Summery:
Before I say anything let me get this out of the way. Persona 4 Golden left me in shock. It is the first Persona game I fully completed, it is also one of the longer games I’ve ever beaten. It is extremely hard to look back on my playtime and judge the qualities of the game or my feelings on it. I am still in shock and will probably remain somewhat there for good.
Persona 4 Golden, is a JRPG, and like most SMT Games it’s a top tier JRPG. There are many elements to Persona 4 that stand above and beyond others in the genre and many more qualities that make it stand above many others outside the genre. If you like turn based gameplay and don’t mind reliving your high school years, this game is a wonderful JRPG and Social Sim and I couldn’t recommend it more. The only real turn off of Persona 4 is it’s length which I’ll get to below; otherwise, I cannot recommend it enough.

❤ Audience ❤
☐ Beginner
☑ Casual Gamer (easy)
☑ Normal Gamer (normal and the true ending routes)
☑ Expert (the rest)

☼ Graphics ☼
☐ Bad
☐ Alright
☑ Good (the majority)
☑ Beautiful (portraits, UI design, some scenes)
☐ Fantastic

♬ Music ♬
☐ Bad
☐ Alright
☐ Good
☐ Beautiful
☐ Fantastic
---
☑ The Best

☠ Difficulty ☠
☐ Easy
☑ Average
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Hard
☐ Unfair

§ Bugs §
☐ Bugs destroy the game
☐ Lots of bugs
☐ Few Bugs
☐ You can use them for speedrun
☑ Nothing encountered

☯ Story ☯
☐ There is none
☐ Bad
☐ Alright
☐ Good
☑ Fantastic

⚔ Gameplay ⚔
☐ Frustrating
☐ Sleepy
☑ Boring (if you don’t like turn based rpgs)
☑ Fun
☑ Challenging

۞ Game time / Length ۞
☐ Really short (0 - 3 hours)
☐ Short (4 - 8 hours)
☐ Few hours (10 - 20 hours) [if you focus on the main story]
☑ Long (40-60 hours) [if you complete everything]
☑ Very Long (61-100 hours)
☑ Extremely Long (101+ hours) – Replay Value +++

$ Price / Quality $
☑ Full price
☑ Wait for Sale
☐ Don't buy
☐ Refund it if you can

Audience
Any JRPG fan will enjoy this game. It is very japanese, which can be jarring unless you’re used to these kinds of games. It can be slow or tedious especially on higher difficulties. There is a lot of fluff; the story is amazing but in between major story elements the writer’s slow down pacing and let the player relax with typically goofy high schooler scenes like something out of a Visual Novel.
So the Audience is just really JRPG centered, but it’s a wonderfully made one. If you’ve got the patience for a longer game with slower gameplay (more thinking less button pressing) give it a shot.

Graphics
Reminder this was a PS2 game so what’s artistic look amazing and everything technical looks like a slightly improved PS2/PsVita game.
Character portraits and cut scenes are well made, monster design look amazing, the UI is perfect, and the game manages to pull off some really pretty scenes for major story events.
However, player models in game look older. They can be charming but still they’re dated. I don’t pay attention to much to textures but don’t expect anything amazing.
Essentially this is a very stylized and up-scaled game from a group of consoles that don’t look great compared to triple A title blockbusters on PC. But it does have good settings and resolutions to accommodate most players (1920x1080).

Music
Perfect.

I listen to this game’s playlist before playing it, while playing it (ontop of what I listened to in game), and def after.

Music- It’s a very poppy track. Plenty of English vocals and Japanese vocal tracks. Incredibly upbeat music. I cannot define what makes it so great, but it’s what got me through the game and what added so much emotion to it. All the tracks minus one are super close to my heart and meaningful and I can’t bear to skip. Persona’s always been a game with strong music but I can’t help but favor P4 as the best.


Voice Acting- There’s a lot of voice acting but not every dialogue section is voiced, where others are partially, or wholly voiced; there’s a lot of examples for each of these and it’s a long ass game so I wasn’t to mad about it not being fully voiced the whole way. Characters sound pretty on point, and match voice with character pretty well. My only complaint was that by the end “senpai” is now a trigger word that makes me wanna throw things.


