"I love the great despisers because they are the great reverers and arrows of longing for the other shore."
-Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Persona 4 is not a good game. When I first played it, I thought it was a fundamentally good game with a lot of flaws. Then, when I played it for a second time to do all social links and get all achievements, I came to accept, slowly but surely, that it was not fundamentally good; I realised that it was instead a fundamentally bad game with only some good qualities that, for some reason, people were simply really attached to, whilst ignoring everything bad about it.
When you claim Persona 4 is a bad game, people will be quick to defend it by claiming that is only because you played Golden, and that if you simply play the original PS2 version, then all the problems with the game will simply disappear. It seems as if there is little to no disagreement that, apart from the addition of Marie and the removal of the fog in Golden, Persona 4 is thought to be a fundamentally good game, rivalling the masterpiece that was Persona 3. However, that is not the case. Not even close. The notion that the original version of Persona 4 was good and that Golden ruined it is simply not true. It was a bad game when it was originally released, and Golden only made things worse. Even though I would agree that the addition of Marie and the removal of fog were bad changes, they are not my primary problems with the game. As such, these changes did not ruin what was otherwise a good game. No, they made an already terrible game even worse. Even ignoring Marie and her godawful poetry, conditioning me to visit the Velvet Room only when absolutely necessary, there are still a myriad of problems with the game, making it feel severely lacklustre compared to its predecessors and subsequent successor.
I have also seen people try to shield this game from any criticism by saying that the English localisation butchered it, and that the Japanese version is much superior. Whilst I can certainly concede that some specific nitpicks I have of the game may be due to translation errors (this does not mean every problem I have of the game, in case you cannot read), I heavily doubt the Japanese version is radically different from the English version. Just because the Japanese version may sound more pleasant, at times, does not mean it can add much more than that. It can only affect how a line is formulated and delivered. It cannot add new scenes nor change the plot in any meaningful way. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, the game is still the same. All actions are the same in both the English and Japanese version, and, because of that, you cannot simply dismiss criticism when the criticism is in regards to how characters act.
I would also like to preface this critique by defending why I will be comparing Persona 4 to Persona 3 in certain cases. My intention with this is not to resurrect the old debate between the two, as my actual reasoning is much simpler. Despite the fact that I could certainly make fair comparisons between Persona 4 and Persona 1 and 2 instead, comparing it to Persona 3 is nevertheless a much better comparison, as they both, unlike Persona 1 and 2, are structurally the same due to sharing the calendar system. Moreover, the reason I specifically choose to compare Persona 4 with Persona 3 instead of Persona 5 is because Persona 5 was released after Persona 4, whereas Persona 3 was released before it.
As such, it should be assumed that Persona 5 is a better game than Persona 4 (which it is, by a very wide margin) solely based on the fact that the developers had the opportunity to improve on the problems present in previous entries. For example, it is not a valid criticism of Persona 4 to say that the graphics are bad because the graphics in Persona 5 are better. Likewise, it should also be assumed that Persona 4 is better than Persona 3 for the exact same reasons. However, if this is not the case, then the comparison is not only fair but the criticism is also valid, since the developers failed to produce something of equal or greater value than what they have previously proved themselves to be capable of.
Admittedly, I will be comparing Persona 4 to Persona 5 on three occasions. This is only because I cannot make an equally good comparison between any other Persona game. The reason I decided to include these comparisons, despite the fact that I made it abundantly clear why I think such comparisons are unfair moments ago, is to make it easier to understand. If my comparisons between Persona 3 and 4 are meant to demonstrate that Persona 3 is superior, then the three comparisons I have allowed myself between Persona 4 and 5 are instead not meant to prove that Persona 5 is better, even though it is, but instead to make my points clearer.
It should be noted, however, that I do not find a comparison between Persona 4 and 5 entirely unfair. There are certain aspects that I do find unfair, like the graphics, but everything else is by and large fair game. This is because fans of Persona 4 seem to believe it is equally good or even better than Persona 5, which means that they do not think it is an unfair comparison. However, for the sake of humiliating Persona 4 to the best of my ability, I have tried my absolute hardest to limit my comparisons to its predecessors as much as possible.
