[Author's Note: Possible small spoilers. Possibly.]



First, a short story. I put off playing the Persona series for a long time for one reason, I played Persona 1 back when that was released back in 1996 and I didn't think it was all that great. As the years pass, more titles have been released in this series and I just nodded them off. I heard stuff about how Persona 2 was...meh, Persona 3 made some pretty strange choices in terms of gameplay while telling a grand story, and I still nodded those off. Then Persona 4 comes out and word has it that this title managed to be the best of the bunch.

Perhaps it was curiousity that led to my wondering of this title, maybe this was Heaven above telling me to give this series another try. Maybe I keep hearing these titles from these bozos and I just want to fit in. Regardless, I find this title and decide to share my experience about it.



I am immediately shown a familiar face that I remember all those years ago, Igor, telling me what lies in my future. I sure don't remember this guy ever having a voice before so hearing him with one as mysterious as this one is certainly a cool thing to witness. Anyway, Igor introduces Margaret who will help me through this journey and we proceed to fade to black. And we come back to a television advertisement and a news program following it. I already feel like I'm going confused on this journey.

One train ride later, we speak to our uncle and cousin and proceed to go for a ride in their car. Character voiceover are really well done and yes, so far I'm basing this off of only two people, Dojima is instantly likeable and Nanako manages to have a little girl voice that doesn't irritate me. That gets some extra points. The character art is also well drawn and because I can easily write about how great it is, I'll stop there.

Wow, only fifteen minutes in, I haven't fought anything and did little to nothing and I'm already having more fun than I did with Persona 1. Maybe it's due to how well the characters interact with each other and I'm actually interested in knowing more about them. Believe me, not too many games have me do that so this is something I'm welcome to.

Suddenly, dreamland enters. Now we're on a long and blocky road, following a voice which asks us if we seek the truth. One brief fight with a mysterious figure later, we wake up basically questioning what hell just happened. And so we begin the life of a student. And Mr. Morooka says plenty of demeaning dialogue, stuff which probably should give him tenure but I don't know how the school system works there so I'll go along.



After character interaction and learning people's name (Chie being so enthusiatic and Yukiko being so quiet, it's like I'm watching a harem anime play out...not like that's a bad thing or anything >_>), we're still...talking to other people. We're approaching the first hour of the game, I've done little to nothing and yet I still don't want to put the controller down. Oh Atlus, how do you do these things to me?

Now we are introduced to the "Midnight Channel" and we warp through a television to an area that has no name, courtesy to a bear who reminds me of Joe Pesci for some reason. Then we warp back through more televisions that Joe Bear summons and then wait for the next day to pass. Then news comes in about a teacher passing away and how this may be connected to the "Midnight Channel." So we warp back to the mysterious area to find, after we find out his name, Teddie waiting for us.

Then through a really bizarre series of events that I can't even begin to describe, we finally get to the first battle. And the battle system we're placed in is certainly different from other RPGs I have played. Rather than just a simple method of "attack, wait, attack, wait," we have something where we can attack more than once a turn. And attacking an enemy using an elemental weakness can knock them down, allowing us to attack them again and possibly for more damage. So there is more emphasis on the strategy portion of the game, moreso than others I have played.

I know that the story in this is certainly done well, but the wait until I actually play it is a long one. But what I don't know is why I don't feel like complaining about that wait, since it's a game and I want to engage myself in the action of playing. But with the character interaction and knowing their backgrounds and the actual story, I just can't complain about it, I like what this game had gone on out to achieve. It'll be a while before I finally understand what is going on but I still have some game left to complete.

In short, Atlus is an evil company which questions what I like within a game. Spread the word.