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Persona 4 (Golden) Thoughts
Played through P4 for the first time and I know some people wanted to know what I thought so here's my 2p.
Gameplay
Mechanically:
P4G took almost all the things I found painful about P3P and made them go away. I love floor restarting. I love Rise's ability. I love the Fox discount. I love persona fusion Search. I REALLY LOVE BUFF/CURSE EXTENSIONS. The only thing that still annoyed me was having to select some sort of single-target boon in order to check the status of my party's buffs (which, for those characters without such a skill, involved digging up an item that would let me do it). P4G Is Your Friend and that makes me happy.
Overworld Gameplay:
I should note that since I felt that using a P1 S-Link Complete Guide for P3P marred the experience for me, I went almost completely guideless for P4G, piggybacking off Lily's clear data insteadand still not managing to complete all the s-links because I didn't realize that my closeted boyfriend would get so many points with me later on and so I wasted a lot of time with the core investigation team.... I thought bug catching was fun and I think it's funny that people think there's no way to tell when the ! appears... it's the same goddamn timing every time you go to catch bugs, and roughly corresponds to when the rim of your net is perpendicular to the screen.
And as with P3, I thought P4 did a great job of mixing gameplay elements and storytelling. I always love the final boss gimmick.
I thought the cues for what you should do were pretty well-placed and I only had to get myself unstuck with google a handful of times. My chief complaint is that you can trust the Narration In Your Head Guiding You like 99% of the time, and then it stabs you in the back at the last minute when it comes to keeping you from seeing the True Ending. ... I totally missed the True Ending's existence until Lily et al were like "UHHHH".
Visual Design
P4G does an incredible job with this. Everything from the muted colors of the shopping district on a cloudy day to having a fucking model for every single one of Kanji's creations showed incredible attention to detail. Many of the story points were really enhanced by the nuances of the sprites' body language... and it's worth noting that MC, although silent, conveyed a lot about the kind of guy he was by the way he'd brusquely draw the curtains before turning to the Midnight Channel. P4G really showed what you could do with a modest polygon count augmented by smart, attentive details.
Only things I found jarring were some bizarre camera angle decisions in Yasogami High, and the strangely wooden look of some character sprites' faces. (MC looks ok; Yukiko looks creepy up close.)
Story
Compared to P3, P4 really likes to beat you over the goddamn head with its central theme, to the point where it's difficult to appreciate when it actually uses it cleverly. The critical point with Namatame in the hospital is brilliant when you realize that it's actually the point at which the game challenges the player to resist getting caught up in the moment and seeing what you want to see. But it's buried in a landslide of YOU CAN'T SEE THE TRUTH BEHIND THE FOG!!! I AM A SHADOW, THE TRUE SELF!!! YOU'RE NOT ME!!!! HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE RUMORS ON TV!?
I wasn't expecting it, but I found the mystery the most compelling part of the story. The foreshadowing was very cleverly done, with just enough hints to make you figure out what the game wants you to figure out at the time it's asking you and not any sooner. The Adachi twist is brilliant and the presentation is brilliant as well -- even more so in P4G, where you bonded with him and you don't really want to believe that about him at first, and the game acknowledges that fact.
The setting is beautifully immersive. It's not just the visual design... everything contributes a little to making Inaba really feel like a tightly knit town in the middle of nowhere, from your choice of social link partners (how bored do you have to be to spend time bonding with voices in your head and a fox...) to the way people in Okina treat you to the lack of variety in evening options (which is compensated for with evening hang-outs). I feel like the strength of setting sells the story, which otherwise isn't particularly special.
I feel like Marie's arc is a mostly welcome addition, though her dungeon comes at a somewhat awkward time.
Characters
In general, I thought that P4 had stronger characterization, and its social links were generally a big step up from P3's social links. If I were to compare them arcana by arcana, excluding the quest-based links (for obvious reasons) I think the only social links I'd prefer from P3 are Sun (and Akinari was my favorite), Aeon, and possibly FeMC!Magician (and it's all Yosuke 10's fault, but more on that later).
