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

You'll always be hot pockets to me...

*sniff*

Persona 4: The Intro (Part I)

The intro movie is played, and there's this girl in bikini:



She's an important character that will be known to us later as Rise Kujikawa. Right now, it turns out she's just part of a TV ad.

The news starts talking about an affair between a politician and a journalist. The affair was discovered by the politician's wife, an enka singer.



This, we assume, is a street in Pants Pockets' home city. The game never reveals where the protagonist comes from. It looks like he comes to Inaba on a non-express train though, so he probably isn't very far away. I used to wonder whether he's from Iwatodai, the city where Persona 3 takes place, but that seems unlikely as he doesn't show much connection to the place when the Persona 4 characters visit it later.



Our protagonist's first appearance. He's waiting for the train to Inaba.



Like the protagonist in Persona 3, in this game our Pants Pockets is always silent. You will never hear or read him say any word (except for calling different Personas), and anything he says will appear as dialog choices. As a result, he doesn't have any pre-defined personality, and the idea is that it's up to the player to give him a personality. That said, there's a certain "feel" to his appearance that may give you an idea of what the game designers had in mind for him as a character. If Persona 3's Minato is sort of a loner with his headphones and his hair that covers half of his face, our Pants Pockets looks like a much more open and friendly guy.

If you think that the silent protagonist idea is kind of awkward; well, it's really not. You get used to it surprisingly fast. In fact, I still cringe every time I hear his voice in Persona 4 Arena, where he has his own lines and acts on his own.

In any case, Mr. Pants is a 11th grade student transferring from a big city to the middle-of-nowhere suburb of Inaba. The game kind of glosses over the details of how this happens. The only explanation given is that his parents are going abroad for a year, so he has to stay with his uncle... who just sent him a text.



We also get a glimpse at the uncle and a little girl sitting at home, watching the news. The news is talking about the affair again. Must be a very slow day for news.



Back on the train, Pants Pockets falls asleep and suddenly has a dream/flashback of the velvet room.



Also of this strange woman struggling with something:



Eventually, we arrive at Inaba!

Persona 4: The Intro (Part II)

This is in front of the Yasoinaba station. Pockets is looking around and his uncle spots him first.



This is pretty much the only time in the game you see Dojima's first name. I even completely forgot that he has a first name until now.

Dojima is one of the social links of this game. Since he's an evening social link, we're very likely to max it.



Our very first dialog choice! Very exciting. Let's go with "It's been a long time."



Err, that's kind of embarrassing. Should have chosen something else instead.





Nanako is another of our social links, and she's definitely the most adorable. She's a little bit shy right now, though. She's also an evening social link, and so we're likely to see her story till the end too.



Yeah.



Ouch. She knows how to make a point.



Into the car and homeward! But before that, we're stopping at the gas station.





Do 6-year-old normally not capable of going to the bathroom by themselves? I don't know.



The gas station attendant certainly doesn't think so!

This is just a simple exchange, but it's pretty telling about how prominent right-handedness is in Japan. Unlike in the US where no one cares much about whether you're right-handed or left-handed, Japanese kids are almost always trained to be right-handed. Being left-handed is generally considered undesirable. My sister was naturally left-handed and used her left hand a lot, but was eventually trained to be right-handed by my parents.





20 minutes in Inaba max, and Pants Pockets already got a job offer. Geez.



Then he left to do his job. Certainly there's a white flash on the screen, and Pockets is holding his head.

Persona 4: The Intro (Part II, cont)

That was strange! But anyway, we're done here, so let's head home.



This is the Dojima residence. It looks like a family dinner is coming up.



You bet! They're so busy that they never even call him once during his entire year here.



And another dialogue choice!



Things are looking cozy, but Dojima suddenly receives a phone call.





-- but what about dinner --





For a 6-year-old kid, Nanako surely does a lot in this house. She's even in charge of the laundry.



This is a common theme in the relationship between Nanako and Dojima, and also in our social link with them. Dojima is dedicated to his work and is willing to postpone other obligations at a moment's notice. Nanako tries to be as understanding as possible, but there's only so much a 6-year-old could do. As we understand Dojima and Nanako more, their desires and motivations will be clearer to us.

Of note here is the absence of a mother figure in the Dojima household. Nanako's mother died a while ago, and her absence really leaves a hole in the Dojima's and Nanako's lives. The better we know Dojima and Nanako, the more we'll also know about this.

In the mean time, Nanako finds entertainment in the world of television.



Weather is an important element of Persona 4, for reasons that will be apparent later. We will find ourselves looking at the weather forecast quite often.



A very... promising... situation.



Nanako says she's used to it, though. This seems to be common in their house. She reveals that her father is a detective.

