Persona 4: Golden (aka Greatest Thing I've Ever Played)

So, I finally completed Persona 4: Golden on the Vita.  Took me about six months altogether, with a total play time of 68 hours and 1 minute, but goddamn was it wonderful.  If anyone who reads this knows anything about me, it’s that I’m strictly against runtimes that go well beyond the 20-25 hour mark and even then that’s really pushing it.  A huge problem I have with a number of modern RPGs is their tendency to pad the runtime to extreme degrees.  It’s often unnecessary, forced and artificially extends the story.  The biggest reason this is any kind of issue with the average big ultra-epic RPG is that the length is well beyond the scope of the narrative.  I mean, the average RPG narrative is rather simplistic; “you’re the last guy can kill dragon, dragon are back, will end the world, are you a bad enough dude to kill an dragon?”

There’s just not enough meat on that kind of basic plot to really necessitate the massive lengths that the big boys at Bethesda and such like to brag about.  I mean, we’re not dealing with a deep philosophical plot about the meaning of life or any of that, it’s a story ‘bout a dragon gonna blow shit up and the chosen hero who gonna beat dragon up.

This isn’t, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, Final Fantasy X.  Oh sure, that narrative was all over the place and the writing (or at least the localization) was god awful.  But, the game dealt with some pretty hefty themes.  I mean, as Spoony so well put it, the main plot is about a corrupt church, “responsible for brutally enforcing a doctrine of misinformation, inquisition, intolerance, poor education and inflexible dogma, to amass wealth and political power for an inner circle of creepy perverted sex zombies.”

It’s the story about a young woman who is forced to embark on a pilgrimage that requires she make the ultimate sacrifice.  All under the false pretense that she’d be saving the world.  And this is only really just the main crux of the plot, there’s a lot going on with each of the lead characters that have some connection to the previous Final Aeon and, therefore, to the narrative’s most recent embodiment of Sin.  On top of the characters there’s the commentary on religious dogmatism and blind faith.  It may have failed, but it sure as hell has a lot more reason to clock in at 30+ hours than most of the Elder Scrolls titles have.

But, as is the case when I get into the topic of unnecessarily long games, I’m ranting.  Ultimate point is, Persona 4 (while still maintaining a relatively simple main plot thread) has a lot going on in its story to merit the 60+ hours I spent with it.  For starters, the narrative set-up is similar to that of serialized TV shows.  Each thread of the mystery has its own mini-arc and three act structure, making each thread the equivalent of a season.  It excuses its length by focusing heavily on: themes, characters and stellar writing.  It’s a 60+ hour experience, but it really does not feel like you spent the equivalent of 2 ½ days with the game.  Like the great 20 minute Dream Theater epics, the length may seem daunting but it’s just so damn good you barely notice the time pass.

And the writing though, holy shit the writing.  It’s rare that any narrative, regardless of medium, maintains this kind of consistency throughout, rarer still that a narrative maintains such strong characterization with this many characters.  The main cast alone is made up of eight different characters, all so well written and developed that, even the archetypes, feel like genuine people.  These aren’t just plug-in characters to increase party variety, they’re each their own unique person, with their own flaws and strengths.

Better still, the game tackles some major themes about identity and self that most games haven’t dared to tackle.  And while these can often feel trite or forced in most narratives, the narrative in Persona 4 handles these complex issues with confidence and grace.  From Chie’s inferiority complex and insecurities about her femininity.  To Kanji’s overcompensated masculinity, due to his perceived shortcomings as a male, based on societal pressures and expectations, expectations that tell him his mostly feminine pursuits are not masculine.  At its heart, it’s a story about identity and coming to terms with the parts of ourselves that we may not wish to confront and accept.

