T he badly delayed the release of Persona 4 Golden on Steam has finally enabled legions of JRPG fans to play this landmark release. For many, myself included, Persona 5 was our introduction to the Persona series , and to say the least, it was a pleasure not to buy a PlayStation Vita to play the final version of Persona 4 . Having completed my P4G playthrough in about 60 hours, it’s only natural that I would like to compare it to Persona 5 (and subsequent Persona 5 Royal). This is not to belittle the flaws of one game or put the other on a pedestal – both games are absolutely fantastic, and each is a watershed moment in the genre. The release of new games in the series over time goes hand in hand with iteration in game design, so naturally there will be elements that will objectively improve as the series progresses. With that said, the purpose of this article is to compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses and intentions of Persona 4 and Persona 5 .
Gameplay
Let’s make a simple comparison first – on a purely mechanical level, like JRPG, Persona 5 is a complete update and improvement over Persona 4 . The basic gameplay is the same – turn-based combat revolves around exploiting the enemy’s weaknesses. If one of the group members you control takes advantage of the enemy’s weakness, he will be knocked down and the character will have another turn. Knock down all the enemies, and the player can launch a powerful “all-out attack”. However, in Persona 5the player has more options in combat (with the addition of new elemental attacks, which means more potential weaknesses to exploit), as well as many quality of life options to make battles seem faster and faster. smoother, such as being able to automatically target an enemy with a skill that hits their weak points with the push of a button.
In terms of level design, the vast majority of dungeon progress in Persona 4 is based on passing through randomly generated corridors, which have superficial differences in appearance depending on which dungeon the player is currently in. Persona 5 improves on this by adding story-driven dungeons. place on handcrafted levels with fixed design. Not all of them are equally interesting, but it’s clear that a lot of work has gone into the design of each dungeon in Persona 5 . Individual dungeon design for each major antagonist allows Persona 5use more liberties with game mechanics in these dungeons (for example, teleporting pictures in an art museum dungeon or a code-breaking mechanic in a bank dungeon). Additionally, casual level design lovers can still experience this aspect of gameplay in Persona 5’s Mementos Zone , which is very similar to Persona 4’s randomly generated dungeons .
The iteration of the series formula extends beyond battles and dungeon crawling. The other half of the Persona series’ gameplay revolves around building relationships (referred to as “Social Links” and “Trusted Relationships” in Persona 4 and Persona 5 , respectively ) and performing various tasks to improve your character’s social characteristics throughout your daily life . Persona 5 improves the mechanics of comparison with Persona 4 , making it easier to understand what kind of people you can spend time on any given day, as well as providing support to social links tangible game bonuses when you improve your relationship with them. Generally,Persona 5 is a significant improvement over its predecessor when it comes to the “game” part.
Verdict: Persona 5 wins easily.
Story
Let’s get to the fun part – the Persona series can be thought of as half traditional turn-based JRPG and half visual novel / social simulator, so it’s only natural that the story of each Persona gameis a major factor in assessing batch quality. recording. They each have a similar overall vanity – your playable character moves to a new city at the start of the story for a specific reason and must stay in that city under temporary care for a year. In their new place of residence, they enter the second year of the local high school. The player character makes friends when he deals with supernatural events in their city and takes over his power over his “Person”, a ghostly creature they can command with great success in battle. The devil is in the details here, so let’s dive into the history of both games a bit before drawing any conclusions.
In Persona 4, your protagonist (commonly referred to as Yu Narukami in various spin-offs of the game, a name I will use from now on) moves to the quiet rural town of Inaba to live with his uncle. Yu soon realizes that Inabu is being pursued by a serial killer who attacks when the city turns foggy. Yu builds a network of friends throughout the city and, along with a group of high school students with whom he is an ally, investigates the mysterious Midnight Channel, a world on Inaba’s television screens that has connections with the victims of a serial killer in order to identify the killer and prevent further murders.
