100%PlayStation 2

This game made my a nerd, a love it...

90%PlayStation 2

The Persona series, along with its parent series Shin Megami Tensei, have generally been consistent with their themes throughout the years. The collective unconscious, the masks that people wear to conceal their true selves, and references to ancient Greek and Japanese mythology are all motifs that are usually present in SMT and Persona games. This has led to a consistently murky tone throughout the series, in the undertones when not overtly. While the darkest game in the series is up for debate, there's no debating which is the brightest: Persona 4. Released just 2 years after the decidedly grim Persona 3, and on the same engine, P4 delivers an overall joyful and optimistic tone that helped it stand out not only from its predecessor but from previous Persona and SMT games as well. This may seem counterintuitive, as the focus of the story is on finding a murder suspect who kills two people within hours of the game's beginning. Yet it's the moment-to-moment dialogue, the soundtrack, even the color palette (the yellow theme provides an overall sunny disposition) that makes Persona 4 not only a joyful experience, but a joy to experience.

One of the most interesting and unique things about Persona 4 is its sense of scale—or, rather, lack thereof. JRPGs often take place in an industrious, highly populated city or a massive, sprawling world, but Persona 4 gains a lot of its charm from its distinct setting. The "small town in the middle of nowhere" vibe of Inaba is uniquely P4's; no other game in the series feels anything quite like it. It's the setting that allows for a much deeper connection with the characters, because it feels like it could be a real place. Many players are likely to experience nostalgia, even during their first playthrough, while playing P4, and that's because it nails that local hometown vibe so perfectly. It's not a larger-than-life adventure; it's a slice-of-life with a hint of mystery. The game feels much more comfortable with allowing day-to-day moments to take priority, and it makes the dark moments and twists that much more impactful. It's the only Persona game where the dungeon-crawling feels like more of a distraction than the main focus, and that's because the story progression and the characters are so excellent.

It's also because the dungeon-crawling aspect is the least enjoyable part of the game. While there were some much appreciated changes to the combat system from its predecessor, namely being able to control every character, the dungeons feel flatter and more repetitive. The combat is mostly enjoyable since there isn't much grinding required. Boss battles are generally good, if more for the character development they bring than the combat mechanics. But since all the dungeons have the same randomly generated floor layout, they lack their own personalities. Fortunately, this is the only aspect of Persona 4 that is anything less than sublime, which is why you feel constantly engaged, even when going through some of the more repetitive motions. The development of the overarching story is drip-fed, but the narrative is constantly advancing with smaller, more personal details. It's these reasons why so many of P4's characters are the best in the series; you're constantly seeing them grow and develop. This works because of a talented voice cast, and while some of the dialogue can be rather anime-y for some, it generally serves its purpose well. The central theme of P4 is the acknowledgement of one's own flaws and overcoming them, so it's no coincidence that the game contains such a dynamic cast. And because their growth happens alongside the story, instead of in spite of it, the connection feels organic. Even the game's handling of some social issues is impressive, particularly for the time, and its humanity breeds empathy. By the end of the game, they don't feel like just characters in a game anymore; they feel like your friends. It's a vibe that many games have tried to replicate, but few have succeeded as well as this one has.

Persona 4 is the favorite of the series for many players, and it's not hard to see why. It engages with the player on such a personal level and leaves a lasting impression the few other games manage to match. It's a game that not only gets better as you play it but continues to get better after you've seen the credits roll. Because in that moment, either realizing you won't experience this game for the first time again or comparing it to other games, it shows its true face and reveals its true impact. Persona 4 is a decidedly human game, more so than any of its predecessors, and it remains unique in the JRPG genre for that alone. Combine that with a compelling and teasing story and a tight, focused combat system, and you have a game that makes its almost 80-hour run time feel like a walk in the park.