The introduction is incredibly anticlimactic. There is not even the pretence of suspense. In the very first scene, the player is summoned to the Velvet Room. This scene would have been, for the most part, completely harmless were it not for the fortune telling performed by Igor. By revealing the fact that the player will encounter a "great misfortune" at their destination and that a "great mystery" will be imposed on them, any form of suspense the player may have possibly been able to experience when all the staff is summoned for an emergency meeting out of the blue, when a police siren can be heard in the background shortly afterwards, and when they later stumble upon a crime scene on their walk home and learn there has been a murder, simply evaporate into thin air; the revelations would have been far more impactful if they had not already been spoiled to the player 10 minutes prior.
Yu's awakening is utter garbage. I highly recommend the reader to actually take the time to first watch Makoto's and, then, Yu's. After all, if a painting says a thousand words, and if a video is merely a series of frames, then a video should say at least 6 gorillion words. Needless to say, as the videos speak for themselves, whereas Makoto's has a great buildup, culminating in Orpheus being summoned by revealing the usage of the up until then enigmatic Evoker, Yu's awakening has no buildup. Izanagi is not even summoned for the first time during Yu's supposed awakening but rather in a dream that serves absolutely no purpose. I mean, seriously? Why would the writers reveal the existence of Personas before Yu's awakening? It is as if they wanted to eliminate any element of surprise the player could have possibly experienced whilst playing the game.
I will get to why I dislike the murder mystery later, but if it were not for Chie, I would, at the very least, have been able to tolerate the bad writing, because I would have, at least, been able to like seeing the main cast interact with each other if they had not gotten on my nerves. Chie single-handedly ruins every single scene she is in. When she is not present, I find myself, for the most part, enjoying the game, but when she is present, I do not enjoy the game. Her voice in Golden is so grating it makes my ears bleed, and her original voice sounds like a middle aged woman's, which is not much of an improvement. Her portrait is ugly as sin. She has no chin, her bob cut makes her look even less appealing, her fashion sense is abysmal, and her glasses make her look even uglier than I thought was possible. Her personality is almost as ugly as she is. She is an ungrateful, spiteful bitch who is way too quick to anger at even the slightest misunderstanding.
But what I hate the most about this character is how the game tries to make you care for her. For example, in the very beginning of the game, when they try to enter the TV at Junes for the first time, you have the option to say that you are "worried about Chie." There are other examples of this as well, like when you talk to Chie the day after she awakens to her Persona, and you can ask how she is doing. But these are only optional. You do not have the pick the dialogue option that portrays you as worrying about her. No, the only time you have to do that is during her social link. If you want the optimal amount of points, so as to get her social link done with as quickly as possible, you have to pretend to give a shit about her. This is worsened by how radically different she is in her social link compared to the main story. Every time this game tries to make Chie act like a nice or feminine person, it disgusts me.
Chie wants to "protect her friends" in her social link but physically abuses Yosuke and makes him pay for things in the actual story. Compare this dynamic to the one between Junpei and Yukari from Persona 3. Much like Yosuke, Junpei does dumb things and makes inappropriate comments, and Yukari, like Chie, does not appreciate that. The difference is that Yukari acts like a normal person would, whereas Chie does not. For example, when Junpei jokingly introduces himself as a detective, calling himself, "Ace detective," Yukari, thinking him to be annoying, retorts by calling him, "Ace defective." Was there any malice to what she said? No. It was merely a snarky remark, since they do not get along. However, Yukari nevertheless cares for Junpei, as is demonstrated when she apologises to Junpei for making fun of him for being scared during their meeting about whether they should fight Nyx after having realised that she had taken things too far when he angrily snaps back at her.