That said, I feel like with the main cast, they gave away something human. I do appreciate that the P4 buddies feel like People You Know, but I'm still not over the central conceit of meeting them at their worst, and then everyone getting over that fact in 3.5 seconds (unless we're talking about Kanji being gay because THAT'S TOTALLY HILARIOUS RIGHT YOSUKE??). P3, high drama though it was, did some remarkable things in the way it showed its characters' hidden anguish, like October 4th, and Yukari on the beach after seeing the doctored video. Comparatively, there's something incredibly safe about how P4 handles its characters' moments of weakness: Reveal, Defeat, Accept, Done. It really deprives these Horrible Secrets of a lot of tension. In P3, you can find Ken locked up in his own room for half a month, secretly trying to talk himself into going through with murder. It takes having his world flipped upside down (again) to change. And it's not just Ken, either. Practically everyone in that cast (except maybe the dog) goes through a lot of shit, and you see the weight of their experiences driving them to change. Compared to that, P4's character development is remarkably cheap.
Some thoughts on individual characters:
Yosuke: He's an asshole and I appreciate how much of an asshole he is. One thing I found charming about Yosuke is how consistent his daily low-level jerkiness corresponds with what his Shadow tells you about him. With Chie et al, you kind of get the sense that their Shadow represents like, intrusive thoughts or something like that, but Yosuke is genuinely kind of narcissistic. He's genuinely flawed, while at the same time trying his best to do his job right and being really good "friends" with you-the-MC.
Speaking of which, I really enjoy how much this game enables you to flirt with Yosuke... I was led to sound clips showing that Yosuke was probably even an intended romance option, which both delights me and saddens me, because it makes it 100% clear that They Are Pretty Gay but someone higher up went "NO. NO HOMO. HAVE THEM PUNCH EACH OTHER. NOW."
Like. Come on. You could have handled that more gracefully. Even if you didn't want them to end up together you could've played it like Ai, where they mess around with the idea but it's awkward so they call it off. But apparently even that would be too homo.
Chie: I love Chie a lot. They took a typically masculine trope and stuck it on her and they let her completely embrace it without any "but you're a girl"s. Chie got to tell the MC that she'd protect him. Chie gets to stuff herself with meat without anyone breathing the word "diet". I love everything Chie means for female characters, and I also love Chie herself. She's so earnest and straightforward and her reactions are so big and I fucking love how Erin Fitzgerald plays her. I thought she sounded really weird at first but it grew on me a lot. Her voice acting really brings out how expressive and open she isand also how much she'd like to kiss Yukiko. I recently watched a youtube compilation of turning girls down on Valentine's Day and Chie's killed me. I could never cheat on Chie, omg.
Ai: My favorite link in the game. Everything from her initial attitude to her backstory to her development is perfect. And I thought the way that they had her call off your relationship was REALLY great. A bold choice to go with integrity of character/story over player gratification, and it worked marvelously in context. And aaaaaaaaaaa they way they specifically addressed the difficulties of society and female image, where you're like, secretly judging Ai in your head for being kind of a shallow shopping freak, and then she's like I USED TO BE FAT AND PEOPLE TREATED ME HORRIBLY AND NOW I WORKED REALLY HARD TO BE PRETTY AND PEOPLE STILL DON'T LVOE ME WHY I DON'T UNDERSTAND MAYBE I'M UNLOVABLE. And having you definitely help put her on the right track but not heal her with your dick! It was a really brave arc with incredibly smart writing and I love Ai.
But I can't understand how the people who wrote Ai's backstory also wrote Hanako, COME ON.
Kanji: I'm 90% ok with the way they presented Kanji. I'm basically okay with him being ambiguously bisexual. Being a teenager is hard, and sexuality is hard, and it's perfectly natural for him not to still be figuring himself out. The end of his S-Link, where he figures out that strength isn't feigning hypermasculinity but having the guts to try to explain to people who you are so they might accept you even though it might hurt worse, is pretty well put.
The part I'm not really okay with is the way the rest of the game reacts to him during the bathhouse dungeon. Like, the way Yosuke and Teddie are constantly nattering, "oh my god this is disturbing" as you go through that dungeon, with no real indication that the game expects you to contradict them on that point. If there were any sign that the game expected me to think that Teddie and Yosuke were major assholes for the way they react to Kanji, I certainly didn't see any until several months later, when Chie's like "Yosuke... that's mean... you know he hates it when you say stuff like that." (<--- REASONS I LOVE CHIE) And then you go camping, and Yosuke eats his penguin animal crackers while calling him a predator and there's no option to stuff a pillow in your closeted boyfriend's face while he's sleeping. tl;dr: I'm okay with games depicting homophobic characters. I'd like the games to not tacitly assume that I passively accept their behavior--that's the part that makes me feel like it's the game itself that's homophobic.
