Overview:

You are a transfer student from the big city sent to live with your relatives for a year in the sleepy rural town of Inaba.  Strange incidents start to happen with you being able to enter the TV to a world of shadows.  As the days progress you start to make friends, take on many hobbies, and even some side jobs.  While this is going on murders start occuring and you realize it’s up to you and your Investigation Squad to solve the case.  The game is a very traditional turn based RPG with you picking elements correctly in order to discover enemy weaknesses which give you another turn.  Play the cards right and you can destroy enemies without them even getting a chance to fight back.  When you’re not in dungeons, you have to manage your days because you really only get one shot, a day, to do something substantial.  This can be anything from hanging out with friends [to increase your closeness with them], building up your stats, or any of a multitude of things.  It may seem overwhelming, but it’s not.  I can’t believe I forgot the titular Persona aspect!  A Persona is your other self and, with you being Zero, you can have a multitude of Persona’s to battle for you.  You can either fuse stronger Personas from weaker ones or just find them after battle.  This aspect of the game goes pretty hard and it is rather interesting to see the designs for them.

Visuals:

P4 Golden is a remaster of the 2008 PlayStation 2 game so the visuals of the overall package are really not something to get hung up about.  The in-game character models are low detail but they get the point across.  The world of Inaba is small but it has all the hallmarks of a small town: Shopping district, river, mall, etc.  This is where you’ll find the people you’ve met throughout the game just hanging out.  And what people they are!  The characters are all fully realized and each have their own little quirks to them.  You get little talking heads during the conversations that emote depending on what the scene calls for so it’s cute in that aspect.  The real winner of the game is the presentation of the UI.  Everything is going for a television motif and it shows really well.  It doesn’t get hard to read or go too far.  It’s a nice blend of flair and subtlety.

Audio:

Most of the audio is the same from the original release but you do get new actors for some of the characters, notably Chie.  Despite that, most of the dialog is voice acted and I love how all of the voice actors play their characters.  Like their appearance, each person has their own personality.  It does get a little weird hearing them talking English then all of a sudden start spouting Japanese customs or words nonchalantly.  No biggie though.  The soundtrack, though, is fucking fire.  All the dungeons, background music, everything is just hit after hit all in a lovely little package.

Completion:

I FINISHED THIS GAME!  After about 45 hours, I can say Persona 4 Golden is done.  I’d played the 2008 game and I feel this one surpassed it in every category.  I did feel bad that I was basically dating every of my female companions with nary of a peep from any of them until Valentine’s Day when I was just getting heartbreak after heartbreak when they said I didn’t pick them.  Brutal.  I finished the main story and Inaba is now at peace, finally.  I’m glad the game is done but a part of me wishes to New Game+ it.  Maybe in the future!