Completed: Persona 4 Golden

Yes i spent much of christmas eve beating this game... in the end i don't care lol

So.... even though no one cares it's STORY TIME. (also spoilers cause... i can't talk about much without spoiling key plot points)

Dec 8/ 08
I get a phone call...
"Hello it's you local game store and we are getting in Persona 4 tomorrow, we only have a few of the preorder artbooks so if you want it come early."

Dec 9/08
I get the game and the preorder bonus and look through it... and immediately get spoiled on the ending...
well..... damn.

Still.... i continue to play it.

until i get to Kanji's Dungeon and a few floors up i remember encountering the one thing i LOATH about this series.
Protagonist (who i'm going to call Yu from now on cause it's what the anime called him) was Hama-ed
Hama is one of two series of attack that insta kill a character, the other one being Mudo.
if Yu dies, it's game over...
even if you have a character with Recarm series spell (revives)... even if you have items that revive... it does not matter... if yu dies it's game over.
The ONLY exception is if you have a homunculous which will take the fatal hit for you.
i didn't have a homunculous and lost a chunk of progress.
this pissed me off so much i put the game down for a long time.

I did eventually get back to it but certain things kept happening.
I would either get another game and play it for a while cause Persona games are LONG.
or
my ps2 would outright threaten to die... it's still alive but even now it's a finicky little creature.

I got to the 'Hospital part' just before the 'deciding which ending you get' section.... so... pretty far.

then i think i ended up unplugging it for some reason and almost never plugged it back in... there are quite a few ps2 games i would love to finish (this was technically one of them) but i honestly think my system will blow up if i try... i'm surprised it played Ys 6 with little fuss.

anyways YEARS passed... occasionally i'd think i would love beat that game... but ps2 hates me and i don't own a vita.
Then Celceta came out...
bought a vita.... then thanks to a gift card and sale i managed to get this game for 5 dollars.

And now... on 24th 2013 i have completed this 5 year struggle.

BUT STORY TIME MUST CONTINUE.

My first time hearing about the persona series was in highschool, all my friends were complaining that they couldn't play girl characters and date akihiko.... hearing this from both my male and female friends made me interested.
"What Game?"
"Persona 3, you should get it but FES comes out in a few days... get that version instead"
"persona 3 Fes?" i was confused.... did i need to play 1 and 2? i had never heard of the series before.
then my friend nodded. " come over to my place and i'll let you play a little so you can see what it's like... i think you'll enjoy it... but it is long.

so i give it a try and pretty quickly, despite the gimmick of shooting yourself in the head, find it really fun and interesting.
"you said it was long.... why?"
"well you play out an entire in game year.... the box says it's 80 hours but i think i'll end up way past that...."
80 hours?!
i hadn't heard of a jrpg being that long before.... most would average 40....
"really? wow... i mean... i tend to beat games in half the recommended time but still... thats really long...." i honestly didn't believe it.
so FES came out, i bought it and over time and exactly 85 hours later i beat it.

and yeah... i loved it...

even at the hospital scene i think i was well over 80 hours....

so yeah... STORY TIME OVER..... for now...

onto what i thought.

Dec 8/13
Hey my package came early... this wasn't supposed to arrive till the 10th...

Dec 24/13
After playing a ton but also speeding through it cause technically this is a second play through. you finally get to do what everyone seems to have to do...
pull up a guild to figure out how to get the true ending.

yeah... i will admit... i used a guild for a few things... this, for me, falls into a guild dang it! trope because most of the stuff it HEAVILY based in japanese culture and while i know quite a bit... i do not know enough for this game.
So yeah... how i played was For the School quizzes, i mentally pick the one i think/know is right and then i would look up the right answer... until my classmate social links were maxed and same with my intelligence.... cause after that it really doesn't matter.
Also... the cooking... same thing, i would pick the one i thought was right and then look up the correct answer in order to get closer to my friends.
but thats not all.
I did the hospital section without a guild and got bad end 2.... i'll probably check out bad end 1 and 3 later... btu yeah i had to look up a guild for that cause it takes a long time to get to that part... and i didn't wanna screw it up again... plus i never would have gotten the final answer correct.

Finally - i looked up the requirements for true end cause i was NOT playing this game a third time (except to check out some new game plus.) and to be fair... the game tries to trick you into taking regular end so.... yeah...

so yeah... lots of help from the internet... but i'm 99.9% sure i'm not the only one who needed help.

As i mentioned before you play out a full in game year, there are a few time skips but very few large ones (if you beat the december dungeon early it can create a time skip thats rather large and kinda detrimental if you want true end)
You are Yu Narakami (aka protagonist/you pick his name) and your mother has dumped you on your uncle for the year cause of reasons.
he has a daughter named nanako who is very shy but quickly warms up to you... but otherwise it's a quiet town where nothing happens.
that is until a reporter is found hanging upside-down dead from unknown causes from a telephone wire...
and then a few days later the first person to find her is found in a similar state.
Odd things styart happening, this program called the midnight channel is supposed to show you your soul mate but instead seems to show the next victim... and this time it's someone from class...
oh... and yo just happen to be able to pass through a television... cause... uh.... why not...
so you think the tv and the victems are connected and you with the help of friends have to go in there and save the poor victims so their wont be any more murders.
you also have to figure out how/why this is all happening... and you have yo do it before march 20th.