80%PlayStation 2

Love the atmosphere, music, gameplay, vibes, all that.
The dungeons are repetitive as a result of the procedural generation. I can live with that.
The story is a step down from 3, although generally good characterization makes up for it. A shame that the characters would be flanderized to hell in later spinoffs, but it's pretty good here.
The game is homophobic as hell, and makes some pretty bad implications/themes all around where the characters just accept the status quo and become whatever their society expects of them. Yosuke being gay would've made a much more interesting character arc, but sadly that concept was cut :(. Instead, you're kinda just there whenever characters are offensive, assholish, and so on, and sometimes engage in it? Idk, it's weird 2000s anime shit that always felt awkward and only got worse over time. It got me into Megami Tensei as a franchise though, so I'll always carry some water for it.

Also, looking back, the decision to make Chie strive to be a cop is a low fuckin blow.

95%PlayStation 2

I love Yukiko

100%Emulated

Golden isn't on Game Pass anymore and I don't care enough to buy it since I've already beaten it, I decided to just emulate Vanilla P4.

We are living our liiiiiiives, abound with so much informatiooooooooon.

90%PlayStation 2

Despite being on my PlayStation 2, it was really enjoyable. It took me a while to get used to the mechanics and visuals, but I improved over time. Wonderful story and the best characters I've seen in a game. Bought the Golden edition and P4D immediately after beating it.

70%Emulated

Good!

100%PlayStation 2

Meu persona favorito de todos os tempos! Melhor OST que um jogo já me proporcionou.

100%Emulated

Really fun

100%PlayStation 2

Simplesmente meu jogo favorito, é um JRPG de turnos muito único, que não se limita a apenas um dungeon crawling tradicional, mas usa de suas mecânicas para criar um mundo muito palpável para a pequena cidade de Inaba, que é onde se passa o jogo.

Os personagens são super carismáticos, e seus social links permitem eles crescerem mais ainda e até mesmo os personagens secundários acabam tendo sua importância.

85%PlayStation 2

Great game, but Golden is better in most ways.

80%PlayStation 3

Persona 4
• First time playing
• Played Persona 5 in 2020
• Honestly, after playing this for over 80 hours, I feel like it’s a tiny bit better than Persona 5

100%PlayStation 2

A great RPG and the first persona game I played back in 2016.

100%PlayStation 2

The best game of the PS2 library and one of the best games of my entire life. The time I have passed with this game was a journey, discovering more about the game and even about my own life, one of the greatest experiences that I had with the videogame art.

65%Emulated

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 abandoned the original spirit of Persona (and SMT by extension) and instead opted for a comfortable, jovial atmosphere, more akin to a children's cartoon than the usual cruel, dark nature of the previous entries.

Despite this, the differences are merely surface level. Persona 4 actually excels in bridging the psychological discord of Persona 2: Innocent Sin with the modern format inaugurated by Persona 3. In several key moments, Persona 4 tackles much deeper personal issues that previous games (both series and the medium) dared not speak up on. Gameplay-wise, Persona 4 continues the format of 3 in what can be unfortunately described as an overall downgrade. Combat is lauded as 'fixed' for finally letting players take control other party members, but the tedious change in dungeon design sours much of the gameplay. While Persona 3 also relied on repetitive, randomly generated dungeons, their design was more compact, whereas Persona 4's dungeons focused on the elongated, boring structure of hallways dotted with single rooms. This design remained the same throughout all dungeons, regardless of their aesthetic differences.

The game delivers a sense of harmless fun in a drastic thematic change reminiscent of Final Fantasy VIII. It focused less on the oppressive, disturbing atmospheres of past games, instead relying on a plot-wide murder mystery that is less chilling and more humorous. Only occasionally do the disturbing pieces of previous games ever rear their heads, yet are sequenced effectively nonetheless. The characters mirror the game's cheery yet subversive tone, but are often too annoying or simply not memorable enough for their powerful subplots to truly take effect.

70%PlayStation 3

Nowhere near as good as P5.

