By ATLUS, for the PlayStation 2
https://www.atlus.com/persona4/home.html
I was introduced to the Persona franchise via Persona
2: Innocent Sin. Quickly after starting P2:IS in February 2018, I learned about
Persona 5. I bought a PS4 just to play P5, and spent most of a whole week in
winter beating the game. Later that year I bought and started Persona 4. I made
it roughly 70% of the way through the game before taking a roughly yearlong
hiatus. Last week I returned and conquered P4. In my return to P4, I remembered
how much I absolutely love the characters and theming of the game.
Spoilers ahead, primarily on game mechanics, the first
four characters to join your party, and the main themes of the game.
Section II shall cover general gameplay mechanics of
P4. Section III will go over my thoughts on the first four characters in the
game. Section IV will go into the main themes of the game, including my own theory
on P4’s most impactful theme.
P4 follows the recent tradition of Persona games
taking place at a Japanese high school during a school year. There are
typically three parts to every day in which to complete activities: school,
afternoon/after school, and evening. If there is no school, then there are only
afternoon and evening time slots. In each of these time slots, the player can
do one of several activities: spend time with Social Links, spend time
increasing stats, spend time doing part-time jobs, explore the TV world, and
other events (although the first four cover the vast majority of ways to spend
time).
The game takes place in the fictional rural town of
Inaba. There are five areas the protagonist gets to visit during his free time:
Yasogami High School (the protagonist’s school), the Central Shopping District,
the Junes Department Store, the Samegawa Floodplain, and the Dojima Residence (the
protagonist’s house). Characters will show up at these locations during
different days of the week.
The protagonist has five personal attributes that each
have five levels: knowledge, courage, diligence, understanding, and expression.
Certain dialogue options and part-time jobs require specific attribute levels
to be reached.
The protagonist has Social Links (based on the arcana
from tarot cards), representing the strength of bonds between the protagonist
and other people in P4 (although there are social links with your team as a
unit and a fox, so they aren’t tied exclusively to individuals). Social Links
level up by spending time with the person representative of that link – for
example, spending time with Chie Satonaka will increase the level of the
Chariot Social Link. If the protagonist equips a persona matching the arcana of
a Social Link, then spending time with that Social Link partner will be more
effective. Social Links will usually either give your party members new
abilities or increase the effectiveness of certain out-of-combat abilities.
When fusing personas, a higher Social Link rank results in more bonus
experience for personas of the same arcana.
Combat takes place inside the TV World – an alternate
reality that exists as the manifestation people’s subconscious desires. The TV
World is bursting with Shadows, the aspects of individuals they choose to
suppress and ignore. While most shadows are mindless creatures serving as
generic enemies in dungeons, some shadows have greater significance. All of
your team members must confront their Shadow before they can join your team.
Most of the bosses are the Shadows of your eventual team members. Dungeons also
have mini-bosses, which have increased health and typically employ some
specific tactic when fighting.
The TV World is comprised of multiple dungeons, which
form after a person is thrown into the TV World. Dungeons consist of many
floors and have paths that lead to new floors or treasure. Small treasure
chests can be opened at will, while golden chests require a Chest Key item.
Once a dungeon’s boss is defeated, the team can come back at a later date to
re-clear the dungeon and fight a new mini-boss at the boss’s location. This
rewards the player with experience, money, and a boost to the Courage
attribute.
P4 uses turn-based combat between the player’s team
and opposing shadows. The primary influence on combat are a person’s persona.
All team members have unique personas centered on one of the game’s elemental
types: fire, ice, electricity, wind, light, and dark; physical is an additional
element in the game. However, the protagonist has the power of the “wild card,”
resulting in his ability to use multiple personas. Personas have stats
(strength, magic, endurance, agility, and luck) that impact the character to
whom it belongs; personas also level up independently of their owner, although non-protagonist
personas level up pretty closely to their owner. Personas come equipped with
different skills that utilize one of a person’s two stats: health points (HP)
and spirit points (SP). Physical skills consume HP, while magical skills
(offensive and supportive) consume SP. If a character/enemy is hit by an
elemental attack against which that unit is weak, then that unit will be
Downed. A unit that downs an opponent will get the “1 More” prompt, which
allows that unit to take an additional action; so long as a unit downs additional
foes, that unit can keep getting additional actions. When all enemies are
downed, the player’s units can perform an all-out attack (downed and
unconscious allied units are excluded, reducing the all-out attack’s damage).
