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Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 | 
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| From: Atlus
Category: Video Games
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $36.95
You Save: $3.04 (8%)
New (11) from $36.95
Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 82
Platform: Playstation2
Genre: role_playing_games
ESRB: Mature
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: PlayStation 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: 53030
Model: PS-53030-4
UPC: 730865530304
EAN: 0730865530304
ASIN: B001C6GVI6
Release Date: December 9, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Every copy of Persona 4 is a special two-disc set including the game and a soundtrack CD featuring music from acclaimed composer Shoji Meguro | | • | Contains a sountrack CD featuring selected music from Persona 4 | | • | unprecedented team control with emphasis on developing bonds in the fight to solve mysterious murders | | • | 60 plus hours of gameplay | | • | Manage and integrate your activities withing each day to determine your progress |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 is a console role-playing game (RPG) for Sony's PlayStation 2. Chronologically the sixth installment in the Persona series, Persona 4 is a suspenseful countryside murder mystery with multiple twists and turns in the plot that will have you guessing all the way to the end.  | 
Chronologically the sixth installment in the Persona series, Persona 4 is a suspenseful murder mystery. View larger. | 
The silent male protagonist wields a two-handed sword weapon. View larger. | 
Using Mayonaka TV, you can phase into the television set and enter a shadowy world. View larger. | 
game play and style are similar to Persona 3, but there are plenty of new twists and additions. View larger. | Myth and Occult Mixed with Contemporary Japan
Megami Tensei was originally based on the novel series Digital Devil Story by Aya Nishitani. A major franchise in the RPG genre, MegaTen games take place in the contemporary or near-future Japan, mixing occult and cyberpunk elements. The games feature mythological references from multiple mythologies, and the player is often asked to make moral or philosophical choices that affect the game's storyline and ending. The silent male protagonist who represents the player in Persona 4 attends Yasogami High School with Chie, Yosuke, and Yukiko. His entire personality and name is decided and portrayed by the player's in-game actions and decisions. He wields two-handed sword type weapons, but unlike Persona 3, he doesn't use alternative weapons. Mysterious Murders Abound
Persona 4 takes place in a rural town named Inaba where mysterious murders occur whenever there is fog after heavy rain. The town has a television channel that airs only at midnight called Mayonaka TV, during which it is said that one can see their "other half" while staring at the screen. After hearing about a recent unsolved murder, some characters realize that they had witnessed the murder victim while watching Mayonaka TV. The protagonist discovers that during midnight when the channel is on, his body can phase into his television set, using the set as a gateway to another world infested with shadows. Mayonaka TV and the town murders seem so connected that it's possible that the victims may in fact victims of Mayonaka TV itself. The characters decide to solve the mysterious murders by exploring the hidden world of Mayonaka TV. Brand-New Yet Familiar game play
Persona 4's game play and style are similar to the popular Persona 3. Players familiar with Persona 3 will quickly recognize the social links and dungeon crawling game play, as well as the engine itself. The battles also have some similarities, such as the One More system, All-out attack, and the AI controlled support characters. However, unlike Persona 3, characters can be set to take commands from the player, new glasses allow characters to see through the heavy mist inside Mayonaka TV, and tarot cards can be shattered to summon the characters' respective Persona. Other changes include an increase in player stats from three to five, and the removal of health status, allowing players to explore dungeons continuously. Let the Action Begin
Battle-wise, Persona 4 lets you directly control the actions of other party members and continually exploit an enemy's weakness. Post-battle card shuffles have added Arcana Chance, which bring you good or bad status depending on the Arcana. Battles now occur after school instead of at midnight, like in Persona 3, giving the player less time in which to do social activities. This turns out to be significant because Social Links now have a greater effect on battle. At higher levels, the player's allies progress from occasionally protecting the protagonist from a deathblow, through occasionally offering follow-up attacks, to eventually allow the persona of the corresponding ally to evolve into another persona. And persona can retain or even lose weaknesses and can be immune to certain kind of magic attacks. All allies who have their corresponding Social Link levels maxed out now have a chance to survive an otherwise fatal attack, leaving them with one remaining HP.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 One of the best RPGs of all time January 6, 2009
M. Bristol (Irvine, CA United States)
First of all, I want to say that I LOVE this game, and I would highly recommend it.
