So, Persona 4, eh?
Yeah, you know that the minute they announce a street date I am so going to reserve that game. The one thing I hate about Atlus though is that the way they release the Shin Megami Tensei games is so limited when it obviously doesn’t need to be that you can’t wait for price drops which makes things dicey when you’re, ya know, unemployed. Doesn’t matter though, I will own Persona 4 upon release and that will be that.
From what I’ve gathered so far the game sounds like it will be designed in a similar way to Persona 3, including the same art style for the characters. This is good news since it’s just more of a reason to keep loving your PS2 in my opinion. Even better is the fact that it will be made similar to Persona 3. While I liked the original 2 english Persona games, and those are hard to love, Persona 3 was a phenomenal experience to me. It was fairly open ended as to how you approached the game, nobody I know has played the game the same way twice. Some will go all for S. Links and pay attention to maxing their stats, others will go after their stats like a hobo on a baked potato and then worry about S. Links and yet others will get annoyed with the S. Links and focus on killing stuff in Tartarus. All viable methods of playing the game although some are harder than others.
Now Persona 4 talks about how it will take place in the countryside and involve a murder mystery. And somehow or another the weather will act as a clue as to when a murder will take place. So it’s likely that your character will learn something along the lines of the killer(s) only killing during a rainy night or some such. Obviously this will be no mundane murder mystery and things will likely keep a creepy adult oriented occult feel to it while staying gripping and compelling which sounds so awesome.
I cannot say how happy I am to have moved away from the Persona 1 and 2 dungeon crawling but fighting everywhere you go model. Sure P3 has a lot of dungeon crawling but that isn’t the whole focus like it was in the first two / three games. They were essentially giant dungeon crawls occasionally broken up by some exposition or dialogue and you can’t even walk through places like the malls without getting into fights. While having no safe zones adds tension to the experience there’s something to be said for the safe zone concept. It was probably the most intruiging parts of Silent Hill 4 and used to great effect in Fatal Frame 3 but in Persona 3 you really felt like you were living a dual life. On one hand you’re the normal school kid who makes friends surprisingly easily but on the other you’re the leader of an elite team of Persona users fighting against the forces of darkness.
The funny thing is I have a suspicion that this game is going to be used to try and bridge the gaps between Persona 3 and the rest of the series. If you’ve played previous Persona games you will realize that there’s something of a disconnect between the games beyond the combat model. The original two had interconnecting stories, many features that were mentioned in the games (such as towns getting cut off from the rest of the world by magic barriers) and even corporations that were mentioned. That’s to say nothing of the overly dramatic Persona summoning method in P3. Sure, there were some throwaway lines in P3 mentioned likely to help appease the fans but even still, it actually doesn’t feel like a Persona game.
Seeing all the success Persona 3 had I’m sure that they will capitalize on it and make a game with more interesting elements without rocking the boat entirely and I cannot be more eager for it. I’m looking so forward to this game and, to all you out there, if you find out info on it before I do please tell me. I’d hate to find out you were holding out on me…
Thanks to Symphonycometh for even pointing out to me that P4 was even being made. I don’t read Kotaku or forums enough to learn this on my own until it’s nearly too late, lol.