Units can also get “1 More” by inflicting a Critical Hit with a physical attack
(either via a physical skill or the unit’s weapon).
In battle there are eight commands: analysis (viewing
info on an enemy’s weaknesses), tactics (whether a character will be AI
controlled or player directed), guard (reducing damage, blocking status
ailments, and prevent a unit from being downed), attack (with a unit’s equipped
weapon), skill (using one of a persona’s skills), persona (allowing the
protagonist to switch personas), item (using a consumable item from the
player’s inventory), and escape (when confirmed, allowing the party to flee
from battle). When a character is newly recruited, the AI will control that
person’s actions; I recommend players change the tactics of all allies to make
them directly controlled by the player, giving the player more versatility in
combat.
All units have three main combat stats: attack,
defense, and speed (speed governs hit and evasion chances of a unit). Certain
persona/enemy skills can raise/lower these stats for your party members or for
enemies. A general rule I follow is having at least one of the protagonist’s
personas learn/inherit the skills Tarunda (lowers one enemy’s attack for three
turns) and/or Rakunda (lowering one enemy’s defense for three turns) for boss
battles. Having both is ideal.
The higher a team member’s social rank, the greater
access that character gets to additional abilities. These include shielding the
protagonist from a fatal attack, performing follow-up attacks (which either
down an enemy or remove one from the fight), and other supportive measures.
Note that these do not take up a character’s turn, so they serve as passive
(sometimes game-saving) benefits.
If the protagonist’s HP reaches zero, then it is game
over. If a team member’s HP reaches zero, then they fall unconscious and cannot
act unless revived; after battle they revive with 1 HP.
At the end of battle, player characters in the active
party will receive experience, money, and items. Sometimes the player will have
the chance to earn new personas by playing a shuffling mini-game (usually by
timing the pressing of the X button). If a persona or blank card is selected,
then there is a chance that an arcana card will appear. If the player chooses
to look at the card, then it will either rotate Upright (resulting in some sort
of positive benefit) or Reversed (resulting in a negative impact on the team).
The player has access to the Velvet Room (which has
been present in every Persona game, but takes up a different look in each
game). Here the protagonist can fuse new personas, purchase personas the
protagonist either created or found after combat, and register current personas’
stats/skills. Generally speaking, it is best to fuse personas as often as
possible, as newly fused personas will typically be stronger than the personas
used to fuse them. The player can only fuse personas up to the protagonist’s
current level. Be mindful of which personas you use as fusion material: if you
are using a persona for its social link boost, then you probably do not want to
use it as fusion material and lose that benefit (at least until you can afford
a replacement or max out that social link).
This covers most mechanics in the game.
I will cover the game’s first four playable
characters. I will leave the rest for players to experience on their own.
I will be drawing some information from the Persona
4 Official Design Works book containing the illustrations and corresponding
descriptions of P4’s art director Shigenori Soejima. If you end up loving P4 as
I do, then you may want to consider purchasing the book yourself: https://www.amazon.com/Persona-4-Official-Design-Works/dp/1926778456
Quick Summary of the Story
A string of murders and kidnappings hit the small
Japanese town of Inaba. The victims die in mysterious ways, with no evidence of
how they were killed. When the Protagonist and his friends gain access to the
TV World and learn the kidnappings are tied to that world, they decide to form
the Investigation Team. The Protagonist and his friends are determined to save
the kidnapping victims before their shadows kill them and use the TV World to
find out who is committing these crimes.
