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Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, known in Japan as Persona 4 (ペルソナ4 Perusona 4), is a console role-playing game developed and published by Atlus for Sony's PlayStation 2, and chronologically the fifth installment in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series. Persona 4 was released in Japan in July 2008, North America in December 2008, and Europe in March 2009. It features a weather forecast system with events happening on foggy days to replace the moon phase system implemented in the previous games. Instead of the city locales of previous games in the series, Persona 4 takes place in a fictional Japanese countryside and is indirectly related to Persona 3. The player-named main protagonist is a high-school student who moved into the countryside from the city for a year. During his year-long stay, he becomes involved in investigating mysterious murders while harnessing the power of summoning Persona. The North American package of the game was released with a CD with selected music from the game, and, unlike with Persona 3, the European package also contained a soundtrack CD. The music was composed by Shōji Meguro, with vocals by Shihoco Hirata who sang the theme song "Pursuing My True Self". The game was positively received by both critics and audiences.
[edit] GameplayLike its predecessor, Persona 3, the gameplay of Persona 4 alternates between that of a traditional console role-playing game and of a simulation game. The protagonist of Persona 4 is a teenage boy, named and controlled by the player.[3] The game takes place over the course of a traditional Japanese school year.[3] Outside of key events, the Protagonist attends school, and can interact with other students and characters, spend time at part-time jobs to earn money, or engage in other activities.[4] The player may also enter the "TV World", an alternate reality where the game's dungeon-crawling gameplay occurs.[5] Each day in Persona 4 is broken up into different periods of time, such as After School or Evening. Certain activities are limited to certain times of day. In addition, the ability to engage in certain activities is based on the day of the week, or the weather. By spending time with people, the Protagonist forms "Social Links". Social Links are friendships the Protagonist makes as the game progresses, each represented by one of the Major Arcana. When a Social Link is first formed, it starts at Rank 1, increasing over time as the Protagonist spends time with that person, until it reaches Rank 10. Social Links grant the player bonuses when creating new Personas in the Velvet Room.[6] Social Links are also influenced by the protagonist's five attributes: Understanding, Diligence, Courage, Knowledge and Expression, which can be improved through various activities such as part-time jobs. These attributes in turn may also affect player's interaction in daily activities outside of Social Links.[3] Persona 4's timeline is driven by the disappearance of characters from the real world into the TV World, indicated through the "Midnight Channel". The one-week weather forecast indicates the amount of time players have to rescue people who have disappeared, in which foggy days mark the deadline of the rescue mission.[5] The game ends when the player fails to retrieve the missing person in time, and is given the choice to return to one week before the fog appeared.[7] While in the TV World, the player explores randomly generated dungeons in the field map; each dungeon is of a certain theme, based on the victim that has been kidnapped.[4] Dungeons are divided into floors, each containing Shadows, enemies the Protagonists and his friends fight, and treasure chests, which contain items or equipment.[8] [edit] Combat Within the TV World, players fight against Shadows as they continue towards the final floor where the missing person is located. The game switches to a battle screen whenever the player comes in contact with a Shadow in the field map, and the player may be given the initiative if the player strikes the Shadow unnoticed.[9] The battle system is turn-based, bearing similarities to the Press Turn system used in other Shin Megami Tensei games. Each character can perform a basic attack, use a special skill, or use an item. The player can choose to directly control the actions of all party members, or use the "Tactics" option to guide how they perform in battle.[6] Offensive abilities cause certain types of damage, such as "physical", "wind" or "almighty". Enemies the player encounters may have a weakness to a certain type of attack. By exploiting an enemy's weakness, it will be knocked down, and the attacker is given the opportunity to act again.[3] If every enemy in a battle is knocked down, the player may initiate an All-out Attack, a powerful attack in which the player's party rushes the downed enemies, removing weaker enemies and inflicting heavy damage on stronger ones.[10] At the end of the battle, players are awarded with experience and items, and may be given the chance to choose a new Persona to summon in battle.[10] [edit] PersonasEach party member has a Persona to use during battle, with its own unique skills, and a specific set of strengths and weaknesses to certain attacks. Personas will gain experience from battle and learn new skills as they gain levels.[11] The Personas of the other party members will also transform to a more powerful form after completing certain events in the game's story relating to that character. The Protagonist is unique in that he can carry multiple Personas and switch between them during battle, giving the player access to a new set of skills.[11] Outside of battle, the player can access the Velvet Room, where new Personas can be obtained. Two or more Personas can be fused to create a new one; the new Persona will inherit a certain number of combat skills from the Personas used to fuse it.[12] Each Persona is of one of the Major Arcana. Fusing Personas of an arcanum that matches an established Social Link will grant the Persona a bonus when it is created.