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Despite RPGs being my favorite game genre, I've never touched a Persona game before. I never really had any interest in the series until 5, and that point I had already sold my Vita, had the 3rd game totally spoiled for me, and didn't own a PS4. So when Persona 4 Golden was announced for PC, I was elated. It's the game I knew the least about of the 3 modern titles, and I finally had a chance to play one of these games! I bought it a few months later, played a hour or two on the first day, and liked it well enough. The week following that day was a blur. ~6 hours of playtime a day. I became totally engrossed in this JRPG-visual novel hybrid. And was it worth the insane amounts of time I put into it? Hell. Yes.


Visually, the game's just fine I think. It's probably the weakest part of the game, but not because it's actually bad. After seeing gameplay of Persona 5, the visuals here look pretty dated and uninteresting. Not taking P5 into account, I'd still say they didn't blow me away. The character designs were pretty solid, I liked some of the variety in the dungeon appearances, and that's really it. It's an upscaled version of an 8 year old handheld game, and in that regard, it looks pretty crisp on PC. Overall, it's fine. Not remarkable, but it transitioned to PC well enough so it works.


For those who have not played a Persona game, you're basically playing 2 different games. For the most part, it's more like a visual novel. You're bonding with characters, leveling up social stats, and reading lots of dialogue. It's more fun than it has any right to be, but that's more because of the story. The other chunk of the gameplay consists of dungeon crawling, fusing Personas, and grinding; typical JRPG stuff. This being my first Persona game, I don't know in what ways it improved over 3 or how 5 improved upon this, but I thought it played pretty well. The combat is Pokemon-esque, in that you collect creatures and swap them around to exploit enemy weaknesses, and I had a lot of fun experimenting with different Personas and party members. The game is pretty easy, but there's a few bosses and one dungeon that can absolutely wreck you if you're not prepared. My biggest complaint with this game, though, are the dungeons. They're randomly generated, and while they do a lot to stand out visually, they're all basically the same in terms of gameplay. They try to change things up by locking off certain areas until you find a key of some form, but that gets repetitive as well and feels more like padding than anything. Thankfully, the dungeon component doesn't take up a lot of the game, thanks to how balanced the VN and RPG elements are. By the time you get burnt out with one, the game switches it up and it's probably the biggest reason why I got so hooked. I also loved the day/night structure, although I do wish there were more nighttime activities since I ran out of stuff to do towards the end. Overall, the game's very enjoyable, and outside of the weak dungeon structure, I had a lot of fun playing it.


But of course, this being a JRPG, the most important part to these games are the story. And does it deliver? Absolutely! The game's biggest strength, by far, is the strength of its main cast of characters. My personal favorite was Kanji Tatsumi, as I LOVE the way they handled his problems, but they all have a lot of depth. Many people strongly dislike the totally-not-marketable-animal-character Teddie, and for good reason, but even then I felt he had enough good moments in the story that I can't say I loathed him. He's still my least favorite of the bunch, though. The chemistry between the characters also felt organic, and for a series that loves "the power of friendship", the theme especially fits in this game where your friends feel real. And thankfully, it's not just your friends that are very well-written. I really liked the villain (MASSIVE SPOILER: I'm referring to Adachi), and Nanako is probably the most adorable character I've ever seen and I would die for her. The overall plot was interesting, as it's a murder mystery that constantly keeps you on your toes, even if it wasn't totally airtight in a few spots. It loses a little steam towards the end, but not enough to where I'd say it was an issue. That's probably because the writing absolutely elevated this game. I felt actual emotions towards the story, which is pretty rare when I consume any form of media. It made me laugh, get teary-eyed, and psyched up, and it made the most mundane parts of the game far more exciting. Overall, this was one of my favorite stories of the year. It wasn't perfect, but its strengths greatly outweigh the weaknesses.


It's a Persona game. Of course this game rocks this category. The voice actors clearly had a ton of fun with their roles and did an excellent job of portraying their characters. Again, Kanji was my favorite here, but Nanako's voice actress deserves a lot more credit for absolutely NAILING the little girl voice in a way that doesn't feel obnoxious. Everyone sounded great, though. Teddie's voice was obnoxious, but it eventually mellows out later into the game and becomes far more tolerable, even if it still isn't great. I don't really need to talk about the music, because of course the soundtrack is great. A few tracks wore down on me as I progressed, but I still loved the music overall. I don't really need to elaborate any further here, because this game clearly lives up to the high standards the series has set.


I got over 60 hours of playtime and loved basically every second of it. For $20, you're getting a ton of value here. There's so much meat to the game that you likely will miss a TON of content in your first playthrough, and there's also a NG+ mode (which I have not tried) that adds some extra content of its own. As far as I'm concerned this is absolutely a safe buy at full price.


Persona 4 Golden was already a well-regarded game, but I can now confirm that it's still worth the hype 8 years later. This has been one of my favorite JRPG experiences of all time, in spite of all of its little imperfections. I look forward to the day I get the chance to play Persona 5 Royal or maybe even the 3rd title if I can forget everything that happens. This is 100% worth your time and money, and I highly recommend giving it a shot.