Gameplay
I hate to do it (no I don’t): “It’s like dark souls.” No it isn’t. But it is basically a more mature pokemon. You effectively get demons to fuse and make new ones. It’s all tied into the social sim which unlocks new fusions and can buff them upon fusion based on their typing and the rank or the corresponding social link typing. It’s pretty fun mixing and matching and creating the ultimate being to fight each and every battle.

Difficulty
I’ve played a few JRPGs so I set it to medium, turned on double exp, and was underleveled the entire game anyway due to skipping fights.
Despite that it’s not terrible. The true endings can be annoying to get because of certain gimmicky fights but otherwise it’s not a hard game. Time management and careful team building keeps the game pretty easy, it is very forgiving.
Despite all that on the harder difficulties I’ve heard the game is extremely unforgiving, and from my experience with other SMT series I can believe it.
So as long as you choose the right difficulty for you, it should be fine no matter what you are looking for.

Story
Enjoy it, I’d hate to spoil anything but I’ll give ya the general hook.
It’s a detective story with elements of collective conscious and psychology backing it up in classic SMT fashion where you go out to kill god, as high schoolers (in classic Persona fashion).
Enjoy the mystery, try to piece it all together, and live the twist and turns yourself.
As for the rest just pick up what you can and grab a textbook afterwards, because the origins of the Persona Series are heavily rooted in psychological theory.

Bugs
Not a single one, amazing.

Game time / Length & Price / Quality
It’s worth it. The game it probably 40 hours just rushing the main ending, but even then it’s probably longer. True ending will take you about my playtime +10 I think (offline playtime again sorry :P ). And it’s got new game + and a ton of endings plus different persona’s or things to do, because the time management system will naturally lock you out of some content, so a second or third run is worth it. I’d argue the game has at least 100 hours in it, since two runs would be optimal, there are some things that can only be done in new game +.

So what are you doing? Go and buy and play the damn thing!

Summery:
Greedfall is a great addition to the Western RPG collection. Combat is stiff, but allows creativity, has real time pause, and ultimately is not the reason you buy the game. The story however combines generic troupes with unique story elements in a colonial setting (Age of Discovery) to create a world worth exploring. The game’s plot, world building, and characters are all wonderfully crafted. The game is a bit slow burn, with an extremely slow start. Never fear this is intentional and the game’s pacing is great after the writer’s finish setting the scene. Any old school Bioware fan should grab a copy of this game, and as I put to my friends, “Greedfall is a slower paced Dragon Age Inquisition, but better in every way.”

❤ Audience ❤
☐ Beginner
☑ Casual Gamer
☑ Normal Gamer
☐ Expert

☼ Graphics ☼
☐ Bad
☐ Alright
☐ Good
☑ Beautiful
☑ Fantastic

♬ Music ♬
☐ Bad
☐ Alright
☐ Good
☑ Beautiful
☐ Fantastic

☠ Difficulty ☠
☐ Easy
☑ Average
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Hard
☐ Unfair

§ Bugs §
☐ Bugs destroy the game
☐ Lots of bugs
☑ Few Bugs
☐ You can use them for speedrun
☐ Nothing encountered

☯ Story ☯
☐ There is none
☐ Bad
☐ Alright
☐ Good
☑ Fantastic

⚔ Gameplay ⚔
☐ Frustrating
☐ Sleepy
☑ Boring
☑ Fun
☐ Challenging

۞ Game time / Length ۞
☐ Really short (0 - 3 hours)
☐ Short (4 - 8 hours)
☑ Few hours (10 - 20 hours) [if you focus on the main story]
☑ Long (40-60 hours) [if you complete everything]
☐ Very Long (61-100 hours)
☐ Extremely Long (101+ hours)

$ Price / Quality $
☐ Full price
☑ Wait for Sale
☐ Don't buy
☐ Refund it if you can

Audience
I’ll admit this game is meant for older players. It takes some patience and it feels like one of those slow burn games I rarely see or hear about. Half the players couldn’t make it a few hours in and most of the rest praise the game. That plus it is heavily modeled after the old Bioware “Open world/many connected levels” concept makes it appeal more to older players, especially those who grew up playing those games. For any old school WRPG fan who is more story oriented than combat this game will pique your interest. It’s world while very generic Discovery Age setting to start does build a unique and one of a kind world by it’s end that fun both to explore and learn about.

