Video Game Review: Persona 4 Golden

Release Year: 2008/2012
Play Year: WI2023
Developer/Publisher: Atlas
Time to Beat:

Thoughts: Yep, I finally did it. The weeaboo who will pour countless hours into manga and anime is finally taking on the game. A game series that is world-renowned, exceptionally highly reviewed, and laden with anime references and literal anime cut-scenes.

So, what did I think of it all?

This game is quite long and has many, many different functions/mechanics/interactions, so I will break down those major pieces and then do a review of the game as a sum of its parts.

Voice Acting: INSANE. I can’t believe how adept the voice actors are in P4. The characters are in highschool and so there is a lot more emotion in any given conversation and the voice actors bring these characters to life. It is such a treat to have this high of quality VA that very much holds up over a decade later. I look forward to every interaction that is full voice-acted.

Quality of Life: I haven’t played any other Persona games, but you can tell that this game is a science to these developers. It is like they have a sixth-sense for when a mechanic or part of the gameplay loop is getting repetitive or frustrating - just in that moment a quality of life feature is revealed and you can get back into the loop. I didn’t understand the need for the “rush” feature until I was grinding to beat the Contrarian King. Once you find the stairs in the dungeon you can go up a floor from anywhere else on your current floor solves the problem of procedural map generation! It is hard to remember everything that you can do in a given day, so being able to hit one button and see what the most common activities were from the pool of millions of other players is brilliant! Even how fast you run is tuned quite well.

Music: Aside from the Dungeon music, which feels tense and repetitive, the music in this game is INCREDIBLE. So moving and so distinct to the game.

Game Design: The UI is so well stylized. It’s really beautiful to look at. I love that even the small things, like skipping a cutscene - are on theme. In P4G it’s TV-themed, so skipping a cutscene fast-forwards instead of just hard cutting.

Dungeon Design: I would say this is the biggest weakness of P4G. The Dungeons are absent of visual novelty. You spend a significant amount of time in these dungeons and every room looks roughly the same, the music is the same, and the pool of shadows is limited. This is the only part of the game that I feel checked out.