AX 2008: Persona 4 Gets Officially Announced
 

Along with the anime trinity soul. Atlus also confirmed that the 4th game in the Persona franchise will be releasing December 9th. The game will retail for $39.99

And the pre-order item seems to be a yellow shirt.

Most exciting pre-order item ever.

More seriously, has anyone here actually watched Trinity Soul? Does it have many P3 spoilers or is it pretty much seperate? I'm still 3 Guardians from the end of P3, something I really should rectify, so I've been avoiding it.

:( :( :(

YouTube - Atlus USA Announcement Trailer: Persona 4

do like. although i'm not a fan of the artist, i like the original one :< (seems like the only thing the newer guy does is the characters, and the personas seem to be the old guy ^^;; that seems to quell my anger)

also official site 4 u
Official Persona 4 Website

Trinity Soul is a separate entity from Persona 3 with the only thing carrying over (before I dropped this series in disgust of course) was Igor appearing in episode 1 along with the Velvet Room music. I honestly wouldn't waste your time watching it (unless you have time to waste) because of how that show just becomes a generic action series with little in the way of horror or grittiness that the games had. In fact, everything about it screams generic down to the plot and furthermore, the lack of any evoker devices (!!!) means we don't even get the satisfaction of seeing the characters become an hero. Avoid it like the plague.

1) Yukari is in the anime

2) original persona games didn't even have an invoker device.

1) My bad, I dropped it after 4 episodes, so either I wasn't too observant, or she appears later and

2) Fair enough. I'd gone into the series with the expectation of a Persona 3 world.

yukari is in the first episode - chick with whale feathers. but its okay, every anime based on megaten games have been subpar.

anyway, seems like the series is going by in twos. I was really dissapointed when the 3rd one had nothing to do with the first or second one, while as the first two match (characters, first one before second, etc) (also counting the 2 second ones as one ^^;;). I'm guessing the forth has to do with the third a lot, characters seem in a like setting (school! again! hurrah?).

Hey cool, banana discs! The PS2 is going out with style!

Welp. P4 drops next week. Just ordered my DJ guide before it disappears forever. It was that or Pure off amazon ='(.

I got my pre-order in at RosenQueen.com which included the DJ guide.

Gotta set up a pre-order for this game as well.

I was pondering selling off my PS2 (I hardly play any games on it these days, and I could use the cash, primarily to help with college) but then I realised that P4 is coming out and, well...

Saying "goodbye, dear PS2!" will have to wait.

I preordered it from Amazon way back in October (along with that sweet expansion pack thing they have over there). Lots of swag for one game.

Just a FYI, Amazon has the basic release (still comes with the same soundtrack CD and art book the rest of the stores have) for $34.99, so 5 bucks off. Sweet deal as you don't have to give any money to EBGames and you can go buy yourself a few tacos with the money you saved.


And no I don't work for Amazon or anything.

I'll have to check that deal out, Shin Megami Tensai games are normally worth getting.

I did order from amazon but the free shipping makes the delivery date in late December (after the 25th) going with 2 day shipping puts it at the same price as picking it up from the store. So I'm just gonna go with Gamestop so I can get this game on the 10th and fail my finals because of it. :3:

Though honestly I really REALLY want this game NOW! ;____;

This is the same reason I'll be forcing myself to wait until the 11th to pick it up. I've got a giant world history final on the 10th and an evil biology final on the 11th, and I know I'd probably ignore studying for either of them if I had P4 in my hands. :(

So apparently this is tied in first with GTA3 and Tony Hawk 3 as being the highest rated game of all time on the PS2 based on Media Critic. Amazing for a game of this genre.

Definitely. I hope the reviews keep it up there.

Ugh, I'm so excited for this game. :tpg:

Until IGN and/or Gamespot ruins it.

Good point, though there's a good chance they'll keep that number high. IGN's especially prone to staying on the high side for game reviews.

What's interesting is that the PS2's last big title is going to send the console off with a bang.

Oh fuck, totally forgot about that one.

Well, Gamespot did like Persona 3. They rated both the original and FES an 8.5...

Then again, the did just rate Sonic Unleashed a 3.5, while giving Bolt a 7.0.

Seriously?

So the game is out... Who picked it up and what do you think of it so far?

Haven't had the chance to pop it in myself yet, but soon enough for me... I'll have my input soon.

I just popped it in to make sure it worked so it's too early to say at this point. Ugly box though. Then again we expected that. Probably play a little bit later tonight but it won't be until tomorrow night that I really get to start going at it.

I'm about an hour in myself now. Went with the default manga name (Sōji Seta) for the protagonist. Liking the story so far. Voiceovers are done really well so far also.

I got about an hour in as well and my only complaint so far is that I hate the color yellow.

Yeah, too bad it wasn't still blue. Then again, I guess "yellow" is an important theme in this game.