Graphics
The PRO is it looks wonderfully. The game has aged well the past few years and still looks good. The only dated looking part would be character faces, which even at release weren’t the highest quality. However it makes up for this by also having a very distinct style. Characters and factions have distinct looks anywhere from middle eastern themed, puritan uniform, or the colonial (swag) dress that I wore all game despite it having awful stats. Even the guns fit the time period and maintain a unique look: Example, multi barreled pistols being included in the game (comical and historically accurate).
The CON (aside from character faces/animation), is the plentiful amount of reused assets and the lack of enough assets. Character faces are recycled and certain interiors are copy pasted. Architecture of buildings avoids this however the woods also suffer from asset reuse. The good thing about the woods is the level designer did a damn good job hiding the fact making each and every wilderness area look and feel unique, so if you don’t go out of your way looking for reused assets you just might not notice in the woods.

Music
Greedfall went above and beyond with audio performance.

Music- ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Amazing! Oliver Deriviere went above and beyond here. The music isn’t just entertaining but also fits the setting and represents the areas where its played. Some city’s have their own tracks and they fit thematically. And of course the trigger combat music isn’t all thematic but it was well enough I didn’t get sick of it by the end of the game.

Voice Acting- There’s a lot of voice acting and it’s all pretty good. With this much sometimes there are a few mismatched voice to character instances but mostly it’s superb. The accents can be heavy handed but honestly I found it enjoyable hearing the distinct ways different characters from various factions/clans talked. It can be jarring with the natives as it is more heavy handed than the rest, but it was still entertaining for me.

Ambiance-
Also great, the sounds of the forest stand out wonderfully and are a highlight of the game. Cities and interior areas can feel drab with generic crowd noises but thankfully most of your time will be spent hiking with great music, ambiance, and visuals so who cares.

Gameplay
Greedfall has slow gameplay. It is very much an Action RPG with an emphasis on the RPG. It takes time to build your character towards a play style you will enjoy. However the upside is you character can specialize in most areas of combat, with levels. This makes early game very limiting, mid game more archetypal but fun, and late game a jack of all trades build (but viable). Mixing all the elements to combat is where the fun is found. Swapping between weapons and using abilities from multiple skill trees is the peak of this game (for me at least). So ultimately it’s fun. Is it hard, well...

Difficulty
It's not hard, it's frustrating, but it can also be fun. The game is an action rpg but don’t forget the rpg. Lot’s of mechanics, builds, and combat flavor is locked till later levels. Even with the games massive amount of freedom it takes a few levels to start playing “your way” and it can be a slog. Especially considering combat is a bit trivial. Aside from the end game enemies which can chain stun you if you don’t pay attention, most enemies can be killed with button mashing on normal. Otherwise there’s a very lenient parry and dodge system. At any time an experienced player can just start trying and remove the threat and challenge of almost every enemy in game. So it is not hard, it can be fun with creativity in the later levels but even I cheesed the final boss with iframes.

Story
Greedfall prides itself here. Greedfall is one of the few games that let the writer’s set everything up. They take their time introducing you to the world. The game doesn’t really start until you have most of your companions and by then your already pretty into it. It also has plenty of setup in every twist and turn: so sometimes the big twist is obvious due to evidence and sometimes when they drop it on you randomly, you can still find evidence in the story supporting the more random/drastic story events. It’s really nice because the world feels a bit more believable (although I wish the characters were just as aware). Plenty of story elements and lore are entirely unique however they take longer to explore while the troupe lore is dumped everywhere early on turning off most players looking for a new world to learn about.
Plus side quests weave into the main plot nicely while not being required (but please do them) and arguably some of the side plots are just as good as the main story. The player’s choices constantly change the world around him and feel like they have meaning, and by the end of the game they play a little slideshow showing how and what all your decisions led to. It’s sweet and good to feel like I have player agency in a story.
And I won’t say more, but the game’s main theme is awesome, and I loved it 9/10 for story absolutely amazing.

Bugs
Mostly just animation glitches.

Game time / Length & Price / Quality
About 20-40 hours, more for completionist obviously. I took about 30 hours, some of my game time was offline. Lot’s of collectibles and personal challenges. Plenty of side quests, all well written and fun, to do. The plot takes about 20 hours I guess. Yeah quality + quantity here is great. I’d recommend the 20$ on sale but if they ask even 40$ it’s not terrible if you know you’ll like this kinda game.