Friday, July 30, 2010

Tetra Guise

After being dominated and ruled by Persona 3 for a near complete two years, I decided my tactics had to change for Persona 4. After recklessly grabbing the beast by it's horns I have emerged victorious.

Long story short, Persona 3 took me 2 years or 200+ hours, but Persona 4 took me two weeks or 80+ hours. Big change in speed.

What can I say about person four? It was a good game, but I feel that it somehow lacks the epic feel that Persona 3 has. I'm not suprised though, Persona 3 didn't waste time getting started. It threw you into the struggle almost as soon as you booted the game. However, in P4 you're eased into the experience, and, because of this, the actual game play is withheld for a considerable amount of time.

This tactic results in having a greater understanding of why your fighting, and more interest to know WHY things are happening.

There are other reasons for why P3 was more epic than P4. In P3 you find out who your ultimate enemy is, and are given time to let your impending fate sink in. Yet with P4 the final Enemy is elusive, and you won't even have an opportunity to fight it unless you know to look for it at the last second.

There's also the contrast between the two games with how character development progresses. In P3 the characters are chiefly expressed during meetings, where the group discusses intel and strategy. In addition when displayed one at a time, each character's development is usually connected to death somehow, giving the game a mroe serious tone.
But in P4, characters are initially presented when their suppressed desires are displayed (due to supernatural phenomena). And subsequent development is mostly shown through misadventures, usually related to school activities.

Simply put Persona 4 is more light hearted. Your enemy is faceless, so there's less to get you down. Characters inner selves are displayed first, so less serious events follow to show what you don't know about them. And the main story is primarily a mystery, which takes time to solve, so the gaps between new data coming to light are filled with fun times.

Don't get me wrong, event though I'm comparing Persona 4 to Persona 3 I'm not saying anything bad. P4 was is just a very different experience. Above that it fixed a lot of the nuisances that P3 had.
It was a great game, I had fun playing it, But like most jRPGs I won't likely go back to it any time soon.

Persona 4 Intro Montage


-----CP Out-----
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