We Need To Talk About Persona 4: Golden It’s Amazing

Let me introduce you to Persona 4: Golden. A game series like no other. Where students live dual lives. A normal student during the day. And a warrior at night fighting to protect the little town from a mysterious force.

A Golden Setting

Persona 4: Golden takes place in a town called Inaba. You move there due to your parents being away for work. You stay with your Uncle, Ryotaro Dojima and niece, Nanako Dojima.

Events start to unfold with mysterious deaths. And a channel that seems to show the one you love if watched at midnight. It isn’t long until the main character gets drawn into the investigation along with his school friends. Eventually leading to him and his friends being sucked into a TV.

The TV world is where the traditional JRPG elements come into play. Inside the TV world, the main character awakens his Persona. Personas are battle avatars that give the user special abilities. Normally only one Persona can be awakened per person. However, the main character is unique in which he can use 12 at a time.

These Personas are used to battle shadows which are evil monsters that inhabit the TV world.

Time-Limit

In Persona 4: Golden, both the TV world and the real world are very interesting places to explore. During the day you live a normal student life. You pick up extra curricular activities, study and socialise. However each day you have a limited amount of time to do these activities. And going to the TV world takes up a whole afternoon and evening.

The main focus of Persona 4: Golden is to balance your student life with saving the world. You are given deadlines where you have to beat the next boss. Having to decide whether to train in the TV world or focus on other events is where the challenge lies.

Social-Link Activate!

So why bother with student life when you can just train in the TV? Social activities can make you stronger. Each Persona is assigned a type. By improving social links with a person or group you can boost the strength of one of the types. Meaning when you next combine Personas to make a Persona of that type they receive extra experience.

Personas are capped at the main characters level, but by using a social link bonus they can go above the cap. So it is very beneficial to focus on your social skills.

Trying to make time for everyone is a difficult task. Especially when each character/group has their own schedules that you need to take into account. But in my opinion this makes Persona 4: Golden very fun and interesting.

Less Grindy

Most JRPGs require you to grind to a certain level to beat the next section. But due to the social links and Persona combining. There is very little reason to grind. The only grindy aspect is that you have to progress through each area’s levels to get to the end.

I’ll be honest that sometimes I get immersed with some of the social links to the point that I actually want to skip the battles and solely focus on that one social link. Unfortunately that isn’t the optimal way of managing your time.

Time is Your Enemy

Towards the end of the game, the time limit and deadlines start to stack up. It can be frustrating when the game throws events at you which take up valuable time. Even if they move the plot along. 

I would recommend keeping multiple saves, one for each day. So that if you make a silly mistake with your time. You can go back and replay it more optimally. For some reason I really don’t like doing that.

The Atmosphere

The environments and the characters look straight out of an anime. Dialogue takes place with 2D characters and the background. Using this, the developers could provide facial expressions that would be too difficult to see on the small 3D character models. Since Persona 4 originated on the PlayStation 2 and Persona 4: Golden was released on PS Vita. The models are suited more to handheld than they are to a big screen. But it is enjoyable nonetheless.

The real stand out is the music. The soundtrack is well worth listening to. It has a lot of J-POP songs that play during general play. Which you can find yourself rocking to. It’s worth a listen even if you don’t play the game.

Final Thoughts

Persona 4: Golden is a must play. The time management, and the battles are brilliant. The characters are wacky and interesting. The art style is beautiful and the music is a masterpiece. It receives an easy 5/5

For more information on the differences between Golden and the Original click here

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