[3] The bonus is greater based on the current rank of the Social Link.[13] [edit] Plot[edit] SettingPersona 4 takes place in the near-future, fictional, rural Japanese town of Inaba, which lies among floodplains and has its own high school and shopping districts. Unexplained murders have taken place in the small town, where bodies are found dangling among television antennas and their cause of death unknown.[14] At the same time, rumor has begun to spread that watching a switched-off television set on rainy midnights will reveal a person's soulmate.[15] Following the rumor, a group of high-school students discovered a fog-shrouded world accessed through television sets infested with monsters called Shadows.[16] They also discovered each of their Other self, symbolizing their suppressed personalities. Confronting their Other selves awakened their ability to summon beings known as Personas. Using Personas, the students formed the Investigation Team to investigate the connection between the TV world and the murders, and possibly capture the culprit.[17] The design of Inaba is based on a town on the outskirts of Mount Fuji.[18] Its rural design was a source of conflict between Persona 4's developers, as "each staff member had their own image of a rural town", according to director Katsura Hashino. The entire staff went "location hunting" to determine Inaba's design.[19] Inaba does not represent a "a country town that has tourist attractions", but rather a non-notable, "'nowhere' place". Hashino described the town as being "for better or for worse…a run-of-the-mill town".[18] Unlike other role-playing games, which may have large worlds for the player to explore, Persona 4 mostly takes place in Inaba. This reduced development costs, and enabled Atlus "to expand other portions of the game" in return. A central setting also allows players to "sympathize with the daily life that passes in the game." To prevent the setting from becoming stale, the development team established a set number of in-game events to be created to "keep the game exciting."[20] [edit] CharactersMain article: Characters of Persona 4 The Protagonist is a high school student who has recently moved from a large city to the town of Inaba, where he is to live and attend school for a year. While in Inaba, he stays with his relatives: his uncle Ryotaro Dojima, a police detective who is often on duty throughout the day, and Dojima's six-year old daughter Nanako who has managed to take care of the household chores for her father. At school, he quickly becomes friends with Yosuke Hanamura, the somewhat-clumsy son of the manager of the local megastore Junes, Chie Satonaka, an energetic girl with a strong interest in martial arts, and Yukiko Amagi, a calm and refined girl who helps out at her family's inn. The four of them discover a world inside televisions, where they meet a creature that lives there: a small bear with a costume-like appearance named Teddie. As they perform their investigation, the group gains more members, including Kanji Tatsumi, a male delinquent who is confused about his sexual and social identity,[21] Rise Kujikawa, a former teen idol that moved to Inaba and is a new transfer student, and Naoto Shirogane, a young female detective investigating the case with the local police but who is forced to take on a male identity to associate with them. Despite living in the countryside, Persona 4's characters were designed to look and sound "normal" and like "modern high-schoolers", according to lead editor Nich Maragos. Initially, he wrote the game's cast as being "more rural than was really called for." "The characters aren't really hicks…They just happen to live in a place that's not a major metropolitan area."[22] While interviewing members of Persona 4's development team, 1UP.com editor Andrew Fitch noted that the characters from the city—Yosuke and the Protagonist—have "more stylish" hair than the other characters. Art director Shigenori Soejima used hair styles to differentiate between characters from the city versus the country. "With Yosuke in particular, I gave him accessories, such as headphones and a bicycle, to make it more obvious that he was from the city."[18] [edit] Story
Persona 4 opens with the Protagonist arriving in Inaba to live with the Dojimas for one year, as his parents are working overseas.[citation needed] Within days of his arrival, a journalist is found dead, her body hanging among a television antenna; Saki Konishi, who made the discovery, is later found dead under similar circumstances.[citation needed] After the protagonist and his friends travel to the TV world, they discover Teddie, who helps them travel freely between the TV world and real world.[citation needed] They awaken to their Persona abilities, and, realizing that the murders stem from Shadow attacks in the TV world, are able to rescue several people.[citation needed] Yosuke Hanamura, Chie Satonaka, Yukiko Amagi, Kanji Tatsumi, Rise Kujikawa and Teddie accept their Shadow selves and join the group as Persona-users. Mitsuo Kubo, another high school student who goes missing following the death of a Yasogami teacher, claims credit for the murders when he is rescued; it is eventually learned that he only killed the teacher and played no part in the other murders.[23] Naoto Shirogane, a nationally-renowned teenage detective investigating the case, is also rescued and joins the party, who learn that "he" is actually a female who assumed a male identity to gain recognition. Events come to a head when the Protagonist is mistakenly accused by Ryotaro Dojima of having a role in the murders.