The dungeons are easily the worst I have ever played in my life. Boring, excruciatingly long, copy pasted corridors. The varying themes of each dungeon only change the textures which, while welcome, does not change that the dungeons themselves are exactly the same. Layout, the enemies, the chests, stairs, the gameplay loop - it’s all the same. Sadly it’s even worse for the dungeon pokemon style combat system. The good old elemental strengths and weaknesses is a classic way to implement this kind of turn based combat. However it never makes any sense because there are 0 cues to what enemy strengths and weaknesses there are. So it ends up becoming a frustrating, mind-numbing trial and error tactic of “random bullshit, go!” until something works. Even better that many of the monster designs are repeated in different dungeons with varying colors but different strengths and weaknesses, so even similar looking enemies never have any consistency. Even if one enjoys this type of try-everything type of gameplay or the surprise of the unknown, they will be sad to find out that even this is removed later thanks to a character that will flat out tell everything about the enemies.
Outside the dungeon there are multiple things to do. What most people love about this game are the Social Links, aka the relationship simulator part of the game. Then there’s the stat grinding part which allows them to also call this game an RPG. It really feels like the whole point of it is to condition the target audience (high-schoolers) to the values of Japanese society. Reading books to gain ranks in Understanding and Knowledge, being told that getting good grades will make your friendship stronger with people, working jobs is not only useful for money but is also vital for self-improvement. I just wish developing Saintly level of empathy and understanding of people would be as easy as it is in the game: all you need to do is fold origami cranes days on end for a charity. Is that why people in Japan ask people from the west if they sleep with their shoes on? Because they think they can gain understading of people by folding cranes?
One other part that really does not fit in with the others is the detective work part of the game. Esentially, before being able to access another dungeon, the player is tasked to find information about a character whose dungeon they are trying to access. But before anyone thinks they will be able to flex their amazing deduction skills, let me tell you that it ends up falling back on the try-everything type of gameplay. What happens is the player has to talk to every NPC they can find. There’s no reasoning to do about who to talk to, it’s just interacting with everything that has a prompt until some NPC that the player would never have a reason to talk to will give a clue. And to call them clues is already a lot. After finding the first needle in the haystack, what follows is a chain of very direct directions (“go talk to X and then Y, they might know something”).
Finally, the best part of the game: the Social Links and the characters. Each Social Link, aka each relationship with a character examines a different hurdle of accepting oneself. Save for one, every character has interesting struggles that are conveyed in a true to life fashion, great interactions with others that are never dull and always show something about them and their personality and trauma. Save for one? If you’ve played yourself, you know the answer already: fucking Teddie. Each Social Link will be over as soon as it gets to asking the interesting and tough questions about their psychological dilemma. So it’s masquerading as an ocean but in reality, has the depth of a puddle. At a younger age I might’ve appreciated it more as an intro to self-improvement (facing your ego will grant powers!?), but it really does end up falling short. Each arc ends at a point where a character gains understanding of where their trauma comes from and then on there are two choices. If the character is male they’ll say how good of a friend the player is and that’ll be the end of it. Now, if the character is female, they’ll ask to be a couple with the player. I’m finding it hard to figure out who this game is for. Is it the:
- stereotypical grown-up hikikomori, so they can say “huh this is what it feels like to have friends at school!”
- average Japanese grown-up that wants to relive the golden days of school
- high-schooler that needs to be told to face their fears while also shoving a ton of morals up their throat (i.e. the whole thing about getting good grades to be liked by peers)
All of these parts together form something of a japanese high-school life simulator. And all of these parts really do become greater than the sum of the individual parts. They feed eachother in a circular fashion and the player needs to do everything to move the story forward. In the end it feels like simple simulation of real life, the player does the boring stuff (working jobs, reading books) so they can get to do the good stuff (advacing the Social Links, playing the relationships).
Characters have a lot to say, but end up saying so little. The gameplay is fun, but yet so unbelievably boring. It pulls me in and pushes me away at every, god, damn, turn. Persona 4 is so great, yet so bad at the same time that it feels deliberate.
I applaud it for intuitively introducing players to philosophy and psychology, or at least some concepts of it. I think in the end, the more people understand or even just think about or recognize their shadow (as posed by Carl Jung) the better!
Max points for style and OST though.