Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (PS2) Review

Posted by Derek Robbins on 01.04.2009

With the PS2 on its last legs, can Persona 4 deliver the life support that it so desperately needs? 411's Derek Robbins gives us the scoop on what could be the Playstation 2's last definitive RPG.



The Playstation 2 is a console that, by all definitions, is dead. When you think of all the “must-have” content in the gaming world, everything is on a current-generation console. We have moved on. It is interesting then that Atlus had decided to release the fourth iteration of the Persona franchise on the Playstation 2. The last one and its nice little addition pack FES are considered to be among the best RPGs on the system, could Persona 4 possibly join the ranks?

Gameplay

There is something I should point out before I go any further with this review. If you don’t like Japanese Role Playing games and if you didn’t like Persona 3, this title will do absolutely nothing to change your mind. It plays a lot like Persona 3 and it’s so deep and un-friendly to people un-familiar with the genre that I can safely say that if you’re a new gamer, this game is not for you. In other words, this is not a game you should buy for your kid brother.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s really talk about the gameplay. The persona/battle system featured in Persona 3 has returned with a few improvements. You still have the ability to fuse personas in this game to create new and stronger ones. Personas, if you aren’t aware, are essentially what you do battle with. Without the use of your persona your character would be unable to cast magic or use a number of abilities. So the persona you use reflects what kind of attack your main character can use. You are given one persona at the beginning of the game and through random encounters you gain more cards (by means of a little game at the end where you pick one out). As mentioned, you fuse those persona and make more powerful ones to get you through the game. These new persona can only be used by your main character though. Every other party member has a set persona. The game’s reasoning for this is that, essentially, you’re special and don’t have a ton of inner strife. It takes a while to get used to, but once you understand the basics, persona creation isn’t anything too difficult.

For those of you who played through P3, you will remember that in order to fuse the strongest personas in the game, you needed to work on social links. That is to say, you had to build relationships up with other people. That’s returned in this game, but it’s also been changed a bit. In P3, unless they were a female party member, your social links were primarily established through outside sources. While there is still some of that in this game, for the most part your social links will go through your party. Every single person who fights for you has a social link attached to them, and you have benefits for leveling that person up. For instance, let’s say you level Yosuke’s social link up. As he increases in level, there will be more things he can do in combat. These range from preventing the main character from receiving a fatal blow to being able to survive a physical blow of his own. For all combat characters, increasing the social link will have a familiar effect. This of course goes with the original idea that leveling up social links allowed for the creation of ultimate persona. Combine this with even more social stats (five in this game as opposed to P3’s three) and you have yourself one complicated yet very rewarding system.



Of course, the only thing I’ve mentioned in regard to combat is the actual persona. After all, outside of combat those things don’t serve much of a purpose – well unless you’re Rise. In Persona 3, you may remember that you only had direct control over the main character and could issue generic orders out to your subordinates. Usually it wasn’t a big deal, your party would know when not to act like morons in certain situations. The thing is, it’s always preferred to have your own means of control. In P4, you can still do that if you wish, but now you also have the ability to control your entire party. It’s certainly more traditional, but to be honest I like it more. I no longer need to worry about a character attacking an enemy they shouldn’t. Any time someone dies, it is my fault and my fault alone. The combat may be too traditional for some JRPG fans, but it pretty much works here. For me at least.

In this game you do most of your fighting in a TV world, but unlike in Persona 3 there is not one continual dungeon. In P4, there are several different dungeons based on the characters you are intending to rescue. I don’t really wish to spoil anything, so I’ll choose something out right from the beginning of the game. Yukiko Amagi is a shy girl who doesn’t really let her feelings out. When she is thrown into the TV world, her other self emerges. It seems that she wants to have a “handsome knight” take her away. She’s tired of being this pure being and wants something more. The TV world reflects the prisoner’s inner-most desires, so the dungeons in that game reflect that. Yukiko’s dungeon is a castle, based on the aforementioned knight idea. So every dungeon in the game reflects how another character truly feels. I vastly prefer this to P3’s dungeons because it actually feels like there is some personality involved.

My only true problem with the game is that, at times, it can be un-even. Don’t get me wrong, I feel like I *NEED* the time to establish social links and boost my non-combat stats, but there was a point in the game where it felt like for two months my characters did nothing. I can see how that would get on some people’s nerves, so I have to point it out. Now, it’s not as big of a problem in P4 because the characters are so well written and relatable, but this could have been an issue in any other game.

I also don’t like that Elizabeth’s request system had been replaced with Margaret’s social link based one. It’s cool that I can get a new social link for fusing persona, but there are only ten total requests. While the “quest” (you do things for npcs, usually un-related to the story) system is supposed to help make up for it, I found myself less interested in that than in P3. This is only a small gripe and I don’t figure it would bug a lot of people. I just liked all of my quests being in one simple spot and not feeling like I needed to complete them in order to rank myself up.

In short, if you combine pokemon, a dating sim, and an older-school JRPG you’ll get a concoction that looks kind of like P4. It’s probably less charming, but those are the basic ingredients.



Sound
Persona 4 has a very impressive soundtrack. I would even say that it’s one of the best of this entire year. You’ve probably heard it, too! Just like with Persona 3, they so nicely tossed the entire thing onto a disk for ya. It can be very J-poppy at times and the battle theme gets a bit repetitive at times – as it does in every JRPG. Plus the battle song in this game is WAY better than BABY BABY BABY – but it’s a very good package. It would not be the same without the very Japanese feeling to the game, so in the end I really appreciate it. If you are totally xenophobic though and hate anything from outside your own language, this won’t be for you though. Of course, if that’s the case…I’m not sure why you would even buy this game.