The Persona 5 protagonist (commonly referred to as Ren Amamiya in spin-offs, and also the name I’ll choose to use) is forced to move to Tokyo on probation due to an unfair run-in with the police. At his new high school, he is soon exposed to the wrath of an abusive member of the school’s teaching staff. After discovering the ability to steal an evil person’s metaphorical heart in order to reform it, Ren and a team of young people established themselves as “Phantom Heart Thieves,” using their power over Characters to reform evil adults around Tokyo, becoming folk heroes in the process.
I’ll start by thinking Persona 4 has a stronger central storytelling. Persona 4 is low-key in nature for its intimate setting and the relatively low stakes it places throughout history – a small-town serial killer isn’t as important as some of the antagonists that Phantom Thieves face in Persona 5 (like the Mafia boss , CEO of a multibillion-dollar conglomerate and candidate for Japanese prime minister, and many others). Small scale Persona 4While not as grandiose as its sequel, it allows focusing attention that positively affects the storytelling – the game is essentially a murder mystery, with a lone central antagonist playing the game, making the story more fun. Persona 5 is huge in scale and very episodic in nature (even piquant), it jumps between several antagonists before the final battle, and therefore it can seem that the game is juggling several plot points at once to its detriment.
Likewise, Persona 4 has stronger themes that tie together all of the individual plots. Each character’s struggles in Persona 4 revolve around how difficult it is to face the truth – whether it is how you see yourself or how you interpret the actions and beliefs of others, seeing reality is not always easy, but it can be easier to accept yourself and establish authentic connections with others. Persona 5 is a bit weaker thematically, focusing on how harnessing inner strength and a spirit of rebellion can allow anyone to break the shackles of society’s oppression. While the idea behind Persona 5 is clear, I found it harder to grasp compared to the core of Persona 4 , and I also think Persona 4 handled her main theme better in all aspects of the story.
However, Persona 4’s narrative is not flawless – the story often spans long periods of time, and nothing of note happens with respect to the central mystery, and therefore has a somewhat inconsistent pace. Persona 5’s narrative is n’t as single-threaded as its predecessor, but it always seems like something is going on, even if the result may seem somewhat disorganized. He seems to be more consistent in everything. Likewise , Persona 5’s narrative reaches higher heights than Persona 4 (the arcs of Kamoshida and Sae surpass anything in Persona 4), but also reaches much lower lows (Okumura arc is the weakest section in any of the games). Persona 5 is pompous and over-the-top in contrast to Persona 4 , making it a game of extremes.
Verdict: Persona 4 has a more effective central storytelling, Persona 5 more strictly follows its narrative.
Symbols
This section won’t be all that monotonous – there are dozens of characters in every Persona game , and building relationships with them is an integral part of the series, so it’s difficult to draw any radical conclusions here. I can’t say that one game objectively has the best lineup, but I can detail my feelings.
First, the main cast of Persona 4 characters (the exploration team) seems to be more cohesive as a group compared to the Phantom Thieves from Persona 5 . Perhaps this is a result of everyone but one going to the same high school, but the investigative team communicates more together and it is much easier to recognize the dynamics of not only the group as a whole, but also the dynamics of subsets. characters in the investigation team. They feel more believable as a group of friends playing with each other than the Phantom Thieves, who often feel like a chaotic group of conflicting personalities. My favorite theory is that since Persona 4was released before the advent of the smartphone, group text and LINE chat app, the investigation team is forced to meet each other in person when they want to talk, while in Persona 5, the main Cast has countless discussions about the text, resulting in fewer Thieves personal time.
However, members of the Phantom Thieves have stronger personality traits that match their over-the-top nature of their game. I understand this is a matter of taste – the investigation team pretty much feels like a bunch of real people, with the exception of Teddy (due to his supernatural origin) and Naoto (due to her relatively outlandish career choices). Persona 5’s characters are much more unusual in both design and character, which impressed me much more. I found that Ann, Yusuke, and Futaba’s personal plots were more influential than any inner struggles shown by the main cast of Persona 4 . However, Yosuke’s relationship with Yu in Persona 4 is the strongest one-on-one relationship in any game.
