persona 4 golden is easily my favourite game of all time. it may not be the best game ever, and it definitely has some flaws, but p4g has grappled and influenced me in a way that few other games have replicated, and its characters, story, and themes have deeply penetrated my mind and are subjects that I often think about
at its core, p4g is centred around one thing: the truth. thematically, characters in the investigation team must accept their shadow - a personification of their inner desires which they do not want to accept/see - to acquire their persona, which is a manifestation of their willpower to see and accept this truth: by accepting the truth and understanding it, characters acquire the power necessary to further themselves and become better people. this theme alone is very interesting to me, and I find myself constantly thinking about it whenever I think about myself and what I do because it shows how, even though some things may be hard to accept, by accepting those things, you'll be able to pursue further truths and better yourself in the process. this theme deeply hits my heart
going off the theme of finding the truth, p4g also deals with the interpretation of truth, and how, even though someone may see something as true, that doesn't ultimately mean that that thing is true. p4g suggests that, in these situations, it's necessary to reach out and find the truth hidden in the fog, as there is no sure way to figure out the truth, and this notion is deeply related to me. in my life, I've often found myself wondering about what people perceive as true and why they perceive these things in that way. ultimately, I find myself coming back to this theme in p4g whenever I wonder these things, as I always try to rid of the fog and see whether these things are true or not to ultimately pursue the truth, and I love this so much
besides the themes of p4g, the story of p4g was insanely enjoyable. I played p4g with knowledge of adachi being the murderer, yet I still found the story greatly engaging and interesting: it was still very fun to try and see the evidence for adachi being the murderer. one of the major factors that pushed the quality of the story for me were the characters in p4g, which I absolutely adore
the entire investigation team is amazing. the relationships among characters is highly entertaining and fun to observe and see. I cannot fully describe how much I enjoy all the characters in this game, with the only exceptions being teddie and, to some degree, kanji, but I still quite enjoy kanji, and teddie is teddie, which no one likes. the characters in p4g have some of the best and most realistic dynamics that I have ever seen in a game, and I believe that that's what makes them so good: it feels like a real a true friend group rather than a group of people that are simply collaborating to achieve a goal, which, to some degree, p3 and p5's teams feel like
then there's naoto. I absolutely adore naoto: she's probably my favourite fictional character. I love everything about her, which I think is pretty obvious because I use her as my pfp on quite literally all platforms
then there's adachi. adachi is one of my favourite characters ever, because I can also relate to what he stands for despite it opposing what the investigation teams stands for. adachi is a very realistic character whose points are understandable, and I really like that: it isn't completely clear who is right when it comes to truth in the game, evident by the adachi boss fight where I, personally, was torn on whether what I was fighting for during the entire game was truly the right option. I just adore adachi, even when disregarding all the memes
to save a lot more, I simply adore p4g so, so, so much. this is easily my favourite game of all time: I love p4g