90%Emulated

Really liked this game. Music is amazing though a little disappointed with the boss tracks, characters are amaaazing I loved the investigation team so much. Gameplay is pretty good, better than persona 3 and wouldn't necessarily say it's worse than 5, just a more straightforward and streamlined version of the day to day persona gameplay loop. Story is fun but gets very repetitive near the middle and everyone was spoiled on the twist silly man so I don't have the shock factor, however I think the villain is great and realistic. I played this game over the course of... 4 years... On and off, so the experience really got to stick with me. Ending hit me super hard like wow I've never cried from a happy ending like that; It really felt like the end of an era. This game's going to stay in my heart for sure.

100%PlayStation 2

I all around enjoyed Persona 4. The dungeons had different themes to them and even though it was still a dungeon, I wasn't bored. The plot is somewhat lighter than Persona 3 even with the main thing that is driving the investigation but I had a lot of fun with it. I've replayed this game several times now and still enjoy it every time.

100%PlayStation 2

This is probably my favorite game of all time. The story is engaging, the characters are the best I’ve ever seen, and the gameplay is good. I just cannot recommend this game enough. By the end of the game the characters feel like your best friends. The 70+ playtime of this game never feels too long.

60%PlayStation 2

Overshadowed by golden version

70%PlayStation 2

Mid

90%PlayStation 2

One of the best stories I’ve seen in a game but the grindiness in some of the later dungeons make it harder to recommend. Still an incredible game that should be experienced by most gamers.

100%PlayStation 2

So I've recently begun playing the persona series in reverse. I played Persona 5 first and I just now finished persona 4 and man I enjoyed every single second of it. When compared to Persona 5 it very obviously falls short in some regards which I'll name quite soon. All in all I think I might have liked Persona 4 over 5. I'll make a brief list as to what I think who did what better

Gameplay: P5
Characters: P4
Environments:P5
Story: rather equal
music: P5
style: P5
mood: P4

The good: P4 blew my fucking mind. In many ways, P5 is indeed superior. But what made me like P4 over P5 was two things. The characters and The mood of the game. To me, characters are the absolute most important thing in a Persona game. In reality, I've never cared for the combat, It's just something that's there to allow you to get stronger. It's the characters and how they interact with each other that truly draw me to this series and P4 gave that to me in spades. The phantom thieves very obviously had their own charms but the investigation team of the buttfuck nowhere town of Inaba were, to me, far more endearing. I didn't dislike a single character in this game while in P5 I disliked at least one. Yosuke reminds me of an old friend of mine, Chie and Yukiko had an amazing relationship, Kanji developed severe back problems from carrying the game, Naoto was such a great character and, because I came in blind, I legit had no idea he was a she, Dojima is WAY better than Sojiro and Nanako plucked at my heart a little too hard as I'm the guardian of 4 young girls whom I've known since they were born so those protective instincts kicked in. Story wise it's a murder mystery done very, VERY well. The grim tone of the game far eclipses P5 IMO and there was one moment in particular (I think everyone knows what I'm talking about) that no joke filled me with so much dread and sorrow that I briefly became paralyzed. That alone is someone I have to praise. P4 is a game that stands as a paragon when it come's to it's characters. Please PLEASE play this game as blindly as possible. Another big plus is that your social stats improve at a significantly faster rate than in P5's snails pace which made me so happy.

The bad: Honestly the only thing that sucked was the dungeons. Unlike P5's enormous, elaborate dungeons with it's own personality, all the dungeons in P4 are randomly generated hallways that go on for too long and simply get a new coat of paint with each one. It makes them pretty uninteresting but thankfully they are all mercifully short. Oh, and being unable to hang out with friends cause it's raining sucked too but these flaws mean practically nothing in my eyes.

