This is my favorite game of all time. It's far from perfect but it just means more to me than any other game I've ever played. It might not click with everyone but by god does it click with me.
Pros: This is definitely the most unique Persona game in terms of its setting, and overall scope. Every other Persona game has you in a bustling city, trying to save the world from some otherworldly threat. Persona 4 places you in a tiny town with not much to do, and it's your job to solve a single serial murder case. The stakes are lower, and the scope is smaller, and you're left with a Persona game that feels much more personal than any other game in the series. The town of Inaba feels like my second home, like I've lived there all my life. The characters are also incredibly fleshed out and endearing in a way no other Persona game quite manages, although Persona 2 comes close. My absolute favorite thing in Persona games is when we get to dig deep into the psychology of a character, and Persona 4 has that in spades. It took the concept of a Shadow version of someone that Persona 2 introduced, and absolutely runs wild with the concept. Each dungeon is an in depth look into the mind of a specific character. Their hopes, their fears, the things they hate about themselves, and I absolutely love it. It's a huge improvement over Persona 3's Tartarus, spending hours upon hours grinding through the same identical hallways. Every party member feels incredibly fleshed out and realized as a result, and it leads to a cast of characters that just feel like my actual friends. Some people find this game's lighter tone annoying, and they prefer Persona games that are more serious and are focused more on the direct story, not having any cutscenes that don't contribute to the main plot. That's a perfectly fine opinion to have, but I personally really enjoy the abundance of silly, less important scenes in this game. I agree that they mess with the pacing at times, but they just make the characters even more endearing to me, and make them feel even more like just a group of normal kids. These aren't some elite team of ultra-serious super soldiers training to save the world, they're just some normal high schoolers still trying to live their everyday lives while dealing with normal high school problems. They deserve some moments of levity, and Persona 4 does a great job of realizing that. The combat is also improved from Persona 3, mostly just by letting you directly control your party members. It's such a simple change but it really goes a long way at making combat feel more freeing and flexible and less frustrating. The main thing that keeps me coming back to this game, though, is its theme of self acceptance. The message of "you should accept yourself for who you are instead of denying it and not being your true self" seems so simple, but it came to me at a time when I really needed it, and the game explores that concept in a variety of ways. It not only asks "why wouldnt someone be aware of their true self", but also "what if you don't know what your true self is?", "what if other people dont like your true self?", "what if you find out who you are and don't like it?" and more. It really digs deep into the concept and seeing these kids who I felt like I was friends with be so honest and vulnerable about who they were and what they wanted in life really got me thinking the same way, and it ultimately changed my life for the better. Also the main antagonist is a really good character and I like them
Cons: The biggest thing I dislike about this game is definitely how much of it has aged poorly. It's an older game so I can excuse it as being a product of its time, but its frustrating how many parts in this game skew homophobic, or transphobic, or fatphobic, or weird and perverted. It's not a huge part of the game by any means, there's only a handful of scenes that really make me cringe, but it's enough to noticeably affect my enjoyment of the game, and is worth bringing up as a con. Another con I would say is the combat. Yes, this game is an improvement over Persona 3, and yes it's nowhere near as monotonous thanks to the variety of dungeons in the game. This is easily the best and most fun Persona combat had ever been up to this point. It still gets a ltitle old and repetitive by the end. I personally dislike that they simplified the combat from Persona 3. Only one type of Physical attack, and the Protagonist can only equip a single weapon type, no more fusion spells. It's also not a huge flaw or anything but it does make this the Persona game with the simplest combat system and it's a bit of a shame. The game also tends to skew a bit on the easier side. Luckily with modern rereleases you can fully customize the difficulty. You can fully control damage dealt, damage recieved, xp dropped, money dropped, and you can tweak the difficulty of things to your liking. So if you want a harder experience you can go in and craft one. Another flaw the combat has is that there's not nearly as much incentive to switch out your party members. In Persona 3, you had a massive cast of party members, and the game placed teleporters before every miniboss so you could go to the first floor of Tartarus and switch your team composition, so you wanted to keep everyone at around the same level so you could bring the right team of people for the current fight. Persona 4 doesn't really have that, and it's pretty likely that there are certain party members you'll just never wind up using. I know for me personally once I got the final new party member, I never had a reason to switch off the team I was using, and the remaining party members just sat unused at a much lower level. Persona 5 would go on to fix this with the ability to switch your party anywhere at will, and with an XP share that gives backup teammates XP as well. It's really not a huge flaw, but definitely something I noticed.
