Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

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Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
The cover for Persona 4, featuring the main characters of the game. Left panel (top to bottom): Kanji, Chie, Rise, and Teddie. Middle Panel: Izanagi and the Protagonist. Right panel: Naoto, Yosuke, and Yukiko
Developer(s)	Atlus
Publisher(s)	JP / NA Atlus EU Square Enix[1] AUS Ubisoft[2]
Series	Megami Tensei
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2
Release date(s)	JP July 10, 2008 NA December 9, 2008 EU March 13, 2009
Genre(s)	Console role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player
Rating(s)	CERO: B ESRB: M OFLC: M PEGI: 16+
Media	DVD-ROM

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 sixth installment in the Persona series. Persona 4 was released in Japan in July 2008, North America in December 2008, and Europe in March 2009. 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. It features a weather forecast system with events happening on foggy days to replace the moon phase system (with events happening on full moons in Persona 3) implemented in the previous games. Its story is a suspenseful countryside murder mystery with multiple twists and turns in the plot. 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.

[edit] Gameplay

Like Persona 3, Persona 4's gameplay melds traditional console role-playing game and dating simulation elements. The player controls a Protagonist they have the option to name. The game is played over the course of a school year for the Protagonist. Outside of key events, the Protagonist will attend school, then has the option of either interacting with other students or characters to improve Social Links, spend time at a part-time job or other activities to improve their basic statistics and earn money, or join with other characters to enter the "Midnight Channel", an alternate reality that the Protagonist and other characters can access by passing through television screens and where the game's combat occurs. The player can only perform one or two of these activities each day. Persona 4's timeline is driven by the disappearance of characters from the real world into the Midnight Channel; the player must watch the weather forecast and plan on saving these missing people by the end of a string of rainy days, otherwise the game will be over. Thus, the player must balance the various tasks to improve their strength in combat to be able to rescue the missing character by that time.

Screenshot depicting a standard battle. Here, the player controls the character Yosuke, with Teddie cheering him on after a successful attack.

While in the Midnight Channel, the player explores randomly generated dungeons--each dungeon's theme based on the latest victim's fear or secret--encountering Shadows and finding treasure while he searches for the missing persons. Combat is based on traditional turn-based combat. The player has the option of assigning tactics for the other party but can also control these characters. The player may opt to make a normal attack, use an item, or use one of several skills granted by their current Persona; the player can also change the Protagonist character's current Persona and use a different Persona's skill. By striking at an enemy's weakness, the player may be able to knock down the foe and take advantage of a successive "One More" attack. If all the enemies are knocked down, the player may opt to engage in an "All-out Attack", where all the party characters engage the foe in a comical smoke-cloud fight for more damage. Winning battles earns the player experience points, money (as yen), and materials. Materials can be sold at stores in town for cash as well as to create new weapons, armor, and accessories for the party.

Each party member gains a Persona to use during battle, which level up with experience points and gain new abilities. The Protagonist is unique in that he can switch between several Personas during battle. Beside combat skills, the Persona grants certain immunities, resistances, and weaknesses to the various type of physical and magical attacks. In the Velvet room which can be accessed outside of dungeons, the player can register Personas at their current experience levels, withdraw Personas from the registry, and fuse two to five Personas to create a new one, combining selected abilities of the fused Personas. The fusion process rewards the player for making Personas that correspond with the Major Arcana of their Social Links, granting the new Persona an experience bonus. Persona 4 also includes a "Fusion Forecast"; fusing Personas on certain days will grant added bonuses.

Social links are built up through interactions with other non-player characters in the game. Building up Social links of fellow party members will gain benefits in battle, such as the member taking a critical hit for the Protagonist or being able to follow-up with an attack after a One More strike. Higher Social links allow more powerful Personas in that Arcana to be created.