Next, I have to address the points of the person who gave it 2 stars.
(1) the music - yes, it gets a bit repetitive (but what RPG's music doesn't, especially when it's such a long game?). They could've added more, but what they do have carries emotion, it's catchy, never grating. I was actively humming along.
(2) the graphics - this is a PS2 game, so you can't expect more than PS2 graphics. That said, I had no problem with them.
(3) the English voice acting - it was GREAT. Far exceeded my expectations. That 2 star guy has NO IDEA what he's talking about. Clearly, you haven't heard much english dubbing. The actors were well-suited to their roles, and the way they delivered their lines was spot-on - they were able to convey the level of emotion that was required of them. I certainly felt emotional (or laughed at loud) at many points.
Of course, it has its flaws... the game had a bit too much control for my liking (as in, the game would tell me what I was going to do or say next at certain points when I would've liked to decide myself), and some choices that I made had no impact on the main story (I understand why this was done, it would've made the game much more difficult to make, but it sometimes made interactions annoying).
But overall, it was a LOT of fun. The storyline was utterly engrossing; I was dragged in and actually sad to finish (even after 100+ hours, going through both a bad ending and the true ending). It had some depth to it; there were times when I just sat back and reflected on what had been said. I was charmed by the characters, and intrigued by the mystery. The enemies were unique, especially the bosses. The battles were challenging, but never to the point where I wanted to quit.
It was just... awesome. Go out and buy it! :)
 Keep Working On It Atlus January 6, 2009
Lloyd Ravlin III
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Briefly put, the Persona game line should be a combination of Sims 3 and the book and dice game World of Darkness except set in high school. Sadly, it has many flaws and no virtues of these. The music is tedious, the graphics are ugly, and the game thieves from uncredited sources without redeeming quality. The English voice acting is horrible, the anime sequences (like Robotech) seemed ripped from an unrelated anime, and the graphics are dated to old Sierra adventure games.
I love the basic concept of the Shin Megami Tensei Persona games. Problem being, it's not executed very well at all. Even with the example of the western game Sims 3, Persona sticks to a somewhat poorly wrought story, moronic dialogue, and a plot that wavers between modern day chivalric romance (where it shines) and the authorial decision to interpet that a striking ten day discussion creates eternal friendship.
This specific Persona game, Persona 4, suffers badly in comparison to Persona 3. There is less exploration outside the city, less identification of the city as something to protect or even worth protecting, less interesting characters, and even exacerbatingly boring school options. Of course, Persona 3 was not a glorious nor triumphant game in any way, even in these presented categories of exploration, identification, characterization, and width of gameplay.
If I could suggest anything to the game designers, I'd tell them to play Sims 3, to play Mage: the Awakening, to play Rome: Total War. At that point they might build Shin Megami Tensei Strategy, with the Persona games permitting a player to act as an individual agent (with NPC friends) in the strategic situation they are undergoing. Either that or to make Persona more of a Sim-Life at high school, exploring a larger city, making friends and companions freely. Get rid of the tight-knit story, it doesn't work.
my new favorite gaming franchise. January 5, 2009
Smartass (Boston, Ma)
For years I've been playing the same, mediocre RPGs. The names change, but nothing else seems to.
The Shin Megami Tensei series, on the other hand, has been making widely original content from the beginning and hasn't looked back. I sit here and look at Persona 4, and it's predecessor, Persona 3, and I'm just amazed at the amount of content thrown into these games. The games are so deep, I've found myself easily playing 90+ hours, just on the first playthrough. However, I'll be starting my next playthrough soon, because I hadn't even begun to scratch the surface through that 90 hour journey.
Social Links: One of the main things that makes the Persona series so spectacular is it's bizarre popularity system. You make friends. Have serious (sometimes intimate) relationships. Take tests. Become more popular if you get high scores on your tests. Get more friends. And these friendships are merely the tipping point of the game. These Social Links may seem to be pointless at first, even if they do provide some deep stories and hilarious commentary, however, once you cross over to the "other world", you'll find that these mean more to you than you think. Now, remember a few minutes back, when I said it took my 90 hours to finish 1 game? I didn't even get half of the Social Links. There are a freakin ton.
