Persona 4 Golden Catch-All

DSGamer wrote:

A bit off topic, is there somewhere to download all of the Quick Looks? Ever since I finished Persona 4 I've been poking around the Giant Bomb website and their API to see if I could download all of them, load them on my iPhone and work my way through them. I'm really really curious to hear their commentary on the game now.

Well, there's this youtube playlist.... Otherwise you'd need to scrape pages or convince someone to start seeding one of the few torrents that ended up out there.

Hmm..the old Chie sounds pretty terrible, too (to me). The new one starts off awful but gets better later in the game.

Finally got past December...

Spoiler:

Ameno-Sagiri required that I go back and clear out Magatsu Mandala 6 another 6 times to gain some levels. Once I did that his Nebula Oculus didn't one-shot my entire party, and I was able to finish the battle. I won using a Hell Magatami with only Yu still standing at 40% HP, so it was still a close shave.

I was sad to discover that I missed 2 books in the game, so I can't get the trophy for reading all the books. Oh well, I should be able to accomplish that next game now that I have 100% in all social stats. I think I've got a good 30 hours left though, so I'm looking at close to 120 hours to finish this game. I'm looking forward to being able to adjust the difficulty parameters, because I like how tough the enemies are on Very Hard but it's annoying how little XP and Yen you get from battles. I think next game will be Very Hard with max Yen, max XP, and ability to restart the floor turned on.

You can fine tune the difficulty that much? That tempts me to run through it again for trophies.

Wow, you weren't kidding DS, this story did just completely jump the shark. The 2nd to last dungeon and related story wasn't too bad, but the True Ending boss... wow. Discovering the real murderer was still worse writing, but this is up there. I imagine they must have just stuck all the games characters to a wall, and chucked darts at them to pick who would be what. It's the only logical explanation for how the story turned out.

Anyway, I'm in the final dungeon now, figure I might have the game finished this week. I'll go back to get Platinum after I break to clear some other Vita games off my pile.

Yeah. Beyond jumping the shark, though, it does that thing video games (and often comics) do. They find some outside force to blame and it loses its edge in the process. It reminds me of Green Lantern, actually.

Spoiler:

In the Green Lantern comics Hal Jordan goes crazy when his home town is destroyed. He goes on a killing spree to try and gain as much power as possible to try and prevent something like this from happening again.

Later this is retconned into Hal Jordan being possessed by some space demon and that's what caused him to go nuts. So then they can restore the character as he was before all of that.

The sad thing in the case of the game is that it was unnecessary.

Oh well, I keep wondering when I get the urge to double back on this if I'll try to Platinum it or if I'll finally play Persona 3 instead.

Haha, that Green Lantern analogy is perfect, that is exactly what they did. What's extra disappointing about this kind of writing is that it destroys the character.

Spoiler:

So now not only does it not make logical sense that Adachi was the murderer, he can't even be held responsible for his own actions. He was just a pawn, so you should forgive him and be mad at this gas station attendant instead!?!?

Sigh, so sad.

I just finished this game last night. My turn to spoilerify some big End of Game revelations and thoughts.

Spoiler:

The game does drop hints about Izanami and Izanagi. They are very brief - moments of a game that requires dozens of hours to finish - but not incredibly subtle.

The ending felt like it made sense. The end also felt sacrificed so that the "truth" meta-plot could take over the game play. The player has to not give up at any "false" endings to see the truth. Meta-gaming. All of that was really clever from a gameplay perspective, but it did make every new layer of "better ending" feel less satisfying.

So, between keeping the mystery subtle and the meta-game that had to be played to play the video game, the ending felt much less effective. In the long run, I'd rather have a solid game with a solid ending. A solid game that sacrificed its ending was still worth playing.

I finally got that last boss down. In the end, more levels wasn't the answer, it was adding Tarunda into my buff/debuff routine. Marakukaja + Tarunda allowed my party to survive each round easily. It was still a long battle, but not terribly difficult.

130+ hours and I'm done. I think I'll take a break now, play some New Little King's Story, maybe knock a few PSN titles off my backlog, then go back to get the Platinum on P4G.

Beat this game with the true ending yesterday after a couple of insomniatic nights (sigh). Overall, I am not as bummed as many people seem to be about how things unfolded at the end.

Spoiler:

For starters, I largely agree with MrAndrewJ. But also, Persona 3 kind of did the same thing, in my opinion. I guess other that P2:Innocent Sin, I haven't really had a satisfactory ending in a Persona game. P3 did the same thing after the twist where the SEES boss turns on you, and I played Persona 1 on the PSX, where who the hell knows what was going on.

