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[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Anyone else playing this game? Or am I the only one on these forums who like that series?

[Titch]

My Canadian friend is going to send me Persona 4 for christmas. I'm still working my way through P3:FES. I do love the whole life/dungeon crawling thing though.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

For those who don't know, the premise of the game is that, in a small town in Japan, people are being sucked into their TVs, where their shadow (in the sense of Jungian personality) selves are dominant. The story of the series in general feel a bit like the twilight zone, with a central supernatural premise that the story takes and runs with.

The player has to go into the TV to rescue them, and also go to high school and manage his friendships and social relations, similar to Kudos or The Sims, with stats like courage and expression which you can raise through various activities and which can determine what you say in conversations and how far you can take friendships. There's a time-management element because you only can do one thing each day and each evening, and you have to choose what you want to spend your valuable time on.

But other than that, the gameplay is standard jRPG. Each dungeon is based on the true personality of the person who was sucked into it: for instance a secretly gay character has an all-male hottub area as the dungeon.

The only thing I don't really like about the game so far is the voice acting: I felt that Persona 3 did a better job with that. But other than that, I like it better than Persona 3 so far, since Persona 3 was more of an epic save the world thing, whereas this is just solve some murders in a small town thing.

[policedanceclub]

Persona 3 is pretty much the only jrpg I have ever enjoyed. (pokemons too)


So, I am definitely getting this when it gets released here in Europe.

[Titch]

Persona 3 is pretty much the only jrpg I have ever enjoyed. (pokemons too)


So, I am definitely getting this when it gets released here in Europe.

Played any other SMT games, policedanceclub?

Digital Devil Saga is excellent.

[Moth]

I love the Megaten games but I haven't played Persona 3 or 4 yet. 

[The-Imp]

Nope.

Waiting for Shadow of the Collossus.
 

[policedanceclub]

Played any other SMT games, policedanceclub?

Digital Devil Saga is excellent.

I actually bought that in the afterglow of persona 3.

I played it for maybe 30 minutes and then I just had to stop.
It just really didn't work for me.

[Don Andy]

Persona 3 was (is) pretty cool, but after a while the whole social thing really got on my nerves, especially since you had to wait till every Full Moon to properly progress the story.

I will eventually play Persona 4, too.

[team_q]

My boss when I used to work at Gamestop was a big Persona fan. I dunno, it seems the things that make JRPGS, JRPGS are the things that turn me away from them, I just cant get into them, also they are too long.

[Powergloved Andy]

I've loved the Persona series for many years. But I have not gotten 4 yet =X

[policedanceclub]

too long.

This is my problem with a lot of games, jrpg or not.
I personally have hard time finishing games longer than 10 hours or so, no matter how good they are.

[Cheater‽]

So like, the only thing I know about the SMT games I got from the intro of Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army. It seems awesome.

Also, my friend will probably get this, because he's running out of cool games for his poor dying console. No, he still hasn't gotten Psychonauts, despite my insistence.

[GregWS]

too long.

This is my problem with a lot of games, jrpg or not.
I personally have hard time finishing games longer than 10 hours or so, no matter how good they are.

I totally agree here; I just don't have the time anymore.  Super atmospheric games usually hold my attention (Metroid Prime), but yeah, other than that I'd just prefer tighter games, like Portal.  I just finished An Untitled Story, and my finish time was 12.5 hours, and even though I loved that game it was really starting to feel like a drag by the end, as I just really wanted to win it and move on.

[William Broom]

I really like the art in Persona, and the story sounds good. But I just hate JRPG gameplay too much.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I understand about disliking long games and not having time, but personally that's one of the parts of jRPGs I like best: I feel that sometimes you can't really get to know a fictional set of characters unless you spend a lot of time with them. I'd rather play one good 60-hour game than six mediocre 10-hour games.

Without all that length, there wouldn't be room for all of the things that make Persona 4 great: for instance there's this one part of the game where there's a group date, there's another part where there's a beauty competition, there's another part where you eat watermelon with all your friends: everyday mundane events like that that really show various sides of the characters. Without all that length, you wouldn't care about the characters so much.

[team_q]

I'd rather play one good 60-hour game than six mediocre 10-hour games.

I'd rather beat six good 10-hour games then play one good 60- hour game for only 25 hours, which is what usually happens. My favourite JRPG Ogre Battle 64, I played though 35 hours of it, then I found out I was only a third in the story, by that point I had warn out the enduringness of the gameplay. Gameplay is 90% for me, the story will keep me playing only so far.

[Melly]

Personally, I didn't manage to finsh Persona 3 because of two things:

It was too hard to know what was best to say to a specific character, even if you made effort to get to know their personality.

I am kind-of a perfectioninst and that CAN make me restart whole games because there's a much better way to do things than I'm doing, and I tended to reset the console constantly to try and nail those conversations, probably going completely against the whole point of them.

Overall the social aspect started becoming a bit of a shore. You had friends you started caring about and friends you didn't care about so much or at all. You spent more time with one than the other, and next thing you know the other's alignment was reversed because they're pissed at you, and you can't make personas of their type anymore.

Honestly, the character I had the most fun relating with in 3 was Maya, the girl you talk to in IM chat.

I also never liked the english voice acting in these games, despite the quality being above average in 3. I wish they kept the originals as well. Oh well, there's always the option to turn them off (except in anime cutscenes, unfortunately).

Also, yes, the combat did get repetitive after a while despite the many details that make it more interesting than most other jRPG's I've seen.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Yes, different people have different approaches to games, I think it has to do with what you look for in a game. I play games primarily for the story (which doesn't just mean the plot, it means the characters, setting, atmosphere, and all that) rather than the gameplay or challenges most of the time.

There are a lot of changes in Persona 4 that make it easier than 3 in that regard: for instance it's nearly impossible to "reverse" a character anymore (unless you intentionally try to do it by saying bad things to them).

I find that saying the "wrong" things to characters (the ones that result in fewer rather than more affection points) can be worthwhile. You shouldn't feel the need to say everything "correctly" in a perfectionist way: why did they bother writing all their replies to the non-correct answers if they weren't going to be seen by anyone? That's part of the fun of the game, accepting your mistakes instead of re-starting.

Another thing I now prefer in Persona 3 is the music: the music in Persona 4 is pretty good, but the music in Persona 3 was great. There's this one scene in Persona 4 where your class takes a trip to the high school in Persona 3, and you see a few of the old characters there, and music from the old game is playing, and that scene made me realize how much I missed that old style of music (hiphop style) rather than this game's style (which is more like jpop or something).

Another thing I preferred in 3 was that the bad ending was easier to avoid: in 4 there are like 10 different bad endings which you can activate unless you're careful, missing out on the whole last part of the game. I'm near the end now and got caught with a bad ending, so I had to resort to checking a faq to see how to get past a bunch of questions. I hadn't used a faq until that point (around 60 hours in) at all, and I normally hate using faqs the first time I play through a game, but those questions were just brutal.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Oh, one more thing: one of my absolute favorite parts of Persona 3 was when the true villain was revealed: they kept him secret very well, it was a real shock. It had a real "mystery novel" feeling to it, where you provide subtle clues but not enough to allow most people to guess who it was.

Well, Persona 4 did that even better: although I did actually guess it, it was only because I was consciously looking for it since I knew Persona 3 did that. At first I was like "who's the most unlikely guy to be the actual villain? I know, that guy!" -- and I'm still amazed that my guess was actually right.