Persona 4 Golden: Mechanics and Meaning
Persona 4 stands as a pillar of the sixth console generation, lauded by fans and critics alike. It spawned numerous spinoffs, remasters, animated series, and other similar things. After hearing so much of how the game stands out, I decided to finally give it a try. Within the first two hours of playing Persona 4 Golden, I found myself enamored with it. To properly illustrate the significance of this, let me tell you something that gets me a lot of flak. I HATE playing most games of this genre. I have yet to play through Earthbound, any Final Fantasy title, Chrono Trigger, or anything similar because I absolutely loathe turn-based combat mechanics. Obviously thatâs not to say that I think that turn based mechanics are bad, I simply donât enjoy utilizing them. Yet as I play Persona 4, I find that Iâm not so bothered by mechanics that I otherwise wouldnât stomach. Why is that? Why is it that Persona 4 captures me so completely that Iâm willing to set aside my bias against turn based combat mechanics?
The game begins as the protagonist (Named by the player but known in other media as Yu Narukami, and will be further identified as such) disembarks a train in the rural Japanese town of Inaba. He is greeted by his uncle, Ryotaro Dojima, and his young cousin, Nanako. Shortly after Yuâs first day at Yasogami High School, the body of a TV announcer is found hanging in town with no discernable cause of death. After another killing has occurred some days later, Yu and his new friend, Yosuke Hanamura, discover that theyâre capable of entering another world through television screens. During their explorations, Yu summons his Persona, the embodiment of the inner self. Shortly after, a âShadow Yosukeâ appears, claiming to be expressing Yosukeâs true feelings. After Yosuke rejects this Shadow, it becomes a powerful opponent that Yu must defeat in order to protect himself and Yosuke. After this introductory boss battle, Yosuke admits that despite his denial, what the Shadow says is true, and his acceptance of this part of himself results in him receiving his own Persona. The mysteries of who is committing these murders, the nature of the world inside the TV, and the Midnight Channel that guided them here would serve to drive Yu and his growing circle of friends to continue to investigate for the year that follows.
The story largely unfolds independently of the playerâs actions, although exploration of side plots that develop the supporting cast falls squarely on the player. It is entirely possible to run through the entirety of the game with little to no growth in your Social Links. Although the game makes it very clear that it is in your best interest to do so. Iâll go into greater detail about the mechanics of the Social Link system later on, but itâs worth noting that much of the narrative content of this game is, in the strictest sense, optional.
Interestingly, despite there being a supposed âtrueâ ending (also as of Persona 4 Golden, a similar âGoldenâ ending), the game seems to contextualize all of the âbadâ endings as being equally valid. Most games donât allow for the failure to be a valid possibility, reloading a previous point of progress and having the player attempt it again. While this is true when exploring dungeons and failing in combat, Persona 4 does not do this upon the conclusion of the game. If the investigation team fails to agree that this suspect is not the true culprit, and that the case has not been resolved during the encounter with the captured suspect in his hospital room, the game simply stops. The game skips ahead to Yuâs departure, leaving the mysteries of the grisly murders, the world inside the TV, the Midnight Channel, and the fog enveloping Inaba unsolved. It calls to mind a more recent game that took a similar approach to its narrative, The Stanley Parable. I know this sounds like a stretch, but consider that similar to The Stanley Parable, Persona 4 (at least in its conclusion) treats absolute success and absolute failure as equally valid outcomes of the story. Thatâs something that few games, even in the RPG genre ever attempt.
Although I find that the most compelling part of the story isnât the ending or even any part of the main plot line. Itâs the Social Links. Social Links are the the way the game uses the playerâs relationships with others as a system of the game. As the player interacts with supporting characters, the characters all grow and develop in response. This is very common in games with a strong emphasis on characters, but Persona 4 differentiates itself by offering an explicit mechanical reward along with the implicit reward of story content. This takes the form of experience bonus when crafting personas, as well as granting additional abilities and skills for party members when in combat. Many games struggle to find ways to prevent mechanics and narrative from being at odds with each other, but Persona manages to get them to both play off of and compliment each other.
Not everything about the gameâs story is so charming, however. There are many moments in the game that seem either completely unnecessary, or just made me really uncomfortable. I suspect that part of the problem here is that the game is localized in a way that keeps Japanese culture references and tropes almost completely intact. This gives the game a more genuine tone but at the same time can result in, letâs say odd events. The most glaring example is the âMissâ Yasogami High pageant. For those fortunate enough to be unaware of this scene, hereâs the basic premise. The high school hosts a beauty pageant for the female students every year, and anyone can be signed up, even by another student. Yosuke signs up all of the girls from the investigation team for obvious (and notably pervy) reasons. In retaliation, Chie signs up all the boys for the other pageant held at the school. A crossdressing pageant. Crossdressing. I really donât know what Japanese culture is like, but even if drag beauty pageants are commonplace, it really just seems needlessly weird and a cheap attempt at shock value. This combined with the multiple gratuitous âhot springâ scenes is bothersome to say the least.
Persona 4 almost fits into two genres as far as mechanics are concerned. One side of the game is a by-the-numbers dungeon crawling RPG, while the other side is a social simulation. The game manages to make these two very different sets of mechanics play off of each other surprisingly well, offering up a truly unique experience for the player.