The Protagonist
P4 utilizes a
silent protagonist, as does all other Persona games. “For the Protagonist’s
design, I went for a wild guy with a slightly bad attitude,” Soejima writes. The
Protagonist comes to Inaba from “the city” to live with his uncle, Ryotaro
Dojima, and younger cousin, Nanako Dojima. The Protagonist is typically the calm,
level-headed member of the team, making him the ideal person to serve as the
team’s leader. The player can choose certain dialogue options for the
Protagonist, as well as whom the Protagonist romances. Other than that, the
most noteworthy aspect to the Protagonist is how well trusted he becomes by the
residents of Inaba for being an “outsider.”
Yosuke Hanamura
Yosuke is the Protagonist’s first friend at Yasogami
High and the first person to join the Investigation Team. He is a good-looking guy
meant to give voice to certain thoughts the player might be having based on the
story. Yosuke is also from “the city,” and his family manages the department
store Junes (which is straining the small businesses in Inaba). Because of
this, Yosuke is often scorned by his classmates for his family making life
harder for many of Inaba’s residents.
Yosuke is often impulsive, but there is no doubting
his loyalty to the Protagonist and his friends. The girl he likes ends up being
the second murder victim. When he and the Protagonist go to that girl’s area in
the TV World, they hear her inner thoughts. Those thoughts teach Yosuke that
she was simply nice to him because his dad was Junes’s manager; he took her
kindness in a direction that annoyed her. This leads Yosuke to losing control
of his Shadow: the shadow says Yosuke only acts carefree because he is
terrified of being alone and bored. After the Protagonist beats his Shadow,
Yosuke is finally able to admit that these negative feelings are a part of
himself. He can face the reality of who he is (which does not mean always
acting on those negative emotions – confronting bad parts of life and making
bad choices are not the same).
Who isn’t afraid of being alone? Who likes boredom? Yosuke
is very relatable in his fears. This relatability makes him well-suited for
being the first member of the Protagonist’s team. While I find many of his
impulsive thoughts and opinions to be a little too-much, they are never
over-the-top bad: simply immature teenage guy thoughts. Yosuke’s loyalty to and
protectiveness of his friends serves as a constant reminder that he is a good
guy – just a little rough around the edges.
Chie Satonaka
From Soejima: “The concept for Chie’s design was “a
cute girl who could actually exist in real life” … One of the things that
defines Chie as a character is her love of cheap, retro things like pins and
other accessories. In some ways, Chie was the turning point that defined the
overall design flavor of the entire game.” Soejima wanted to highlight that P4
takes place in a rural town, and Chie’s design with a retro jersey jacket with
the game’s primary color (yellow) set the game’s atmosphere.
Chie admires strong women, especially those that can
go toe-to-toe with men. Her primary persona, Tomoe, embodies Chie’s vision of a
powerful woman.
 |
| Chie's Persona Tomoe |
I love Chie’s voice in P4, while I really dislike her
voice in Persona 4 Golden. Chie’s P4 voice sounds like a regular girl; her P4G
voice sounds like an uber-high-pitched anime girl, which goes against her
design of being “a cute girl who could actually exist in real life.” Chie is a
bit of a tomboy, as she loves exercise and kung fu movies. Her dream is to
become a police officer, which explains her strong sense of justice and
protectiveness towards Yukiko and the Protagonist.
Chie is best friends with Yukiko Amagi. However, the
first dungeon reveals both treat each other in an unhealthy manner. Chie is
very insecure about her femininity, and she develops a sort of inferiority
complex to Yukiko. Yukiko’s inner thoughts reveal that she views Chie as
“bright and strong,” the kind person who protects her “worthless” life.
However, Chie’s shadow reveals her insecurity regarding her femininity as well
as Chie deriving some satisfaction from Yukiko viewing her own life as
worthless. Even though Chie views herself as unable to win at anything, Yukiko
depends on her – this is the crux of Chie’s suppressed self. Chie was too
embarrassed to acknowledge this side of her and denied its existence, resulting
in the shadow attacking her. After the shadow is defeated. Chie learns Yosuke
had a similar encounter with his own shadow. She confronts her shadow, saying
it is “A side of me I couldn’t forgive… That I tried to ignore… But you still
exist. You’re a part of me.”