[24] Nanako Dojima is kidnapped while the Protagonist is being interrogated. Ryotaro engages in a pursuit with the culprit, resulting in them crashing into each other; the culprit escapes with Nanako through a television set in his truck, and Ryotaro entrusts her rescue to the party. The group tracks them down within the TV world; the culprit, Taro Namatame, attacks them, but is defeated and both he and Nanako are taken to the Inaba hospital. When Nanako appears to die, the group confronts Namatame; the player as the Protagonist must help the others realise that Namatame is not the killer by pointing out the lack of a proper motive, and subsequently work to determine that Ryotaro's assistant, Tohru Adachi, is the true killer. Failure to do so ends the game with the party being unable to solve the case and the recurring fog permanently setting in, the latter of which will eventually result in humanity's demise.[25][26] Having identified the culprit as Adachi, the party locates him within the TV world. Adachi explains his motives and ideals to the group; his claims are dismissed by the party.[citation needed] After fighting Adachi, he is possessed by Ameno-Sagiri, the God of Fog, who reveals that the fog is lethal to people and will eventually wipe out humanity. Upon his defeat, he agrees to lift the fog, congratulating the party on their resolve.[27] Defeated, Adachi agrees to assume responsibility for his actions and turns himself in.[28] The game moves forward to the day before the Protagonist is to return home; if the player assumes the story is concluded, then the game ends with the party sending the Protagonist off as he departs Inaba. In fact there is still one unresolved plot element, the origin of the Midnight Channel, and if the player realizes this and enters the party's meeting place while ignoring the game's attempts to steer them away, the Protagonist meets with the party and together they resolve to put an end to the case.[citation needed] The Protagonist encounters the petrol station attendant, who reveals himself to be Izanami, a goddess and the mastermind behind the game's events, who plans to eliminate humans by merging the TV world with the human world, which is the cause of the recurring fog.[citation needed] The party tracks Izanami down within the TV world and battle her, but is at first unable to win; a defeated Protagonist is given strength by the bonds he has forged with those around him, and with this power awakens a new Persona, which he uses to defeat Izanami.[citation needed] With the source of the fog defeated, the TV world, actually the world formed from people's thoughts and desires, is restored to its original form. The game then ends with the party sending the Protagonist off the following day, and a post-credits scene depicts the group resolving to remain friends forever as the Protagonist examines a photo of the party.[citation needed] [edit] DevelopmentWhile "ideas [had been] thrown around earlier", development on Persona 4 in Japan did not begin until after the release of Persona 3. The development team consisted of the team from Persona 3, all of whom retained their roles from the previous game, as well as new hires who were "fans of Persona 3".[19] Atlus intended to improve both the gameplay and story elements of Persona 3 for the new game, to insure it was not seen as a "retread" of its predecessor. Director Katsura Hashino said that "to accomplish that, we tried to give the players of Persona 4 a definite goal and a sense of purpose that would keep motivating them as they played through the game. The murder mystery plot was our way of doing that." Feedback from players on Persona 3 and Persona 3: FES was considered a "great help", as well as over 2,000 comments generated by Atlus staff on the company's internal website.[19][20] The plot of Persona 4 was "greatly inspired", according to Hashino, by mystery novelists such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Seishi Yokomizo. "The discovery of a bizarre corpse in the countryside, and...a story that reflects Japanese mythology" are common elements of Japanese mystery novels reflected in the game.[18] Persona 4 was officially unveiled in the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu in March 2008. An article in the issue detailed the game's murder mystery premise, rural setting, and new weather forecast system. The game's North American release date was announced at the 2008 Anime Expo in Los Angeles, California.[29] Atlus has stated that there will be no Persona 4 FES.[30] [edit] Music
The soundtrack was mainly composed by Shōji Meguro with 4 tracks composed by Atsushi Kitajoh (known for his soundtrack for Trauma Center: New Blood) and 3 tracks by Ryota Kozuka (1 composition and 2 arrangements). All the vocals were done by Shihoko Hirata, who Meguro felt was able to meet the range of emotion needed for the soundtrack, while the lyrics were written by Reiko Tanaka, who Meguro believes "writes excellent English-language lyrics."[31] Meguro was given a rough outline of the game's plot and worked on the music in the same manner and simultaneously with the development of the story and spoken dialog, starting with the overall shape of the songs and eventually working on the finer details.[31] According to Meguro, the songs "Pursuing My True Self" and "Reach Out to the Truth" were composed to reflect the inner conflict that the game's main characters; the former song, used as the opening theme, helped to set an understanding of the characters' conflicts, while the latter, used in battle sequences, emphasized the "strength of these characters to work through their internal struggles."[31] The "Aria of the Soul" theme used in the Velvet Room, a concept common to all the Shin Megami Tensei games, remained relatively unchanged, with Meguro believing "the shape of the song had been well defined" from previous games.[31] Persona 4's soundtrack was released as a 2-disc Original Soundtrack on July 23, 2008 by Aniplex with the catalog number SVWC-7566/7. While Persona 3 had a more modern style and design, Persona 4 features a more retro one. The soundtrack is also available in the North American release. It contains a Side A and Side B. The Side A of the soundtrack is the bonus disc packaged with each game, while Side B of the soundtrack is part of the Amazon.com Exclusive Persona 4 Social Link Expansion Pack.
