Persona 4 Golden Catch-All

So, when it says that your relationship with someone isn't ready to advance yet, is it a waste of time to spend time with them right then?

No, you'll still gain points towards the relationship such that next time it may gain a rank.

All the social links have a hidden score, and each rank of each link has a particular number of points you need to gain to reach the next rank. How many points you need differs by the social link. So if you have 6/8 points, you'll have to spend time with the person (or buy a prayer, or visit them at night) to hit 8/8 and then you can rank up.

And having a Persona with the same arcana as the Social Link will increase that score faster.

Anyone else end up (massive spoiler for end game):

Spoiler:

Watching the credits roll only to realize you had missed out on 5-7 hours of game play plus the real ending? Went back and did a light read through of a faq to figure out where I went wrong, back in the thick of it now. Pretty ballsy for them to have that option in there without it even being really clear what choice you're making.

Warriorpoet897 wrote:

Anyone else end up (massive spoiler for end game):

Spoiler:

Watching the credits roll only to realize you had missed out on 5-7 hours of game play plus the real ending? Went back and did a light read through of a faq to figure out where I went wrong, back in the thick of it now. Pretty ballsy for them to have that option in there without it even being really clear what choice you're making.

Yes. That shocked me.

An IGN editor commissioned a piece of art to be made for another editor's birthday.

http://www.ign.com/blogs/pandamusk/2...

I am really hating the latest mini-boss I'm up against.

Spoiler:

The Envious Giant in Adachi's dungeon is super annoying. I'm going to try just keeping Marakukaja and Masukukaja up at all times, hopefully that'll allow me to dodge his Megidolaon.

EDIT: Beat that boss, and I'm now on to the final boss of the original game. I was hoping I could swing a victory with smart item use and good tactics, but I think I'm just too low level to realistically handle this one.

Spoiler:

His Nebula Oculus attack just wrecks my entire team. I can survive Agneyastra with 50% HP if I have Marakukaja up, and I have two characters with Makarakarn so I can just reflect his Dyne spells back at him. But even if I'm super diligent about keeping all that up, I usually wind up losing one team member every few rounds, and always wind up consuming my one-use Rise abilities (Block AoE attack and revive MC), so by the time he uses Fog of Confusion, buffs himself, and follows with Nebula Oculus I can't withstand it.

It's also super unfair that you don't get any chance to debuff him after Fog of Confusion. I even crafted a Persona with Makarakan and Dekaja specifically for this fight, but Dekaja can't target him with Fog of Confusion so I'm at a loss there.

Beat the game this weekend, after starting at the end of November. 112 hours, lvl98 for main character, True Ending achieved. I heard a lot of people finished it in 70-80 hours, so I'm not sure what I did differently. Oh well.

Harder difficulty maybe? I'm at 88 hours right now, and I fully expect to break at least 100 hours. I don't see how I could have done it in much less time, some of the dungeons are really difficult on Very hard.

ahrezmendi wrote:

Harder difficulty maybe? I'm at 88 hours right now, and I fully expect to break at least 100 hours. I don't see how I could have done it in much less time, some of the dungeons are really difficult on Very hard.

Yeah. I think I played on Normal, being new to Persona in general. I'm sure that accounts, largely, for my lower count in terms of hours.

DSGamer wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

Harder difficulty maybe? I'm at 88 hours right now, and I fully expect to break at least 100 hours. I don't see how I could have done it in much less time, some of the dungeons are really difficult on Very hard.

Yeah. I think I played on Normal, being new to Persona in general. I'm sure that accounts, largely, for my lower count in terms of hours.

Yup. I was on Normal and I finished in 60 or so hours.

ahrezmendi wrote:

Harder difficulty maybe? I'm at 88 hours right now, and I fully expect to break at least 100 hours. I don't see how I could have done it in much less time, some of the dungeons are really difficult on Very hard.

I played on Normal. Did all or nearly all of the optional dungeons (might've skipped the last one, not sure). Did some grinding, but not 30 hours of it.

I just picked this up over the weekend. Let's just ignore the fact that P4G was my original excuse for buying a Vita on black friday and it took this long to grab a copy.

Because my PS2 copy is still in the shrink wrap and I love Giant Bomb, I've decided to try playing this in tandem with their endurance run (which I mostly ignored at the time). The ability to fast forward through dialog stuff has allowed me to waste a lot less time in the opening motions of the game, and it's really interesting to see the differences between the two versions thrown into immediate contrast. So far I'm watching the ER for a section of the game, and then play through it to marvel at the absence of video compression (and way more pixels).

Chie's voice in P4A is really bumming me out.

Is it not the same person who voiced her in P4G? I played P4A first, and it was a while ago, so I don't remember it well.