Overall: Other people will say different but to me, this is the best Persona game. It does the best job at appealing to me personally. And that's all that matters. It's story is simple but effective and it's cast is incredibly endearing and fleshed out. The world this game creates feels real and lived in and it's story of self acceptance changed my life for the better
Pros: This is definitely the most unique Persona game in terms of its setting, and overall scope. Every other Persona game has you in a bustling city, trying to save the world from some otherworldly threat. Persona 4 places you in a tiny town with not much to do, and it's your job to solve a single serial murder case. The stakes are lower, and the scope is smaller, and you're left with a Persona game that feels much more personal than any other game in the series. The town of Inaba feels like my second home, like I've lived there all my life. The characters are also incredibly fleshed out and endearing in a way no other Persona game quite manages, although Persona 2 comes close. My absolute favorite thing in Persona games is when we get to dig deep into the psychology of a character, and Persona 4 has that in spades. It took the concept of a Shadow version of someone that Persona 2 introduced, and absolutely runs wild with the concept. Each dungeon is an in depth look into the mind of a specific character. Their hopes, their fears, the things they hate about themselves, and I absolutely love it. It's a huge improvement over Persona 3's Tartarus, spending hours upon hours grinding through the same identical hallways. Every party member feels incredibly fleshed out and realized as a result, and it leads to a cast of characters that just feel like my actual friends. Some people find this game's lighter tone annoying, and they prefer Persona games that are more serious and are focused more on the direct story, not having any cutscenes that don't contribute to the main plot. That's a perfectly fine opinion to have, but I personally really enjoy the abundance of silly, less important scenes in this game. I agree that they mess with the pacing at times, but they just make the characters even more endearing to me, and make them feel even more like just a group of normal kids. These aren't some elite team of ultra-serious super soldiers training to save the world, they're just some normal high schoolers still trying to live their everyday lives while dealing with normal high school problems. They deserve some moments of levity, and Persona 4 does a great job of realizing that. The combat is also improved from Persona 3, mostly just by letting you directly control your party members. It's such a simple change but it really goes a long way at making combat feel more freeing and flexible and less frustrating. The main thing that keeps me coming back to this game, though, is its theme of self acceptance. The message of "you should accept yourself for who you are instead of denying it and not being your true self" seems so simple, but it came to me at a time when I really needed it, and the game explores that concept in a variety of ways. It not only asks "why wouldnt someone be aware of their true self", but also "what if you don't know what your true self is?", "what if other people dont like your true self?", "what if you find out who you are and don't like it?" and more. It really digs deep into the concept and seeing these kids who I felt like I was friends with be so honest and vulnerable about who they were and what they wanted in life really got me thinking the same way, and it ultimately changed my life for the better. Also the main antagonist is a really good character and I like them
Cons: The biggest thing I dislike about this game is definitely how much of it has aged poorly. It's an older game so I can excuse it as being a product of its time, but its frustrating how many parts in this game skew homophobic, or transphobic, or fatphobic, or weird and perverted. It's not a huge part of the game by any means, there's only a handful of scenes that really make me cringe, but it's enough to noticeably affect my enjoyment of the game, and is worth bringing up as a con. Another con I would say is the combat. Yes, this game is an improvement over Persona 3, and yes it's nowhere near as monotonous thanks to the variety of dungeons in the game. This is easily the best and most fun Persona combat had ever been up to this point. It still gets a ltitle old and repetitive by the end. I personally dislike that they simplified the combat from Persona 3. Only one type of Physical attack, and the Protagonist can only equip a single weapon type, no more fusion spells. It's also not a huge flaw or anything but it does make this the Persona game with the simplest combat system and it's a bit of a shame. The game also tends to skew a bit on the easier side. Luckily with modern rereleases you can fully customize the difficulty. You can fully control damage dealt, damage recieved, xp dropped, money dropped, and you can tweak the difficulty of things to your liking. So if you want a harder experience you can go in and craft one. Another flaw the combat has is that there's not nearly as much incentive to switch out your party members. In Persona 3, you had a massive cast of party members, and the game placed teleporters before every miniboss so you could go to the first floor of Tartarus and switch your team composition, so you wanted to keep everyone at around the same level so you could bring the right team of people for the current fight. Persona 4 doesn't really have that, and it's pretty likely that there are certain party members you'll just never wind up using. I know for me personally once I got the final new party member, I never had a reason to switch off the team I was using, and the remaining party members just sat unused at a much lower level. Persona 5 would go on to fix this with the ability to switch your party anywhere at will, and with an XP share that gives backup teammates XP as well. It's really not a huge flaw, but definitely something I noticed.
Overall: Other people will say different but to me, this is the best Persona game. It does the best job at appealing to me personally. And that's all that matters. It's story is simple but effective and it's cast is incredibly endearing and fleshed out. The world this game creates feels real and lived in and it's story of self acceptance changed my life for the better