Persona 4 Golden Catch-All

A couple hours. It starts off slowly, but soon enough you're left to your own devices.

TrashiDawa wrote:

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

Considering this is a 90-100 hour game, not a large percentage of it.

Yargh, this game can be aggravating. I did manage to get all of the info on Rise for Teddy somehow. I have no idea what it was. That was annoying. So, I've been working my way through the dungeon. I gotta say, on hard, these one shot kills are getting really annoying. At least you can restart from the floor you've died in. It's probably happened to me 5 or 6 times, so far. I probably shouldn't be playing it on hard because I really don't care about the combat enough to have to worry about not getting one-shotted all the fricking time.

Spoiler:

Finally made it to the boss. Downed Rise no prob and then got one shotted by Teddy after awhile fighting him. I have NO idea why. So, that 30-45 minutes fighting Rise is down the drain. I need to hit something.

Spoilers on the mentioned fight:

Spoiler:

He does a charge up move occasionally, he'll start the animation, you'll get a turn, then it'll indicate he's getting ready to attack. At that point, you should have everyone guard. The attack is actually completely ineffective if you do that.

He also does a Mind Charge now and then, and combined with his ice magic, he can do a crap load of damage shortly afterwards. If you have any doubts about surviving it, go on guard after the Mind Charge, at least with your main character, you can revive the others, but obviously if he goes down it's all over. I'd also consider using a Persona that's strong against ice, to help mitigate the damage somewhat. I brought Chie along for this fight as well for that exact reason.

Yukiko can also be an issue against him, because if she's hit by his ice he'll get a second attack. I still brought her anyway because she was my main healer, but anything you can do to avoid Teddy getting a second turn is key. Buff her with dodge, make her guard when you know an ice attack is coming (after the Mind Charge, certainly), use White Wall if you have it, etc.

Thanks for the help. I definitely think it's doable without going back to town. I think I'm just getting old. My patience gets lower and lower by the year.

I lost on my first try in that fight as well, I think it's the first really difficult fight in the game. And I'm playing on normal!

Yeesh. I finally got back to the game tonight to have another go at Rise/ST. I beat it in one shot, but yeesh, it took FOREVER.

Spoiler:

I forgot what the advice was, so I just made sure to guard after every charge up or stat hit. That worked just fine, but I really couldn't do much damage, so it took me forever because he had no weaknesses that I could find. I got him down to a quarter health or so and he switched things up. Two guys went down, and I had hardly any items going in to this fight, so there was no reviving. I just barely managed to hang on till the end. It was so close.

I'm sure it would have been way easier if I hadn't been playing it on hard and had not done the whole dungeon in one shot without resupplying or combining personas. So, I feel pretty good about finishing Rise and Shadow Teddy off. I seriously would have yelled my head off in frustration had I died at that quarter health mark. It took me about an hour to an hour and a half to get to that point and then maybe another 20-30 minutes to finally win.

Next time I'm just going to make sure I do a dungeon in two days. One to clear and one for the boss. In between, I can resupply and combine persona cards. It's definitely not worth rushing it on hard.

FIVE golden hands in one battle?! C'mon Megidola, don't let me down now...

Edit: 4 escaped.

Big ol' mid-to-late game story spoilers:

Spoiler:

Just had the credits roll early, so I'm guessing I messed up a dialogue option somewhere along the way. Namatame is in hospital and I didn't throw him in the TV (which I figured would trigger a nasty ending, if the similar choice in Persona 3 is anything to go by), but I also seem to have missed something else.

I'll go through the last 15 minutes or so of dialogue again, but it was 1:30am at that point so I'll give it a shot tonight. If I mess it up again I'll look online for an FAQ to see me through that choice.

I wonder how many people have gotten to that point, made the wrong choice, and just assumed that's where the game ends? It's an unsatisfying resolution, but I'm up to 65-70 hours at this point, so it's not like the game would be short even then. :)

Spoiler:

I got to that point and assumed that was the ending, actually. I was kind of let down later.

Spoiler:

The game should have freaking ended at that point. The "true" ending is bull#&$*.

That said, I'll still go back and Platinum this game. One of the best RPGs I've played in quite a while.

How much more of the game is there after this point? It feels like the 2/3rds to 3/4ths mark.

You'd think after going through Persona 3 and Persona 4 right afterwards, I'd be sick of the formula by now, but I'm really hoping it drags on for a while yet, I'm still really hooked. I'm kind of temped to go back to Persona 3 and do a female-protagonist playthough after this.

Any word on Persona 5?

About 4/5ths is more accurate. At least from a time perspective.

ahrezmendi wrote:
Spoiler:

The game should have freaking ended at that point. The "true" ending is bull#&$*.

That said, I'll still go back and Platinum this game. One of the best RPGs I've played in quite a while.

I know we've (you and I) gone over this and agree, but for Redwing's sake I'll chime in just in case.

Spoiler:

The problem is that I thought it was semi-groundbreaking for a JRPG that is so saccharine to be so dark at times that I was actually really pleased with the first ending. It feels like a realistic ending. Realistic as something can be in that world. The "real" ending is much more predictable. I'd encourage anyone to press on. Just don't be shocked if you like it less.

I'm working through the "retro" dungeon at the moment. Am I even mid-game yet? I haven't clicked through on those spoilers from Redwing.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I'm working through the "retro" dungeon at the moment. Am I even mid-game yet? I haven't clicked through on those spoilers from Redwing.