Naoto: Oh boy, Persona 4's #1 Controversy!
I have no strong objections to the way Naoto's friendship s-link handles their gender. Naoto's central anxiety is about being thought incompetent, and in a way, "I realized I wasn't accepting myself as a woman because I thought others wouldn't" makes for better storytelling than "I really am a man." It's worth noting that one of the stronger cues for us to read Naoto as trans--the reassignment business--originally used language that could refer to any human body transformation at all--the top hits on google included someone remaking their MMO character and someone facetiously asking Yahoo Answers if they could shit through all their skin pores and mouth--and I suspect that it was meant to zap Naoto into an adult just as much as it was meant to zap Naoto across genders.
That said, I completely agree that there's a lot about Naoto's handling that has a lot of resonance with the trans experience. Naoto chose that name for themselves, and furthermore even after the game's said they accept their womanhood, they still seem to prefer the same masculine presentation as before. Personally my take on the situation is that Naoto's experience is very close to what we might label as being transgender, but Naoto comes to see it through a different lens -- one where she is still a "woman," but nonetheless continues reveling in manly things because manly things are great. I'm not particularly fussed over the particular term she decides to use for herself.
What does REALLY bother me is the way the game insists on bringing Naoto's tits to the forefront. Whether Naoto wishes to be seen as a man, or seen as competent regardless of her womanhood, making them into a boob joke is pretty much the antithesis of respecting the core of their character, and trivializes them over their female figure just as they'd always feared.
I was so relieved when Naoto did not partake in the swimsuit competition.
Gender issues aside, Naoto is delightful. I love prickly logical loners with a lonely streak. And Naoto really is goddamn competent. Naoto really lives up to their reputation and I was completely delighted when they dissected the case in real time on-screen. <3 <3 Naoto
Hisano: WHAT A SWEET LOVE STORY. WHAT A SAD AND PAINFUL EXPERIENCE SO FRIGHTENINGLY COMMON IN THE REAL WORLD. WHAT A WONDERFUL OLD LADY I love her.
Shu: Like with queer issues, I feel like P4 stepped up to the brink of brilliance and then retreated back into safe territory with Shu. Shu's depiction was great and he was thiiiis close to being an incredibly excellent s-link. Then P4 decided to handwave his mom. Which bothers me, because I feel like Shu's situation is frighteningly common in east Asian cultures, and most of the time the mothers are fucking scary and set in their ways. But P4 wants everything to be magically ok and resolved and stuff because love and communication and Family.
Nanako: Everyone told me that I'd love Nanako and I just wanted to put this here to say that I do love Nanako. :P That said I was significantly more fond of her s-link than her role in the overarching plot. I felt like the game was a bit too obvious about the way it was attempting to manipulate my feelings by putting a small cute child in danger. But her s-link was great, in the way that she's trying to understand the world around her and disappointed by her father but still sincere in her love.
Gameplay
Mechanically:
P4G took almost all the things I found painful about P3P and made them go away. I love floor restarting. I love Rise's ability. I love the Fox discount. I love persona fusion Search. I REALLY LOVE BUFF/CURSE EXTENSIONS. The only thing that still annoyed me was having to select some sort of single-target boon in order to check the status of my party's buffs (which, for those characters without such a skill, involved digging up an item that would let me do it). P4G Is Your Friend and that makes me happy.
Overworld Gameplay:
I should note that since I felt that using a P1 S-Link Complete Guide for P3P marred the experience for me, I went almost completely guideless for P4G, piggybacking off Lily's clear data instead
And as with P3, I thought P4 did a great job of mixing gameplay elements and storytelling. I always love the final boss gimmick.
I thought the cues for what you should do were pretty well-placed and I only had to get myself unstuck with google a handful of times. My chief complaint is that you can trust the Narration In Your Head Guiding You like 99% of the time, and then it stabs you in the back at the last minute when it comes to keeping you from seeing the True Ending. ... I totally missed the True Ending's existence until Lily et al were like "UHHHH".