Chie, on the other hand, never apologises for anything she does. When Chie put Yosuke in debt, instead of apologising for her mistake and offering to pay him back the money she stole from him, she deflects the blame indirectly unto Yosuke by saying that, "it's not her fault that Junes overcharges their products" (since he is the manager's son). In fact, she never takes responsibility for anything she does and instead shifts the blame onto everyone around her, especially Yosuke. When Yosuke, on the other hand, accidentally destroyed Chie's DVD (a considerably smaller expense than what Chie stole from Yosuke and never paid back), not only did he promise to buy her a new one, he also offered to buy her steak. Despite the fact that his motive is not to protect his friends, he is nevertheless more caring than Chie, whose actual motive is to protect her friends.
You cannot handwave away that by saying that her spitefulness is a part of her struggle when she makes absolutely no attempt to be a better person. She never stops being a spiteful bitch, and she never starts apologising for her rude behaviour, either. In fact, does she ever, even once, apologise for being the biggest cunt in this entire franchise? I would have been able to, at least, appreciate her character growth if she had been a cunt in the beginning but, after having awakened to her Persona, becomes considerably less spiteful and earnestly tries to act like a kind and caring person who wants to protect her friends. But, of course, that never happens. Not in her social link. Not in the main story. She starts off as a spiteful bitch, is forced to recognise that fact about herself, and, then, never tries to become a better person.
Yukiko has no discernible personality. Her entire character could easily be replaced with a piece of cardboard that has a tape recorder duct-taped to it, producing laughter at random intervals, and there would be no notable impact on the story. Although, within the context of her social link, it seems as if she may potentially have a personality, despite it being weaker than Gennosuke's arms, since she is conflicted about wanting to leave the inn. However, since that has no bearing on the progression of the story after her dungeon, she defaults to cardboard. Honestly, I do not particularly mind her character having been reduced to cardboard, as she, at least, does not tilt me like Chie does. However, the fact that the writers thought it was a good idea to make her randomly laugh for comedic relief in a poor attempt to characterise her even slightly is frankly insulting.
Depending on who you ask, Persona 4 is oftentime either advertised or scorned as a waifu simulator. Upon hearing this, you would naturally think the girls in it are good. You would be incorrect. I am honestly baffled by how badly the writers managed to fuck up the girls in this game, espically when considering the fact that every single girl (and woman) in Persona 3 is great. The girls in Persona 4, however, are a coinflip. Half are irredeemably shit; half are incredible. How they managed to do this, I have no idea.
In the first minute of Persona 3, you are introduced to Yukari, who is one of the best girls Atlus has ever written. A couple of minutes later, you are introduced to Mitsuru, who is also one of the best girls Atlus has ever written. For the first 30 hours of Persona 4, you have to contend with Chie and Yukiko, who are both garbage. I am not exaggerating when I say that I would have greatly preferred it if the writers had not even tried to service me with these characters, because I do not even want to be serviced by these characters, and I like fanservice! But not by these characters. No.
It takes the game until the third dungeon to introduce Rise, who is the first girl in the entire game who is good. No, great. Rise is great. I will admit that Ai can be unlocked earlier, but I doubt most players, who are not playing on ng+ and are therefore probably not even aware how good she is, will have been able to even unlock her social link before Rise joins, considering you have to get courage to rank 3 before you can start her social link, not to mention that it takes a couple of ranks for her personality to shine through.
I guess, you could technically argue Naoto is the first good girl to be introduced. Then again, that would mean Rise's feature in the commercial shown at the very beginning of the game also counts, which it does not because neither of these appearances really showcase their true personality. And, in the case of Naoto, she is not even revealed to be a girl, even though I knew she was a girl the moment she opened her mouth. Then again, I suppose Rise's appearance does showcase a certain facet of her "personality," if you catch my drift.
Anyhow, even though Rise's introduction is a great breath of fresh air, in both the character writing department and the fanservice department, because her affection is so strong, it can feel a bit strange if you do not plan to romance her. For most players, this will probably not even be an issue, since, if you go by how many bubbles are shown in the network feature the moment you can hang out with her, which is a night time hangout by the way, the vast majority seem to agree that her appearance was a very warm welcome.