As for the gameplay, it’s standard JRPG fare.  You explore dungeons, encounter enemies, do turn based battles with magic and specials, level up, rinse, repeat.  While grinding is something of a necessity, the game doesn’t necessarily require it, which I found rather pleasing.  You play your cards right, get the right load-out and party with the proper disposable items and you can pull off most major bosses and enemies without too much issue.  The game is also relatively easy, with maybe three of the several major bosses giving me issue.  Outside of basic leveling, you can create/fuse new Personas (basically summons that you have at all times) to help give you an advantage on the field.  Seriously, fuse though, as a friend said, it doesn’t matter if you’re fusing and the outcome is a slightly weaker Persona, “fuse and fuse and then fuse some more.”

Outside of dungeons you spend your time at school, in town or hanging out with your friends.  It’s got a bit of dating sim going on, with the Social Links, wherein you hang out with certain characters and increase your bond with them, with a few links that give the player an opportunity to strike a romantic relationship.  Sadly though, Yu is not gay, meaning that best waifu, Kanji Tatsumi, is not a dateable character and Atlus should be ashamed for not giving me the option to date the coolest, and probably most complex, character in the game.

If you feel like saying fuck off to your friends and Social Links (though you probably shouldn’t because Social Links play a huge role in your ability to create new, useful Personas) you can spend your time doing part-time jobs, taking the most epic of beef bowl challenges, studying, reading or watching movies.  These menial tasks generally develop your basic stats (knowledge, courage, expression etc.) which mostly helps lead to greater chances of establishing Social Links and bonds.  It also gives you some extra options in the dialogue trees.

As a whole, Persona 4 is a game about balancing your time and options.  Each task and Social Link plays into one another, so it’s best to not spend your free time focusing on one or the other.  The best way to really give your character any sort of advantage is to try and balance all of the options given you.  So, it’s best to occasionally ditch one thing you might do and instead pursue another.  Like, for instance, say you’re on the basketball team and you have practice that day, but one of your friends asks to spend time with you after school.  Maybe you don’t have enough of a bond established with said friend.  So, it may be wise to skip a day and hang out with your friend to further strengthen the Social Link.

While time management may sound like a thing you don’t want in a game about high school kids who enter a TV, to fight shadow creatures with special monsters they summon using floating Tarot Cards, it’s actually quite fun.  Seriously, I know that’s an odd way to put it, considering time management in the real world is only slightly less mundane than watching paint dry, but I honestly can’t think of a better way to describe it.  You care about the life your little player character is living and the bonds he establishes.  It’s mundane, but in that spring cleaning kind of way, you maybe resent the idea, but kind of look forward to throwing all your useless shit out, so you accept it's something you want.

That’s really about the gist of it though, you spend your time forming bonds, grinding dungeons and doing odd jobs and menial tasks.  It’s not exactly close to the kind complexity you’ll find in something like System Shock 2 or Deus Ex, but it presents itself well and is wholly engaging throughout.

If I had a couple issues I’d take at the story, it’d be the middle arc of the game and the completely dense main cast.  While the narrative is strong, the mystery and twists are about as predictable as the sunrise.  Often the characters announce their newest conclusions as if it’s some kind of stunning revelation.  They’re often so far off the mark that you can’t help but yell at them for being so slow on the uptake.  And it’d be fine if these revelations were actually surprising, but in most cases, we figured it out hours before the characters.

Then there’s the useless arc.  I won’t give any spoilers regarding it, but it’s way underdeveloped and goes absolutely nowhere.  It basically serves as nothing more than a shoddy red herring.  It comes, it goes and it carries almost zero consequence.  The entire section could be cut from the game and the main story wouldn’t be all that affected by it.  Game would be a lot better if that entire arc was just dropped altogether.

Aside from those minor complaints, there’s really not enough praise I can give this game and I’ve been going on for quite some time now.  If you haven’t played it, get it immediately, you owe it to yourself to experience the true glory that is Persona 4.  Everything, from the characters, to the story, to the phenomenal soundtrack is just absolute goodness.  I wouldn’t call it perfect, that’s just being silly, but if there’s any game out there that deserves the kind of adoration that admittedly mediocre games like FFVII get, it’s Persona 4.  Buy it, steal a Vita, buy a Vita, get a PS2, get an emulator, I don’t care how you do it, but this is one of those things you just have to experience, it’s that good.