[edit] Synopsis

[edit] Setting

Persona 4 takes place in the fictional, rural Japanese city of Inaba, which lies among floodplains and has its own high school and shopping areas. The player discovers that a rumored place called "The Midnight Channel" is actually real. At midnight on rainy days, a person can look into any television set and observe events in the Midnight Channel. Those that have learned to use Personas have the ability to reach into any television set and enter the Midnight Channel directly, though they must be able to fit through the set's screen, and each set will lead to a different location in the Midnight Channel. The weather conditions inside the Midnight Channel are the opposite of what exists in Inaba. A persistent fog exists in the Midnight Channel that can make the characters nauseated if they remain in the midnight channel for so long. However, after a long period of rain in Inaba, fog will set in, and will cause the fog in the Midnight Channel to disappear, making the Shadows that reside in it stronger and more dangerous to anyone that is ill-prepared to be there.

[edit] Characters

As with Persona 3, the Protagonist is controlled by and can be named by the player, originally named Souji Seta in the manga. The Protagonist is a high school student who has recently moved from a large city to the town of Inaba to attend a year of school there. 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 the Midnight Channel, and inside meet a mysterious friend in the form of a teddy bear named Teddie who is revealed to be a sentient Shadow that yearns for friendship and to visit the real world.

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,^[3] 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.

[edit] Plot

Persona 4 starts on April 11, 2011, placing the events of the game at about twelve months after the end of Persona 3 FES, which ended on April 1, 2010.

After moving into Inaba, the Protagonist quickly settles into the small town life, gaining friends at Yasogami High School. Shortly after his arrival, two people are found dead following a foggy night; a journalist accused of having an affair with a politician, and the high-school student that found her body. Those that watched the Midnight Channel claimed to have seen the victims prior to their deaths. The Protagonist reveals to his friends that he has the ability to enter television screens, and is able to bring them along. In the TV world, they encounter a thick, impenetrable fog, and they meet Teddie, named for his appearance of a hollow teddy bear suit, who explains that the victims had been there, and that when the fog in the TV world dissipates, they were met by Shadows, representing their repressed emotions. If the character in question rejects these emotions in denial, they are killed by their strengthened Shadow. The Protagonist's friends find Shadows of their own selves, but with the Protagonist's help, are able to defeat them and then accept their Shadow selves as part of them, granting them their own Persona, and find they can enter the TV world on their own.^[3] The friends decide to form a team to solve the murder mystery, including Teddy, whos only initial interest is to get rid of the trespassers. Teddy also provides each member with a pair of glasses that allow them to see through the fog.

Over the next several months, after several incidents, the team discovers that those who appear on the Midnight Channel vanish in the real world a few days later. Each time, the team enters the TV world and saves the classmate from a twisted world of their own creation, helping them to defeat their Shadows. These students subsequently join the team. When a teacher from the school is found murdered in the same fashion as the first two victims, the team is able to find the apparent murderer, a fellow student, hiding in the TV world, but they quickly realize that he was a copycat killer, and the true suspect is still at large.

After receiving a mysterious note warning the Protagonist to stay off the case, the team deduces that Namatame, the one who had the affair with the murdered journalist, is the killer. Nanako appears on the Midnight Channel and is quickly abducted by Namatame, with Dojima injured trying to apprehend him in a car chase. The team enters the TV world, and, finding Nanako being held captive by a crazed Namatame, are able to rescue her; despite this, Nanako becomes seriously ill. Furthermore, a persistent fog begins to appear in the real world, behaving similarly to the fog from the TV world. When the team questions Namatame, they realize that he was responsible for all of the students' abductions to the TV world, claiming that he was "saving" them after they appeared on the Midnight Channel. At this point, the player may opt to end the game by deciding to kill Namatame by placing him inside the TV, on the group's justification that no court in the world would be able to convict him, but this will result in the "bad" ending, where Nanako's health does not significantly improve, Teddy returns alone to the Midnight Channel, and the fog remains persistent over Inaba when the Protagonist leaves the city after the year.

