What do you get when you turn Scooby Doo into an Anime and morph it into a JRPG/Dating Sim/ Time Management game? If you answered one of the greatest games ever made, you're right! Persona 4 Golden is all these things and more.

The story takes place in Inaba. It's a quiet little country town plagued by murder and filled with Intrigue. The narrative hooks you from the beginning, repeatedly throws you for a loop just as soon as you think you have your proverbial footing, and understand what's going on. There were more than a few moments that had me jumping up from chair shouting "WHAT THE HELL? NO WAY!" when certain revelations came to light. The writing is solid. It knows when to be serious, when to be funny, and will make you cry. Nothing seems out of place. There are choices to be made here as well and they matter. Certain choices you make will determine, which of the games endings you get.

As this is a MegaTen game it can be quite challenging. Fortunately there are Easy and Super Easy difficulty modes for players who don't wish to be challenged too much, or just want to enjoy the story. Battles are traditional turn based fights. Your party calls upon the power of their persona to deal damage, buff, debuff, and heal. There are multiple persona that your character can equip and the higher you raise your level the more persona you can take with you. Each persona can be leveled up independently from the others and comes with their own skills. You can also teach persona skills they wouldn't normally have by using skill cards, or through the fusion process. There are A LOT of different persona to choose from and a ton of skills at your disposal. Thanks to this system you can create a customized roster tailored to your liking.

The cast of characters is colorful, three dimensional, and unforgettable. The characters outside the main party aren't as strong as the main cast, but are still well done. It's hard not to become emotionally invested in them and their struggles, which you experience by spending time with them and leveling up their respective social link. Doing this strengthens persona that you fuse whose type corresponds with that social link. For instance, if you spend a lot of time with Daisuke and Kou, then Strength Persona you fuse will get a boost based on how high you've raised their Social Link. My one complaint here is the Empress Social Link feels like a complete waste compared to the others. It's just fusing persona to produce a specific persona with a specific ability. It's frustrating without a guide and not fun with one.

The soundtrack is incredible and perfectly sets the mood for each scene. The core game play loop is great as well. It does a great job hooking you into a the rhythm of daily adolescent life and defeating enemies in dungeons on your journey to discover the truth of what's really going on. You don't have infinite time though. So be smart about how you spend your days and whom you spend them with.

At 122.7 hours for my first play through it's not a short game by any means. I tried to experience all of the content I could in my first play through and got the True ending. There is a New Game + mode that opens up upon completing your first play through as well, which has it's own unique content in addition to all the normal content in the game. Even if you don't do what I did, there is a ton of content and replayability here. This is easily a 150-200 hour game overall; and, I can't see a first play through lasting less than 60-80 hours. That's with skipping certain content.

This game can be grindy if you want to complete ALL of the content. Some of the enemies you need to defeat in random battles for side quest items are rare and only appear rarely among common foes. Others may simply be rare encounters that can only appear on certain floors of certain dungeons. Other Items are rare drops from key chests, which require you to grind mobs to get keys so you can grind chests. This can be frustrating. I spent 6 hours grinding for a high speed gear in one dungeon level for a quest. I also spent about 4 hours grinding for a gentle men's tux in the first dungeon. I don't know if I was just super unlucky, but it was frustrating and had me wondering if I'd ever get these items.

I didn't experience any crashing, freezing, or stuttering with the game like a few other reviews did. On both my high end desktop and medium low range laptop it ran like a dream. Persona 4 Golden is an incredible value for the price and one of the greatest games I have ever played. I was laughing and crying when it was over, because it's one hell of a ride and at $20 there's no reason anyone shouldn't be taking it.

Dear Atlus, thank you for this. Please, bring over Persona 3 FES next.