Emotionally Spent, Deliriously Satisfied

It’s not often a game really gets me emotionally invested. I’m not the type to be affected by a story or it’s characters to the point where I’m having trouble falling asleep at night or thinking about the game for days on end. And I wasn’t that way with Persona 4 Golden. At least...not consistently. Or so I thought. To preface, I had never played a title in the Persona series prior to playing P4G, as it’s commonly referred to. Playstation released the game on the Vita in 2012, but I never picked up the game until 2014. Fast forward four years and I finally decided to show my lil’ handheld some love and plopped the game in. Holy shit, what a ride.

These characters…they hooked me. In the best possible way.

I wasn’t always this charmed by the game, but it’s uniqueness was appealing right from the get go. The brightly coloured kaleidoscope intro and jazzy tune smacked me in the face from the moment I turned the game on and immediately I was intrigued. A lot of role playing games have that dark, foreboding nature to them...often telling a mysterious backstory full of deceit and evil, prior to launching the game. While P4G doesn’t totally steer away from this, it’s ambitious intro was a welcoming one. Persona 4 Golden was recommended to me many times by a variety of people on Twitter, and reviews I had read online claimed that it was certainly worth playing. So why did it take me so long to finally start playing it? Well, for starters, I was told the game could take anywhere from 80-100 hours and I just don’t have that in me anymore. It’s somewhat deflating, because there’s a handful of games I’d love to enjoy but I don’t know if I have it in me to commit myself to that timeframe. It wasn’t until my friend Jonathan Higgins (@radicaldefect) mentioned the option to play on a ‘very easy’ mode that would allow me to enjoy the nuances of how the game is played, but let me focus more on enjoying the story and cutting the game time in half. He wasn’t lying. When I finally put my Vita down, I was just shy of 50 hours. Now, I’ll admit...as much as I seem to be gushing about the game, I didn’t feel this way during my entire playthrough. As much as I enjoyed the story, there were times when I started to get frustrated with how slow things were progressing. Let me explain. For those that haven’t played, P4G focuses on two elements: traditional RPG battles and dungeon crawling….and relationship building. Not necessarily ‘Fire Emblem romancing’ but I’ll try and clarify: So much of what happens in P4G is related to the relationships the main character makes with other people in the game. You’re a high school student, recently transferred from the big city into a small town and you’re forced to make relationships with the people around you who end up becoming playable characters and central to the story. While that sounds like a typical story, the game is anything but. In between battles, you’re given the option to do a variety of activities; hang out with friends, study, spend time with family, or general exploration. As you spend time with your friends and family, those relationships intensify and have a profound affect on the game and how it plays.

I love this character. For so many different reasons.

And while there appears to be a lot more time dedicated to these relationships versus the amount of time in dungeons, particular to RPGs, I found myself getting agitated at times where I just wanted the main storyline to progress and get back to fighting. This would always venture up and down and when I’d get to the point where I wondered if the game was just a social experiment, it would slap me in the face with the next phase of story telling. Normally, I don’t think I’d have the patience for this, but Persona 4 Golden has a cast of characters that endeared themselves to me in a way that just scratched me where I itched, to coin a phrase. The boys and girls in the game all had unique personalities with their own traits that had you connecting to one or the other more closely than the rest. Each had likeable elements, characteristics that bothered you, or like any real life situation, elements you may wish you could change about them. As the game progresses, you get a chance to see these characters grow and it becomes as much a story about self-discovery as much as it’s about defeating all evil and corruption. While that may seem like a ‘back to school’ special, it’s anything but. P4G has amazing voice acting and wonderful writing which makes the game stand out amongst anything else. ATLUS does an amazing job employing a cast that give these characters incredible life and characters that seem to connect on a variety of levels. But while the game took me up and down on an emotional rollercoaster, it also brought me to a point of anger. As I approached the end of the game, I made a decision that I assumed would put a nice bow on everything and see the story to completion. Well, as the story ended, I was left with a “WTF” moment. I took to Twitter and wasn’t overly happy. (Because when you’re upset about something, you immediately go to Twitter and vent your frustrations. That’s what the Internet is for) Thankfully, the aforementioned Jonathan Higgins slid into my DMs and informed me that there are a total of three endings. I ended up re-loading my save and finishing the game in much different fashion by making different in-game choices. This lead to a much more satisfying ending but I also learned that there was MORE. Eventually, I finished the game to completion and was emotionally spent. This game had made me laugh and, at times, made me uncomfortable with my emotions. It’s...hard to explain, which is why I felt the need to write this. I hate writing video game reviews because I’m not very good at them, but as I mentioned earlier, it’s not often games have me thinking about them this much when I’m not playing them but Persona 4 Golden accomplished exactly that. It’s to the point where I’ve thought way too much about fictional characters and wondered where their stories and journeys would take them. If there was a sequel to P4G, what would these characters look like and what other obstacles would they face? I feel myself wanting more from this story and getting frustrated knowing there’s nothing else there. On the other hand, isn’t that the sign of a great story? Leaving me, as the consumer, wanting more? Persona 4 Golden was my first foray into the franchise, but it certainly has me wanting to seek out more. I’m not sure if other titles in the series are equalled in their storytelling, but I suppose that’s an individual perception either way. Still, P4G went from a game that provided a ton of allure and pre-conceived hype, to a story that now ranks very high on my favorite games of all time.