I have to say, P3's approach of jumping right into a squad that had already been fighting the Shadows was much nicer. I'm enjoying P4, but good lord did it take a long time to get to the actual game. I turned the auto-advance option on at the beginning to try it out, and then it took nearly 2 hours before I even had access to the menu so I could turn it off. Save some exposition for later, guys.

So far I've only gone up to defeating the second boss, but I do like the changes to combat. Having Analysis only serve as a reminder of your own experimentation is kind of nifty, and I'm so glad to have direct control over party members now. Yosuke didn't seem to want to stay on Direct Command even when I turned on tactics memory, but hopefully I just did something wrong.

Yeah the game is a bit slower paced, but it is longer that P3 as well. It simply has more content all around.

Ugh, is it a bad thing that I'm struggling early one? I'm in Yukiko's Castle and I still haven't advanced past the 4thish floor?

:tpg:

I still haven't beaten P3 and i got this. What is wrong with me.

don't be surprised, it's a difficult game, you won't win battles easily even if you have the right level, most boss battles even take some luck for you to pull through.

Wait... does that mean it was a bad idea on my part to start playing this game in Hard mode? How does this compare to some of the other MegaTen games as far as difficulty goes, anyhow?

Well, it seemed to be average difficulty until the first boss in Yukiko's Castle. He took his turn first, killed Yosuke instantly with one Skewer, left Chie with 2 HP after she blocked him from hitting me with another Skewer, and then killed me with Poison Skewer. That was all without me getting a single turn and I'm playing on Normal mode.

Seriously, what the hell?

I had a bit of trouble with the 8th floor boss. Beat it on the second try though. Make sure you have a persona with the firewall ability. The slime learns it. You'll need it to cast on Chie after defeating the minion to prevent the boss from being an asshole and getting two turns from that fire attack it has.

You can also have her defend every round once the minion is defeated if you don't have the firewall ability but it only makes the bossfight longer.

Seriously!?, is this game longer than P3!? (I would love some confirmations!)

My roommate finished his play through of the Japanese version in 102 hours where P3 FES (the main game) took him 71 hours his first play through, if you want to consider that confirmation. He says he actually missed a decent amount of side quests in P4 too.

Actual (battle) gameplay is probably about the same length, but P4 takes a lot more time to develop events, the characters and the story. Side quests are also serious business this time around. A lot more to them than just fetching junk for Elizabeth.

Holy crap May's storyline and dungeon is freaking hilarious! :tpg:

Good bye first half of 2009.

I really wanted to play killzone 2 with the rest of cool kids... damn you Atlus!

I finally got to play some more and I'm finding the first area hard as well. I pretty much had P3 mastered but I'm not sure if I like all of the changes to the battle system. I hate being attacked in RPGs and I loved the fact that you could lock down battles so well in P3. I'm having trouble doing the same because first sneaking up on enemies in P4 is aggravating as hell. I'm only able to hit the floating balls things from behind 1 in 5 times and I've yet to figure out how to get a surprise attack against the shadow blobs.

I also really dislike that you have to find strengths and weaknesses rather than just scanning for them. I already killed myself once from reflected magic. And I find the knock down system in P4 kind of retarded compared to P3. Enemies can stand back up and attack in one turn so the real power of downing an enemy seems greatly diminished. I have no idea how I'm going to defeat some of the bosses if they are anything like P3 bosses if I can't knock them down to prevent them from attacking. Eh I'll probably get used to the changes and change is good. The P4 battle system just does not fit my play style as much as P3 did.

The only other thing is I really do find the interface a bit annoying. It's not just the yellow but it's too stylized for its own good. It does not feel as slick as P3's did and its enough for me to notice that is really isn't a very good interface.

Minor complaints to a really good game so far though. The changes to the social system are looking great and there is a whole lot more to do from the look of things.

Cetra, I've barely started playing either but it seems that you can still get the free attacks in from knocking them down if you hit their weakness and then guard on your last turn. Since guarding protects your weaknesses you definitely prevent them from taking the initiative.

well as for sneaking on enemies, the first time, I guess this is on purpose it's pretty difficult to actually get an advantage on them(usually they have a lot of levels ahead of you and they look huge) it seems there is a reduced chance for this, since I've managed to hit a lot of shadows from behind, even without "!" and I rarely get advantage, but after I've beaten everything and I revisit it's always much easier.

As for knocking down there is a new status effect that keeps them down, it's that dizzy one, let's say you have a monster weak to ice, you get it a crit and it goes down, if you hit it again with the same thing it will change to dizzy, there is very little chance that your enemy will get up right away if that's what you are looking for.

Once you have your social links high enough with party members there's a chance that they'll ask permission to do a special attack when you knock enemies down too. I've only got Yosuke high enough at the moment, but it worked like him taking my free turn to do a powerful physical attack. It's annoying that they can get up and act on the same turn, but at least the same is true for your people as well.