For these people, her very strong affection for Yu was probably more than welcome. However, if you plan on romancing someone else, like Ai or Naoto (why would you possibly romance anyone else?), then her affection can come off as strange. Basically, this is a good problem to have. Before Rise, the fanservice well was drier than the Sahara desert. After Rise, it was more wet than the ocean. The fanservice she does is so good, it feels weird not to date her, which is not a bad thing, but that does not negate the fact that it does feel oddly strange.
Speaking of fanservice, it is really bad. Normally, fanservice is supposed to make the girls look cuter. However, the fanservice in this game makes the girls more unlikable, which is the complete opposite of what fanservice should do. I already dislike half the female party members, why would you try to make me dislike the other half that I actually like? Because that was what happened. I did not think Rise and Naoto were any cuter after, for example, the hot springs scene. I was instead left with a bitter aftertaste in my mouth.
Before I discuss my problems with Kanji's sexuality, let me preface this by saying that I am not going to argue that Kanji is actually gay (or even bisexual), because it is pretty obvious that it was not the writer's intention for him to be either gay or bisexual. What I am going to argue, however, is the way that the writers try to make it explicitly clear that Kanji is not gay is handled pretty weirdly. This is not to say that I think he should have been gay. No, the problem I have with his sexuality is not that he is not gay but instead how fast he goes from having no interest in girls to joining Yosuke and Teddie in ogling the girls. My guess for why the writers decided to include these scenes is because they wanted to make it explicitly clear that Kanji was straight, not gay, by making him appear flustered around girls. The only problem is that it feels like such a tonal whiplash that it takes me out of the experience.
Before accepting his Shadow, Kanji is only shown being attracted to Naoto and no one else. You could argue that because Naoto is actually a girl, this does not make Kanji gay. The problem is that he went on what he thought was a date with Naoto under the assumption that Naoto was a boy, not a girl. Kanji was attracted to Naoto because she looked like a boy, not because she looked like a girl. In other words, at this point in the story, he felt no attraction to the opposite gender or, at the very least, there is no evidence to suggest he felt any attraction to girls, which is the problem, because if the writers want me to believe that Kanji had always been straight, then why is it that this was never shown? It feels like his character did a complete 180 on itself.
I would have been completely fine with his sexuality if it were not for the fact that he starts to thirst after the girls. If he was only attracted to Naoto and was only flustered around Naoto, then that would have been fine, because it would have been in line with his behaviour prior to accepting his Shadow. The problem is how quickly his sexual preferences change, because I do not believe one's sexual preferences can change that fast. Why would he even have had doubts about his sexuality in the first place if he was attracted to normal girls? It would have made far more sense if he was not attracted to normal girls and only liked gender neutral girls, because that would actually make sense to get confused about. If you like normal girls, there is no reason to question your sexuality. But if you only like gender neutral girls, then you would probably start to question your sexuality at some point or another.
What has always bothered me was the pace at which the Investigation Team became friends. In Persona 4, all characters immediately become best friends with each other after having been rescued. But that is not how real relationships work. It takes both time and effort for a relationship to deepen. To provide yet another example from Persona 3, after having defeated a Full Moon Boos, the player gets access to a new tactic. This represents how the members of S.E.E.S. have now gained a deeper trust for each other as they continue to fight alongside each other. The difference between S.E.E.S. and the Investigation Team is that the members of S.E.E.S. were not forced to immediately become best friends with each other simply because they joined the team but eventually became friends after having interacted with each other due to being a part of the same team and having lived at the same dorm together. One is organic and realistic, the other is forced and unconvincing. I mean, seriously, did the writers truly expect the player to believe someone who had up until then kept their repressed thoughts hidden from others would suddenly become best friends with someone who saw all that? Would you? I would personally avoid them like the plague for the rest of my life. Did they think they could speedrun a naturally evolving relationship simply by revealing someone's Shadow? The only people someone would be comfortable confiding in about such matters would be close friends, not total strangers.