Full disclosure, I hate turn based RPG combat mechanics, so I have very little experience with them. Iâll be describing and commenting on the mechanics to the best of my ability, so bear in mind that much of this is going to be description only.
When exploring the world inside the TV, the party often comes across patrolling shadows. An encounter is triggered by either the shadow spotting the player and attacking, or the player attacking first. The way in which the encounter is triggered will influence how the battle will begin. If the shadow strikes the player first, the enemy will be given the first action. If the Shadow spots the player, but the player strikes first, battle will begin normally. If the player can strike the Shadow from behind, the party gets a full turn of action before the enemy can act.
This brings a small amount of strategy to the more traditional randomly occurring enemy encounters typical of similar RPGs, encouraging players to carefully plan their approach in the narrow hallways and bending corridors as opposed to simply mindlessly trudging through.
Once combat begins, the player has two resources to consider, Hit Points, which are largely self explanatory, and Spirit Points, which is used for spellcasting. Something interesting about HP, however, is that when casting Persona skills that inflict physical damage, HP is drained instead of SP. This forces the player to take special care when using physical attacks, as it can leave them more vulnerable to attack themselves.
As far as magic attacks go, itâs a pretty standard elemental setup. The elements available are Fire, Wind, Ice, Shock, Light, Darkness, and Almighty. Of course, not all skills fall into these categories, there are numerous support skills, debuffs, and other more specialized abilities. These come into play as some enemies will resist or reflect certain attacks while vulnerable to others. Exploiting an enemyâs weakness also will knock it down, awarding the player with an additional turn of action.
This all seems pretty standard as far as core mechanics go, but what offers an interesting dimension is the uses of Personas. Each party member gets a single Persona with specific strengths and weaknesses, but the player can use multiple Personas. This allows the player to fill any role they choose, and drastically change their tactics on the fly.
Itâs all fairly straightforward so even a player with little experience in RPGs, such as myself can grasp the combat systems.
I find that the gameâs more interesting mechanics, however, can be found in the way that the player spends time outside of combat; specifically through social interaction.
When encountering a character, be it through the mainline story or otherwise, a new Social Link will be formed. These Social Links will grow as the player spends more time with the other characters. Often, the struggle games have are regarding story, and RPGs are no exception to this. The core mechanics and the narrative are completely isolated from one another, like oil and water. Persona does not do this. Not only is a sizeable portion of the game dedicated solely to these interactions, but there is a genuine mechanical incentive to pursue them via the Social Link bonuses.
A key feature of Persona 4 is fusing Personas to craft stronger ones. When crafting Personas of a specific arcana, the player gets an EXP bonus proportional to the Social Link rank of that arcana. This bonus offers an explicit mechanical reward for exploring the optional story content rather than just the implicit reward of the story content itself.
The Visual and Sound design
Persona 4 is a highly stylized game, taking clear influence from Japanese Anime. The game uses third person camera angles on 3D animated models to represent where characters are in a space and what theyâre doing, while dialogue is represented by text boxes with 2D animated characters to represent character expression in greater detail. This aesthetic choice is oddly charming, it offers deep yet subtle expression of the character in the foreground while simultaneously allowing for the exaggerated, almost cartoony physical animation of characters in the background. The visuals fit perfectly with the combat sequences as well. Scoring critical hits or attacking an opponentâs weakness results in a satisfyingly flashy animation alongside the colorful alerts that a critical hit has been performed or that a weakness has been exploited.
I find the sound to be equally charming. The mainline story is largely fully voiced, and the quality and dedication of the translators and actors really shines through here, helping to immerse the player into the world that has been set before them. All sounds in combat fit perfectly with the animations and overall aesthetics. The soundtrack is, in my opinion, the most impressive part of the gameâs sound design. It suits whatever the player is doing nearly flawlessly. The music is upbeat and pleasant when exploring the town, high energy and invigorating during combat, and does well to elicit an emotional response when the story calls for it. Itâs a testament to just how damn catchy it is that Iâm constantly listening to it and humming along, even though Iâm still not sure if the vocals are English, Japanese or both.
Persona 4 Golden took me completely by surprise. It made me see a genre in a whole new light that I wouldnât have otherwise taken a second look at. But the best part of this game to me wasnât the combat, to the main plot writing, or even the way they tie into each other so well; although all of these are important parts of why I regard this game so highly.
To me, the truly amazing thing about this game is how masterfully player interactions with characters are fleshed out. Anytime I go through an optional dialogue with a character in a game like Mass Effect, or to a greater extent Fallout 4, I canât help but feel unfulfilled. These games feature potentially interesting and deep characters, but when you interact with them you have the shallowest possible dialogue options with tragically predictable outcomes. Persona 4 excels in that I donât feel like choosing a sentence to say to a game character, but rather that Iâm genuinely interacting with a person. A person with dreams, regrets, and a truly unique world view. Big budget triple A RPGs could learn a lot from the way Persona approaches its supporting cast, and I sincerely hope that they do.
Showed incredible self-control by not bashing Fallout 4âs dialogue ceaselessly in his conclusion.
Ensured that the above didnât sound like a buffoon.
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