You're about half-way, a bit more maybe.

DSGamer wrote:
Spoiler:

The problem is that I thought it was semi-groundbreaking for a JRPG that is so saccharine to be so dark at times that I was actually really pleased with the first ending. It feels like a realistic ending. Realistic as something can be in that world. The "real" ending is much more predictable. I'd encourage anyone to press on. Just don't be shocked if you like it less.

I agree with this entirely. I actually got that ending the first time and was amazed at their ability to play off [redacted]'s death in such a way that it made me viscerally angry, enough to perform the action that leads to the bad ending. Personally, I'm glad the game went on after I reloaded my save and made the other choice, but I still really like that that path was there.

Minarchist wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
Spoiler:

The problem is that I thought it was semi-groundbreaking for a JRPG that is so saccharine to be so dark at times that I was actually really pleased with the first ending. It feels like a realistic ending. Realistic as something can be in that world. The "real" ending is much more predictable. I'd encourage anyone to press on. Just don't be shocked if you like it less.

I agree with this entirely. I actually got that ending the first time and was amazed at their ability to play off [redacted]'s death in such a way that it made me viscerally angry, enough to perform the action that leads to the bad ending. Personally, I'm glad the game went on after I reloaded my save and made the other choice, but I still really like that that path was there.

Spoiler:

The truly interesting thing about that is he really wasn't at fault. At least that's my understanding so far, there seems to be someone controlling things behind the scenes.

And I'm done, 84 hours in. It had a bit of a weak ending compared to, say, Persona 3, but I didn't hate it. I think I got the "Good" ending, but I think there might've been more behind the scenes that I missed still, I've seen suggestions of a "Perfect" ending that has yet more gameplay that I must've missed, I might look into that at some point, but after doing a marathon run through Persona 3 and then Persona 4, I might take a break for now.

Last night I got to the part where:

Spoiler:

you rescue Naoto

After this rescue, how many bosses in the game are left?

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Last night I got to the part where:

Spoiler:

you rescue Naoto

After this rescue, how many bosses in the game are left?

I'm not sure about bosses exactly, but I could tell you how many dungeons remain:

Spoiler:

Three, but I believe there's a fourth for the true ending, which I didn't get.

Thanks! That was what my guess was.

What's the purpose of the "Do double damage with your next attack skill"? Wouldn't attack twice yield a similar result?

I got the bad ending. I don't know if I want to watch the good ending, or save it for my inevitable replay. Play time was around 75 hours.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

What's the purpose of the "Do double damage with your next attack skill"? Wouldn't attack twice yield a similar result?

I think the Mind Charge version increases damage by more than double, so that in itself is useful. But I could be wrong...

I also found it useful for taking down the golden hands combined with Almighty spells as well, since when they got low on health, they seemed to run more often, whereas a charged up attack would often one-shot them.

Personally I find the physical attack version is useful for negating the HP cost of the physical attacks, especially in boss fights when constantly draining your HP can be dangerous. Assuming the charge up gives you double damage, that means instead of paying for the attack with two lots of hit point drains, you're paying the cost of one attack for the same damage as two, plus some SP (which is easily spared for phys. attack heavy characters).

Edit: I looked it up, apparently they both boost by 2.5x damage, so they're actually more efficient. Apparently the "double damage" text is a mistranslation. I also learned that Element Boost and Element Amp abilities stack, I never realised that! All three combined could make for some scary elemental damage.

Redwing wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

What's the purpose of the "Do double damage with your next attack skill"? Wouldn't attack twice yield a similar result?

I think the Mind Charge version increases damage by more than double, so that in itself is useful. But I could be wrong...

I also found it useful for taking down the golden hands combined with Almighty spells as well, since when they got low on health, they seemed to run more often, whereas a charged up attack would often one-shot them.

Personally I find the physical attack version is useful for negating the HP cost of the physical attacks, especially in boss fights when constantly draining your HP can be dangerous. Assuming the charge up gives you double damage, that means instead of paying for the attack with two lots of hit point drains, you're paying the cost of one attack for the same damage as two, plus some SP (which is easily spared for phys. attack heavy characters).

Edit: I looked it up, apparently they both boost by 2.5x damage, so they're actually more efficient. Apparently the "double damage" text is a mistranslation. I also learned that Element Boost and Element Amp abilities stack, I never realised that! All three combined could make for some scary elemental damage.

And stack that with enemy defense down debuffs, and it gets crazy quickly. Also, if you're popping off a multi-target spell/ability, it can make sense from a MP efficiency perspective. But mostly what Redwing said: gold hands.

I took down most gold hands with Megidola (I think that's how it's spelled). I had two characters with it, and two smacks with that would get through 1/4 of their health.

As others have said, concentrate/charge do more than double damage -- 2.5x damage, to be precise. In addition, the skills themselves are generally much cheaper than the mega-ultra-death spell you are about to unleash, so they're also SP savers. They have their drawbacks, of course: a miss hurts more, someone could down/stun you after you cast it, etc., but they are handy on occasion.

Concentrate is what won me the final battle for the good ending. I really couldn't have done it without Kanji sitting there going Concentrate -> Attack for 500 damage, rinse repeat. I also found, and maybe this is a P4G only change, that Misses didn't cause me to lose my charge. Block or Reflect will, but not miss.

I created this persona over the weekend. It's my favorite so far.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/4NRKzYI.jpg)

Thanks Japan!

Yup, I'm starting over now.