I have it on the way from Gamefly. I gave Persona 3 a try but honestly the whole suicide thing really turned me off on the whole experience... I just didn't want to play it. I liked the combat system and the other stuff I saw, though, so I'm hoping that Persona 4 will appeal to me more.

It's not suicide, though. They're basically "starter pistols" that summon demons out of another dimension. If you try to shoot someone with one (which one of the characters tries to do) it doesn't actually harm anyone or anything, just makes noise like a starter pistol in a footrace. It only triggers persona in persona-users.

If the game was about suicide... it's a Japanese game. No one commits suicide in Japan with pistols. If they had to hang themselves (#1) or throw themselves in front of a train (#2) to summon the persona, then yeah I'd be like "Holy crap you have to commit suicide to summon persona".

Also, P4 is on my XMas list. Probably my last purchase for the PS2.

-Andy

Persona 3 addresses the subject a little bit but it's mostly in the cutscenes early on when characters don't really want to shoot themselves in the head with this gun-looking thing. One of the reasons "you" are supposed to be so badass is because you just kinda grin and pull the trigger, easy-peasy lemon squeezy.

Of course in that game I think the main character looks like a soulless abomination that feeds off of the needs and desires others project onto it, and the game actually agrees with me to a lesser extent. Persona 4's main character seems decidedly less creepy so far.

That said, Persona 4 has a unique hook to the personae coming out. Spoiler territory for up to the first real boss battle, ~3 hours in.

And after a few more hours in it, Falchion, this is a tough little game. I can't say whether it's better than Persona 3, they're both worth playing I'd say, but I'd say Persona 4 is actually harder than P3. Grinding is absolutely required to progress, I've not yet had an easy time of a boss and have never defeated one if I just went straight through. I've also yet to find a way to reliably replenish my MP in P4 other than leaving the combat zone and coming back later which is irksome and forces this equation off in my head; do I continue with low mana, use the limited MP items I have, or give up for the day? In any event I fully expect 90-120 hours out of this thing and most of that won't be cut scenes. And considering all the mini-storylines involved in P3 and P4 it doesn't seem like a game you can easily pick up after putting it down for a few months.

Thanks for the info bnpederson!
From what I know of the end plot of Persona 3, I think your statement about the "detachment" of the main character is closer than you let on.

So the whole issue of Persona in the game series ties back to that famous statement to "Know thy self". Where Persona 3 is about overcoming your fear

Also from what I gather from the reviews so far, Persona 4 focuses alot on your choices which will then effect gameplay. So how you choose to spend your time in-game, what stats to work on and so forth have great effects. The thing about having to choose because of the lack of MP sounds totally in line with that theory of hard choices that the game wants you to make. Some of the reviews did mention that this kind of "grind" gets better as you go along.

Anyway I'm all up for diving into a game that is able to provide that length of gameplay. I'm looking to get my investments worth in my PS2 and this single game while it lasts. Almost living in an interactive anime sounds like a good way to do so.

That may be so, but it was my understanding that every character had the exact same style. Horn-rimmed glasses, to be precise, which have recently come into fashion with the "Emo" culture (hence, "emo glasses"). While I have nothing against Emos, I find it distracting that so many characters have such a distinct, identifiable and somewhat arbitrary feature, and my more cynical side tells me they picked that particular style of glasses just to appeal to a demographic. It'd be kind of like a game from the 90's where everyone in the party had magical parachute pants.

I'd find it a lot more interesting if each character had a different style of glasses more in keeping with their personality.

Persona 4 is sitting next to Persona 3 on my "PS2 games to play" shelf. Too many good games and holiday bargains right now. I'm going to jump into the game after Christmas. Does it matter which one I play first (yes, I have games I've bought and never played)? I've heard Persona 4 is a refinement over 3, so if you like 3 you'll like 4. If I play 4 first, would I want to go back to 3?

I have the original Persona 3.

Chomping at the bit to go get this in the next...2 or 3 hours. That is if work doesn't interrupt and my PS2 doesn't get cranky.

Murder Mysteries...so is it possible that the main mastermind is someone in the town that you will interact with outside of the Midnight Channel? Best mysteries are ones that get you with the reveal somewhere down the line.

EDIT: *sigh* just called the local shop and it turns out they don't even have enough to meet pre-orders and I'm too far down the list. No idea when stock will be coming in. Looks like I'll have to order from an online store, free delivery but it will take 5-10 days or more since it's the holiday season.

Well, I was sick this weekend and Luna went out of town Friday and Saturday, so I more or less spent three whole days playing this. I'm up to the end of June now, and I'm ashamed to say the number the save screen reports as how long I've played, so I think I'm at a point where I can give some informed opinions.

