Persona 4

Persona 4 is an outstanding JRPG, with a lot of style and depth.
This game places you as a silent protagonist that has to solve a murder mystery in a small village of Inaba.
With the help of you friends and Persona's you delve into highly stylised and random dungeons to fight the shadows and save the potential murder victims. All the while balancing your normal life of going to school and having a social life.
All in all this game will suck you in and make you want to play more. It becomes a case of maybe just one more day then I can raise that social link and get a new persona, but I could go to this club or maybe got to the dungeons. It becomes true time management it self as you only have a year to solve the mystery.
The graphics are very good for a PS2 game and some of the monsters you fight are truly a sight to behold.
The soundtrack is full of catchy J-pop and can get repeated a few to many times during the game but don't start to really grate.
It… more »

Persona 4 is an outstanding JRPG, with a lot of style and depth.
This game places you as a silent protagonist that has to solve a murder mystery in a small village of Inaba.
With the help of you friends and Persona's you delve into highly stylised and random dungeons to fight the shadows and save the potential murder victims. All the while balancing your normal life of going to school and having a social life.
All in all this game will suck you in and make you want to play more. It becomes a case of maybe just one more day then I can raise that social link and get a new persona, but I could go to this club or maybe got to the dungeons. It becomes true time management it self as you only have a year to solve the mystery.
The graphics are very good for a PS2 game and some of the monsters you fight are truly a sight to behold.
The soundtrack is full of catchy J-pop and can get repeated a few to many times during the game but don't start to really grate.
It in the game play that this game really stands out, you cannot do everything in a single play through. You always have to sacrifice something to get something else done. As the game say "Remember you are mortal, everything choice has an impact on your life".
If you are a fan of JRPG you should play this game, you will not be disappointed, also new comers to the genre will be in for a real treat for a first delve into the RPG world.
My only word of warning is that the Shin Megami Tensei series caers for a very niche market and some themes of the game may seem quite strange or even offensive to some people. Persona 4 is a some what lighter Shin Megami Tensei game but be warned that it does delve into the human psyche quite deeply. Also this game take about 2 hours to really get going, for the first part you are being dragged along by the story as a very complicated plot is laid out before you, my suggestion is to sit back and enjoy the voice acting and cut scenes that unfold because after the 2 hours are up you are thrown in at the deep end and told to get on with it.

I was a little reluctant in buying this game as i really didnt know a lot about it as i have never played any of the series prior to this.

The first 2 1/2 possibly 3 hours to this game are very slow. It basically introduces you to the fairly complex story and what you have to do in the game. After that you really are left to your own devices, you can build relations with your allies in town, explore the dungeon or build up some of your none combat stats (such as going to school to build intelligence)

the battles are pretty basic in their format by using just the simple turn based system as used in many RPG games. one thing you will notice is that there some of the battles offer a good level of challenge (im on normal difficulty and lost the party a few times)

The basic plot is you have to uncover the mystery of why people are dying in the small town of Inaba, but you only have a limited amount of time to get to the truth, theres no way you can do it all in a single… more »

I was a little reluctant in buying this game as i really didnt know a lot about it as i have never played any of the series prior to this.

The first 2 1/2 possibly 3 hours to this game are very slow. It basically introduces you to the fairly complex story and what you have to do in the game. After that you really are left to your own devices, you can build relations with your allies in town, explore the dungeon or build up some of your none combat stats (such as going to school to build intelligence)

the battles are pretty basic in their format by using just the simple turn based system as used in many RPG games. one thing you will notice is that there some of the battles offer a good level of challenge (im on normal difficulty and lost the party a few times)

The basic plot is you have to uncover the mystery of why people are dying in the small town of Inaba, but you only have a limited amount of time to get to the truth, theres no way you can do it all in a single play through, there are multiple endings to this game and you could easily spend 100hours in getting 2 of the endings!

The characters are typical japanese Anime style types but are all likeable and i was really laughing my head off in certain parts of the game! only downside is the annoying music throughout... other than that a brilliant title to grace the ps2 i was certainly suprised by it! definatly worth a try!