That said, I don't really think that's the point. Persona is always about the characters, and regardless of what was happening in the plot, the characterization in this game was top notch, all the way to the end.

Spoiler:

Yeah, the lack of integrating your love interest into the regular cutscenes is a bit jarring. But man, when I had my final date with Teddie, where he gets his ultimate evolution, the "How long is that in Topsicles?" line had me actually tearing up. Possibly this was the insomnia speaking. But what a great character.

So I'm on the

Spoiler:

Nanako

boss and it's killing everyone with a single hit about 3/4 through the battle. Are there any items I should get to help me, or what are some preparation suggestions?

aspect wrote:

Beat this game with the true ending yesterday after a couple of insomniatic nights (sigh). Overall, I am not as bummed as many people seem to be about how things unfolded at the end.

I think you almost spoiled P3 for me, but I looked away at last minute. Maybe not, I didn't read it. Might want to be careful with that since this a P4 thread.

The Green Lantern analogy made me think of FFVIII, which is the worst case of this I can remember in a JRPG.

@EverythingsTentative.... The solution to every boss i got stuck on this game ended up being grinding a bit. I do recall making sure I had reflect up on my party the whole time but I could be mistaken..my memory is not what it used to be in my old age.

My experience was the opposite of warriorpoet. Every boss I had trouble with was solved by more buffs and debuffs. Use consumables to keep your party buffed, and dedicate a party member to keeping the boss debuffed, and most fights will become a lot easier.

ahrezmendi wrote:

My experience was the opposite of warriorpoet. Every boss I had trouble with was solved by more buffs and debuffs. Use consumables to keep your party buffed, and dedicate a party member to keeping the boss debuffed, and most fights will become a lot easier.

This helps too.

I recall having to grind levels only 2 times in the whole game, and I was playing on Very Hard where XP is cut in half for all battles. Even then what helped more were the new spells or personae I got while grinding.

Matarukaja and Masukukaja were my go to combo for making boss fights easier, followed by *Runda and lastly *Kunda. Generally *Kaja will so greatly reduce your need for healing that you can wail on the boss with 3 of your party members.

I haven't felt like I have had to grind, yet. The simple fact that they put new bosses at the top of each dungeon hides the grinding really well.

ahrezmendi wrote:

My experience was the opposite of warriorpoet. Every boss I had trouble with was solved by more buffs and debuffs. Use consumables to keep your party buffed, and dedicate a party member to keeping the boss debuffed, and most fights will become a lot easier.

Yeah, this is pretty much my experience with Persona as a whole. Buffs/Debuffs and making sure the available Personas are at their highest base level you can fuse (obviously the S.Links will make them more powerful) are pretty much key to getting through the game more than having your main character be at level x. I've never *really* had to grind out any levels (meaning running through the same dungeon multiple times) for most of this game. There are the off times when I'm missing the fusing by a level, but usually by the time I actually get to the boss I've gained that level and then some.

Okay, I've started up P4G after knocking over P3P. Well, started isn't quite right, I'm up to Rise's dungeon already... where were you all my life Persona?

Anyway, some initial thoughts:

Chie is so close to being annoying, without ever quite getting there, it's actually pretty endearing. She actually is an awful lot like some of the over-excited teenage girls I remember from high-school. She's probably my favourite character to hang around with so far.

Yousuke on the other hand, is starting to piss me off a bit. He's a sleaze like Junpei, but with fewer redeeming qualities. He's also a homophobe (I was actually hoping Kanji would deck him in the camping scene). So yeah, like a lot of teenage boys I remember from highschool. Nevertheless...

Teddie is also really annoying. The support character ride I've had from Mitsuru (great!) to Fuuka (a bit over the top) to Teddie (oh gods kill me) has been a rough one. I've heard that Rise takes over that role once you rescue her, and her voice seems much more suited to the role, so thank goodness for that if it's true.

Really enjoying the mechanics so far as well, although some of the early boss fights have been pretty brutal. More to come as I go.

Yeah, arguably combat is better in P4 than P3, and the dungeon layout is certainly nicer, but story- and character-wise P3 has a decided advantage. Don't feel bad; you're not alone. Even still, some really interesting stuff happens near the end that's worth playing for.

Is it me, or is P4G harder than P3? I'm only 10 hours in, late May, just started the second dungeon, but I got wiped by the first encounter and the encounters in general seem to be fairly difficult. I'm only playing normal difficulty too. Maybe my personas are poorly configured or maybe I'm just too used to kicking butt with the high-level end-game P3 stuff.

