konami

It's been a long time since I've played RPG's and it strikes me how much energy these things take, I guess I knew this but I'm getting to re-know it. These things take 80 hours or more and you can easily spend all day every day for 2 weeks playing these bastards. I played through Persona 3 right into 4.

But anyway, aside my illness.... Persona 4 is a really great game. Usually I'd call it a bad thing to be like an anime, but this one is like a top-tier anime. Except of course there's all these layers of gameplay to it. The first is the same as Persona 3, which is the worlds greatest over-glorified dating simulation. Yes; the objective throughout the main world is to get girlfriends or hang out with your buddies. And then there's the battle system which is... satisfying enough, where you create some out of 200 or so Persona to fight for you through a way too involved fusion system.

Persona 4 (and 3) succeeds where most RPG's fail because they are from Megami Tensei, a very literary series that has a fairly serious occult bent. They don't inhabit that mainstream area most RPG's have been in: this neutered fantasy epic with people swinging around swords that don't cut anything. Megami Tensei isn't exactly violent has just enough edge to it to balance this problem out, it's just dark and twisted enough, the characters curse and bad things happen without apologies. But not so much that it isn't a jRPG anymore. Especially with Persona, which is is sort of the ultimate compromise between hardcore and casual.

And it proves, you can have a big important story without all the BULLSHIT. These are the kinda games Xenosaga wanted to be. Not to diss Xenosaga or anything, I adored it. but it was still a case of trying too hard. Persona 4 doesn't try too hard, it just does its thing.

Conclusion: it's awesome. 10/10