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: 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!