As the reviews report the core gameplay and mechanics are all improved or refined over Persona 3. The social simulation side feels more flexible and forgiving than that found in P3, but the dungeon crawling is definitely more challenging, at least on the normal difficulty. Actually, I'd suggest the easy difficulty to anyone who wants to experience the game but doesn't want to be required to grind (and there were certainly points this weekend where I wished I had made that decision myself). That said, as has been mentioned it DOES get more forgiving as you progress. First off,

this changes a bit before you head to the second full dungeon. Basically, you will have a way to refill your SP in the dungeon as much as you want. However, unlike in P3, where simply returning to the dungeon lobby area refilled you for free, there is a VERY significant cost to refilling, so you still need to have some higher level planning and strategy regarding how you choose to tackle each dungeon. (P3 also tried to make the player think in this way by having your characters get tired and loose battle efficacy after a certain amount of time in the dungeon; once you learned about the special days where you wouldn't get tired, though, you could remove this concern entirely.) That said, many of the ways that P3 was difficult in an unfair way have been removed, so the challenge in P4 feels like it's mostly due to needing to carefully manage your resources (time, SP, etc) and be clever about your ability use and persona building, rather than needing to avoid unlucky situations (at least so far).

Anyway, I guess the only other thing worth saying is that while the story presentation in P4 also feels more refined than P3 and the ancillary social links and characters are more interesting to me, at least at this point the setting and main characters aren't as appealing to me as what P3 offered. That's not to say that P4 isn't good, and really I think that its going to be a matter of each player's personal preference, but for me the central story and character elements of P3 were more compelling. Also, I don't think the improvements and refinements in P4 are any reason to not play P3 if you haven't already -- these games are much more like siblings than sequential steps in a series; two excellent but similar experiences, both more than worth your time if you like the genre.

(To put it another way, P4 is essentially a standalone expansion to P3. New story and characters, some improvements to the game systems, but nothing that negates or obsoletes the original game.)

Phase 2 of the "Encourage me to play this and my other PS2 back catalog plan" was achieved this weekend. A Logitech wireless PS2 controller has been acquired. No longer must I sit on the floor of my home office cursing my choices for furniture placement and/or Sony's lack of consideration for distances greater than 6 ft. from the TV.

Yeah, no changing once you've started.

When I was struggling in the first dungeon I did a bit of research on this, and from what I could the difficulty should only change the battle difficulty. However, I didn't find anyone 100% confirming that the story content would be the same, so make that choice at your own risk I guess.

Honestly, though, if you can make it through the first dungeon or two you will start to have the resources needed to bring the difficulty more in line with what was in P3.

I haven't played FES since I played the original P3 with excessive thoroughness when it was first available, but from everything I've read FES is an improvement in every way, and you should play that version rather than the original edition if at all possible.

Yes! Kepheus and I both commented on it when she joined the team.

Good game though - we're both enjoying it.

Is your PS3 firmware up to date? I'm pretty sure that in more recent versions of the firmware you can assign memory cards from the menu that pops up when you hit the PS button.

Just for clarity, this was the dungeon I was calling the second full dungeon earlier, since the first place you go to is really just a boss, not a place you have to navigate through.

But yeah, that was one hell of a thematic departure from what you find in most games of this type. I'm still not sure I'm a fan of the way they are handling the topic, but I have to admit it was both shocking and amusing.

Speaking of shocking themes, though, the boss of the third dungeon was pretty damn outrageous as well. While the content of the second dungeon was probably more than enough to cause the ESRB to go with an M rating for the game, the third dungeon makes it clear that Atlus had no delusions about what rating they were going to get.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you could get around the game's refusal to use slot 2 by using the firmware memory card manager from the PS menu. Of course, the nature of the game is such that you will often make some poor choices regarding how to spend your time early on, and thus replaying the first month or two could be a big help anyway. As such, it's probably not the worst thing in the world that you have to start over.

Oh, it made sense to me too, but...

Well, it's a very different, more traditional kind of awkward; to put it simply, you haven't seen the end of the game's more mature content.

Holy Crap this game is hard! I got my ass made into appetizer, main course, desert & handed to me by the boss for the first real dungeon.

I was considering restarting the whole game under the Easy difficulty as recommended above, when I remembered what genre of game this was. I then decided to slowly grind a few levels first before trying again. The game actually expects & heavily suggests this behavior. The time limit that it gives you to complete the goal is quite lax.

Am enjoying it so far. It's great to come back to something different yet with familiar gameplay. While the difficulty curve goes up steeply, it does a good job of slowly easing you into the plot as it should with any good murder mystery plot. I have to say playing through the real introduction took me like 3 - 4 hours. Which kinda fits the slow build that many anime follow.