I assume it is, but my experience with P4 comes from the Giant Bomb Endurance Run of the PS2 game. I love the story and characters, but don't like the gameplay enough to do it myself.

beanman101283 wrote:

Beat the game this weekend, after starting at the end of November. 112 hours, lvl98 for main character, True Ending achieved. I heard a lot of people finished it in 70-80 hours, so I'm not sure what I did differently. Oh well.

Sounds like you grinded more. I played on hard, did all the optional bosses, and I was only level 82 or 83 when I finished it, around 85 hours.

IIRC they had to get new English VAs for Chie and Teddy for Arena, and ended up re-doing all the dialog in P4G with the new actors as well. It's easy to see why people wouldn't be receptive of the change, especially when a line from the new one comes across as much more heavily "valley girl". I haven't noticed much of a difference with Teddy, so that might have been restricted to just P4 Arena.

Teddy is different from the original P4, but it's not as noticeable.

Actually to be clear, it's not the change itself I mind. I just think Chie's new voice actress is no good.

I disagree. I think new Chie is way, way better than old Chie. The new voice carries her won't-take-crap attitude and spunky nature, where as the old voice sounds like... well, it sounds like Yukiko really, and that just doesn't fit.

The new girl has no grasp of nuance or the character, I think. She's at 11 the whole time.

Now that I actually listened to the video psoplayer posted, it's even worse than in Arena. She squeaks like nuts and rushes her delivery. You're welcome to disagree, of course. I'll keep thinking she ruins a character I quite liked in the original.

Absolutely I'll agree to disagree. I think it's the original who doesn't grasp what the character is about. Chie is a tomboy, but the delivery in the original makes her sound passive and traditional, much more like how Yukiko is. Chie is nearly as hot-headed as Yosuke, she's into Martial Arts and police action, and the new voice actress conveys this in the way she performs Chie's various reactions. You're also basing your judgment on a single scene in the game (admittedly, I'm basing my judgment of the original VA on the same single scene), and I'll say that the new VA is most definitely not using that strong a voice in the whole game. It makes perfect sense in that scene though, Chie is upset about her DVD, so yeah she's gonna be yelling.

I'm quite glad I never played the original now, I don't think I would have liked Chie nearly as much as I did if she was voiced as passively as she sounds in that scene.

Single scene? I watched the entirety of the P4 Endurance run, and I've put about 10 hours into Arena and heard plenty of new Chie in that time.

I meant single scene of Golden, I know you've seen a ton of the original VA. Fair enough on Arena, then I'm only basing my judgment on a single scene.

Blind_Evil wrote:

The new girl has no grasp of nuance or the character, I think. She's at 11 the whole time.

Now that I actually listened to the video psoplayer posted, it's even worse than in Arena. She squeaks like nuts and rushes her delivery. You're welcome to disagree, of course. I'll keep thinking she ruins a character I quite liked in the original.

In all fairness you said yourself you've never played Persona 4. After 70 - 100 hours with the game I think some of us are entitled to a different opinion. I think Chie sounds fine, personally. And that was with her being one of my main party members and social links for most of that time.

...man.

I heard the entirety of P4 with the old voice actress, and I don't think the fact that I wasn't the one playing has any bearing on the validity of my opinion. Voice over is just voice, after all. After 10 hours with the new actress in P4A, I feel she plays her flat. That's all.

Blind_Evil wrote:

...man.

Not sure what that means. You're entitled to your opinion. I only watched a few of the Quick Looks, so your knowledge of original Persona 4 Chie is superior to mine. I just know I played and finished Persona 4 Golden, so I have an opinion too and it's that she's perfectly fine.

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.

Blind_Evil wrote:

...man.

I heard the entirety of P4 with the old voice actress, and I don't think the fact that I wasn't the one playing has any bearing on the validity of my opinion. Voice over is just voice, after all. After 10 hours with the new actress in P4A, I feel she plays her flat. That's all.

Sure. Like I said, you absolutely are entitled to think she's bad. I'm simply saying that I heard her voice much more in the new game. So to my years she didn't sound that bad. Maybe I got numb to her, but I had 70+ hours to take in FMVs, cut scenes, in-battle VO and she seemed fine. Doesn't make my opinion more "right" than yours. It just means that when it comes to P4 Golden I have more data and a wider variety of it.

I still like OG Chie way better, and it took me quite a while to just accept the new VO and not keep wondering, "Oh, why?"

I'll add that I think the voice work in general in P4A is inferior to P4G, and that *could* have an affect on this. I'm not saying any opinion is invalid, but I did play a LOT of P4A and Chie never stuck in my memory and was far from my favorite character. It wasn't until P4G that she really stood out and I came to like her, a lot.