What makes Persona Good?
- Thread starter Ironbat92
- Start date
Recommended Videos
It's just a very unusual and good JRPG. And I'd advice to play Persona 3: Portable first. It's not as polished in gameplay terms as Persona 4: Golden, but it's still good and it'll make appreciate the improvements in Golden more.
But yeah, both Persona 3 and 4 are freaking awesome, albeit a very different in their feel games.
Persona 3 is more dark and depressing, with very dysfunctional characters and plot about death and depression.
Persona 4 is much brighter, with a relatively normal (in giant freaking quotes) cast and plot about truth and self-identification.
Both games have a pretty fun monster collecting mechanic that ties up really nice with game narrative. Both games are split in two basic parts-more gameplayi dungeon crawling part and more of a visual novel day part. So, during day you watch cutscenes, go to school and decide what to do in your spare time. You can go to work to earn some cash or meet up with your friends and this way forge your "social links". Each social link represents some particular Arcana and that Arcana ties up with monster fusion part. The higher your social link, the stronger monsters you fuse will be.
Just go and buy them already for god's sake!
But yeah, both Persona 3 and 4 are freaking awesome, albeit a very different in their feel games.
Persona 3 is more dark and depressing, with very dysfunctional characters and plot about death and depression.
Persona 4 is much brighter, with a relatively normal (in giant freaking quotes) cast and plot about truth and self-identification.
Both games have a pretty fun monster collecting mechanic that ties up really nice with game narrative. Both games are split in two basic parts-more gameplayi dungeon crawling part and more of a visual novel day part. So, during day you watch cutscenes, go to school and decide what to do in your spare time. You can go to work to earn some cash or meet up with your friends and this way forge your "social links". Each social link represents some particular Arcana and that Arcana ties up with monster fusion part. The higher your social link, the stronger monsters you fuse will be.
Just go and buy them already for god's sake!
Thats a hard one to explain. It just is? No, that probably wont do. The story and characters is what drew me in and Persona 4 gives you a good amount of freedom in choice as the story progresses. In many ways its like many other JRPGs that are mostly just visual novels with combat systems put in but Persona 4 takes the mechanics a bit further by making your relationship with the other characters really mean something.
I would also check out Persona 3 and maybe the earlier ones, I never played those myself but Persona 3 has a much darker side then P4. Depending on your tastes you may or may not like its story more although the mechanics IMO werent as well done which makes it harder to go back to after having played P4
I would also check out Persona 3 and maybe the earlier ones, I never played those myself but Persona 3 has a much darker side then P4. Depending on your tastes you may or may not like its story more although the mechanics IMO werent as well done which makes it harder to go back to after having played P4
For me, it was the story and the characters. Both Persona 3 and Persona 4 have a wide array of weird and wonderful characters and (well at least I did) started to genuinely care how their own story arcs played out, and each character, even the ones that are not in the main character's team have their own personality and problems, and the as you get to know them and become their friend, it adds to your own abilities and you become stronger as your social links develop. I can't think of any other game that does that.
For me, the character work stands out, and it also struck a near-perfect balance of story and gameplay. I'm generally not a fan of turn-based combat, but the other elements of the game worked so well that it didn't bother me at all.
I think the different parts work together to just make an overall engaging package to a point where it's difficult to point to a single element as the one outstanding piece of the whole.
I think the different parts work together to just make an overall engaging package to a point where it's difficult to point to a single element as the one outstanding piece of the whole.
As others have said, the characters stand out well over the RPG norm. Characters, both playable and not, get to have more than a role, a personality quirk, or a backstory, but full side stories that lets them grow and develop on their own. Some are better than others, but you'll find yourself cursing that finishing all social links in one playthrough is next to impossible. These stories fall on common japanese tropes, particularly anime, a little too often, but overall it works very well.
I'd also give it bonus points for the contemporary setting. high fantasy is nice, but something different is welcome.
I'd also give it bonus points for the contemporary setting. high fantasy is nice, but something different is welcome.
As noted the characters are rather memorable and the series has a fair bit of social commentary and psychological exploration going on in the background. Persona 3, for instance, has a great deal of focus on humanity's self-destructive nature and how we - both as individuals and as whole - deal with and overcome it. This both forms the central concept within the plot and is given a bit of ironic symbolism in the protagonists' means of fighting: by each and every one of them taking pistols, pointing them at their heads, and pulling the triggers, utilizing perhaps the single most iconic suicidal action to summon their greatest weapons in their fight to prevent the end of the world.
Persona 4 has a much lighter tone to it and focuses on the idea of 'truth' rather than 'death'. In particular, it focuses on the idea of reaching for the truth in spite of the hardship that the act inevitably brings and the value of both knowing yourself and having others who understand and accept you for who you are rather than just the façade you use to overcome life's hardship (your public persona). The Midnight Channel, by contrast, embodies both our desire to reach that understanding with other people and our inability to do so by our willingness to reduce them to caricatures. Shadows embody our desires and the self-loathing that stems from our perceived inability to act on them. And so on and so forth.
Really, their respective stories and themes are told very well both in the gameplay and the dialogue.
Persona 4 has a much lighter tone to it and focuses on the idea of 'truth' rather than 'death'. In particular, it focuses on the idea of reaching for the truth in spite of the hardship that the act inevitably brings and the value of both knowing yourself and having others who understand and accept you for who you are rather than just the façade you use to overcome life's hardship (your public persona). The Midnight Channel, by contrast, embodies both our desire to reach that understanding with other people and our inability to do so by our willingness to reduce them to caricatures. Shadows embody our desires and the self-loathing that stems from our perceived inability to act on them. And so on and so forth.
Really, their respective stories and themes are told very well both in the gameplay and the dialogue.