Review of "Persona 4 Golden"

Persona 4 Golden is a turn-based dungeon exploration RPG with relation- and dating-sim elements for the PSVita.
The franchise is one of the biggest among Japanese RPGs and a lot of spin-offs have been made of this game and its predecessors.

Grade:

Plot:
The story is about Yu Narukami, a transfer student to a small village in Japan. Just as he arrived, weird things start to happen. Specifically, a string of murders that are rather bizarre because the bodies look like they have been dropped from the sky, and the fact that Yu can push his body through tv screens to enter another world.
Yu and his new friends, including a big toy bear called Teddie, then start to explore the tv world and find it has a relationship to the string of weird murders and decide they want to save any new victims.
They find they can use special powers in the tv world, called "Persona". Yu has the special ability to carry multiple Persona at the same time (but only use one at any given moment).
The rest of the story kicks of from there.
You, of course, play as Yu Narukami, who you can rename at the start of the game.
The story is very linear and is entirely based on the calendar. Because of this, time management is key.
At certain dates, new dungeons become unlocked, which you have to clear before a certain date or you get a game over.

Gameplay:
The gamplay is mainly split into 2 parts: The tv world and the real world.
Most things take up time and you only have 2 time slots a day, so choose wisely.
Going into the tv world will take up both time slots and can only be started in the first time slot.

   TV world:
The tv world is all about going into dungeons to level up, obtain items, save the person at the end (if applicable), and obtain Persona.
The dungeon's floors are randomly generated, except for a couple specific ones. Usually, these set floors have midbosses or dungeon bosses in them and an event to accompany them.
Bosses will not respawn once you beat them, but getting to the end of a dungeon you have saved the person of before CAN get you into another boss battle. You can get items, tons of exp, and a Courage increase if you beat them.

   Shuffle time:
When a battle ends, you have a chance to get "shuffle time". This event allows you to choose out of a set of randomly chosen tarot cards and can get you extra experience, a Persona, extra money, some healing, and a variety of other effects that the description explains very well. This is the main way to get more Persona in your team.
Clearing out a hand of "shuffle time" guarantees a "shuffle time" after the next battle and gives you an additional 2 card choices. This chain can be continued however many times you can get it to repeat.

   Persona:
To explore dungeons, you need to get, train and use different Persona or you will die very quickly.
Even more so, because you will get a game over if Yu dies.
Persona are the beings that allow you to use magic and other abilities in the dungeons. Every Persona has its strengths and weaknesses.
The game makes a distinction between 7 main elements. These elements are: Physical, Fire (Agi), Ice (Bufu), Electricity (Zio), Wind (Garu), Light (Hama), and Dark (Mudo). Having a combination of Persona with at least a resistance to every element is highly recommended. Having a combination of Persona with attacking abilities of each element is also highly recommended, as some enemies absorb every element but one and you can not beat them if you can not use that element to attack.
Persona can hold up to 8 different abilities at once and can get new ones through fusing or leveling up.
Keep in mind that only the Persona you have active when the fight ends and those with the "Growth" ability get experience from the fight.
Persona can be obtained randomly in dungeons, by buying them from the "Velvet room" or by fusing them.

   Velvet room:
The "Velvet room" is an area that can be accessed from both the real world and the tv world and does not take up time. It acts as a shop and a forge, if you were to compare it to other RPGs.
In it, you can record your Persona and buy them as you recorded them for some yen (Japanese currency and, subsequently, the game's currency) and talk to its residents.
You can also fuse Persona by offering up some of the Persona you have on you. The new Persona will get some abilities from the Persona you offered up, selected by you. This allows you to make insanely strong Persona if you know what you are doing. Fusing a Persona can also give it additional experience if the "Social link" of that type is high.
Lastly, you can give and buy skill cards. These cards can be obtained from the dungeons and allow you to give your active Persona the ability it corresponds with. Giving a skill card to the vendor in the Velvet room allows you to buy the skill card by unlimited quantities, so, if you have the money, it is highly recommended you give new cards to her immediately.

   Real world:
The real world is where you go to school, explore the town, level up your "Social links", generally continue the story, and a lot of other things. Going into everything you can do would make this review quite long and is not very necessary, as it is pretty easy to figure out for yourself. Suffice to say, is that there is a lot to do.
The 2 most important things to do in the real world is to level up your "Social links" and increase Yu's social stats.

   Social links:
Social links are the measure of how close you are to certain people or groups. Every social link stands for a tarot card and has a level of 0 through 10 (0 being "not found yet"). Once you found social link-related people and started a social link, you can increase it by spending time with them (usually 1 time slot) and making the right choices in the dialogue options that tend to pop up. Every Persona has a tarot card type as well, and carrying a Persona with a type that is the same as the person you are spending time with, will increase the amount of relationship points you get for your dialogue choices.
Some specific social links level up throughout the story or by doing certain sidequests. For these, carrying a Persona of that type has no effect.