BUT THATS NOT ALL
cause aisde from being a murder mystery dungeon crawler this game is also a life sim.
you get to join school clubs, have part time jobs... make lots of friends and all in the hopes of making you social bonds stronger so you can summon stronger persona's to fight the evil shadows.

It may sound like a lot to cram into one game but honestly the persona series does a perfect job of it.
and persona 4 golden, the vita version, crams even more stuff... added events, more cut scenes and a crap load of costumes... cause who doesn't wanna have them fight in power ranger type outfits?

but honestly... who cares about any of that...
the second i found out the gimmick for this game was that all the characters had to wear glasses i was way happier then i should have been. can't help what i like.

so yeah... before i get to the good and bad i wanna mention the ending.
it is completely worth the effort and 2 extra dungeons to get the true ending... apparently theres something about a secret boss that can only be beaten on playthrough 2 but yeah... no...
but i just loved seeing what they did and it was all just so sweet


ok

The good
so much content and unlike the end of three it doesn't get as stale especially with the two final 'secret' dungeons... the penultimate one probably being my favorite. 
the characters are all very diverse and very real feeling... most of these are problems we can all relate to... well not entirely but aspects about them.
the combat is a lot of fun and even though when i first played a person game i had no idea how i would remember what Agi, Bufu, Garu and Zio were but now i know they are fire, ice, wind and electricity.
you can pick your difficulty and it wont punish you... i may or may not have mentioned this before... SMT type games tend to be brutally hard and i'm always stupid enough to try them on hard... screw that... easy mode from here on with atlus games... i play for the story... not the challenge.
Speaking of the story it's really really good and i can't think of a moment where it drags it's feet except for the points where you are prepairing for the next case and honestly most of the times you have exams or social links to complete... there is always something to do.

The not so good.
Chie.... her voice... i didn't remember it bugging me this much before and thats cause apparently they changed it... i got used to it near the end but i felt like she was shouting all the time. now to be fair... i never liked chie as a character but yeah... she really rubbed me the wrong way.

back when i first played the game Kanji and naoto's story lines were like nothing i had ever seen in a game before and it was really
being 5 years older i realize WOW did they ever cheap out on both of those.

well kinda... Kanji's they do kinda deal with in his social link (i mean they focus more on it's okay to like cute things despite your gender which is a good message) but still it really feels like someone wanted him to be a certain way and someone said "no you can't do that"
I am of course talking about if Kanji is or is not Gay.
my opinion? i always assumed he was more pansexual since gender doesn't seem to matter to him... he just likes who he likes.  but considering the most canon ship from the series is him with naoto i can see why people argue that he's not gay. in the end, it doesn't matter... he in Kanji and thats all that matters....

But speaking of naoto, a woman wanting to be in a male driven job so badly that she actually acts, talks and dresses like a man is a very interesting concept since she does look like a very pretty boy until the twist... but man did they chicken out... not only do they completely throw aside the fact that she  doesn't feel like she was born in the right skin they never really address it again... not even in her social link which is essentially "being a detective is fun"... i just would have liked to see her overcome the gender stereotypes that would stop people from taking her seriously at work and show that you can be a girl in a boys world and still be heard... that is a much more important message in my mind. and they kinda touch on it... but she comes so late into the story that i get why they dont develop her more.

The bad
It's over...
when something has been around unfinished for 5 years.... beating it was a little sad.
i'm happy i did it, but still... i wish their was more... a persona 4 2 perhaps?

oh well in the end i'm just happy that persona 5 is a thing that is happening
even though i have found that handhelds are the best way to play these long jrpgs

now to wait for disgaea 3 to arrive...
and for now cause i spent too long writing this.

Dec 25/13
Merry Christmas, i hope your day is full of cheer.

also which do i like more? 3 or 4?
i like how 3 had people randomly not show up to the midnight hour and the stamina system and i wish 4 had something like that cause i just eneded up using Yukiko, yosuke and Kanji the entire time... i alos though 3's final boss while very long was truly well done.
but overall... i like 4 more, it felt more like a cohesive tale and the reason for the end date makes a lot more sense.
but yeah bot hare good... now to see if i can wrap my head around 1 or 2 (which i have on handheld)... ugh maybe some other time.

night everyone!

Also cause i forgot to mention my play time for this was 66 hours and 10 minutes but it was only that short cause i was trying really hard to catch up to where i was. if you take your time I can see this EASILY being a 100 hour game.