Daniel K Aug 15, 2009
Since the game has been out for eight months, I run the risk of being ignored with this post, but I thought I'd jot down some of my thoughts on Persona 4 anyway, as I just finished my second playthrough. Needless to say, there will be massive spoilers as to the game's story/plot below (an especially important point to make in this case, as the story is a murder mystery). I can just say up front that the game itself is incredible (it improves on P3 in every way, hands down the best RPG on the PS2 and probably the last big hit on that console), and I wholeheartedly recommend everyone to go experience this completely engrossing tale. If you haven't played and finished it yet, please stop reading here! Seriously... trust me.
Well, I think I can sum up my general opinion of Persona 4 by quoting Zorbfish from the OST thread:
As much as I like P3, both the game and its soundtrack, I have to admit P4 towers over it on all levels.
Indeed. The two games are very similar, but P4 improves upon it's predecessor in just about every way imaginable. The soundtrack is much, much better (although I won't elaborate on that further here, the music has a thread of it's own), as great as the cast and the plot was in P3, they're even better here, the flow of the school-year is better planned and utilized, etc. Possibly the biggest improvement alongside the music is the writing on the Social Link scenarios, which I found much more engaging and less forced than the ones in P3. They just felt more realistic and interesting, and the addition of part-time jobs was a natural evolution of the concept.
The thing that makes P4 shine even brighter is, in my opinion, that it to a significantly larger degree than P3 hearkened back to the earlier games and the ideas found in them, while mixing these elements with P3's addictive and innovative gameplay mechanics to form a synthesis of the best of both worlds. Much has already been said about the "risque" sexual elements in the plot and characterization. I don't really have much to say or add on the subject other than that I'm glad that this theme - which very much permeated P2 - is back in full force, as its very befitting the Persona series mature and hard-edged character and the teenage/high school setting (because high school kids are always horny, you know). Examining the main cast closely, we find that just like "real" young people, all of them have sexual fears, desires and insecurities that bear upon how they act and interact. This is mostly pulled off pretty well, which is an achievement in and of itself (in most JRPGs, the roles of "lovers" are usually reserved to two or a few more characters, usually the hero and his love interest, while the other characters are shooed away into an asexual corner to play out their assigned stereotypes).
What probably pleased me the most about the game storywise was the reappearance of the "Shadow Selves" from P2. This was an aspect that I sorely missed in P3 and which robbed that game of some of the psychological and philosophical impact it could have had. The shadow aspect is done very well in P4, and it really makes us get close to the characters and makes the implications of "searching for the truth" much more poignant than if it had just been the search of an external truth (like only solving the murder case).
Overall, I absolutely loved the story in this game. It was well-written, original and very captivating. The only complaint I have here - and in fact the only major complaint I have about the game at all - is a nerdy nitpick about the "True" ending (that is, the final ending where you fight Izanami on 3/20). It seems like in introducing a god as the ultimate antagonist, they've really stepped across a border in the Persona series. What I always loved about these games was that they were so sharp and abundant in philosophical and psychological insights - they were a thinking man's RPG. What formed the basis and framework for the stories was the focus on how our ideas, dreams, wishes, expectations, fears, etc. shape the world, and the complex interplay between the individual and the Collective Unconscious (an important element of the stories). This aspect is of course central to P4 as well, and its done very well, but whereas it always stayed at the internal struggle of the human heart in the earlier games, they brought in an outside force for the first time: Izanami, the mother goddess of Japanese mythology. Sure, the earlier games were saturated with mythological creatures and gods (practically every persona is taken from various mythologies), but it was always made clear that these were in fact representations or images/ideas created and summoned by humans, psychological shades of people's souls. Even the final evils like Nyarlathotep in P2 and Nyx in P3 were really just supreme manifestations of mankind's fear and self-loathing, a sort of personified manifestation of all our suicidal and self-destructive tendencies, our drive towards nothingness and destruction. P4 seems to radically depart from this as Izanami is clearly presented as being not a manifestation of anything in people's minds, but as the actual goddess from the Japanese creationist myth, standing apart from mankind and watching and "testing" us. I don't know about this, I know many people may think this is completely irrelevant, but it hit me as a very important point, as it seems to strongly change the emphasis and philosophy of the series (which I enjoy very much, if you couldn't already guess). I'm not freaking out over it yet, but I hope Persona 5 doesn't continue any further in this direction as it would very likely ultimately result in the series becoming another "epic god-slaying" JRPG deal (and yes, I know the main SMT series is very much into that mythological stuff in a more concrete sense, but Persona used to be an exception).
While we're at that subject, I wonder why they scrapped the whole Philemon/Nyarlathotep struggle from the first two games? Obviously they wanted to make a fresh start with the new system when they made P3, but I still think its a shame, since that dichotomy brought out so well what the series is all about. Since there were butterflies used as save points in P4, I kept thinking that Philemon would show up eventually (his symbol is a butterfly), but to my disappointment that wasn't so. Izanami and Ameno-Sagiri are, to put it mildly, poor and bland replacements.
Apart from the ending/last portion of the game, which I thought was fairly weak, the story was incredible. The whole "murder mystery" angle really made it fresh and original. Mirroring the great plot is the cast, which I found to be a definite step up from P3's (which itself was very good). Whereas there were some characters (even party members) that I just didn't like in P3, I liked all the main characters in P4. To my great surprise, I didn't find Teddie nearly as annoying as I expected I would. His voice was irritating and I hated the bear-suit, but he was sufficiently whacked and mildly demented for me to be able to stand him, at least. In regards to the cast, I think that especially the female main characters were much better developed and interesting than their counterparts in P3 (although they're neck-to-neck with the ones from P1 and P2). My party of choice was: Chie, Yukiko, and Kanji.
As for the pure gameplay-aspects, I don't have particularly much to comment on, everything was just touched up and sharpened from P3. The awesome battle-system got even better, the different, distinct dungeons were a huge improvement on the anonymous Tartarus tower, etc. One thing that surprised me is that I heard from many people beforehand that P4 was supposedly harder than P3, which I personally can't agree with at all. I thought battles were much easier in P4, I hardly even died. Whereas even minor enemies would often blast your ass with instant-death spells in P3, I think I only got hit with a Hama or Mudo about four or five times through all of P4 (and each time it missed), and whereas there were a few boss battles that really got me sweating and cursing in P3, I just completely cruised through them and handed out beat-downs in P4. Is it just me? What do you guys think of the difficulty? (Note: I played on "Normal" difficulty).
To conclude, any gripes I have with Persona 4 are minor and ultimately irrelevant. The game is a masterpiece and I enjoyed just about every second of it, even the less striking ones. Now I'm eagerly awaiting the P1 remake for PSP!
I can see how some people find it difficult, however. As you said, in the wrong circumstances, the enemies can really f--- you up, and quickly, too. But the trick is really no big deal: as you said, always keep on your toes. Pay attention to what attacks the enemies have (once Rise gets in your team, their spells show up if you analyze them, which is the first thing you should always do when you meet a new enemy). Also, personas are important. Don't just check out what skills they have: pay keen attention to their assigned strengths and weaknesses as well. A persona with many strengths and relatively few/none weaknesses will go a long way in keeping you alive. Common sense, really. 