Again?! There's really nothing newsworthy today. Oh well, this is just a random news story. I'm sure it doesn't have any plot significance.



At least Nanako is wise. She won't give in to sensational journalism and those sensational ads--





-- oh wait. She's singing along.

After dinner, we finally get a chance to take control of Pants Pockets and move around a bit (but not for too long). There aren't a lot of places we can move to either.



We take this opportunity to save the game, as it will be unfortunate to have to sit through everything again.

Next: even more introduction!

Why is there a dining table with chairs if they eat in the living room sitting on the floor?

Middle--? He looks like he's maybe 35!

It's all downhill from there! He might as well lie down in his grave already!

What's wrong with this country?! Can't a man walk down the street without being offered a job!

"And that only was two years ago!"

"Just a quick drive-thru circumcision and we'll be on our way."

Nanako photobomb!

"Yeah, there's a leak from the exhaust pipe underneath the back seat. Dad's been meaning to fix it, be he says we should be oh... oh... way? I always forget what's after the O..."

She can balance a checkbook better than most 40 year-olds.

> You decided to run for it.

My town tune in Animal Crossing is the Junes jingle.

What is a Social Link?

So they can watch TV of course!

This question is surprisingly hard to answer for some reason! Essentially, it's just a connection. Once you know someone a little bit, you have a connection with them, and they become one of your social links. The more ranks the social link has, the deeper the connection is.

They can't just call those acquaintances some of which develop into friendships? Or kith and kin?

We'll get the lowdown on social links later. But the gist is that if you become better friends with people around Inaba, it translates in to improvements in the combat scheme of things.

So, lots of potentially awkward bonding/dating scenes. Gotcha.

By the way, it's "every day." "Everyday" is an adjective.

A little thing I like is that they actually added a very small walking section right after the gas station scene in Persona 4 Golden. This section also has a save butterfly which I presume is so players can have a spot where they can basically start over if needed without having to watch the entire intro.

The voice acting in later Persona and Shin Megami Tensei games as a whole is absolutely incredible.

Also, Persona 4 is one of my favorite games and I'm looking forward to reading this.

Yeah, Golden added two or three "save breaks" to The Longest Intro Ever, which is one of my favorite improvements. Nothing much you can do, other than save and talk to NPCs, but you can even spot some future S.Links out on the street!

Wormz, just to let you know if I end up buying Golden AND a Vita to play it on I'm blaming this thread.

I call that a success personally.

Yeah, I realized that, but I can't change the thread title

Golden seems to have tons of improvement and interesting contents. I really wish I could be doing an LP of P4G instead. Alas, I'm unlikely to ever get a Vita. It needs a PS3 port already!

(Did you know that you can now play PS3: FES on a PS3 by downloading it from PSN?)

EDIT: Also, there are THUNDERING days in P4G?! D:

Persona 4: The Intro (Part II) (cont)

This is our first opportunity to take control of Pants Pockets, so let's move around a bit and do some exploration. There isn't much we can do at the moment, but let's do what we can.

First I'd like to explain the game interface.



The interface is very clean and non-clutter. In the top left corner, you can find today's date, day of the week, phase of the day, and the weather. That's pretty much it. Whenever we're near and facing an object or person we can interact with, the "CHECK!!(x)" thing appears, and so does a little label that says what it is in the bottom right corner.

The game doesn't want Pockets to leave Dojima's house at the moment.



There are a few things he can do in the house. He can check the fridge.





As you will find out, the game encourages us to steal food from the fridge that's totally not ours. This is one of those times.



That's quite strange for fried rice, yeah!

This time, the food doesn't do anything to Pockets. On occasions, however, something really awful will appear in the fridge, and if Pockets eat it his Courage will increase (more on the stats later), but he will feel sick and go to bed right away.

There's also the kitchen.



Once in a while, Nanako will buy ingredients for lunch, and Pockets can make lunch for the next day at the kitchen. He can share his lunch with a friend at school, and if that person likes what he makes, they'll get some music notes (think of the music notes as friendship points). Mechanically, you can think of this as exchanging an evening slot for a day slot.

Nanako sits on the floor and watches TV pretty much all evenings. She's still shy at the moment, though.





Speaking of TV, Pockets can watch the weather forecast on TV. Here we learn about his hypocrisy: he only asks for permission if Nanako is sitting there staring at him.



Lots of rain ahead of us!

That's pretty much it for the first floor of Dojima's house. Pocket's room is on the second floor, which he can get to through the stairs.



There are still a lot of boxes around since Pockets just moved in today. There's a shelf that we can't interact with much throughout the whole game --- though models and things Pockets make will show up there. There's also a couch, which he can read books on, and a work table for him to make models and fold cranes at.

