So, bits and pieces.
I saw the P5 Trailer. I like the color scheme and it looks like a dark-ish direction, perhaps closer to Persona 3?
Unfortunately PSN wasn't an option for me on Persona 4, I'm checking out the walkthrough at the moment. I'll start with the Pros.
- For Playstation 2, looks very sharp and slick. Hell, it looks better than the average Wii game. The Art Style sets it apart from other jRPGs.
- Strong Voice Acting. And trust me, I've heard some bad ones.
- Emotional/Philosophical Themes as mentioned way back.
So far, I'm not sold on the game yet. The first hour or so has been very slow, and the dialogue didn't seem out of the ordinary for me. The combination of the realistic and goofy is a bit of a barrier for me. This is more of a preference thing and depends from game to game. Some games can still tell a meaningful story while recognizing that the world is unrealistic.
So far, it's an above average game that sets it apart from the rest, but I'm not sure this is to my personal tastes.
Actually, I'd say Persona 4 is far from slow. Persona 3's pacing is a bit slow, not Persona 4. The supernatural obviously exist but it runs in accordance with the story of what the game tries to tell. While the supernatural exists, the dialogue written between the characters of Inaba and on Yasogami feels down to the Earth and mundane as if you were really a High School Student in Japan. This game cannot really be enjoyed by watching someone else do a playthrough of it. Sorry to say but I don't think you can make a rational judgement by watching a walkthrough on Youtube. I told you that. Believe me because I did that once too. What I did was simply taking a chance to jump into it.
What differs Persona from other JRPGs is that its setting isn't quite as preposterous. The reasons for why Teddie looks the way he does is explained in accordance with the laws of the TV world. There is no Evil Twin or Dark Samus/Dark Link bullocks. The Shadows represent the suppressed desires, misery, pain of mankind, it's something that exist within anyone. If you go back to some of my previous posts then I made an elaborate explanation about that and its connection Jungian Psychology.
You can think of the Shadows in similar ways to that of Silent Hill's monsters. They take shape of mankind's misery and like Silent Hill, the fog has a symbolic meaning of ignorance, living in denial, instead of living life true to yourself.
The best depth of Persona shines through especially in the Social Linking.
The Persona games doesn't need to be pretentious like Xenosaga or other games that preaches about complexity as its selling point, in order to be deep. It just needs a down to the earth setting, mixed with a bit supernatural, relatable characters with struggles of their own that mimics the things we recognize from our own
Playing the game feels more or less addicting in a similar fashion to that of Dragon Age Origins did to me back in the day. You can't put it down again and the characters are well-written with some complexity to them, they have their own struggles, hopes and dreams.