If the player decides to continue the game, the team rationalizes out the motives for Namatame's behavior, and realize he was not responsible for the first two murders. Instead, they determine the true culprit is Dojima's seemingly comedically inept partner in the police force, Tohru Adachi. On confronting him, Adachi admits he discovered the ability to enter the television after he tried to rape the first victim, the journalist, and accidentally pushed her into it; upon learning that she was found dead, he killed the next victim for sheer enjoyment. He then convinced Namatame to carry out his murders for him, capitalizing on his mistaken belief that the murders would be averted if the people were thrown into the television. Chasing Adachi into the TV world, the team finds that Adachi has been partially influenced by Ameno-Sagiri, a mysterious figure who was creating the fog. They destroy Ameno-Sagiri, but he promises to return. Ending the game at this point results in the "normal" ending, in which the town is saved, but questions about the origin of the Protagonist's powers and the Midnight Channel remain unanswered.

In the game's true ending, the Protagonist realizes that the "puppet master" behind the events was the goddess Izanami, who had disguised herself as a gas station attendant throughout the game. Izanami wishes to show humans their true desires, turning them all into Shadows, and covering the rest of the real world in fog as to merge the two worlds. The Midnight Channel was a reflection of the desire by TV viewers to see famous peoples' secrets exposed, while the TV world represents their inner feelings. The Protagonist, with the combined help of the investigation squad and the Social Links that he has built up, is able to defeat Izanami after transforming his original Persona Izanagi into Izanagi-no-Okami and defeating the goddess with a single blow. The Protagonist still leaves the town the next day, but under much happier circumstances: the fog has been lifted in the TV world, revealing a beautiful landscape that Teddie vows to protect, Nanako has fully recovered from her abduction, and the group plan to stay a group of close friends forever.

[edit] Development

Atlus officially announced Persona 4 at the Anime Expo 2008 on July 5, 2008, rumors had arose of a sequel to the very popular Persona 3. Persona 4 was set to be deeper and larger than previous titles in the series and would take after Persona 3 rather than the first and second titles in the series integrating dating sim elements into a traditional RPG. Persona 4 was at first thought to be a Persona 3 set in the countryside instead of the city with little variation from its predecessor, however Persona 4 is more story-driven and has smaller and less confusing dungeons than Persona 3.

Persona 4 also has supernatural events occurring due to changes in the weather cycle rather than the 'Dark Hour' from Persona 3. Persona 4 had a very strong murder mystery theme as compared to Persona 3. Though Persona 4 bears many resemblances to Persona 3, there are still some notable differences between the two. (such as the weather cycles which affect the difficulty of dungeons.^[4]) Atlus has also stated that there will be no 'Persona 4 FES'.^[5]

[edit] Music

The soundtrack was mainly composed by Shoji 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."^[6] 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.^[6] 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."^[6] 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.^[6]

Persona 4's soundtrack was released as a 2-disc Original Soundtrack on July 23, 2008 by Aniplex. While Persona 3 had a more modern style and design, Persona 4 features a more retro one. The soundtrack is 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] Reception

Persona 4 was highly acclaimed by critics inside and outside Japan and sold about 560,000 copies worldwide since its release, making it the best-selling Megami Tensei game so far.^[15] Persona 4 was awarded the "PlayStation 2 Game Prize" in the Famitsu Awards 2008, where readers vote for any of the 1,115 game titles released in Japan in 2008.^[16]

"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.^[8]

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.^[3] Atlus has stated that they left Kanji's sexual preferences arbitrary and up to the player, though kept as much of the Japanese issues of dealing with sexuality in the westernization of the game. According to Dr. Antonia Levi, author of Samurai from Outer Space: Understanding Japanese Animation, Kanji's refusal to declare his sexuality 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." Brenda Brathwaite, author of Sex in Video Games, stated, despite the fact that Kanji's ultimate decision is deliberately left unannounced, that while there were some problems with Kanji's characterization, she was "thrilled there is a gay character in a game and that a game would portray how they are dealing with their inner struggles and interactions with friends".^[3]

[edit] Spin-offs

The manga adaptation of Persona 4 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.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Persona 4's Official Japanese Website
• Persona 4's Official English Website
• Persona 4 at Megami Tensei Wiki
• Persona 4 at Wikidot