Visual Design
P4G does an incredible job with this. Everything from the muted colors of the shopping district on a cloudy day to having a fucking model for every single one of Kanji's creations showed incredible attention to detail. Many of the story points were really enhanced by the nuances of the sprites' body language... and it's worth noting that MC, although silent, conveyed a lot about the kind of guy he was by the way he'd brusquely draw the curtains before turning to the Midnight Channel. P4G really showed what you could do with a modest polygon count augmented by smart, attentive details.
Only things I found jarring were some bizarre camera angle decisions in Yasogami High, and the strangely wooden look of some character sprites' faces. (MC looks ok; Yukiko looks creepy up close.)
Story
Compared to P3, P4 really likes to beat you over the goddamn head with its central theme, to the point where it's difficult to appreciate when it actually uses it cleverly. The critical point with Namatame in the hospital is brilliant when you realize that it's actually the point at which the game challenges the player to resist getting caught up in the moment and seeing what you want to see. But it's buried in a landslide of YOU CAN'T SEE THE TRUTH BEHIND THE FOG!!! I AM A SHADOW, THE TRUE SELF!!! YOU'RE NOT ME!!!! HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE RUMORS ON TV!?
I wasn't expecting it, but I found the mystery the most compelling part of the story. The foreshadowing was very cleverly done, with just enough hints to make you figure out what the game wants you to figure out at the time it's asking you and not any sooner. The Adachi twist is brilliant and the presentation is brilliant as well -- even more so in P4G, where you bonded with him and you don't really want to believe that about him at first, and the game acknowledges that fact.
The setting is beautifully immersive. It's not just the visual design... everything contributes a little to making Inaba really feel like a tightly knit town in the middle of nowhere, from your choice of social link partners (how bored do you have to be to spend time bonding with voices in your head and a fox...) to the way people in Okina treat you to the lack of variety in evening options (which is compensated for with evening hang-outs). I feel like the strength of setting sells the story, which otherwise isn't particularly special.
I feel like Marie's arc is a mostly welcome addition, though her dungeon comes at a somewhat awkward time.
Characters
In general, I thought that P4 had stronger characterization, and its social links were generally a big step up from P3's social links. If I were to compare them arcana by arcana, excluding the quest-based links (for obvious reasons) I think the only social links I'd prefer from P3 are Sun (and Akinari was my favorite), Aeon, and possibly FeMC!Magician (and it's all Yosuke 10's fault, but more on that later).
That said, I feel like with the main cast, they gave away something human. I do appreciate that the P4 buddies feel like People You Know, but I'm still not over the central conceit of meeting them at their worst, and then everyone getting over that fact in 3.5 seconds (unless we're talking about Kanji being gay because THAT'S TOTALLY HILARIOUS RIGHT YOSUKE??). P3, high drama though it was, did some remarkable things in the way it showed its characters' hidden anguish, like October 4th, and Yukari on the beach after seeing the doctored video. Comparatively, there's something incredibly safe about how P4 handles its characters' moments of weakness: Reveal, Defeat, Accept, Done. It really deprives these Horrible Secrets of a lot of tension. In P3, you can find Ken locked up in his own room for half a month, secretly trying to talk himself into going through with murder. It takes having his world flipped upside down (again) to change. And it's not just Ken, either. Practically everyone in that cast (except maybe the dog) goes through a lot of shit, and you see the weight of their experiences driving them to change. Compared to that, P4's character development is remarkably cheap.
Some thoughts on individual characters:
Yosuke: He's an asshole and I appreciate how much of an asshole he is. One thing I found charming about Yosuke is how consistent his daily low-level jerkiness corresponds with what his Shadow tells you about him. With Chie et al, you kind of get the sense that their Shadow represents like, intrusive thoughts or something like that, but Yosuke is genuinely kind of narcissistic. He's genuinely flawed, while at the same time trying his best to do his job right and being really good "friends" with you-the-MC.
Speaking of which, I really enjoy how much this game enables you to flirt with Yosuke... I was led to sound clips showing that Yosuke was probably even an intended romance option, which both delights me and saddens me, because it makes it 100% clear that They Are Pretty Gay but someone higher up went "NO. NO HOMO. HAVE THEM PUNCH EACH OTHER. NOW."