There's also a TV in this room. We can use it to check the weather, and watch the shopping network on Sundays.



There's also a desk, but the game doesn't want us to study. I mean, Pockets hasn't even started school yet!



Lastly, there's a futon that Pockets can sleep at. Going to sleep will end the current day.



There's not much else we can do, so we'll just go to sleep for now.

Persona 4: The Intro (Part II) (final)

Pockets opens his eyes, but he's not at Dojima's house anymore.



There's a whole lot of fog.





The game again gives us control of Pockets. Nothing we can do except for walking forward.



Can you hear the creepy voice in your head?



There's no one around, so let's walk forward a bit more.





Eventually, we reach a wall. What's with this place and its lack of walls?



Oh, it's a door, to be more precise.

Music.



What are you talking about? We have no idea who you are. You're the one pursuing us!



Oh... well. Anyway, get ready for our first combat!



The combat menu is a bit limited right now, as many options are not yet available to us. I'll just explain the ones we can currently use and save the rest for another time.

Guard: We don't attack this turn, but our defense is increased. If we are attacked, we take less damage.

Attack: We attack with whatever weapon we're holding. This is considered a physical attack. Hey, speaking of which, where does that sword come from? I'm pretty sure he wasn't holding it just a moment ago!

We can command Pockets and his party (once he's gotten some party member) to automatically attack each turn with the "Rush" option. Once we press the triangle button to initiate Rush, all PCs will attack right away on their turn without any player input. To stop rush, we can press the triangle button again. This is quite handy.

Skills: This is a list of skills our Persona has. Considering that Pockets hasn't gotten his first Persona yet, I'm not really sure where all these skills come from!



Some information is available to us just by looking at the skill list. The symbol just before the skill name tells us what kind of skill it is. The bolt means an electricity attack, the arrow means a physical attack, and the badge with a cross means a support skill. On the right is what it costs to use the skill. You'll notice that some skills cost SP (you can think of it as your mana), while other skills cost HP. More on types of skills and their cost later.

We can press the square button to get a short description of what the skill is.





For our first attack, let's go with Zio.



The enemy takes 6 damage. They don't seem to be hurt at all. Whoaa, I think we're in trouble.

Maybe they're electricity resistance. Let's use a vanilla attack next.



Uhm. I don't think that worked really well either.



We barely scratched them, so I'm not sure what interesting quality they see in Pockets. Anyway, for our next attack, let's use Cleave.



That didn't do much to them either!



As if to make a point, she use Bewildering Fog. The area is even foggier.





Oh no! Pockets can't see anything in this fog.



Let's try again!



We'll just try the same thing over and over. It will work eventually, right?





Or not...

What is happening to our Pockets? Next: even more intro!

Persona 4: The Intro (Part III)

So I took over 300 pictures for an in-game day. Then people told me that I don't have to have a screenshot for every line of dialog. So I'm going to try that thing where I post the first few screenshots, then transcribe the rest. This may work a bit better and this thread won't have ALL THE PICTURES EVER, but I don't know whether it will worsen the quality of your reading experience or not. So yeah, let me know!

Anyway. Pockets wakes up from his dream, feeling like he had some nightmare. This is the day changing screen.



It's your first day of school, and Nanako has made some breakfast.



They're even eating at the dining table! With chairs!



Nanako: I can toast bread... and cook sunny-side up eggs in the morning. Dad can't cook, so I buy dinner. You're starting school today, right?



Pockets decides to walk to school with Nanako. It's raining out, just as the weather forecast says. Did you know that in this world the weather forecast is always accurate?



By the way, I love the fact that the game has changing weather, mechanic-relevant or not. It's one of the things that make P4 better than P3 for me. Changing weather really makes a place and its people comes into life, and less like video game place and characters.

Anyway, Nanako leaves you here to walk to her school in a different direction.

On your walk alone to school, you run into a biking student.





It must be painful, from the way he's holding his stuff like that! The subject of this guy's nuts will keep coming up in the future, so just wait for it.

He totally has it coming, though. Who bikes with an umbrella? But Pants Pockets is totally a video game hero, so he will totally help out a person in distress.



... or not. What kind of video game hero is he?

Leaving the poor guy behind, we finally arrive at Yasogami High.



Our classroom is buzzing with chatters.







That must be Pockets!

Female student: Hey you guys, I heard there's going to be a transfer student from the city in this class.
Sitting student: Huh? Really? A guy or a girl?

The most important question to know about any transfer student!



A character with her own sprite and avatar! She must be an important character.



This is the biking guy we saw earlier.



Another important character!

At this point, the camera changes and the notorious teacher arrives, accompanied by our protagonist.



