Atlus Persona 4 Golden - out on Steam

[flyingjohn]

No way to save while in a dungeon is killing me.
Spent a hour grinding and the game crashes,fuck.Would it have killed them to have a auto save during a set amount of floors.

 

[Momock]

At the top of the floor there is an optional boss and the reward is basically nothing.

It's a cool weapon, but it lays on the floor and is invisible.

PS: I found out the first time because I couldn't belive there was nothing and started scraching the walls.

 

[d1r]

Zyondyne
If we're talking about Persona games, it's setting up a goal to max level and min/max your favourite demon(s), respectively grinding while listening to the game's great music, and MAYBE enjoy the story / the plot twists the game has to offer. Persona 5 became kinda interesting at the end, but the whole midgame is a fucking slog which kept going on and on and on. Mainline games are more about the atmosphere, the story, but it certainly does help to set yourself a goal here too, for example: Beating all the Super DLC bosses in SMT4 / SMT4A on Master difficulty / 100% your compendium, and so on. But at the end, the gameplay / demon fusion system is what always makes me come back to the newer parts of the series.

 

[raesha]

Speaking about platforms, looking at Persona 5 (which I haven't played) I can't help it but think - "hey, this is PS4 we're on. No more technical limitations like PS2, Vita or DS had, and yet, it still keeps it PS2 formula..."

In regards to this bit in particular, Persona 5 is largely a game designed around the hardware limitations on the PS3, not the PS4. While they improved the experience a bit with the re-release, the core of it was designed around needing to be playable on hardware from 2006.

 

[1451]

Lots of complaints about persona 4 combat and dungeons are solved in persona 5. Every dungeon is different and turn based combat is improved.
Persona 4 is the weakest entry because they didn't have a lot of time to work on it.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Also, I've seen other game series evolving their formulas over time. Final Fantasy did it, Dragon Quest did it, Fire Emblem did it, Legend of Zelda did it.

Take Final Fantasy VI (1994) and Final Fantasy XIII (2009). Quite a difference, in both how they look and how they play, generally and in what concerns combat systems. For better or worse.

Combat of classic FF is not all that different between games. Your complaint regarding enemy design/samey spells etc also applies to FF. What is indeed different is the underlying character development system and whether characters are unique or act as a job container. Some of those changes are mixed bag execution wise but yeah they do keep things fresh I guess? The big radical departure which is not "contrained by old console anymore" XIII onwards, I would argue is shit. So newer isn't better. XII is also a radical departure and plays like a major single-player MMO (and this is bad)

It is not that ATLUS doesn't try to do anything at all. Devil Summoner series is basically ATLUS attempt to change the combat into kinda RtwP which is a mixed bag execution wise. With P5 Scramble I guess we also got some sort of beat em up action games.

Personally I wouldn't mind them changing the formula a bit especially on the character development system. But as I pointed out, I don't really play these games for muh combat so there is that.

 

[Zyondyne]

Also, I've seen other game series evolving their formulas over time. Final Fantasy did it, Dragon Quest did it, Fire Emblem did it, Legend of Zelda did it.

Take Final Fantasy VI (1994) and Final Fantasy XIII (2009). Quite a difference, in both how they look and how they play, generally and in what concerns combat systems. For better or worse.

Combat of classic FF is not all that different between games. Your complaint regarding enemy design/samey spells etc also applies to FF. What is indeed different is the underlying character development system and whether characters are unique or act as a job container. Some of those changes are mixed bag execution wise but yeah they do keep things fresh I guess? The big radical departure which is not "contrained by old console anymore" XIII onwards, I would argue is shit. So newer isn't better. XII is also a radical departure and plays like a major single-player MMO (and this is bad)

It is not that ATLUS doesn't try to do anything at all. Devil Summoner series is basically ATLUS attempt to change the combat into kinda RtwP which is a mixed bag execution wise. With P5 Scramble I guess we also got some sort of beat em up action games.

Personally I wouldn't mind them changing the formula a bit especially on the character development system. But as I pointed out, I don't really play these games for muh combat so there is that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm also playing these games for the story. But the story is scattered across some excruciatingly painful and repetitive combat sections. No matter how good the story is, I personally cannot force myself to play further through hours and hours of the same bland gameplay Persona 3 had only to read some visual novel that isn't very good.

And in Persona 4 case (I don't remember how the plot was in the other SMT games I played, it was a long time ago) the plot isn't strong enough to justify forcing yourself through the gameplay. It's just a simple "who dunnit" mystery that is extremely predictable.

Maybe I was younger and more impressionable back then, but I remember Persona 3 FES having a slightly more interesting & complex plot that could have justified better the slog of a gameplay. And other games such as Nocturne or Strange Journey were on another level. You could almost convince yourself it is worth losing hours doing the same thing over and over again.