Graphics - 7.5/10
Gameplay - 8.5/10
Story - 10/10
Audio - 9.5/10
Content Value - 10/10

.:9.3/10:.
"Amazing"

**PERSONAL PICK**

+ Amazing cast of characters
+ Great soundtrack
+ Strong voice acting
+ Fun combat
+ Balanced VA/RPG elements
+ Insane content value

- Tedious dungeons

[u]Like my reviews? Go follow my [url=https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/33012112-Gandhi-Talks-Games/]Curator page.[/url][/u] Despite RPGs being my favorite game genre, I've never touched a [i]Persona[/i] game before. I never really had any interest in the series until 5, and that point I had already sold my Vita, had the 3rd game totally spoiled for me, and didn't own a PS4. So when [i]Persona 4 Golden[/i] was announced for PC, I was elated. It's the game I knew the least about of the 3 modern titles, and I finally had a chance to play one of these games! I bought it a few months later, played a hour or two on the first day, and liked it well enough. The week following that day was a blur. ~6 hours of playtime a day. I became totally engrossed in this JRPG-visual novel hybrid. And was it worth the insane amounts of time I put into it? Hell. Yes. [h1]Graphics[/h1] Visually, the game's just fine I think. It's probably the weakest part of the game, but not because it's actually bad. After seeing gameplay of [i]Persona 5,[/i] the visuals here look pretty dated and uninteresting. Not taking P5 into account, I'd still say they didn't blow me away. The character designs were pretty solid, I liked some of the variety in the dungeon appearances, and that's really it. It's an upscaled version of an 8 year old handheld game, and in that regard, it looks pretty crisp on PC. Overall, it's fine. Not remarkable, but it transitioned to PC well enough so it works. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] For those who have not played a [i]Persona[/i] game, you're basically playing 2 different games. For the most part, it's more like a visual novel. You're bonding with characters, leveling up social stats, and reading lots of dialogue. It's more fun than it has any right to be, but that's more because of the story. The other chunk of the gameplay consists of dungeon crawling, fusing Personas, and grinding; typical JRPG stuff. This being my first [i]Persona[/i] game, I don't know in what ways it improved over 3 or how 5 improved upon this, but I thought it played pretty well. The combat is Pokemon-esque, in that you collect creatures and swap them around to exploit enemy weaknesses, and I had a lot of fun experimenting with different Personas and party members. The game is pretty easy, but there's a few bosses and one dungeon that can absolutely wreck you if you're not prepared. My biggest complaint with this game, though, are the dungeons. They're randomly generated, and while they do a lot to stand out visually, they're all basically the same in terms of gameplay. They try to change things up by locking off certain areas until you find a key of some form, but that gets repetitive as well and feels more like padding than anything. Thankfully, the dungeon component doesn't take up a lot of the game, thanks to how balanced the VN and RPG elements are. By the time you get burnt out with one, the game switches it up and it's probably the biggest reason why I got so hooked. I also loved the day/night structure, although I do wish there were more nighttime activities since I ran out of stuff to do towards the end. Overall, the game's very enjoyable, and outside of the weak dungeon structure, I had a lot of fun playing it. [h1]Story[/h1] But of course, this being a JRPG, the most important part to these games are the story. And does it deliver? Absolutely! The game's biggest strength, by far, is the strength of its main cast of characters. My personal favorite was Kanji Tatsumi, as I LOVE the way they handled his problems, but they all have a lot of depth. Many people strongly dislike the totally-not-marketable-animal-character Teddie, and for good reason, but even then I felt he had enough good moments in the story that I can't say I loathed him. He's still my least favorite of the bunch, though. The chemistry between the characters also felt organic, and for a series that loves "the power of friendship", the theme especially fits in this game where your friends feel real. And thankfully, it's not just your friends that are very well-written. I really liked the villain (MASSIVE SPOILER: I'm referring to [spoiler]Adachi[/spoiler]), and Nanako is probably the most adorable character I've ever seen and I would die for her. The overall plot was interesting, as it's a murder mystery that constantly keeps you on your toes, even if it wasn't totally airtight in a few spots. It loses a little steam towards the end, but not enough to where I'd say it was an issue. That's probably because the writing absolutely elevated this game. I felt actual emotions towards the story, which is pretty rare when I consume any form of media. It made me laugh, get teary-eyed, and psyched up, and it made the most mundane parts of the game far more exciting. Overall, this was one of my favorite stories of the year. It wasn't perfect, but its strengths greatly outweigh the weaknesses. [h1]Audio[/h1] It's a [i]Persona[/i] game. Of course this game rocks this category. The voice actors clearly had a ton of fun with their roles and did an excellent job of portraying their characters. Again, Kanji was my favorite here, but Nanako's voice actress deserves a lot more credit for absolutely NAILING the little girl voice in a way that doesn't feel obnoxious. Everyone sounded great, though. Teddie's voice was obnoxious, but it eventually mellows out later into the game and becomes far more tolerable, even if it still isn't great. I don't really need to talk about the music, because of course the soundtrack is great. A few tracks wore down on me as I progressed, but I still loved the music overall. I don't really need to elaborate any further here, because this game clearly lives up to the high standards the series has set. [h1]Content Value[/h1] I got over 60 hours of playtime and loved basically every second of it. For $20, you're getting a ton of value here. There's so much meat to the game that you likely will miss a TON of content in your first playthrough, and there's also a NG+ mode (which I have not tried) that adds some extra content of its own. As far as I'm concerned this is absolutely a safe buy at full price. [h1]Verdict[/h1] [i]Persona 4 Golden[/i] was already a well-regarded game, but I can now confirm that it's still worth the hype 8 years later. This has been one of my favorite JRPG experiences of all time, in spite of all of its little imperfections. I look forward to the day I get the chance to play [i]Persona 5 Royal[/i] or maybe even the 3rd title if I can forget everything that happens. This is 100% worth your time and money, and I highly recommend giving it a shot. [b]Graphics[/b] - 7.5/10 [b]Gameplay[/b] - 8.5/10 [b]Story[/b] - 10/10 [b]Audio[/b] - 9.5/10 [b]Content Value[/b] - 10/10 [b].:9.3/10:. "Amazing" **PERSONAL PICK**[/b] + Amazing cast of characters + Great soundtrack + Strong voice acting + Fun combat + Balanced VA/RPG elements + Insane content value - Tedious dungeons