Lets Discuss Persona 4 (Without derailing the Persona 3 Thread) (Spoilers)

So anyone else here really like Ai? I mean, if I had to pick one love interest, it'd be a tie between her and Rise, though Rise probably wins for me by a little bit.

My experience of the game comes from the GiantBomb playthrough, so I've never seen the end of her social link, but Ai is pretty cool. I imagine that she gets a bit more moral by the end of the SL, but even her early self--come to the mall with me and buy me stuff and hold my bags!--is pretty amazing.

On the other hand, am I really the only person who doesn't like Yosuke? I just found him really irritating, and his casual sexism/homophobia really got on my nerves.

I think Yosuke is a very well-realized character, partly for those very reasons: he's kind of a jerk. But the game doesn't assume you agree with him, or even make you feel like you should, and he does grow over the course of year. He's not fully cured of his slight dickishness by the end of it, but he's come a long way, and you get the sense he'll continue to do so.

That's the best part of the Persona games, to me - the main characters are all 15-17 years old, and they act like it. It's not the 15-going-on-40 you so often see in JRPGs.

Can't we all just get along and ship everyonexeveryone? Then again I'm mostly a gen shipper so uh...
I can't get behind MCxYukiko though. I just can't see Yukiko with anyone other than Chie.

I didn't actually like Ai when I first played, but she grew on me quickly. And as much as I like Rise, after trudging through the dungeons with her voice squeaking at me every other minute I avoided her like the plague.

After playing P4Arena/Ultimate, I have to ship Yukiko and Chie. I still like protagonist/Chie, but given my love for Rise protagonist/Rise is fine too. I dunno, I really can ship everyone/everyone (but not protagonist/Yosuke because it was all over the Tumblr tags and I JUST DO NOT GET IT).

The following exchange happened between my husband and I for most of the second half of the game:

*Kanji and/or Naoto appears onscreen*
Me: Are they dating yet?
Matt: No.
Me: Well, why not?
Matt: I'm working on it!

I dunno if Golden has the option to have MC play matchmaker for Kanji and Naoto, but if it does...that's all I'd care about (along with taking Nanako to Junes).

As for MC ships, I'm actually really glad he doesn't have to woo all the girls, that they can just stay friends- that and he has the option of only one girlfriend ever! In my own play through Totaru totally accepted Rise's marriage proposal without her knowing it (I like the fact that I can have them date, so that Rise isn't flirting with a guy who isn't her boyfriend). And unlike most people, the battle narration I really don't mind. I liked Fuuka and I like Rise. Just like Navi never got on my nerves.

I like Fuuka and Rise too! Rise's voice was just adorable and while I think the actual acting for Fuuka was often lacking, the voice was pleasant and I think did the best job possible emulating the Japanese voice actress. That was actually something I noticed, listening to the Japanese tracks in P4Arena/Ultimate, is that even when they don't sound the same the voice actors for the different languages fit the characters correctly and get across the same basic feeling.

Yu x Rise does make Rise's endless flirting less uncomfortable, for sure. With the addition of Marie, Golden lets you have one girlfriend + Marie; Marie has her own Valentine's event separate from the girlfriend you settle on provided you rescue her. There's actually a funny little epilogue involving Marie in Golden, as well.

So she's like the Elizabeth/Theodor romance of the game? Good to know...I'm guessing she's the monotone girl that works at Aiya (that Chinese restaurant) from the Anime?

Nope, she's a completely original character to Golden.

I love P4, but sometimes this game makes exasperates me. I just ran into a quest where the game told me, "Maybe if your Understanding was at least saintly...", and I was like, Really, game? "At least" saintly. You know, minimum.

Also, I'm always disappointed when I check my shoe locker and nobody has given me free items or love letters. How can the students of this school not tell how awesome I am?! I have near-maxed stats! I am a sexy manbeast! I max social links! Come on, people!

Clearly you need to ace more tests.

I didn't even know you could check your shoebox outside of the one fox quest.
Also, would anyone else buy this as DLC?

YES! OTP!

I don't get why so many people liked Rise though. I actually though she was boring and irritating. Yukiko too. I like Chie, but not with Brotagonist, just as a person.

I like Rise because she likes everyone. I was mostly indifferent towards her watching through Persona 4 the first time, but when I played P4Arena/Ultimate and she was just so compassionate towards a character and I realized how much I like her because she cares.

Rise's "I'm so obviously flirting with you just to troll everyone else, teehee isn't it cute" annoyed the fire out of me. Whenever she wasn't doing that, I liked her just fine.

I don't actually know why I like Rise. I just know that I don't hate her. I might like her more if I ever finished her social link though. I always got distracted by somethingelse and always ended up rank 6 or 7.

Adachi annoyed me every time I saw him, though I never did figure out the big reveal until the game laid it out in front of me. I am horrible at mysteries.

Ugh, I can't even think about Adachi. The constant "OMG he's so hotttttt what a cutie wait he killed people no he didn't" sentiment from the tag on Tumblr has ruined any intelligent thought I might have on his character other than "RARG SMASH."

I have aced ALL the tests.