When comparing side characters (social links / proxies), this is almost no competition – Persona 5 wins it. I believe that a successful side character in the Persona series is one that I’m happy to spend my limited time playing with. There were too many social connections in Persona 4 , which were Y’s relatively ordinary classmates.Most of the remaining confidants are pretty run-of-the-mill townspeople who, while each one has rather captivating individual storylines, doesn’t leave enough clout to entice me continue their storylines. Persona 5 side charactersmuch more colorful both in terms of design and in terms of background. Of course, this is also due to the difference in the setting and design of the two games (a gloomy rural town against a huge metropolis), but it was much more interesting for me to communicate with people like the disgraced local politician and the former Yakuza turned into a seller of model weapons, among other things, from- for the small town characters that Persona 4 has to offer .
Verdict: In terms of lead roles, Persona 4 has better group dynamics, Persona 5 has stronger personality. Persona 5 easily wins in the minor character department.
Music
I’ll start perhaps the most subjective section by stating that I’m not particularly music-minded, so this section may seem random. Both games have absolutely stellar soundtracks from top to bottom, courtesy of the wonderful Shoji Meguro. I’ve heard that Meguro is a master at composing music that you will listen to for hours and never get tired, and I believe this is true for both games. However, even though each game has the same composer, each game has its own sound.
Persona 4 sticks to a more traditional J-Pop sound, with lively beats, upbeat vocals and rap lyrics to complement the scenes, battles, and dungeon crawls. Persona 5 , on the other hand, uses a kind of acidic jazz soundtrack accented with keyboards and bass lines.
While the best tracks from any soundtrack may overlap each other, the Persona 5 soundtrack , for lack of a better term, is more atmospheric . Sounds between different tracks seem to be more coherent, but they are all different. The beauty of Persona 5 OST lies in how inimitable it is among video game counterparts – nothing else sounds remotely like any game. When the player wanders through virtual Tokyo on a rainy day with the special ” Under the Mask” arrangement playing in the background, magic is beyond description.
Verdict: Persona 5’s unique sound survives this.
Customization
The final aspect of each game that I would like to compare is the settings in which their narratives unfold. Persona 4 is set in the fictional city of Inaba, a rural town little known by name except for a handful of tourist attractions and a compact shopping district. Persona 5instead, it puts players in a lovingly recreated version of Tokyo, a very real and very recognizable place. More than any other aspect, each game’s setting is the biggest difference between the two – a couple of locations that can’t be any more different from each other other than being in the same country. Each setting succeeds in a different way, as the narrative of each game tries to answer different questions, and the corresponding game settings are perfect for the theme.
Persona 4’s story is intimate and personal, about overcoming the challenges of facing inner insecurity and opening up to those around you. The murder mystery story fits perfectly into the atmosphere of Inaba – a dark, hazy and dismal place in the middle of nowhere. As soon as you enter the city, you will realize that the general population is unhappy. A city like Inaba, where it seems like you might know the faces of the entire city, makes sense in a story where you, the protagonist, spend most of your time forcing others to come out of their shells.
On the other hand, Persona 5’s narrative is more pompous and expansive, set in the largest city in the world. In this game, the player is tasked with touching the hearts of the masses, and the themes of the game are centered around a powerful individual willpower that can overcome the corruption and apathy of a collective society. Thus, Persona 5 decides to throw you in the guise of a small fish and throws you into the largest pond in Japan.
As with music, evaluating something like a setting leans more towards the subjective end of the spectrum, especially when Persona 4 and Persona 5 make such different decisions in this regard. Persona 4 does a more compelling job of creating and bringing a world from scratch, while Persona 5 is equally successful in creating a compelling replica of one of the world’s largest cities. Personally, I was better off exploring the world in Persona 5 – Tokyo may be my favorite place in the world and I never get tired of exploring it, whether in real or virtual environments.