Because you're ranked high socially with so and so, you're able to form stronger and more meaningful Personas, which in turn, will be the main decider in any battle you face. If you have a terrible Persona when facing a random battle, you're dead for sure. And then, just to add a bit more to the mix, as if P4 doesn't want to be like it's father, P3 (which would be fine, if it were), it decides to ALSO make a difference in your own party members. Now, if you're incredibly close to Chie personally, she'll take deadly hits for you; knock out enemies you're struggling with; heal your status ailments. And not only that, but unlike P3, you now have control of all 4 party members. Which makes things a tad easier :)
And by now, if you're still reading this, it probably sounds like these social links are the biggest amount of story this game will get. That's pretty incorrect, actually. These social links are only tiny side plots in this beautiful adventure. The main plot / theme of this game goes beyond the Social Links, and really makes a social commentary on our own world and society today.
Then add the insanely odd style (the art, the colors, the backgrounds, the music) and it somehow manages to work perfectly with the path the own game goes down. Pure genius all around. AND it's on the ps2. It's 40 bucks and it's better than almost any game out so far on the new generation consoles. Come on RPG fans. You need to get into this underrated series already.
Absolutely Amazing January 4, 2009
N. Voorhees (CA)
If you're a SMT fan, you'll love this.
If you didn't like P3 you'll probably love this. It has the same great story telling but fixes most the problems that people complained about.
BTW if you want to get the artbook you can still order that version from here: [...]
Expected No More And No Less January 1, 2009
Len Nguyen
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This game will mostly appeal to those who enjoy the MegaTen series. As a sequel, it's game-play is almost just like it's predecessors, which is a good thing for those who don't like major changes when it comes to sequels.
You start off as a high school student ( in the manga his name is Souji Seta ) who just transferred from the big city to a small town called Inaba, due to his parents partaking in oversea jobs, thus forcing him to move in with his uncle and younger cousin, Kojima and Nanako.
Later on, a heavy fog sets in the area of Inaba and during one of your classes, your school is dismissed due to an emergency, which ends up being mysterious murder of an announcer woman. Her body was discovered nearby, mutilated and hanging on a TV antenna on the roof of someone's house (Must suck to be the owner of the house). The police investigators are at a lost as they can't seem to figure out how she died or if someone had murdered her, this is because her death was most likely done by a supernatural cause, but the police won't believe that.. They never do. But they gradually run into more murder/homicide cases and all of them show up when it's "foggy" out. Are these cases somehow related with the mysterious fog? ...Maybe. The cases are also somehow related to Television, as a rumor about watching the TV with the screen blank at mid-night on a rainy day, a person will show up on screen ( This is called " the Midnight Channel" ), but you'll get more info on that when you actually play the game. This also has some sort of connection to the murders.
You'll eventually get to the good stuff when you suddenly start to awake to your Persona ( A living entity inside you, or your other self which is a being that basically gives you all your powers in the game. Sadly you don't get to have an Evoker this time, this means no more shooting yourself in the head with a toy gun. Instead, you''ll be breaking Tarot cards that appear out of no where.. ) and at one point you'll have the ability to strangely go into your TV ( Or any TV, but you'll only be using one through out the entire game ). On the other side of the TV is an entirely different world infested with monster-like creatures called Shadows ( Brings back memories of Tartarus from PE3 ) and it's basically up to you and your friends to explore the TV world and find any ways to solve the murder cases and prevent anymore people from dying mysteriously.
Anyways, for game-play:
Battles: You encounter battles the same way as always, as you wander around the TV world there are various forms of shadows lurking about. Either you get to the shadow blob things first by giving them a good whack to the head with whatever weapon you have, or they get you ( this effects being ambushed or having the upper hand with a preemptive attack.) Battles are fought basically the same as in PE3. For those who aren't familiar with previous Persona titles, it's basically turn-based, you have your attack, guard, and special skills. You still have your Rush and all that good stuff, nothing different, also ( I don't remember if you can do this or not in PE3 since I never tried until now) you can chose your party to act on their own (via computer) or you can chose to manually control them, but you'll have to switch battle tactics in order to do that, the default party tactics are always on computer and it's a big help to switch them to manual since they aren't exactly your smartest fighters. It's highly suggested that you take your time and try to NOT avoid battles, since if you're not at a good enough level by the time your get ahead in the game and face a boss, you'll be sorry. )': If you balance out your leveling the game should flow smoothly, but being lazy will end up leaving you frustrated. The battles may get a little repetitive, but all RPGs are like that. Once you get the hang of things (Like getting the enemy's weaknesses down and etc, which will make battles come out easy as pie ) it'll eventually grow on you.
