Current Events > Persona 4 is a really bad game, like 3/10 bad

(+) Yeah! (+)

I found P4 to be a garbled mess. There was, potentially, half a good idea in there, but by the time the game attempted to get serious, it did so in what I found to be an overbearing, ham-handed, and clumsy fashion. P4's "theme," such as it exists, was buried so deep in the "narrative" (and I use that word loosely, as I was much more frustrated by P4's pacing than P3's, as P4 had a lot of "nothing/are all of you IDIOTS" happen for far too long) that it felt tacked on. The first third of the game doesn't support the ending and vice versa. Which is why I put quotes on theme: P4's biggest weakness is its internal inconsistency.

P3 had the advantage of coming after a long break in the Persona series, console upgrades, and a clear vision. Before social links were a divisive element in SMT fandom at large, they were an attempt at refining demon negotiation in a way that served the narrative of P3 and enhanced its themes. Everything about P3 -- the "reversed" position your social links start in to their growth to the "upright," the mythology used in establishing the cast, the first scenes (the very start, the first Dark Hour with the man turning into a Shadow, and the first summoning sequence) all the way to the end -- were lean, on-point, and engaging. There's nothing out of place in P3. The narrative is simple, but the game's themes are explored beautifully -- and consistently. Everything builds toward the ending, which is ... devastating, cathartic, and perfect. The foreshadowing wasn't dropped. The themes that had held the game together were fully brought to the surface and developed in the final moments, leaving the player to find their own answers. There was no "yes or no," "x good, y bad" -- the ending to P3 gives the player some credit as a thinking creature and allows said player to answer the questions in their own way.

P4's narrative is much messier, its cast divisive, and its themes... I can deal with the more "hitting the player on the head with the idea" moments in P3 because they're fewer and more organic -- they fold into the story. The ending is well-earned. P4's decision to get serious comes too late, feels oppressive and unnatural, and isn't handled nearly as well or with any subtlety. There's catharsis in having players contemplate mortality. There's much less catharsis in an ending of literal deus ex machina that follows the exact same script as P3's -- that trick only works once if you want emotional payoff vs. "uh, I've seen this before."

P4 had some interesting ideas, but they never cohered and were buried until the abysmal final act. P2 and P3 have flaws and, depending on your views, less fulfilling gameplay, but they were never condescending or haphazard. P4 treated me like an idiot, which is not something I expect from a MegaTen game -- or didn't, when I first played P4. (I do now, alas, with post-P4 titles. Not all the fault is P4's, but I'd say the MegaTen series really went off the rails there and hasn't quite recovered.)

An idea, a theme -- the existence of such doesn't redeem a work. P4 is the Philosophy 101 student or bad art house movie that pontificates about the existence of God and relative morality. If P4 had dropped its aspirations of seriousness, it might have been a better game. Shoving "meaning" into a game that breaks the realistic suspension of disbelief meter doesn't make it thought-provoking. That's what happens in any creative writing seminar in an attempt to pass off a piece as "literary" -- and it's one of the first tricks beaten out of any writer.

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tl;dr

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Yeah I'm not reading your dumb post so I'm assuming it's a copy pasta

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AdrianBeterson posted...

tl;dr

If only more people did that with Persona 4


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You simply do not get to complain about any game's pacing if you like Xenogears

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Persona 4 is the best in the series imo. And I got the platinum for royal, which would've been the best had it not made vanilla persona 5 a worthless experience because it exist. I'll never forgive atlus for giving me a 90 hour experience that I had to run through twice to get 15 hours of new content.

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In my opinion (I am known for having excellent opinions)

P4 > P5 > P3

In terms of waifus:

P5 > P4 > P3

In terms of husbandos:

P4 > P3 > P5

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Honestly I could buy the argument but you didn't support it at all. So I'll just say I disagree with what you said, I think the writing on p4 is much better

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Garioshi posted...

You simply do not get to complain about any game's pacing if you like Xenogears

literally the only good game opinion you've ever posted on this websight

Reis posted...

literally the only good game opinion you've ever posted on this websight

This must be the first game opinion you've seen me post, then; I only have good opinions

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Hmm...

On the one hand, your post is a whole lotta words that says nothing and doesn't even provide any examples to go with those longwinded statements.

On the other hand, I have my own complaints about Persona 4's story, like how the Scooby Doo esque murder mystery ended up being a complete disappointment with some really lame shit eg "Durr it was the gas attendant all along!" *cue Agatha theme music* among other stuff that bothered me.

I also replayed P4 in the form of Golden a few years ago and while I loved vanilla P4 a decade ago, I weirdly disliked P4G and got bored by it, especially the tacked on extra month (ironically the one game that needs an extra month, P3, doesn't have it so you're forced to play with a guide to max all Social Links)

That all being said the game is still fun. I'm just disappointed by the story. They could have handled the murder mystery much better and not been disappointing about it, since it was the only hook the game had.
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