4/5 ★ – RawMetal's review of Persona 4 Golden.

System: PlayStation Vita Started: February 3, 2023 Ended: December 17, 2024 By this point, I was feeling fatigued from playing the Persona games. I started with the original game in 2020 and worked my way up to 4 until now. On the contrary, I played Persona 5 first in late 2017, and after loving that game, I had to try out the previous games in this franchise. After finishing with Persona 3: FES, secretly the definitive version of Persona 3, I knew I had only one more Persona game in the mainline series to completely finish, and that was Persona 4: Golden. It took me almost two years to finish, not only due to Persona fatigue but also because I aimed for 100% completion. This included defeating the Secret Boss, maxing out all Social Links and Stats, unlocking every costume, and fusing every Persona for the Compendium. At least I earned the Platinum Trophy for this. Persona 4: Golden was everything I wanted that was missing in Persona 3. Persona 4 was a great entry even though it continued using the visual novel elements by reading and selecting dialog choices. Persona 3 was a huge success at the time, thanks to the major changes it introduced. The story has changed to new characters in a different setting as we see your avatar character move into a rural and isolated town of Inaba and try to stop a serial murderer who threw victims into the TV during the airing of The Midnight Channel. You team up with three of your classmates, a street punk, a pop idol, a junior detective, and a giant teddy bear who appeared from the TV. The theme of this story is Scooby-Doo detectives and uncovering the truth about The Midnight Channel while attending school, passing exams, getting jobs for money, and bonding with other characters to create powerful personas. My issues with Persona 3: FES were the lack of skill cards, random skill fusions, and the inability to command teammates. Persona 4: Golden addressed these concerns, making the game significantly better. They also introduced new features like the fast-forward button (which I used a lot during my second playthrough), new Personas, and social link stories of Aeon and Jester. If I had only played the original version of Persona 4 on the PlayStation 2, I would have preferred Persona 3 FES. Aside from the new features, Persona 4's story was quite good, as it's a mystery game where you have to piece together the story and identify the mystery killer. I personally detest visual novels; they are one of my least favorite genres in video games. However, Persona 4 had better social link stories than 3 and 5, to be honest. It also has the funniest events in the game, like teaming up with your partner to pick up chicks at the mall with your scooter and the Hot Springs Event (a better Hot Springs story than 3). Each character in this game is memorable, mostly thanks to their quirks, like Yukiko’s uncontrollable laughter and Teddie’s lame bear puns and flirt lines. It's also a great Big Bro Simulator since you could not help but bond with Nanako. And with the improvements with Skill Cards and controlling teammates, it's safe to say that Persona 4: Golden has better gameplay than Persona 3 FES. Persona 4: Golden has its trade-offs from its predecessor. You get skill cards, a fast-forward button, and the ability to command your teammates, but you lose Persona Combined Attacks. Instead, teammates you recruit during dungeon exploration will perform special duo attacks when facing enemies, but there are only three of these. On the plus side, they will come to your aid by running over enemies with their scooters. Unlike Persona 3, you cannot see your romance partner’s room, and the dungeons in Persona 4 are surprisingly easier. In Persona 3, you climb Tartarus with the music changing as you ascend. In Persona 4, each dungeon's theme is based on the character’s private self, but they still have randomly generated maze dungeons where shadows chase you once they see you. Once you grind to level 99 and are 60-70% done with the game, you can easily skip past enemies and go straight to the main dungeon boss in one session. Interestingly, you can stay on a floor as long as you want without expecting the Reaper to appear. However, if you hear chains rattling, the Reaper will appear only if you open a treasure chest, and the game warns you as a chance to avoid opening it. Lastly, a bit of a nitpick but getting the best ending to this game can be very picky, you must do a lot of objectives and selecting the precise and important dialog choices or else you may be locked out of the best ending. Full of twists and turns with its story and excellent gameplay, Persona 4: Golden is actually a great Persona game. While it's not my absolute favorite in the franchise, it is definitely worth playing. I ranked it in the middle of my favorite Persona games, with 5 and 2 being my top picks. Interestingly, not many people talk about Persona 4 as much as Personas 3 and 5. Maybe except for seeing profile pics of characters like Teddie and Adachi through social media. If you are a huge fan of visual novels as well as mystery/detective games, you will love this game.