Mr. Morooka: Awright, shut your traps! I'm Kinshiro Morooka, your homeroom teacher from today forward!

(Whoaa, King Moron has a first name!)

Mr. Morooka: First thing first! Just because it's spring doesn't mean you can swoon over each other like lovestruck baboons. Long as I'm around, you students are going to be pure as the driven snow!
Now I hate wasting my time, but I better introduce this transfer student. This sad sack's been thrown from the big city out to the middle of nowhere like yesterday's garbage. And he's just as much of a loser here as he was there, so you girls better not get any idea about hitting on him! Tell 'em your name, kid, and make it quick.



Personally I'd go with "Nice to meet you all!", but this is the better option to choose, because...



We didn't just get more courageous for free, however.

Persona 4: The Intro (Part III) (cont)

Mr. Morooka: Now listen up! This town is miles away from your big city of perverts and assholes, in more ways than one. You better not think of getting involved with the girls here, let alone abusing them! But what do I know... it's not like the old days. Even here, kids grow up so damn fast. Every time I turn my back, you're fooling around on those damn phones, checking your life-journals, and your my-places...



Who will save us from this torment?





Pockets promptly does just that!



Other classmates start gossiping about Pockets and Mr. Morooka. Mr. Morooka quickly shuts everyone up, of course.

Eventually classes are over, and we can finally go home. Or can we?



School intercom: All students must return to their classrooms and are not to leave the school until further notice.
Mr. Morooka: Hrnh. You heard the announcement. Don't go anywhere until you hear otherwise.

Looks like something strange's happened. There are sirens in the distance, too.



Exicted student: Ugh, I can't see a damn thing. Frickin' fog.
Rumor-loving student: Yeah, like every time it rains lately, it gets all foggy.
Knowledgeable student: Hey, did you hear? I hear the paparazzi's looking all over for that announcer.
Rumor-loving student: Oh yeah. You mean Mayumi Yamano, right? I heard some guys spotted her at the shopping district.
Knowledgeable student: Actually, I heard that...*whispers*
Rumor-loving student: Are you serious!?

Geez, about these people on the news again. It feels like they're the protagonist of the game, not Pants Pockets.

The rumor-loving student walks over to one of the Important Characters from before.





What a nosy guy! He walks away, and other characters start to complain about having to wait in the classroom.







Wait, is that a...rumor?



At this point, the students are dismissed.

School intercom: Attention, all students. There has been an incident in the school district. Police officers have been dispatched around the school zone. Please stay calm and contact your parents or guardians as soon as possible, and quickly leave the school ground. Do not disturb the police officers. Head directly home.

Next, we get to hear something from an NPC so minor that they're referred to by their relationship with another minor generic NPC:



Pockets is about to go home when the two girls approach him.





We're not quite a jerk, so we'll go with "Of course."

Japanese people are way too polite.

As we're heading out, the biking student from before showed up. Except this time, he's called "bleak-looking student."





Whoa, what was that about? Before we can even say anything, he runs away. But Chie is not so easily bullied.





Yukiko asks the obvious question.







But of course, our hero will surely help him...



...uhm.

On our way home, we encounter a creepy guy.



Yukiko: What..? Wh-who are you?
Onlooking student: What's up with him? What school's he from?
Spectacled student: Never mind that, he's going for Yukiko-san? Man, you'd think he'd at least wait until she's alone to make his move...

Take note, Talking Time!

Onlooking student: I bet you a can of TaP he gets knocked out.
Spectacled student: No bet. Haven't you heard how difficult the Amagi Challenge is?

The Amagi challenge is apparently who can court Yukiko Amagi. There's nothing more to it than that.



This guy knows how to convince a lady!



Then he storms off. I mean, how dare Yukiko reject him?! That's just unacceptable.

And here you get an idea of how clueless Yukiko is about stuff like this.

Yukiko: Wh-What did he want from me...?
Chie: What did he want? Obviously, he was asking you out on a date.
Yukiko: Huh? Really?
Chie: You really had no clue? Sheesh... But then again, that was way over the top. It was creepy how he called you Yuki all of a sudden.

The bleak-looking student from before appears with his bike, except this time he's a "cycling student".



Cycling student: Man, you're cruel... you got me the same way last year.
Yukiko: I don't recall doing that.





Cycling student: Anyway, you two better not pick on the transfer student too much.
Chie: We're just curious, is all!
Yukiko: U-um, I'm sorry for dragging you into this.

Yeah, that's Yukiko. Apologizing to us left and right.

Guuuuyyyss this game has so much text.

And there's still 3.5 in-game days left of the introduction.

Can you believe this

We tried to warn you!