   Social stats:
Yu Narukami has social stats. These social stats are a measure of how good you are at certain social aspects and you can increase them through a variety of activities, ranging from working and going to school, to folding origami and eating at a restaurant. Getting these stats up is sometimes necessary to complete sidequests or to start a social link.
Every one of the 5 stats (Courage, Diligence, Understanding, Expression, and Knowledge) can have up to 5 levels and you can never really see how far you are to getting to the next one. Just keep getting points for them and they will level up eventually.

   Sidequests:
There are a lot of sidequests in the game. Usually, sidequests require you to find an item in a dungeon and give it to the questgiver. Some sidequests are quite obscure and require some problem solving or exploring to get done.
Once a sidequest is done, you can get items, equipment, money, or a social link level increase.
Some sidequests also require you to have unlocked particular areas or dungeons.

   Equipment:
Every character in your party has 3 equipment slots and a costume slot. The equipment slots are for a weapon, some body armour, and an accessory. You can find these in dungeons, get them from sidequests, or buy them from a store in town. This store gets more equipment when you sell it particular sellable items. A message will appear once you have unlocked a new piece of equipment in the shop. These particular sellable items are regular drops from enemies in the dungeons.

Graphics:
The graphics are 3D and quite detailed. The movement of the characters is quite smooth, the dungeons each have their own style, and the town is pretty clearly a bustling town. Events with the characters have custom animations that fit incredibly well.
Sometimes, there are some 2D animations in an anime style. These are generally very short, but (again) fit very well. In fact, they grab your attention because of the difference in graphic style.
Conversations are usually in Visual Novel style, with text in the bottom and 2D characters on the side when they are talking.

Music:
The music is generally very instrumental. Barely any singing can be found in the music.
Battle music is fast and clearly present, helping you feel pumped for the fight.
Background music is different in every major area, including the dungeons, and usually supports the theme of every individual dungeon.
Boss battle music is clearly that: boss battle music. It makes it clear that this enemy is strong and you need to be careful, but it also pumps you up.

Endings:
There are a couple of endings in this game. There are a couple bad endings and a couple good endings. For the "true" ending you need to do very specific things during the course of the game, and for the bad endings it is usually pretty clear when you are heading for one. Generally, the bad endings are the result of a very stupid conversational choice, like choosing not to help people in the tv world.

New game +:
After a good ending (i.e. finishing the game), you can start a new game+ (henceforth: NG+). NG+ allows you to carry over your items, money, Persona records, and social stats. NG+ does not carry over your social links or character levels. For this reason, it is highly recommended you get a couple of good Persona recorded and ready, as well as the money to buy them, and to get your social stats maxed out in the first run.

Tips and tricks:

• Again, SuperButterBuns made an amazing video to introduce you into the game.
• For a social link guide, take a look here.
• Highly recommend using this (or any other) guide for all the tests and question in school in the game. The questions are rather random and you will most likely not know most of the answers.
• Are you low on HP or SP? Use a Goho-M or another such item to exit the current dungeon (and save the floor you were on) and go back to an easier dungeon to use shuffle time to heal up. Seriously, you can keep going forever using this trick once you have cleared the first dungeon.
• Clear a dungeon immediately if possible or take a few days to clear it as fast as you can.
• Do not forget to save and have multiple saves, so that you can easily go back to an earlier one if you mess up badly.
• The only social links that have additional effects are your team's social links, the Hermit social link, the Jester social link, and the Aeon social link, so focus on those first. Specifically the Lovers social link. Seriously, its effects are really good.
• Black Frost is OP. Get it. Specifically try to get it with the "Null physical" ability. Seriously, you will not regret it (I used Black Frost as my main Persona for the entirety of the game the moment I got it).
• Use Naoto once you get her. She is objectively the most versatile of your allies.
• For an additional dungeon, get the Aeon social link maxed out asap.
• You can romance multiple girls at the same time, but make sure you do not go on dates if you do. (Dates are not actually necessary to increase social links).
• If you try to open a chest and someone has a bad feeling, do NOT open it or you are in for a bad time, UNLESS you are extremely high-leveled. The creature in it may not be worth much money- and experience-wise, it does give you a really good weapon if you manage to beat it.
• Grind, grind, GRIND!

Good points:

• "Collect them all" vibe.
• Clear, but rather deep, battle system.
• Interesting and quirky characters.
• Solid story.

Bad points:

• VERY grindy.
• Only characters that fight with you gain experience.
• Very repetitive dungeons in the randomly generated areas.

Conclusion:

Most people who like Japanese RPGs have probably already played this, but if not, I highly recommend you do. Not many RPGs are as unique as the Persona series and the focus is (surprisingly) a little more on the story than the gameplay. For this reason, I would also recommend it to people who want to play games for the story or for getting to know the characters.

It has made me smile and laugh out loud very often and that is never a bad thing.