Synopsis: Christ this was an amazing game. The message this time around was ''facing yourself' rather than P5's ''stand against tyrants''. A message I connect with a lot more. I should also mention that P4G has a alternate ending where you side with the killer and it is bar none the bleakest ending I have ever seen. Unless you're a completionist or are actually insane, the ending where you spit in the face of your friends and perform the ultimate betrayal is nothing short of absolute darkness. 10/10, I'm sure P4G is better but man this was a truly amazing game.

100%PlayStation 3

Some of the best story and characters I’ve experienced. Core gameplay is still very fun.

100%PlayStation 2

Favorite Game ever

100%PlayStation 3

best jrpg i've ever played

90%Emulated

90/100

100%PlayStation 2

Its a masterpiece.

100%PlayStation 2

This is probably the first game I've consecutively played for so long. I pretty much did a marathon of this game, playing it all day until it was completed. Unfortunately, I never got to finish all of my social links, which is probably thanks to the ~8 month limit. The dungeon crawling is serviceable enough, but many of the social links will give you bonuses in combat. In normal mode, this game isn't too hard but doesn't hold your hand either. I enjoyed the characters and what was going on during the mystery.

60%PlayStation 2

It has an awesome feel but if Im only playing this casually Im going to play golden. Some of the story bosses here are hard just for hard's sake. I wish I liked it more but the remaster golden has kinda taken the wind out of me to beat this version

100%PlayStation 2

Best game to date!

90%Emulated

Same deal as Persona 3 but worse story with better gameplay.

90%PlayStation 3

Not as good as Persona 5 but still very good!

70%PlayStation 2

3 and 5 are better

100%Emulated

Normal. Few social links maxed. Got true ending.

80%PlayStation 2

Holds up really well, though some pretty bad difficulty spikes and general grinding to be high enough level to fuse good demons got kind of annoying. Regardless, still a great example of the fun combat and systems that SMT has to offer, even if it's a bit basic compared to other games

100%PlayStation 2

Some bosses demanded grinding but otherwise loved every second.

80%PlayStation 2

This is the very first Shin Megami Tensei game I've ever played. I picked it up based on a friend's recommendation, and really had a hard time getting started because
1: I played on expert mode for my first playthrough (not recommended) and
2: I hardly ever had more than just an hour at a time to pop it in, and this game requires a substantial amount of time and dedication, especially if you want to understand how deep the combat and persona building systems go.

It took way longer to finish than I had anticipated, because I played it very casually, had many game overs (it was expert mode), and I tried to do everything in the game. All things considered though, the journey was worth it. Though the game doesn't take a long while to get started, I didn't feel like I full understood the systems for social links, stat raising, time management, and persona fusion until I was over a dozen hours in. I still don't understand persona fusion as well as I would like even after finishing the game. But once you know what you are doing, the game is really, really good.

The story is great, the characters have some of the best development I've seen since Mass Effect, and the mystery that you solve through the game is really a good mystery. Things come together well, there are multiple endings and which one you reach will be determined by you the player choosing how to solve the case.

Now for my biggest problem with the game. It drags. My goodness, the combat stays relatively the same throughout the whole game. If you're going to make a game that is over 50 hours long, you better find a way to make the gameplay varied over those extra hours. Why do dungeons need to have as many floors as they do? Each floor is basically the same thing. Yes, the enemies get harder as you get closer to the boss, but 10 levels in each dungeon? really? It gets tedious after a while. And no save points except right before the boss? That just means I have to play for 2 or 3 hours before I am able to reach a stopping point if I decide to enter a dungeon. The story of the game doesn't need to be shortened but if the dungeons were a bit smaller, it would be easier to play because of more variety or rather changing up the pace. 82/100

100%PlayStation 2

One of my favorite RPGs, excellent story and gameplay.

100%Emulated

This one made me cry too :(

100%PlayStation 3

Personally my favorite game of all time, i suggest this game to EVERYONE who doesnt mind putting aside 70-80 hours to play

90%PC

Fantastic game. Has a few... "strange" gameplay choices, but it's a massive improvement over 3 in that department. You should probably play Golden instead if possible though seeing as it's generally just a better version of this.