I think the problem I've noticed is there's no equivalent character to Mitsuru or Akihiko. In both games, you're ostensibly the leader, but since you're mostly mute, the other characters do the talking. Mitsuru and Akihiko handle the bulk of the chatter in P3, and they're both very sensible and clever. In a way they're just saying what I would anyway, so I don't mind that my 'leadership' is a bit of a ruse. Junpei is treated like the idiot he is, and since he never has much control over the other characters, he doesn't get the chance to make too many bad decisions, and he's a more likeable character for it.

Yosuke, on the other hand, seems to be the voice of the party in P4, and he's terrible at it. There have been times where I've really wished I'd been able to cuff him across the back of the head and do the talking for him, but the protagonist just stands there and lets him waffle on... ugh.

Everyone else seems pretty neat though, Uncle Dojima in particular is a great character, and Nanako is pretty adorable. Chie is great as mentioned, Kanji seems like the endearing parts of Junpei after they've been taken from Yosuke. Yukiko is a mostly forgettable Yukari clone with less personality, but she's otherwise inoffensive.

Admittedly I am missing the P3 crew though, they're just such a great group of characters. Which is no mean feat, considering I tend to prefer the characterisation in Western RPGs. The P3 characters are up there with the best you'll see from Bioware.

The Chagall coffee guy totally looks like Walter White as well, which is a little concerning.

Minarchist wrote:

Yeah, arguably combat is better in P4 than P3, and the dungeon layout is certainly nicer, but story- and character-wise P3 has a decided advantage. Don't feel bad; you're not alone. Even still, some really interesting stuff happens near the end that's worth playing for.

This just makes me wish there was a Vita version of Persona 3. I'd rather run around a fully realized world.

DSGamer wrote:
Minarchist wrote:

Yeah, arguably combat is better in P4 than P3, and the dungeon layout is certainly nicer, but story- and character-wise P3 has a decided advantage. Don't feel bad; you're not alone. Even still, some really interesting stuff happens near the end that's worth playing for.

This just makes me wish there was a Vita version of Persona 3. I'd rather run around a fully realized world.

I just want a native Vita or PS4 Persona 5.

I like Yosuke a little better than Junpei. I found Junpei to be highly dumb and annoying. Yosuke's just a bit more toned down in that regard. Some of it may be the voice acting and translation. It's hard for me to say.

Redwing wrote:

The Chagall coffee guy totally looks like Walter White as well, which is a little concerning.

And his coffee is unusually strong. Hmm...

So, I got to the part where you're trying to collect info on Rise for Teddy. I got a bit aggravated playing it yesterday.

Spoiler:

I have no idea what info I'm missing. I've gone everywhere looking for stuff. I waited all the way till the last day thinking something might show up, but Rise just died. I got at least to the point where you find the paparazzi dude willing to trade information and then I've got nada. Anyone remember getting stuck here? I don't mind a little hint because whatever info is hiding is crazy difficult to find. It doesn't help that I've been playing this game so sporadically it's easy to miss stuff that way.

Spoiler:

I think you can get all the info you need in the first couple of days, speaking to students at the highschool I think. Unfortunately I can't rightly remember exactly what info the journalist wants, I do know you basically tell him the same thing twice, and he'll give you what you need.

Redwing wrote:
Spoiler:

I think you can get all the info you need in the first couple of days, speaking to students at the highschool I think. Unfortunately I can't rightly remember exactly what info the journalist wants, I do know you basically tell him the same thing twice, and he'll give you what you need.

Spoiler:

Huh, well, I really have no idea then. I'll try a save that takes me back a few days and comb the high school for stuff. It must just be someone hidden in a spot I didn't check. I figure I can do the whole dungeon in 2 days, so I shouldn't have to redo too much stuff. The journalist doesn't tell you what he wants. He just is willing to trade information. That really gave me absolutely nothing to go on. :)

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Redwing wrote:
Spoiler:

I think you can get all the info you need in the first couple of days, speaking to students at the highschool I think. Unfortunately I can't rightly remember exactly what info the journalist wants, I do know you basically tell him the same thing twice, and he'll give you what you need.

Spoiler:

Huh, well, I really have no idea then. I'll try a save that takes me back a few days and comb the high school for stuff. It must just be someone hidden in a spot I didn't check. I figure I can do the whole dungeon in 2 days, so I shouldn't have to redo too much stuff. The journalist doesn't tell you what he wants. He just is willing to trade information. That really gave me absolutely nothing to go on. :)

I remember that being a part that was obvious and I was just thinking too hard about it, but I don't remember the details.

So how many hours in do I have to get before I can do something other than hit X to advance the dialog?