Like. Come on. You could have handled that more gracefully. Even if you didn't want them to end up together you could've played it like Ai, where they mess around with the idea but it's awkward so they call it off. But apparently even that would be too homo.
Chie: I love Chie a lot. They took a typically masculine trope and stuck it on her and they let her completely embrace it without any "but you're a girl"s. Chie got to tell the MC that she'd protect him. Chie gets to stuff herself with meat without anyone breathing the word "diet". I love everything Chie means for female characters, and I also love Chie herself. She's so earnest and straightforward and her reactions are so big and I fucking love how Erin Fitzgerald plays her. I thought she sounded really weird at first but it grew on me a lot. Her voice acting really brings out how expressive and open she is
Ai: My favorite link in the game. Everything from her initial attitude to her backstory to her development is perfect. And I thought the way that they had her call off your relationship was REALLY great. A bold choice to go with integrity of character/story over player gratification, and it worked marvelously in context. And aaaaaaaaaaa they way they specifically addressed the difficulties of society and female image, where you're like, secretly judging Ai in your head for being kind of a shallow shopping freak, and then she's like I USED TO BE FAT AND PEOPLE TREATED ME HORRIBLY AND NOW I WORKED REALLY HARD TO BE PRETTY AND PEOPLE STILL DON'T LVOE ME WHY I DON'T UNDERSTAND MAYBE I'M UNLOVABLE. And having you definitely help put her on the right track but not heal her with your dick! It was a really brave arc with incredibly smart writing and I love Ai.
Kanji: I'm 90% ok with the way they presented Kanji. I'm basically okay with him being ambiguously bisexual. Being a teenager is hard, and sexuality is hard, and it's perfectly natural for him not to still be figuring himself out. The end of his S-Link, where he figures out that strength isn't feigning hypermasculinity but having the guts to try to explain to people who you are so they might accept you even though it might hurt worse, is pretty well put.
The part I'm not really okay with is the way the rest of the game reacts to him during the bathhouse dungeon. Like, the way Yosuke and Teddie are constantly nattering, "oh my god this is disturbing" as you go through that dungeon, with no real indication that the game expects you to contradict them on that point. If there were any sign that the game expected me to think that Teddie and Yosuke were major assholes for the way they react to Kanji, I certainly didn't see any until several months later, when Chie's like "Yosuke... that's mean... you know he hates it when you say stuff like that." (<--- REASONS I LOVE CHIE) And then you go camping, and Yosuke eats his penguin animal crackers while calling him a predator and there's no option to stuff a pillow in your closeted boyfriend's face while he's sleeping. tl;dr: I'm okay with games depicting homophobic characters. I'd like the games to not tacitly assume that I passively accept their behavior--that's the part that makes me feel like it's the game itself that's homophobic.
Naoto: Oh boy, Persona 4's #1 Controversy!
I have no strong objections to the way Naoto's friendship s-link handles their gender. Naoto's central anxiety is about being thought incompetent, and in a way, "I realized I wasn't accepting myself as a woman because I thought others wouldn't" makes for better storytelling than "I really am a man." It's worth noting that one of the stronger cues for us to read Naoto as trans--the reassignment business--originally used language that could refer to any human body transformation at all--the top hits on google included someone remaking their MMO character and someone facetiously asking Yahoo Answers if they could shit through all their skin pores and mouth--and I suspect that it was meant to zap Naoto into an adult just as much as it was meant to zap Naoto across genders.
That said, I completely agree that there's a lot about Naoto's handling that has a lot of resonance with the trans experience. Naoto chose that name for themselves, and furthermore even after the game's said they accept their womanhood, they still seem to prefer the same masculine presentation as before. Personally my take on the situation is that Naoto's experience is very close to what we might label as being transgender, but Naoto comes to see it through a different lens -- one where she is still a "woman," but nonetheless continues reveling in manly things because manly things are great. I'm not particularly fussed over the particular term she decides to use for herself.
What does REALLY bother me is the way the game insists on bringing Naoto's tits to the forefront. Whether Naoto wishes to be seen as a man, or seen as competent regardless of her womanhood, making them into a boob joke is pretty much the antithesis of respecting the core of their character, and trivializes them over their female figure just as they'd always feared.
