Spoilers will be revealed as I play through, though!
Six months ago, I played Persona 3, having heard good things about it. I liked it quite a bit and had a pretty good thread going where I gave my thoughts.
Anyway, now I’m playing Persona 4 and thought I’d start a thread as I play through it.
Please, NO SPOILERS past where I am in the game. Feel free to share your thoughts along with mine, though.
OK, so I have played through about 3 days of the game and I have to admit, the story is way better up front compared to Persona 3. Me and the main male friend, at this point anyway, have defeated a shadow version of himself and we just exited Midnight Channel and Chie got angry and ran off.
Mainly, the story is better because it is a mystery and the fact that we have had a TON of it up front this time. I’m liking that.
I suspect that something is going on with the brunette, long haired girl who manages the inn. I don’t want to speculate too much, yet, but something is definitely going on. Don’t tell me!
I guess that Saki girl is dead. I thought she was joining the team.
I’m glad we can see what each skill does on the status screen, including future skills that are not yet learned. I had to make a guide for myself last time, to keep track of what they do.
I’m glad we can travel instantly.
So far, I am holding back my opinion, but it seems like a pretty good game.
#1: I think the story in P4 is better, but the mood in P3 worked way better for me #2: Feel free to suspect things! #4: You could actually do this in P3: FES, I believe. #5: I thought travel was pretty instant in P3. Not really sure there’s much of an upgrade in this area.
Anyway, systematically, P4 is a much more refined product than P3; It’s clear they really looked at stuff that didn’t work right in P3 (“Why don’t I get academics when I study with someone?” “Why can’t I hang out with Junpei?” etc) and fixed them. On the other hand, I don’t think the TV world setup “works” as well for me as the Dark Hour, and the mood doesn’t catch me up the way it did in P3. I also think that the “big four” party members in P3 (Junpei, Yukari, Akihiko and Mitsuru) have more combined charisma than the whole P4 cast. (Which says a lot about how good I felt those P3 members were, because the P4 cast is not bad at all, and doesn’t have as much deadweight like Ken and Koromaru.)
So yeah. Systematically/gameplaywise, it’s improved, but I’m not sure the overall experience is better. If it is, it’s only very marginally so.
No, I’m really pretty sure that in FES (Changed from P3 “vanilla”), they were displayed on the level up screen, at least. I dunno if you could view them in the Persona Status or the Fusion screen though, it’s been a while. Maybe I’ll check on it tonight.
Oh. I guess I was never really bothered by having to run to the exit.
I had some real problems with the story in 4; bad enough that I posted a thread here about it. But I’m not even going to put a spoiler box in this thread since you’re several weeks of playing away from that. I’ll agree that the set up is better than most and the pacing is done really well (at least once you get out of the two hour long non-interactive intro)…
The dark hour is a more mind catching concept but the actual stories told in P4 are much better. P4 had potential to be on my extremely short list of video games that have good stories before they flushed my goodwill down the toilet toward the end of the game while P3 had zero chance of that.
Oh and Mahaloth, save in multiple slots. It won’t matter for a while but get in the habit now of rotating save slots.
Bad writing and a whole lot of cliches. I don’t think we ever even got a motive for why any of the multiple evil factions were doing all the crazy stupid things they were doing.
I assume you meant that group of Persona users that were fighting against our heroes. They had a motive. If I remember correctly, they knew they would die or disappear or something if the “good guys” were successful, so they were fighting for their lives.
What a coincidence; I too am going through Persona 4. It’s my first Persona game (though not my first Shin Megami Tensei game; I played the Digital Devil Saga duology).
Would it be worth playing Persona 3 FES after this, or would it feel like a step down?
Good knowing that the bonus bosses have a time limit; I’ve been following the pattern of beating it before the “current victim,” but it’s nice to have a reason not to break the pattern.
There are some worse game-play aspects about P3, but I highly, highly recommend it. The story and characters are great and the game-play aspects are not so bad as to ruin the game.
So if I go back in, where is the bonus boss? On a higher floor than Shadow Yukiko? How high?
By the way, I’m liking how helping my team mates out in class raises our relationship and it’s also cool that playing on the basketball team is both an S. Link and raises…diligence(I think).
In Persona 3, I was safe for the most part using a team of Protagonist plus 4 other characters. I would swap one of them out if they were weak to the element of a certain boss. I was safe the entire game doing this, so I never used the dog or Ken.
Will I be OK doing that in P4, once I have a team large enough to do so?
Yep, as long as you have a healer (or perform that role yourself), you should be fine. And unlike P3, you can be sure that your healer will cast mediarama when you really need it!
