dryerdoor
12-10-2008, 09:52 AM
A fantastic JPRG by atlus for PS2 where you employ the help of demons and friends, that you meet throughout the story. It intertwines solving a murder mystery while doing various things (part time job minigames and engaging in variuos social events to encourage various aspects in your stats), fantastic writing, and a story fileld with suspense.
Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_4
Persona 4's gameplay and style stays similar to Persona 3's, but with some major changes. Persona 4 has kept the social links and dungeon crawling gameplay. Features such as Community (Social Link in English localization,) One More and All-out Attack from Persona 3 return. The glasses, given by Kuma, play an important role in the game, and allow the party to see through the heavy mist inside Mayonaka TV and decrease stamina loss. The pistol-like Evokers of Persona 3 are replaced by cards, which the main characters shatter in order to summon their respective Persona. The battles also have some similarities, such as the One More system, All-out Attack, and the AI controlled support characters (or it can be set to take commands from the player, deviating from Persona 3's system).
However, several major changes have been made. The player now has 5 stats ("Knowledge", "Courage", "Diligence", "Understanding" and "Expression") in contrast to P3's 3 ("Academics", "Charm" and "Courage") and lacks the stamina status, enabling players to explore dungeons continuously. Only now, the constraint is SP. HP and SP will not be restored when the player goes back to the dungeon entrance, but the player can choose to restore HP and SP by paying money to Fox, a magical animal who will join the group after some time into the game. Money is now always given after each battle as well, so it has become far more balanced and no longer relies on Shuffle Time and treasure chests.
Battle-wise, P4 is more forgiving and similar to other games in the MegaTen franchise. Analysis does not instantly grant you information on an enemy's weakness until you find out for yourself through trial-and-error, or use a stronger analysis ability later in the game. Physical attacks are not divided into 3 classes anymore. Now reinforcements can appear after defeating a group of enemies, this occurs when a battle has finished with an another enemy group near the party. This time you can continually exploit an enemies weakness, as they will stay down instead of getting up after the second consecutive exploitation of their weakness and the Press Turn System is almost the same, but now exploiting an enemy's weakness when you use a multi-target skill against a group where not every one is susceptible to the same attack will still result in "1 More" (similar to Nocturne/DDS system). Battles now occur after school instead of at midnight like in P3, this gives the player less time in which to do social activities. The Shuffle Time also and it offers new mini-games, such as the addition of arcana chance which can bring either good or bad status depending on the Arcana, and has the option to be skipped.
Social Links now have a greater effect on battle. For example, for level 1, the player's allies occasionally protect the protagonist from a deathblow (If the HP of the protagonist becomes zero, the game will be over.) For level 3, if the protagonist successfully knocks down a shadow, the allies will occasionally offer to have a follow- up attack which can 100% knock down and paralyzes another shadow. For the maximum level, the persona of the corresponding ally will evolve into another persona. The biggest change is the status of the persona. Some persona retain or even lose weaknesses and can be immune to certain kind of magic attacks. All allies who have their corresponding Social Link levels maxed out have a chance to survive an otherwise fatal attack, leaving them with 1 HP.
Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_4
Persona 4's gameplay and style stays similar to Persona 3's, but with some major changes. Persona 4 has kept the social links and dungeon crawling gameplay. Features such as Community (Social Link in English localization,) One More and All-out Attack from Persona 3 return. The glasses, given by Kuma, play an important role in the game, and allow the party to see through the heavy mist inside Mayonaka TV and decrease stamina loss. The pistol-like Evokers of Persona 3 are replaced by cards, which the main characters shatter in order to summon their respective Persona. The battles also have some similarities, such as the One More system, All-out Attack, and the AI controlled support characters (or it can be set to take commands from the player, deviating from Persona 3's system).
However, several major changes have been made. The player now has 5 stats ("Knowledge", "Courage", "Diligence", "Understanding" and "Expression") in contrast to P3's 3 ("Academics", "Charm" and "Courage") and lacks the stamina status, enabling players to explore dungeons continuously. Only now, the constraint is SP. HP and SP will not be restored when the player goes back to the dungeon entrance, but the player can choose to restore HP and SP by paying money to Fox, a magical animal who will join the group after some time into the game. Money is now always given after each battle as well, so it has become far more balanced and no longer relies on Shuffle Time and treasure chests.
Battle-wise, P4 is more forgiving and similar to other games in the MegaTen franchise. Analysis does not instantly grant you information on an enemy's weakness until you find out for yourself through trial-and-error, or use a stronger analysis ability later in the game. Physical attacks are not divided into 3 classes anymore. Now reinforcements can appear after defeating a group of enemies, this occurs when a battle has finished with an another enemy group near the party. This time you can continually exploit an enemies weakness, as they will stay down instead of getting up after the second consecutive exploitation of their weakness and the Press Turn System is almost the same, but now exploiting an enemy's weakness when you use a multi-target skill against a group where not every one is susceptible to the same attack will still result in "1 More" (similar to Nocturne/DDS system). Battles now occur after school instead of at midnight like in P3, this gives the player less time in which to do social activities. The Shuffle Time also and it offers new mini-games, such as the addition of arcana chance which can bring either good or bad status depending on the Arcana, and has the option to be skipped.
Social Links now have a greater effect on battle. For example, for level 1, the player's allies occasionally protect the protagonist from a deathblow (If the HP of the protagonist becomes zero, the game will be over.) For level 3, if the protagonist successfully knocks down a shadow, the allies will occasionally offer to have a follow- up attack which can 100% knock down and paralyzes another shadow. For the maximum level, the persona of the corresponding ally will evolve into another persona. The biggest change is the status of the persona. Some persona retain or even lose weaknesses and can be immune to certain kind of magic attacks. All allies who have their corresponding Social Link levels maxed out have a chance to survive an otherwise fatal attack, leaving them with 1 HP.