Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Masterpiece"

To tell you the truth after playing Chrono Cross so many years ago, I've never thought that I will find second jRPG that will deserve the highest score. But...here it is, the Persona 4 the game that made me really surprised and it will probably stay in my mind forever.
From the first look, the Persona 4 may look just like typical jrpg but definitely it isn't just an ordinary game about rescuing the world or destroying the big evil guy. It's rather something else, Persona is about emotions, about people problems that we can often encounter in real life, that is definitely the greatest aspect of the newest entry in Persona series. I won't tell anything about the story because you can read about it in other reviews or just discover it for yourselves. I can only assure you that story in this game is great and any fan of this genre should be satisfied. There are many twistes that can make you surprise and you won't find anything boring about story in this title. To nearly end you will be sucked in front of your TV and you will be anxious what will happen next. This is definitely one of the best story I have ever seen.
Okay let's move to the gameplay aspect because as all you know that's the most important feature in any video game. Traditionally for Persona series your main protagonist is a high school student, that means he will be spending much of his time in a school. And well, a school in Inaba (the countryside where story takes place) is small but you will spend many hours there, finding new sidequests, new friends, etc. Also the Inaba is very small place, there are only few locations that you can visit, but that's enough to make players interested mainly because of social link system. A social links occurs when you will make a friendship with some locals or your party members, and with each meeting it will grow stronger, with most of a girls you're realationships may become intimate, as for the rest you can become close friends. Every social link is very interesting, each one will tell you more about character that you actually speeking with, and Persona have the most unical characters from jRPG genre that's for sure. Everyone in this game are exactly like people that we know from our real lifes, they've got problems like we or our friends have. The characters are so realistic, there is even some kind of gay, or a girl that want's to be like males, or even teacher's on a school trips are drinking alcohol. Maybe it can sound funny, but that makes us players much easier to understand these characters. Really after finishing Persona 4 I feel a very close bond to these characters, especially to the mates from my team, everyone got very individual way of talking, style etc.
Okay enough about characters, let's return to gameplay aspect. Instead of Social Links in Inaba, you can go fishing, shopping, working as part time worker or just raise your several statistics such as knowledge, dilligence, expression, understanding and courage(they are very important for some social links). Okay but you may ask - hey this is jRPG not a social life game, so where are the battles? Ah so here they are, faster than you can say - "PERSONA!". The main protagonist and his friends will quickly find an ability to travelling to the other world inside the TV. The TV world is just a big dungeon where you will spend dozen of hours running trough random generated locations, finding treasure chests and of course fighting with enemies! Well the battles in Persona are another great aspect of this game, you can control every team mate or just leave they actions to AI, which is also good idea because it's quite intelligent. Battles are somewhat hard, each enemy is usually strong and if you won't learn about their weak spots (if you hit enemy with it's weakness, you will gain additional turn) , quickly you will be easily defeated by them. The boss battles are very challenging too, they have tons of HP, and only experienced players like me won't find so may problems to deal with them. Each dungeon have 10 or more floors, each one have other setting and music so you won't get bored. Of course you will collect some Personas, you can fuse them into the new ones in the Velvet Room but I don't want to write about it, because my review will quicky turn into book :P As for the music and graphics, of course the graphics is a PS2 standard, a music is great, I'm still listening Persona 4 OST. Every theme is cool, and everyone will love Persona music.
As for the endings I really reccomend to play a true ending route, the last fight with the true boss is so satisfying (I died 5 times) and the music theme will make you beg for more, but sadly it's the end of Persona 4. I really don't want to end this game, the characters are so cool I like them all (TEEDDIE) but sadly I can't and the story is over, making me fell, that it was one of the best games I have ever played. I really reccomend it to all of jRPG's fan's, especially to those experienced.