Now, that’s only one-half of Persona 4’s sound. The other half would be the voice work. I am pleased to admit that the entire cast is voice acted well. Even Teddy, who could have been absolutely butchered and given an annoying, annoying voice, comes out well. Some people complain about Chie and Yukiko’s voice, but in my opinion they had very strong performances. Like with P3, I really don’t see myself preferring the Japanese cast. The English cast does a phenomenal job. All of the Japanese terms are pronounced as they should be, so…there really can’t be any complaints. If I had to choose one voice who stands out it is once again Yuri Lowenthal who does an astounding job as Yosuke. It’s a bit sad when I can pick out a voice without seeing the actor credit, but with every job Lowenthal does he executes so amazingly it’s hard not to pick him out. It’s interesting, because I felt Junpei from P3 had the best vocal work in that game…and the rough equivalent of him in this game is Yosuke. I guess Atlus just loves its best friend characters.



Graphics
P4 is on a last-generation system, so you’re most definitely getting a less than picture perfect bag. Really, it’s not even the best of what the PS2 has to offer. While the style looks better than P3, it’s hardly a beautiful looking game. It doesn’t really NEED to be a good looking game, but that’s what this section is all about and to be totally honest, it just doesn’t look that great.

The anime cutscenes look nice enough, but you only see those every so often…so they don’t really factor into my score. I do love that P4 sticks with the anime style cutscenes as opposed to throwing CG at us. It feels true to the series, and I really like that. P4 is all about style and those scenes really come across as stylish.

Still, the graphics are nothing special.



Story
This should be the strong point of any JRPG. I know, I know, a lot of you play games just to have fun, but for whatever reason in the JRPG the fun tends to take a back-seat to the plot. When we play these games, we want a story…and P4 delivers absolutely sensationally here. The plot is one that will keep you interested all the way throughout due to the sensational writing and the lovable characters. It starts out simply enough, but here’s the deal: a lot of the time in a game with a lot of story, you can sum up that story really quickly. It’s just there to fill space. P4 isn’t like that. The characters are fleshed out enough and enough things happen where a summary won’t really cut it. At the end of the game, you’ll feel accomplished. That’s great.

That’s perhaps my favorite point about P4’s story. A lot of games heavy on story, such as personal favorite of mine the Metal gear franchise, have pretty poor writing. Yes, exciting things happen, but what happens isn’t necessarily written well. That’s not what P4 is though. The story, the characters, the themes…all of this is written so captivatingly that you could be legitimately convinced that the game was based on a book of some sort. I’m not saying it’s an award-winning piece of literature, but for a video game it doesn’t get much better than this. What’s amazing is that it’s about equal to what P3 did in terms of story. In two years, Atlus has released TWO games with stories this good. That’s quite an accomplishment.

Needless to say, if you’re playing this game just for the story you won’t be disappointed.



Lasting Appeal
This game will take you about 70 or so hours to complete. There are many little quests for your character to complete and there are several persona combinations to complete. It’s also almost impossible for you to complete all of your social links on the first play through of the game. So if you want to do everything, the game’s got a new game plus that can help you with that. Less is carried over from Persona 3 though. Like you can keep all of your money, persona compendium stuff, stats, and social link status…but you lose out on all of your items, weapons, shadow analysis, and levels. So if you play through again, you have to make a similar dedication to the craft.

If you’re hardcore into the game, that’s really no problem. Playing through the game is fun enough as is, but for most people…this isn’t one that you’ll be going back to right away. The story is probably compelling enough to justify re-visiting it in the summer, but I can’t say that you’ll be playing it long after you beat it unless you’re a completionist. Still though, the game is like SEVENTY HOURS long. I’m pretty sure you’ll get enough of the game. You don’t even get seventy hours out of some multiplayer games. So, don’t worry, you’ll get plenty out of this package.

The 411

Persona 4 is most likely the Playstation 2’s last great game. While I said the same thing last year in regards to the third persona title, I really don’t think that another great one will be coming out in the year 2009. The system has run the gauntlet and it’s about time to put this puppy to bed. With games like P4 around, it’s no wonder why the system lasted so long. It just goes to show that graphics aren’t needed to make a great game. If you offer enough content, if you put enough work into it…you CAN make a great title and Persona 4 is a shining example of that.

I’m not sure that it’s the PS2’s greatest RPG, but off the top of my head, I can say for sure that it’s in the top-5. It’s better than any Final Fantasy on the console and most likely the only RPG I can think of that is immediately ahead of it would be ANOTHER Atlus title, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. When you’re second to that game though, you know that you’re doing a damn good job.

Thank you Atlus for allowing me to appreciate the Playstation 2 one final time. P4 will be one of my favorite games for a long time to come. The characters are wonderful, the story is wonderful, and the experience as a whole is wonderful. Great job.

Graphics	7.0	It's not really the best looking game in the world, but you need to remember that this IS the Playstation 2. The graphics are serviceable, but they won't blow you away.
Gameplay	9.5	A fun experience that melds traditional Japanese role-playing games, Pokemon, and dating sims. A very satisfying mix if you ask me.
Sound	9.5	Great voice acting combined with great music is a great experience. Battle music can be repetitive, but that's more of a problem with the genre than with this game.
Lasting Appeal	8.0	You won't play it again soon after you beat it unless you want to collect everything, but the game's massive length makes up for it.
Fun Factor	9.7	Addictive game that kept me coming back for more. A lot of people may be turned off by the JRPG play-style, but it just kept me coming back for more.
Overall	9.6   [  Amazing ]