Getting advantage hits on enemies is a lot more difficult this time around, but mostly because enemies are alerted even if you're directly behind them. I can get it nearly every time if I wait around for the perfect moment to rush them, but the hit area for it to work seems to be pretty specific. If they're turned to the side much at all it just doesn't work. I've also had it succeed when hitting flying guys from the front because the katana grazed their underside. It definitely takes some getting used to, but it's not as bad as it seems at first.

Yeah I discovered dizzy playing last night and its made me appreciate the new system a bit more. However unless I'm mistaken, it seems impossible to refresh dizzy and the enemy will still get a chance to attack every other attack. Again only annoying to me because I enjoyed the P3 knock down system so much. I'm sure the P4 fights are designed with the fact that you can't completely lock enemies down like you were required to do in P3 and I'll eventually get used to it. I need to learn to defend too because I never defend in RPGs and it seems to be critical here.

I still don't like the encounter system though. You do have to wait around a lot longer to get initiative attacks. If you say screw it and just hit them then eventually you are going to run out of SP having to spend it on knocking down and healing. And in this one you can't recover HP and SP unless you leave the TV world and SP items are as rare as they were in P3.

I'm also really hoping Teddie or someone gets some upgrades too. Not being able to scan for weakness still sucks and I'm finding only being able to see who attacks next to be useless where being able to see the entire attack order in P3 was a core aspect of being able to do well in the game. Some of these changes just seem to be changes for the sake of changes rather than attempts at improvement.

And I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining. I'm enjoy the game, probably more than I enjoyed P3 at the moment.

Also, I can't unhear 'homo men' in the battle track after my friend pointed it out to me.

I'm in the month of August now at 40 hours clocked in. I still have a long ways to go. I have only encountered one unfair bullshit death so far. The game seems a lot easier than 3 was but I'm also playing the game on normal mode instead of expert.

Also got my first social link to level 10 and their persona evolved. So in a way it isn't really a bad idea to work on your party members first. Besides the evolving, they also get more combat abilities that are helpful. At social rank 9 they get the ability to survive one mortal blow per battle. That's pretty awesome.

Do you know what rank it is exactly when the girls first become jealous and reverse their arcana if you go out with another one? I think it was rank 6 in Persona 3, and it would be a bit of a pain if they decided to set it lower this time with three female party members.

I love the extra benefits for levelling your social links with teammates. I've been saved at least once by Chie taking a mortal blow, and I'm sure the additional hits are pretty nice too. Unfortunately the only time I've gotten one it was against physical resistant enemies.

It hasn't happened to me yet. I have Chie at 5 and Yukiko at 8. I can try raising Chie's next and see what happens. I also have the band girl at 8 but I dunno if she counts. I feel weird raising hers since she's the type of material that Reclusive Writer and Sir VG would go after.

God my main character is a whore.

From what I hear, there are only two social links that can reverse and its very obvious if you go down that path. The girl relationship aspect is separated from their social link this time as you are able to pick what girls you want more than a friendship with. I don't think you have to worry about girls getting jealous in P4. If they do the game is going to warn you about it like it did in P3.


Also the bathhouse boss is hilarious. The nice guy casting pose is just lol.

So I was playing this at my friend's house on his PStriple. Why didn't anyone tell me that system didn't have a memory card port. I saved onto his system, but now I either have to invest in the damn add-on that allows me to transfer files to-and-from a PS2's memory card (and vice-versa) for 14.99, or just start all over.

Fuck that. I don't like people playin' on my phone. I KEEP IT REAL LIKE THAT.

So far I'm really enjoying it, although I've only just recently unlocked the first two Persona. Chie is love.

only thing that happens if you turn yourself into a manwhore is that sometimes during sundays if you hang out with X girl, your current relationship girl Y can bust in and then you usually end up having X girl leaving and then you have to spend the time with Y, making the whole thing a waste.

I was wondering the same thing, but I doubt a maxed S. Link would reverse itself. Either way, it was nice finally maxing that one out. Now I've got time to work on some of the party members.

The music in dungeon 5 is probably my favorite dungeon track thus far. :3 Almost done with September now with over 50 hours clocked in. I think this game is much longer than 3 was.

Most of the optional bosses are very easy to defeat compared to the first one in Yukiko's castle. So don't be worried about taking them out before tackling the next dungeon. The extra experience will make the next dungeon less difficult. Oh yeah, and to make your life easier when you rescue the person in dungeon 3 be sure to increase their social link to max. You get the ability to scan enemies for weaknesses which is extremely useful.

I just got it at Christmas and this game is a lot longer than 3, I can tell already. I'm juggling 3 and 4 at the same time and with 3 I am about 50 hours in and have two blocks of Tartarus left, assuming there's 6. In 4 I'm 15 hours in and still have a lot of the story left and I am on the Striptease dungeon.
I have to say 4 is superior to 3 in every way, especially characters. Only characters in 3 I actually liked are Junpei and Yukari but with 4 every character is well written.