[edit] ReleasePersona 4 was highly acclaimed by critics within and outside Japan, and remained on top of sales charts on its initial release. In Japan, the game sold 193,000 copies within a week of its release, while in North America, Persona 4 was the highest-selling PlayStation 2 game on Amazon.com for two consecutive weeks.[32][33] In total, the game has sold 110,000 copies in North America and 300,000 copies in Japan.[34] A soundtrack disc was included in the North American release of Persona 4, containing a selection of tracks from the full soundtrack released in Japan.[35] Amazon.com exclusively sells the Persona 4 "Social Link Expansion Pack", which includes the game, the full soundtrack, a t-shirt, a calendar, and a plush doll of the character Teddie.[36] Persona 4 was awarded the "PlayStation 2 Game Prize" in the Famitsu Awards 2008, voted by readers of Famitsu.[37] It was also recognized by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association as one of the recipients for the "Games of the Year Award of Excellence" in the Japan Game Awards 2009.[38] The game was given the award for its "high quality of work", "excellent story, automatically generated dungeons and impressive background music".[39] [edit] Critical reception
Persona 4 has received a Metacritic score of 90/100, based on forty-seven reviews.[40] Famitsu points out that while "there isn't much new from the last game", it favors the changes over the battle system, where the pacing "is quick so it doesn't get to be a pain", and the ability to control party members "makes play that much easier".[43] "The story is solid, can withstand multiple playthroughs, and is backed up by quality gameplay, music, and visuals," notes Randomnpc's Derek Cavin. "Among the cookie-cutter sequels and half-hearted remakes, Persona 4 is a near flawless example of the perfect balance between 'falling back on what works' and 'pushing the genre forward.' That said, I wholeheartedly recommend it as one of the best RPG experiences of the year," notes RPGFan's Ryan Mattich. "Persona offers some of this decade's finest RPG epics. If you're a role-playing freak who somehow still hasn't given this series a shot, I got news for ya, buddy: I'm comin' to take your nerd card," notes 1UP.com's Andrew Fitch.[41] Hyper's Tim Henderson commends the game for "willfully embellish[ing] absurd urban legends and other ideas with such assured consistency that the resulting whole is unshakabl[y] coherent". However, he criticizes it for the narrative's sluggish pace and for how he feels the game is "lacking in elaborate set-pieces".[47] Kanji is considered to be one of the first characters in a mainstream video game to struggle with their sexual orientation, and Atlus has been commended for the inclusion of that character.[21] Atlus has stated that they left Kanji's sexual preferences arbitrary and up to the player. According to Dr. Antonia Levi, author of Samurai from Outer Space: Understanding Japanese Animation, the questioning of Kanji's sexuality in the script is a "comment on homosexuality in a greater Japanese social context," in which "the notion of 'coming out' is seen as undesirable ... as it necessarily involves adopting a confrontational stance against mainstream lifestyles and values".[21] Brenda Brathwaite, author of Sex in Video Games, thought it "would have been amazing if they would have made a concrete statement that [Kanji] is gay", but was otherwise "thrilled" with the treatment of the character and the game's representation of his "inner struggles and interactions with friends".[21] [edit] Related media and merchandiseWith the release of Persona 4, Atlus has also produced a line of merchandise, including action figures, published materials, toys and clothes. Most items were only released in Japan. Other Japanese third-party manufacturers also produced figurines and toys. The action figures include a 1/8 scale PVC figurine of Yukiko Amagi as well as Teddie and Rise Kujikawa, produced by Alter.[48] Licensed Atlus merchandise sold by Cospa includes Persona 4 t-shirts, tote bags, and the jacket and other accessories worn by the character Chie.[49] Persona 4 was also given a manga adaptation. It is written by Shūji Sogabe, the artist for Persona 3's manga, and started serialization in ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Black Maoh magazine on September 19, 2008. It was then published per volume by Bros.Comix Ex.[50] [edit] References
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