One little nice adjustment in battles is that when you hit an enemy with it's weakness and knock it down ( like a fire element attack if it's weak against fire), and you hit it AGAIN with it's weakness, it'll stun the enemy or make them dizzy, so basically the first weakness strike will knock them down and the second will make them dizzy. Unlike in the previous game, if you hit them with their weakness it'll knock them down, but if you hit them again it'll wake them up out of their stunned/knock-down state...which made no sense whatsoever.
Character Interactivity: Okay here, you actually have to interact with your friends and family ( being a angsty loner won't get you anywhere!).
Most interactivity will launch character sequences and you get to see your character's relationship with other people develop over time ( the more, the better, especially since it effects how strong your Persona is). You have these things called social links, which is basically a link or special bond to certain people you interact with. When you converse or hang out with your friends, saying the right things or making the right choices will make them like your more, thus getting enough points for that, you can level-up these social links which will make your Personas stronger.
The social links are exactly the same as the ones in PE3, the only real difference is that every time you level-up a social link, it doesn't give you this big dramatic sequence where your Persona talks to you in your head and tells you that your bond with x Arcana has strengthened and blah blah blah.. Instead this level-up image with the corresponding Tarot card pops up and says LEVEL UP along with a bar that shows you how much you've leveled that social link until it's maxed out. Also, leveling your social links with party-members will get them to learn new passive abilities like helping you out during battle by snapping you out of rage, or taking a fatal blown for you if your character's about to take a lethal hit. Another new addition is that when you max out social links with your party members, their Persona gets reborn into another Persona. Kind of like a big upgrade.
Music and Sound: .. It's actually pretty good! I already have a lot of the tracks stuck in my head as most of them are pretty catchy. Most voices are bearable, if not good. I'm personally fond of the main character's voice and his friend, Yosuke, great voice actors. ( Voiced by Yuri L. AND Johnny B., those guys voiced a TON of games together... Tales of The Abyss (Luke and Guy) and .Hack//G.U ( Haseo and Kuhn) anyone? Johnny's also voiced Nero from DMC4 and Ichigo from Bleach lol.)
Graphics: The graphics have improved compared to the previous game, plus there seems to be a lot more character animation while you're in 3D and it's fun to watch. You still have your awesome 2D anime cut scenes, and those always look good.
Set-Backs?: The only thing major here is that when you go into the TV to "Save" people, you have to save them before a fog comes ( The weather channel on TV will be a big help, so be sure to check every now and then ) else you'll get a Game Over and will have to start over from the week prior. Of course, they give you PLENTY of time, and it's easy to tell when the fog comes because they only come after 2-3 or days of rain.
Other Parts Of Gameplay: You also have other stats in the game you can raise, which are very essential in gaining new acquaintances and earning your social links. This time your set of stats are Knowledge, Diligence, Understanding, Courage, and Expression. You can raise any of these through all sorts methods, such as getting the right answers in class, studying, or participating in part-time jobs (which can also earn you money ). Of course, a lot of cases in the game, you'll need to use your brain. There are times where you'll have to think like a detective and break everything down into the facts ( I personally thought it was fun, especially when you get it right! ). Also, the questions you get asked in class are mostly trivial, some or most, you may have absolutely no idea what the answers are as the questions are very difficult but some are easy ( I'm in highschool so..lol) , but all of the questions are REAL, not a bunch of bologna they threw together just to make you mad. You might have to result to using the internet to find your answers, of course, you'll learn something new afterwards ( I learned..A lot of things. Like, in Japan, a robber would most likely break into your house at 8 in the morning or that the Egyptians used eyeliner as a type of repelant.. )
Other than that, the game is overall, entertaining ( a lot of the scenes in the game are amusing ) of course everyone has their different tastes in games. I'd suggest this game to any MegaTen fan or RPG gamer. Those who are more for action RPGs might not like this game since this game takes a lot of patience and strategy. Plus they talk A LOT ( lots of reading, but it's not wise to skim through them. )
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