I'd like Rise better if she flirted with me less. Her character development make me like her as a character, not as a friend/lover though. I liked Yukiko straight off the bet because I like her trope. I like the smart one. But speaking of the cast as a whole, she's probably the least interesting. Oh, I do like her weird humour!

That's probably why I avoid tumblr. That and the fact that it'd suck up all my free time. Rabid fans are scary.

I found Adachi hilarious the first few times I encountered him, then I start yelling at him "DO YOUR JOB PROPERLY! stop giving me hints!" His hints felt like cheating.

I watched the anime 2 weeks ago, it's an awesome adaptation! I love it. I like the little things they put in, like showing the change of dates, and Yu's stats. Seeing Yu's deadpan response is gold. It's weird watching the shadows come out of the walls and form into respective enemies. While I was watching, I kept wondering if it's possible to do a playthrough like the anime. It's not possible to follow it exactly (since it progresses social link without required stats! WHAT!?); but I'm curious what it would look like you aim for as close as possible.

I think that would pretty much completely fall apart when it came time to max out the Temperance, Devil, Tower, and Death s.links in the space of about a week in the middle of summer.

I do love anime Yu, though. His reactions are the best.

Yeah, the anime had serious pacing issues. It didn't help that they decided to do something interesting and original in the summer S-linking episode, but that thing just took up an episode of the two-parter progressing nearly nothing when they could have spent two episodes on the S-links.

Yeah, following it would be difficult Devil and Tower is probably possible, not maxed but would have serious progress. Death definitely can't be maxed. can make it up earlier and what not. Working on one social link at a time doesn't quite work anyways. It seems like an interesting idea though. I thought someone had done it and may have documented it on the internet but nope, didn't find anything.

They do that?! I just cannot see Adachi as anything other than psychotic, which you know is fine if you like him like that but his cuteness was abolished when they showed him killing of announcer lady and Yosuke's first crush girl. (what? I am horrible with names) just the way he treats them hits so many rage buttons ahhh.

I thought it was hilarious that they finished all of those links in one week/episode especially because that is exactly what happens to me when I spread all of my attention out between all the links instead of focusing on one. I ended up finishing like three or four links within two weeks.

Basically, yeah. I mean most of it was just going "ooh he's so sexy" while not mentioning anything else, which while not egregious still really rubs me the wrong way. It's just... creepy. Like talking about how you're attracted to RL serial killers.

Meanwhile, on my Golden copy...



We are sooooo getting arrested again.

A continuation of my misadventures:

TEDDIE

I DON'T WANT TO GO TO JAIL FOR BESTIALITY

NO

How did you get him to spout haikus? I've never actually gotten that before.

I'm pretty sure you're given a choice of which number of sticks you want, so it's either you or Kanji who gets a heap of bear-loving.

Is it beastiality to bang a shadow?

Well, you would be banging the personification of suppressed human desires.

Right. So doing stuff to Teddie would just be.. Mindfucking.

I actually don't really like P4. This opinion is mostly based on the anime as I've only just started playing the game. I'm sure I'll love the gameplay and stuff like that, it's just parts of the story really annoy me. The whole Naoto plot was just awful, that is how you fail at writing gender issues (also a slap in the face for trans* people) and Kanji is treated like a big gay joke. Then there's the way the teacher and that fat girl are treated in the narrative which is just mean and gross. Lastly there is Yusuke's sexism and homophobia which you can't even call him on and is even reinforced in by Yu in the anime.

This game could be really good but the anime has me scared to play it.

You really can't base your opinion of the game off of the anime. The game is a murder mystery with a shit ton of really well written coming of age stories while the anime was sort of funny sometimes I guess. Also, I will brutally attack anyone who says Naoto is awful in the game.

Pokestine's issues with the story seemed to stem entirely from the problematic elements, which I wholly agree on and really aren't that different in the game, to the best of my recollection. The story does have a lot of great elements, but I can't with a good conscience expect someone to ignore problematic content if they don't want to, and it's IMO perfectly justified to be completely turned off by it.

I'm not saying Naoto is awful. I actually quite like the character what I don't like is how Atlus dropped the ball on trans* issues to an extreme dregree with that particular character storyline. Naoto is very clearly introduced as trans at the beginning of the game and is shown to suffer gender disphoria as well as other classic signs of a trans experience. Unfortunately after Naoto's shadow we are told that Naoto is just uncomfortable being feminine and not trans at all. This suggests that a trans person would be fine if they were just more comfortable in their own body, they wouldn't need to transition or anything like that. Not to mention it completely erases non-binary genders all together. It's kinda a slap in the face to any trans* people who read it. I hope that explains my feeling about Naoto, I love the idea and potential for the character but their story arc is actually painful for me to engage in.

That's fair. Honestly, I can't really claim to know much about the subject, being the straight white guy in a conservative community that I am.

I thought Naoto wanted to be a boy was because the things she liked (being a detective) was what boys liked. She's pretty androgynous and agender though. The teacher is actually kind of creepy in game, not that it makes their action towards her and the girl any better. I think all the guys are homophobic. That has more to do with Japanese society as a whole than the game though. The reactions (the sleeping in tent thing) is actually pretty accurate when it comes to portraying teenagers. I have nothing to say about Kanji because it's play up to the extreme which does piss me off but at the same time, I still like him and the game.