Chie’s insecurities reflect many of my own, hence why
I relate to her internal struggles. Her sense of protectiveness and justice
also make her admirable. Her role in the story shrinks once Yukiko is saved,
although she often serves to guide the team’s sense of justice.
Yukiko Amagi
“The concept for Yukiko’s design was the stereotypical
Japanese beauty.” Her design “could be considered the polar opposite of Chie,”
which becomes apparent in how Yukiko views her relationship with Chie before
facing her shadow.
Yukiko’s family runs the Amagi Inn, the most popular
landmark in Inaba. While she is the heiress to the Inn, Yukiko feels she has
been forced to inherit the responsibilities of the Inn. Yukiko dreams of some
“prince” swooping in to Inaba to take her away from the town. While Yukiko
initially viewed Chie as a “prince” for her protective nature, Chie could not
get Yukiko out of Inaba. “When it comes down to it, Chie is just not good
enough.” Yukiko hates feeling chained down by responsibility, feeling like she
has no free will. This leads Yukiko to viewing herself as useless and
worthless. After Yukiko’s shadow is crushed, Chie admits her own
self-centeredness led Chie to ignore what Yukiko was going through in life.
Yukiko admits she ignored Chie while looking for “an easy way out” of her
troubles.
Yukiko is intelligent, beautiful, respectful,
hard-working, and unafraid of horror. She is uncomfortable when someone
mentions her looks, and she hates feeling chained down in life. Yukiko also has
laughing fits; after accepting her shadow and becoming more sociable, Yukiko starts
to have these fits occasionally in front of the team members. Yukiko has some
memorable moments when the team go to a club during the evening of a school
trip – her and Rise’s dialogue and voices are quite hilarious.
I greatly enjoyed Yukiko’s social links. Yukiko learns
that leaving Inaba will not be as easy as she had thought (and claimed by her
shadow). She develops gratitude for her family and those working at the Inn.
Yukiko eventually freely chooses to stay and work at the Inn – highlighting how
gratitude for the blessings in one’s life leads to sober decision making.
Other Characters
The other party members are Kanji Tatsumi, Rise
Kujikawa, Teddie (the game’s mascot), and Naoto Shirogane. I’ll leave their
stories to be discovered by playing the game.
IV. P4’s Main Themes
Living in illusions verse facing reality. Rumors
spread because people love to concoct illusory versions of other people that
make them feel better about themselves. People also devise illusory versions of
their “ideal” future and are reticent to give up those illusions for more
realistic outcomes. People have extreme difficulty separating the realistic aspects
of their dreams from the highly improbable parts (that always won’t live up to
expectations). So, what if people could live without free will? Is it right and
just to force people to live with free will if they do not want that
responsibility?
Internal conflict between living in illusions verse
reality becomes apparent during most Social Link progressions. It is extremely
evident when team members confront their shadows in the TV World. Chie and
Yukiko each have illusions of the other being fantastic while they are
worthless – by facing the truth that the presence of negative emotions doesn’t
make a person worthless, each girl is able to face the reality that each is
flawed but ultimately good.
A theme I found prevalent was the concept of “home”:
where is a person able to live as his/herself in pursuit of their ideal self.
“Home” can be physical, spiritual, or mental/emotional/psychological. In P4,
the physical “home” is Inaba, a quaint little town that residents tend to love
while outsiders tend to hate. While not all residents love Inaba, if presented
with a choice of leaving or staying most would stay – Yukiko serves as a good
example. Yukiko reaches the point where she can use her free will to leave
Inaba behind, but she refuses out of love for those with whom she shares her
life. Inaba provides a sense of “rootedness” for its inhabitants, allowing them
to grow as people surrounded by a supportive environment. However, “outsiders”
threaten to shake the foundation of this “rootedness,” highlighted by how Junes
and Yosuke are treated by the town’s inhabitants. They threaten stability by
not being present in Inaba’s history. While “outsiders” are often derided,
those same outsiders tend to come to love the town: Yosuke and the Protagonist
both develop a deep affection for Inaba. (To be fair: the Protagonist is
silent, so his affection is less apparent; he does have a photo of all his
friends in Inaba, suggesting he at the very least treasures his time in the
town.) The ability to be “rooted” can only occur in a physical place, thus a
physical “home.”