 

[karoliner]

It's really about you being older, all those games came a decade or more ago. They just can't amaze you now that you aren't a high schooler anymore.

In my case i can't stand replaying many of these games nowadays. I'm going through golden right now and just skipping more than half of the cutscenes. I'm still enjoying it but nowhere as much as i did 12 years ago. I'm really hesitant about continuing 5 from what little i played it was the same thing as 4.

 

[Slaver1]

One of the best videogames ever made with a truly unforgettable cast and basically the jewel in the crown of JRPG games. I did think the same when I played P4 on RPCX2 five years ago so my opinion hasn't really changed.

I prefer the dungeon crawling here to P5 as well. It's less tedious and over-designed and you can breeze through the floors in an almost trancelike state. The other aspects of the game from characterization, pacing and story beats are all markedly superior too. I suspect Atlus devs feel the same way even though critical reception might be telling them P5/P5R is their best, not to mention most commercially successful game.

 

[cruel]

No other game, ever, had a cast of characters better than P4 Golden for me. Everyone was different, authentic, and the chemistry between them was almost like looking at real people. No comparison with boring cast of P5 (only Makoto and Yusuke were decent; Ryuji, Ann and Morgana can all go to hell).

 

[flyingjohn]

So how fucked am i if i am just fusing shit left and right to create a persona that look awesome and don't give a fuck about utility?
I got past shadow yukiko on hard with subpar persona so i think i am going to be fine.

Also every time i hear the perfect song my mind jumps to the bioshock waifu video and Levine wallpaper.

 

[GhostCow]

P4 isn't that hard. You will be fine. There are fusion calculators online if you want to go full autist and complete the compendium like I did though.

 

[Shinji]

I prefer the dungeon crawling here to P5 as well. It's less tedious and over-designed

Over-designed, that's the word I was looking for.

Persona 5 has a lot of Quality of Life improvements overall, but the dungeons are way too over-designed. They added a lot of unnecessary gimmicks and puzzles, and every dungeon has a barrier that prevents you from further advancing, forcing you to exit the dungeon and do something in the real world in order to break the barrier.

I would be ok with a "fatigue system" if the point of it was to prevent the player from completing a dungeon in a single day, or to encourage the player to replace tired characters with others that were well-rested (I see no point in adding more characters to the cast if the player has no incentive to use them -- except for support characters)

But forcing the player to exit the dungeon so that they can add more padding to the story is just frustrating. Simple things should be kept simple.
I guess Persona 5 suffers from the same problem as most visual novels, it just drags on for too long. Persona 4 felt more balanced in that regard.

 

[GhostCow]

I'm going to have to disagree with anyone who thinks the boring randomly generated dungeons in P3 or P4 are better than the beautiful hand crafted dungeons in P5. I enjoyed P5's dungeons at lot. Especially the upgraded versions in P5R

 

[Cat Dude]

No way to save while in a dungeon is killing me.
Spent a hour grinding and the game crashes,fuck.Would it have killed them to have a auto save during a set amount of floors.

Jrpg devs have tendency to prefer old ass save point mechanic.

 

[Momock]

No way to save while in a dungeon is killing me.
Spent a hour grinding and the game crashes,fuck.Would it have killed them to have a auto save during a set amount of floors.

Jrpg devs have tendency to prefer old ass save point mechanic.

Bro... just TP to the save point and come back.

 

[Beggar]

I'm pretty puzzled with the people who yell that everything was predictable and that they understood who the serial killer was quickly. Your game most likely ended with the fall. Even if no, then your second guess if false also. The true ending and true thing behind all this will come out after saying goodbye to everyone and not going home even the game forces you to do so.

 

[karoliner]

You know what i take back what i said in my previous post. This is the best game ever made, no one will ever make a better game.

Spoilers for the new content Golden added starting in January.

Spoiler

 

[d1r]

karoliner Just get a girlfriend, really.

 

[Garbage]

Or just buy a romance VN, they're usually cheaper than a girlfriend.

 

[Nathir]

Or just buy a romance VN, they're usually cheaper than a girlfriend.

But Persona is a romance VN, and he's just playing it?

 

[Garbage]

Or just buy a romance VN, they're usually cheaper than a girlfriend.

But Persona is a romance VN, and he's just playing it?

I meant one that doesn't try to pretend it's an RPG.

 

[1451]

You mean like Disco Elysium?

 

[cruel]

Seeing the ending pictures reminded me, how sad I was when the game came to the end. You just felt you have played something special and you will never get the same experience again, plus this big feeling of emptiness and 'what now'?

They should really start making some kind of pills that will make you forget a certain game and play it again with no memories of it. I would instantly use it on Planescape, Dark Souls and Persona 4G.

 

[karoliner]