Persona 3/4

Yep, I've been spending a lot of my time these days pouring hours into the PS2 JRPG Persona 4.

Pretty much the most well known of the series, Persona 3 (FES) is an interesting game. At day time you attend high school, take tests, meet people, and develop friendships...and at night you climb a demon tower full of shadows that feed on people in a 25th hour of the day only a few can witness with a power called Persona. These people have inner strength manifested in the forms of mythological creatures like unicorns, oni, Rakshasha, Leanan Sidhe, and many others, and unleash their powers by shooting themselves with a special gun called the Evoker.

Gameplay wise, it takes a bit of patience and time management. In the game, certain events happen on certain phases of the moon, Full Moons being when bosses arrive. Between then and the day you're on, you must train, meet people, purchase items, and combine Personas to form more powerful ones. Gameplay wise it's your standard turn based RPG with a few exceptions.

-Only you control yourself. Everyone else is AI oriented. It's hard to work with since sometimes they don't act right, but you can give them certain commands to follow like heal/buff or all out attack.

-The game has a huge emphasis on elemental damage like Pokemon. Fire, Ice, Wind, Electricty, Light, and Darkness, as well as the 3 melee types Strike, Slash, and Pierce, can make or break you in battles. Each Persona has different focuses like certain element defense/weaknesses and attack types, so one must balance out the flaws with the strengths. The reason why is if you hit an enemy with their weakness, you get to attack again, and knocking all the enemies down gives you a free pass to damage them all at once. However, the enemy also gets another turn for hitting you with your weakness.

-Time management is crucial, and making friendships is important because when you meet people and learn more about them/understand them better, you raise something called a Social Link. The higher a social link is with a friend or comrade, the more moves you can discover with your Personas. Each person is represented by one of the 22 Major Arcana of Tarot, and each Persona will be powered by their respective Arcana. However, some people won't talk to you should your social stats like Academics, Charm, or Courage are too low, so you must also put that into effect when you try to balance who you can be with and not.


Story wise, it kind of lacks. The story didn't go anywhere until the 30 hour mark where it was "Hey, a demon tower! Let's climb and kill stuff!". Now about that time you start finding out more and the game begins to reveal a rather interesting story. I recommend it, but it's not for the impatient or those without a lot of free time.




------_Coming Soon: Persona 4_------