I’ve felt a bit hesitant about writing this review. To say that Persona discussion on this site, especially regarding 4 and 5 is toxic would be a massive understatement, it’s almost absurd. But at the same time, I wanted to write a few things about this long journey I’ve gone through.
Inaba is one of my favorite settings in a video game, the small town vibes with the fog and the friendly nature around you gives Persona 4 a distinct feel from all the other games which usually take place in bigger city areas. There’s a certain mood about the culture of Inaba that’s been imposed by the older folk there, while it's slowly being taken over by commercialization and such. The once peaceful town has now become flowed with a sense of unease because of the murders, but that laid back feel is still ever so present.
Of course the inhabitants of the town add to what makes Inaba so homely, and Persona 4’s main cast is a major contribution. While Persona 3 had a group of people teamed together who always felt at odds with each other for different reasons, 4 puts more focus on a tightly knit group of friends. A major complaint about this is that it makes the relationships between our characters feel rather shallow if there’s no real conflict, and while I understand that criticism, there’s something so nice about all these goobers just.. being friends, y’know? There’s also the protagonist’s found family, the Dojimas. Nanako is a pretty well written child character all things considered, and I think her strained relationship with her father is one of the best pieces of the game narratively. I found it the most interesting part of the story, mostly.
But on the topic of writing, Persona 4 is… pretty rough. I think when 4 hits its high points, it soars, but those lows… are really damn low. There’s a lot of “anime”isms with 4’s content, not helped by the many added scenes in Golden that pile up the anime factor. As someone who has an unnatural tolerance for shitty anime writing, I was able to push through some of it, but scenarios like the school festival (aside from teddie wearing you know what) is just flat out hot fucking garbage. Like actually abhorrent. Some handling of 4’s themes are lame or poorly done, and the excessive homophobia in the first 1/3rd of the game is extremely awkward even for 2008 standards… I’m really conflicted here, I dunno. On a more positive note, there’s a lot of character arcs and interactions that really touched my sensitive ND brain, and I’m sure most people wouldn’t care for those great moments, but it meant a lot to me at least.
I’m not really good at talking about JRPG gameplay, but what I will say is the combat is pretty solid, dungeons not as much. I think both 3 and 4 made me realize I’m just not a fan of the whole RNG floors gimmick.
That’s mostly what I wanted to say about Persona 4 Golden. I plan on revisiting this game through the (much better) original version on PS2, but it’ll be a while, especially when I still have Persona 2, 5, and 3 FES/Reload to cover. I’m really glad I played this game. Persona 4, flaws and all, is still a great experience. It might not be your thing, but it mostly was mine. And I’m happy for that.
Great Vegetables/10