Let's Play Persona 4: Everyday's Great at your Junes!

So. Persona 4.



This game probably doesn't need much introduction. It's one of my all-time favorites, and it ate more than 100 hours of my life. It's the second game in what many people consider a spin-off series of the Shin Megami Tensei games, and it shares a lot of similarities with Persona 3.

However, despite being built on the same game mechanics, playing Persona 4 is a very different experience from playing Persona 3. Persona 4 has a much, much more light-hearted atmosphere, which you can feel even before the start of the game just by looking at the title screen. Yellow is definitely the color theme for Persona 4, and it is very appropriate. Expect a lot of teenage jokes, silly moments, socializing with friends, and adorableness.

So, without further ado, let's get started.



Here we have to select a difficulty:



To be honest, the only difficulty level I've ever played on is Normal. I'm not hardcore enough to know what Expert is like. We're sticking with normal this time, too.



Your standard disclaimer.

I tried for quite a while to find the intro video on you tube, but the closest thing I could find was the intro to the anime instead. So I have to make do with screenshots.



The first thing we see in the game is this fog. It just now occurred to me that this may be foreshadowing plot elements.



There's something in the fog, too. It's not very clear from the screenshots, but it's a limousine.







Here we get the first glimpse at the people inside the limousine. An attractive woman, but she's not alone:



There's an old man with a long nose sitting with her. If you've played Persona 3, you'll recognize him as Igor from the Velvet Room. You'll also notice Elizabeth's absence. I like Elizabeth quite a lot in Persona 3, so it's a pity she won't show up in this game at all.



In any case, the old man is just contemplating something, probably matters of life and the universe, harmlessly enough...



... ugh. On second thought, he's kind of scary. "Welcome to the Velvet Room," he says.

The velvet room music.









I have to say that I like Igor's voice acting a lot. Persona 4 just has excellent voice acting in general, but Igor's got to be one of the best here. It's even better than it was in Persona 3.



"Why don't you introduce yourself?"



And here you are faced with your first choice of the game. What should we name our silent MC?

Persona 4 is all about choices, and so it would be unkind of me to not offer many choices to the readers. I would ask you to rank the social links that you want to see, but given that some people here are unfamiliar with the social links, and the people who are probably have seen all of them anyway, I feel that wouldn't be optimal.

Fortunately, I plan to play one game-day for each real-life day --- unless the game goes several days without saving, or a dungeon takes too long. So just vote for who you want our poor guy to hang out with on a day-to-day basis.

damn that guy is creepy!

Don't creep-shame, flawgic.

Name the PC Pockets after the way he's always running with his hands not in his pockets.

I like Pockets. That's a good name.

Frankie. Because Igor.

I've played some SMT games and like them a lot, but never tried any Persona. High school kids scared me off.

Hot

We need a first AND last name!

I think we have our name.

I was going to say Pockets Lint, but I like Hot Pockets so much more. Also the Japanese first name last name thing.

Kenpachi Ramasama?

No, Hot Pockets.

Pants Pockets?

Ahh this is going to be the longest imaginable LP

Pants Pockets

Yeah. Pants Pockets, Japanese style.

Pockets Pants

Hot Pockets.

I figured I'd be all pretentious like and go look up the Latin for pocket, as that's winning anyway, only to discover that the Latin word for pocket is apparently "sinus". Which actually makes a lot of sense.

Anyway, we should clearly call the protagonist "Nose".

I like Pants Pockets, with the first/last order being whichever way results in people calling him Pockets most of the time.

I dunno, he looks like a Perry. Perry Pockets.

Fred Jones

There is no other option.

It looks like Hot Pockets as last and first names is currently the winning option, so Unless Pants Pockets or other names get more vote before I leave work this evening, that's what we'll go with!

I also prefer Pants Pockets, in whichever order.

Jim Gaffigan compels you!

Vote Tally:

Hot Pockets: 6
CaliScrub
FalseLogic
Loki
TirMcDohl
Gerad
Zef

Kempachi Ramasama: 0
TirMcDohl

Pants Pockets: 6
TirMcDohl
ozacrot
Destil
Yimothy
Mogri
Solitayre

Nose: 1
Teaspoon

Perry Pockets: 1
Isrieri

Fred Jones: 1
Mr. Bean

The (work) day is almost ending, and we have a tie! Why do you guys do this? And McDohl, you can't vote for two people names at the same time!

Jim Gaffigan voted for Hot Pockets!

I accuse Pants Pockets.

Game, set, match.

Hot Pockets, please.

A vote for Pants Pockets is a vote for Inaba.

SO tempted to abuse my mod powers and rig this vote...

Too late!



Our conversation with Creepy Long-Nosed Guy is not finished, however. He has more important things to say, like the future. And he just conjured a Tarot deck out of thin air.







I'm not an avid Tarot fan or anything, but I once looked into Tarot readings because of Reasons. And so it bothers me that the cards aren't laid out in any particular type of spreads. I don't know of any 3x3 square spread, but then Igor doesn't exactly follow human conventions, so maybe it's something only he knows.

The closest thing to this I know is a Harrow spread. In a harrow spread the left most column represents the past, the middle the present, and the rightmost the future. These cards, however, are all about the future it seems.





This may have contributed to the misconception that a Tarot reading will tell you the future, which isn't really the point of Tarot.





Ah, well, got it. I guess we're done here--



... or not.



I'd like to point attention to Margaret's yellow eyes. She's the only character in the game that has yellow eyes. In Persona 3, the only character with yellow eyes is Elizabeth, Margaret's sister and also a velvet room assistant. I have some theories about the significant of this fact, but that's to be shared later.



Oh, did you know that all the avatars blink?



Oh! I guess that's it then. We can start playing the game and walking around and stuff now, right?

Hahaha no. Next up: ready for the longest intro you've ever seen in a video game.