The concept of a spiritual “home” is not really
touched upon in P4. If “spiritual home” is defined as “moral standards that
outline the qualities of an ideal person,” then P4’s version of “spiritual
home” is the ability to pursue an individual’s version of happiness without
interfering in the liberty of others to pursue their own happiness. In short,
the US Declaration of Independence’s defined unalienable rights of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness form a broad enough baseline to serve as
the moral foundation upon which a “spiritual home” can be established. Again,
this is all conjecture by me, though aspects of the game do touch on these
cornerstones of this part of my theory – particularly the Investigation Team’s
responses to P4’s antagonists.
I struggle to come up with a cumulative term for
“mental/emotional/psychological home,” so I’ll go with “MEP home” from here on
out. The “MEP home” for the Protagonist is all his confidants/Social Links. The
Investigation Team serves as his most trustworthy “home,” while his uncle and
cousin also provide reasons for pursuing the truth about Inaba’s mysterious
events. Each team member utilizes the Protagonist’s penchant for listening (A+
for being a silent protagonist) to voice their inner concerns and frustrations
about their selves. This allows team members to avoid repressing their undesired
traits, instead pursuing self-reflection with a trusted confidant. The
Protagonist’s girlfriend (whomever he chooses) also utilizes this feature of an
“MEP home,” although it is important to remember that one does not need to have
a significant other to benefit from an “MEP home.” One helps, but it is not
mandatory for the “MEP home” in all of life’s stages. (This is based of my
thinking on this matter – it would be foolish to make one singular entity the
source of your entire MEP identity/health.) The Social Link system reinforces
this aspect of relationship building with other people, something many of
today’s relationships often lack. It serves to remind ourselves that we will
not share every aspect of our identity/self with every person in our lives. We
bond with others over common values and interests. These relationships serve to
build for our self “homes” that provide structure to the metaphysical aspects
of human existence.
V. Closing Thoughts on Persona 4
I adore the Persona franchise for covering topics and
subjects that other games either fail to touch or do so clumsily. There are few
areas of American pop culture that would consider life in a small town as
having immense benefit to its residents. There are effectively zero parts of
current American culture that push people to accept that the highest sense of
authority for one’s self is NOT one’s feelings. Persona games highlight one
obvious fact: our feelings often mislead us! People often cannot understand how
they feel about something or someone, leading to misperceptions. Additionally,
we are REALLY good at lying to ourselves. After all, if we though what we were
doing was truly bad or evil, then we wouldn’t be doing it. Amidst our
self-generated illusions, we need other people to reach out and help us better
understand our selves, others, and the environment around us. Persona 4 allowed
me to think through many of my own fears, uncertainties, and hypotheticals
(such as what it would be like to face my own shadow) – something no other game
franchise even comes close to doing.
The gameplay is great, although many quality-of-life
improvements from Persona 5 and Persona 4 Golden are absent in P4. Even without
these improvements, P4 still utilizes the same combat system structure as those
games – providing players with the challenge of building teams of characters
and personas that can defeat any combination of foes you may face.
My biggest critique is having the Good and True
endings (and their respective dungeons, bosses, and story elements) locked
behind 3-5 dialogue choices that must be chosen perfectly in order to be
unlocked. However, so long as the player makes use of multiple save slots these
endings can be found. I appreciate a game that forces the player to think about
how he/she responds to events in the story in order to get the Good/True
ending. It rewards those who pay attention (or look these up on the Internet).
I love Persona 4. Beauty and flaws included.
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