I was so relieved when Naoto did not partake in the swimsuit competition.
Gender issues aside, Naoto is delightful. I love prickly logical loners with a lonely streak. And Naoto really is goddamn competent. Naoto really lives up to their reputation and I was completely delighted when they dissected the case in real time on-screen. <3 <3 Naoto
Hisano: WHAT A SWEET LOVE STORY. WHAT A SAD AND PAINFUL EXPERIENCE SO FRIGHTENINGLY COMMON IN THE REAL WORLD. WHAT A WONDERFUL OLD LADY I love her.
Shu: Like with queer issues, I feel like P4 stepped up to the brink of brilliance and then retreated back into safe territory with Shu. Shu's depiction was great and he was thiiiis close to being an incredibly excellent s-link. Then P4 decided to handwave his mom. Which bothers me, because I feel like Shu's situation is frighteningly common in east Asian cultures, and most of the time the mothers are fucking scary and set in their ways. But P4 wants everything to be magically ok and resolved and stuff because love and communication and Family.
Nanako: Everyone told me that I'd love Nanako and I just wanted to put this here to say that I do love Nanako. :P That said I was significantly more fond of her s-link than her role in the overarching plot. I felt like the game was a bit too obvious about the way it was attempting to manipulate my feelings by putting a small cute child in danger. But her s-link was great, in the way that she's trying to understand the world around her and disappointed by her father but still sincere in her love.
no subject
I think a big thing that changes the character development is how each game handles the characters coming to their realization/Personas promoting. In P4 there's a tiny bit with the recruitment and acceptance of the Shadow self, but it's played as being entirely connected to getting an Max Rank with the main character. I think that connection hurts the P4 cast's development in the long run, because they had to write the social link on a subject that wouldn't ever interfere with the pacing of the main plot.
Whereas in P3, the characters realization's are directly linked to the plot, and while like in P4 their S links don't directly interact I think the plot-promotion makes the characters themselves seem less self-involved and more aware of what's going on around them. That and like you said, the game isn't afraid to take an entire month to show LOOK EVERYONE'S DEPRESSED ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD. ...I'm not sure if I can think of a day/month in P4 that a party member elects to sit a dungeon crawl out- unless there's a game event that prevents MC from going in the first place.
I too really hate how the game jokes that Naoto's secretly stacked, the only goal with this had to be humor. But considering how androgynous the rest of Naoto's character model is the smallest out of the party, so having a naturally flatter chest would not be far off the mark. I kinda of wonder if the higher ups stepped in on this one too, "She's a girl right? I know, give her the biggest bust size!"
Good to hear your thoughts on the game. I know a bunch of Persona fans who either love P4 most, or say P3P's lady!MC is best, but I really liked your thoughts on Minato and how well his emo-ness fit the theme of P3.
no subject
I think there might be a certain sympathetic irony in Naoto's well-endowedness and I probably would've liked it if it stopped at the physical exam scene. But it came up over... and over... and often in ways that made them do things against their will and stripped them of agency... And that annoyed me.
no subject
I was bad and finished the story by watching the anime. That makes commenting on the later game/developments a bit harder, also, because I don't know how they were presented in the original.
no subject
Glad you do! They're the two characters I'd heard about before playing the game but I'm glad to know that there are others on this side of the controversy.
I hear mostly bad things about the anime, except for how it gave Yu more character. I don't know if I want to risk my good feelings about P4 quite yet.
It's a very long game though, so I understand where you're coming from.
no subject
I feel a bit bad about this, still, but the thought of doing more Persona grinding makes me feel worse, haha.
The anime wasn't that bad on its own, but again, I don't know how it compares to the way the game did things after Rise. I felt it was actually pretty faithful to the main storyline content, but lacking when it came to pacing and the way it handled social links. Likewise with the way it handled Kanji; the game took it more seriously, I felt, and the anime just intensified the negatives you have issues with up above. That bothered me.
no subject
Man, I agree with p3's grinding being excessive. I had about a month between that and p4 though, so p4's nice variety of dungeons and better dungeon pacing left me with no issues taken with it.
... Although if I could play it with dungeons about as half as long, I would.