An imperfect portĪdmittedly the weaknesses in Persona 4 Golden are most glaring as someone who recently played Persona 5 Royal, which released in the U.S. Imagine the game as Pokémon if it was based on the philosophy of Jurgen Habermas. This means deciding when you can afford to take a day off of the quest at hand to improve your skills or build your relationships with other characters by hanging out and talking through their problems. You have to manage your resources while fighting but also keep track of your time. Each person trapped in the TV world puts you on a timer until you can rescue them by exploring the procedurally generated dungeons. The Personas are your source of special skills ranging from healing powers to the elemental-aligned attacks that serve as the focal point of most of the turn-based battles. You can then fuse these Personas together into more powerful and customizable creatures, which are also strengthened based on the relationships you have with other characters in the game. You alone have the ability to harness multiple Personas by defeating monstrous Shadows who reward you with tarot cards.

Persona 4 Golden cleverly draws upon the trope of the blank slate protagonist by making your character's amorphousness into a game mechanic. Those who lack the strength of will or friends to back them up die in the real world. For our plucky heroes, that provides a cathartic experience that gives them the power to use these Personas in battle.

It turns out that there's another realm that some people can access through their TV screens, and if you visit, you'll be confronted with the manifestation of the darkest aspects of your own personality.

Persona 4 vs persona 4 golden