100%PlayStation 2

I was afraid of going into P4 after playing P5 with how old and outdated it looked. It only took Yukiko's dungeon for me to really start loving it (even though that boss was hard as fuck). I played pretty much non-stop. Loved all the characters. Chie's voice acting was far beyond anyone else's. It felt like there was a lot more effort and passion put into it and I noticed it all the time. Sucks the voice actress got replaced for P4G. Speaking of P4G, I had this anxiety throughout playing that I wasn't getting the full P4G experience but I kept pushing it to the side and realized I should just play the original game for what it is and loved every second of it.

So many plot twists. Mitsuo Kubo returning from the scene in the beginning to be the initial murderer was cool, then it turned out it wasn't him. While everyone was realizing it was Namatame behind the whole thing, I didn't believe that he actually did it and thought he was really trying to save people. ADACHI THOUGH? I had no fucking clue. The dude did some crazy deceitful shit. I knew he was a social link in P4G so him being the main villain was just a big wtf. And then the gas station attendant. Throughout the game, I always had a feeling that the he was up to something. It was kinda a meme for the most part but it did feel strange. I finished the game with the first true ending and realized I didn't see Izanagi's second form so I googled how to get the true true ending and got spoiled by Izanami being the attendant, but it was still really crazy.

Overall, I loved the characters. All the scenes where everyone's hanging out were so great. The sauna scene, all the festivals and parties, all the inside jokes between characters (Naoto x Kanji, Yukiko and Teddie with "scoring", etc.). The plot was really interesting and different and I liked it a lot. There was a point where I was thinking I thought it was a bit dry, but I don't even remember when that was. The only gripe I would have with the game is the gameplay/combat, where most of my concerns were resolved in P4G. Some shadows were just impossible to get behind (the little slime boyes), some early bosses had no weaknesses and were impossible to fight with the early gear, even when grinding (Yukiko's bird, the rampage king, etc.). The rest was really just some overworld or dungeon movement improvements that were changed in P4G, like being able to press Square to travel to the next floor or being able to actually do stuff at night instead of fishing.

Obligatory comparison to Persona 5. P5 is the god standard game for me but P4 lived up to it. I'm pretty sure I like the Persona 5 characters more, but that's not to say I didn't fall in love with this group. I definitely feel like the P4 gang was more of a group of close friends who were saving the world, compared to P5's. P5's characters were friends but I don't recall any scenes where they were just having a good time and not even thinking about the Phantom Thieves. P4 really had a homey (and homie) feel with the characters and the final send off at the train station solidified that. Super solid game.

70%PlayStation 2

Game is fun but sometimes it feels like there is nothing to do around town. This is especially true when no one is around on rainy days and skills are already maxed out.

100%PlayStation 2

Суперская игра))

90%PlayStation 2

Extremely entertaining. Story was not my cup of tea though

100%PlayStation 3

This juice is bangin' yo

90%PlayStation 2

Seriously phenomenal. A bit easy at times and some moments where the game drags, but the story of friendship and the detective mystery does a great job of keeping one interested.

100%PlayStation 2

I played Persona 4 only recently for the first time, but it quickly became my favourite JRPG, surpassing FF6 which I held close to my heart for more than fifteen years.

Persona 4 is different than a traditional JRPG. It caters more to players who want to be immersed in living a life rather than saving the world. If the idea of forging bonds with people, watching them grow as individuals while solving together the mystery of a small town affected by a serial killer interests you, then Persona 4 will be a journey that you will keep in your heart for a long time.

Beware of spoilers. This is a game that has to be experienced rather than played.

100%PlayStation 2

Story 10/10
Level Design 7/10
Characters 10/10
Gameplay 8/10
Graphics 10/10
Music/Sound 10/10
Voice Actor 9/10

Battle System 10/10

Difficulty MEDIUM

Overall 98%