch that. Thinking about it, I've changed my mind, it is kind of interesting to see how a thread twists and turns as people start thinking about new stuff concerning the subject, and I don't really have a problem with it. Just let's try to avoid spoiling game stuff in the soundtrack thread, OK?

Also, I'm a hypocrite, since I was planning on doing a thread bump soon anyway. But as they say in Persona 2, the human heart has the power to reshape reality because it has the ability to contain and reconcile contradictions.

It's all about the pacing. In FF6, most of the fighting is done on route to your destination and for the most part, the grinding is limited (the floating continent excepted, of course). It's incorporated into the story. In P3 and P4, there's large chunks of the game where there's no fighting at all and you're just socializing. But when the dungeon opens up, the story grinds to a halt until your characters are strong enough to defeat the boss at the end. In both P3 and P4, I started out fascinated by them but once the dungeon opened up, I lost interest.

No. Story and character are important, certainly... but an RPG is supposed to be fun. P3 and P4 weren't fun for me and that's why I stopped playing them. Obviously, my opinion is in the minority and I'm glad that people are enjoying them. There's plenty of other games out there for me.

Agreeage wholeheartedly.

Thing about the P3 soundtrack is, you have a few lounge-style pieces with vocals, but not many; they give you a little something good, but still leave you wanting for more.

P4 soundtrack, you get a good hour-or-more of that lounge style, because Meguro did so many more town pieces for P4 than he did P3; I remember listening to a lot of the same pieces in P3, while it was more varied in P4.

Plus, the dungeon themes were more varied in P4 as well, as opposed to...what...six different versions of Tartarus in P3?!

P4 didn't have too many battle themes, but what few battle themes P4 had were excellent; "I'll Face Myself ~ Battle" is hands-down the one reason I got the soundtrack, but I ended up liking so much more of it, besides just the one piece I got it for.

P4's OST was a lot more immediately accessible for me than P3's OST was; P3, I had to play the game first to appreciate the OST, but P4 OST, I got BEFORE the game, I've practically got the whole thing analyzed and playlisted now!

About the pacing: that's actually up to you. I can't speak for P4 (as I haven't played it yet), but with P3, when the dungeons opened up, you could decide yourself which days you would explore them. There's no need to take the exploration in huge chunks: you can vary it and explore a little many days, or explore much a few times. If you thought the dungeons were tedious in bigger doses you should have opted for the first, and let the story progress while you're exploring a little each day. I remember having the same fear when I started playing P3, but the fact that the game leaves it up to you when you want to explore dungeons made it possible to get a balanced diet of exploration/fighting, social interaction, and story, that in my opinion never grew old. In P3 at least, it seems like things actually happened every other day or so, so the story "grinding to a halt" was never a problem for me. Face it Wanderer, the poor pacing was your own fault, not the games'.

Bah.

(I was always afraid of taking my time because I knew that if I ran out of days, it would be bad news. And honestly, I haven't really been in a JRPG mood lately so maybe the games simply suffered from that. I might rent P4 again if I get the motivation.)

i dunno. ive spend ~100 hours with P4 and was happy with the OST. but when it was over i stopped caring almost completely. its hard for me to start listening to P4 now, it just feels tiresome. its different with P3. i could listen to most of its tracks twice a week and be happy. if we talk P3 arrange and P3 FES its no contest. those two are favorites in recent years.
i think theres always room for improvement and meguro has the guts to expand his best P4-tracks for a better experience. but i heard he's directing the P1 PSP remake? just a rumor? give him time to do some new music instead

There's a thread about it in the Gaming Forum.