After reviewing Persona 3 Portable, I feel the logical next step would be to review my original experience with the persona series - Persona 4 Golden!
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| The original members of your party. I'd add more, but this time, those are spoilers. From right to left they are: Yosuke Hamamura, Protagonist (The anime has his name as Yu Narukami. This is held up in Persona 4's sequel - Persona 4 Arena [It's a fighting game, and substantially different]), Chie Satonaka, and Yukiko Amagi. (This caption is really long. Sorry.) |
Platforms
Vita (Golden), Playstation 2 (Original) The sequel is Persona 4 Arena on the Playstation 3. It's significantly different than the style of this game (No social links, and it's a 2d fighting game. Personas are implented much differently. However, characters from Persona 3 make an appearance.)
Story - 10
This game has an amazing storyline, and the Golden versions is even improved further with two new social links, an epilogue, and a new extension to the main storyline you get, provided certain prerequisites are met.
The basic storyline (Without spoilers) is that you are the protagonist (No female route this time, sorry) and you arrive in the small town of Inaba to live with your uncle for a year. Suddenly, wacky things start happening (Murders, actually) and you obtain the power of Persona. It's up to you(And your team) to solve the crime. And there are twenty-three social links to add to the game (although one of them doesn't add much.)
Graphics -6
This game's in game graphics are pretty good, and consistent with the anime style of the game. The avatars shown when talking are even better than before, in my opinion they look better than the the picture (far) above.
Features - 8
There are many features in this game that are carried over from Persona 3. There are, as previously mentioned twenty-three social links, two of which were added in the re-release. One of these is Marie, whose story adds greatly to the rest of the game, and Adachi, a returning character, who gains a fairly interesting social link. Persona's can be fused more effectively now, as you choose what skills they inherit.
Something I forgot to mention in the other game is that you can eat places to get bonuses to your social stats. In this one you can tackle the Mega Beef Bowl rainy day challenge, which requires a perfect balance of stats to complete. It raises two random ones slightly by trying.
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| Did I mention the game is also hilarious at times? Also, the graphics are a bit better in game, this isn't a great screenshot. |
Gameplay - 7
The fighting is not quite as boring, and on a second play-through you keep only your money and social stats. Persona's and skill cards registered in the compendium will also be available for purchase.
Content - 8
There is slightly more content in this game than in Persona 3, with 208 available Personas (Albeit, there are 214 in persona 3 portable) There are also more social links available, with Adachi's jester social link (The first of that type) making it twenty three. The storyline takes about ninety hours to complete listening and reading most of the dialogue. A second run-through takes substantially less, with forty to sixty hours average.
Difficulty - 6
The normal difficulty is pretty hard. Easy is a cake walk, nice for someone only there for the story. Very hard is rather difficult, with the second battle requiring some pretty developed tactics, or you will die. Also, if you're a low level, do not open any chest the navigator has a bad feeling about. If you do you will die.
Soundtrack - 9
The soundtrack in this game is even better than 3 Portable, although it doesn't have as many great lyrical songs. The main walking around songs are less annoying, and feature some interesting lyrics. The end theme is great, but not as good as Kimi no Kioku, which is a flippin' masterpiece. However, you get Reach out to the Truth, I'll Face Myself (The normal version is better than the battle version) and a couple others that are pretty good. Golden introduces "Shadow World" only heard in the intro, but it's a pretty good one as well.
Voice Acting - 8
The voice acting was great, probably a little more spot on than 3 portables was. Again, there just wasn't enough of it. I want full voice acting, not just little giggles (Which were still better than nothing), during my social link scenes. Is this too much to ask for?
Rating - M
Justified. There is some strong language, but the semi-explicit designs of some of the Persona's are probably the main problem (Mostly of gods half naked, which is a common depiction anyway, so it's not that bad). Then there are some adult themes, like murder. And there's also the drag beauty "queen" contest (Okay, that doesn't contribute much to the game's rating, as it's pretty PG, but I wanted add it somewhere.)
Overall - 10
Another of my favorite games of all time, I rate this slightly higher because it is more accessible, (If you don't have a Vita you can play the original on the Playstation 2) has an excellent storyline, better written social links, and is slightly more realistic (I said slightly.) I strongly recommend everyone play this (Or watch the Anime, it's actually good) to get the story. It is excellent, and well worth your time.
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| The Protagonist, and his original persona Izanagi |
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