The original version of Persona 4 came out in December 2008 for the PlayStation 2 and it quickly became a critical, and commercial success. In 2012, Atlus released a complete remake for the PlayStation Vita. Featuring a strong graphical improvement and some smart new online features the game soon became a hit... again. You'll go to school and make friends during the day and trek across infinite dungeons battling monsters during the night. The gameplay and story are just as gripping as they were back in 2008 and the game feels right at home on the PlayStation Vita. Newcomers will be mastering their personas in no time and veterans of the series will find themselves slipping into the grip of nostalgia.
As everyone knows, a JRPG is only as good as its story. One thing that's for sure is that Persona 4 Golden holds up to this, excuse my pun, golden rule. The story begins with you, the player, getting off the train at Inaba, Japan. You're told you'll be spending the next year in Inaba with your uncle and his daughter while your parents are working overseas. After a lengthy introduction, you begin your first day at school. It isn't long before you meet your first friends, Yosuke, Chie and Yukiko. After a local celebrity turns up gruesomely murdered, your character is told to turn on his TV at midnight to watch a special "Midnight Channel". A strong urge comes over your character and he touches the TV. Miraculously, he discovers that he can travel through the glass into the TV. Later, your character and Yosuke meet up at the local department store and use a big screen tv to enter the mysterious world of the Midnight Channel. Once inside your character and Yosuke meet Teddy, a large teddy bear who lives in the TV world. Your character soon learns that he can fight monsters by using his own monsters, called Personas.
Much like Atlus’ recent smash hit Catherine, Persona 4 Golden is essentially two games in one. When you’re not crawling the dungeons of the TV world, you’ll be going to school and hanging out with friends. In the TV world, Persona 4 Golden becomes a dungeon-crawler akin to the Pokemon Colosseum games for the Nintendo Gamecube. You'll find yourself grinding you and your Persona's levels to defeat massive bosses, and saving the day in the real world by defeating them. There are also side quests to complete in the real world that provide you with useful rewards.
While not so important in the real world, Social Links mean the difference between life and death in the world inside the TV. Each Persona falls into a class that is represented by one of the many Social Links. By doing things like making new friends by joining the soccer team at school or getting a part time job at the local day care, you’ll start to rank up the different classes that each Persona falls under, thus making your Personas stronger. It's a great system that keeps the game fresh.
The online features, while simple, are pretty great. You can send out an SOS message in dungeons and you can also answer them when you or someone else needs a little health boost, and in the real world you can see the choices other players made to help influence yours.
One great feature of the remake is the addition of Trophies. You're encouraged from the start to play the game more than once, but the fact that getting the Platinum Trophy simply can't be done in one playthrough emphasizes it even more.
Persona 4 Golden's sound department is sort of a mixed bag. Atlus did a great job localizing this game and the proper use of slang and the English language is definitely a respectable feat. Some of the voice actors, especially those of Chie and Teddy, became extremely annoying to me over the course of the game. The music, on the other hand, is great. Some of the lyrics are in English, some of them are in Japanese and some of the songs don't have lyrics at all. Each song fits its respective environment perfectly and somehow none of them become irritating, even when you’re 45 to 50 hours into the game. It defeats a common problem that the PlayStation Vita has with audio fidelity, sending rich audio into your ears. This game was meant to be played with headphones on and the volume up.
Even though Atlus gave the game a respectable graphical overhaul, you won't mistake this game as something from the current generation, especially when compared to other PS2 remakes like last summer's Metal Gear Solid HD Collection. The bright colors of the game look great on the PlayStation Vita's OLED screen, but sometimes textures look a little rough around the edges. The actual Personas themselves look great, though, and the full motion anime cut-scenes are truly amazing. The game isn't ugly by any means, but the graphics, save the cut-scenes, definitely aren't something you'll remember Persona 4 Golden by. The overall aesthetic of the game is perfectly stylized, however and the bright color scheme will definitely turn some heads on the bus.
There was no question back in 2008 over whether or not Atlus had struck gold with Persona 4, and that feeling is definitely present in Persona 4 Golden. There's something really enticing about living someone else's life and becoming a true hero in an insane world that's somehow believable. Even for gamers who aren't fans of JRPGs this game is still easily recommendable because while you'll have to grind at various points throughout the story, the straightforward combat makes it a little less tough and you'll actually find yourself still having fun battling monsters late in the game. If you've played Persona 4 before and you loved it, buy this game. If you haven't played Persona 4 before, buy this game. It's one of the best games on the PlayStation Vita and it would be an absolute shame to miss.
Score: 9.1/10
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