Despite having received much praise for its inclusion of many slice of life segments (since it makes the main cast feel like real friends), there are a lot of missed opportunities. Ideally, slice of life should strictly be used as a means of characterisation or to enhance the plot in some meaningful way. Basically, it should serve a purpose. Unfortunately, this does not happen in Persona 4. What do we learn about the characters during the camp-out? That the girls suck at cooking? Very funny. I almost died from blood loss due to the right side of my abdomen having been sent into orbit. What do we learn about the characters from the beach trip? That Teddie is a pervert? I believe anyone even remotely paying attention would have been able to deduce that much by then. What do we learn from the characters from the live performance? That Rise has experience working as an idol? What a reveal that was. What do we learn about the characters from the beauty pageant? That people are uncomfortable appearing in front of large crowds wearing embarrassing outfits? Truly a groundbreaking discovery in the field of sociology. What do we learn about the characters from the stay at the inn? Believe it or not, quite some, actually. First of all, Nanako is revealed to only open the door to people she is acquainted with (a detail that is of great importance later on). We also learn more about the inn itself and, because of that, the kind of environment Yukiko grew up in.
In contrast, there are only two slices of life segments in Persona 3, and whereas one of them is decent enough (as it characterises Rouji), the other one is actually really good, because it is used to further the plot. Like how the stay at the inn in Persona 4 is used to character Yukiko, the trip to Yakushima characterises Mitsuru. We learn not only about the kind of household she grew up in but also explore her relationship with her dad in addition to introducing her dad. Additionally, it is revealed that her dad's motive for funding S.E.E.S. is to atone for the sins his dad committed. Not only that, we also have it confirmed from the footage shown that eliminating all 12 Full Moon Shadows will result in the Dark Hour disappearing, providing S.E.E.S. with a much clearer goal going forward. However, seeing as the cause for the explosion that set them free in the first place was caused by Yukari's dad, we come to learn more about Yukari's struggles, and how she gains a newfound motive to atone for her dad's past sins, too, as a result from having learnt more about her dad, which was her original reason for joining S.E.E.S. And the cream of the crop is that best girl is finally introduced!
Whether these characters are friends or not is not something that makes the game inherently better or worse. The problem is that the game tries so desperately to portray them as such, in an attempt to convince the player that these characters are, indeed, friends, yet their friendship is not convincing, in the slightest, because they barely, if at all, actually interact with each other.
If the game wanted these characters to seem like close-knit friends who were all very close with each other, then why is it that I can barely picture how any of these characters would actually interact with each other? For example, how would Kanji and Yukiko, who are supposedly childhood friends, interact with each other? Because they never do. How would Chie and Naoto interact with each other? How would Chie and Rise interact with each other? How would Yukiko and Rise interact with each other? The list goes on.
In Persona 3, I can very clearly see all these characters interact with each other. I have a very clear idea how all different characters would interact with each other, because the game actually takes the time to show this, which is possible because of the dorm. In the dorm, you can find the characters talking about different things. Sometimes, they are simply talking about something random. Other times, they are commenting on recent events. The point is that this feature allows you to not only understand these characters better but also come to understand how these characters all interact with each other.
Because of this, even though it is never explicitly stated, S.E.E.S. feels like a much more convincing group of friends than the Investigation Team because they actually talk to each other and spend time together, which is not something I could say for the Investigation Team, because these characters barely actually interact with one another. For example, despite the game telling you that they are best friends, it never actually shows Chie and Yukiko hanging out. You never find them even once on the main shopping street simply talking like how you would find, for example, Aigis, Junpei, Fuuka, and Yukari talking on the second floor of the dorms about something, like, for example, what is going to happen to them after they lose their Personas or if society would collapse if everyone got apathy syndrome.
What is even more sad is that this was not a problem in any game prior to 4, the only game that tries it hardest to explicitly convince you these characters are friends. In Persona 1 and 2, there was this revolutionary mechanic called walking around town. When you went into a shop, you could talk to your party members, and they would talk to you about recent events or comment about the store in general. In Persona 1, there wasn't a lot of dialogue, but in Persona 2, there is a surprising amount of it, particularly with Eikichi and Lisa bickering about something.
Persona 4 tries to compensate for this lack of a shared living space by having way more hangouts to give the characters a chance to interact with each other, but, then, does nothing with that. During all these hangouts, they do not even interact with each other. Rather, they interact with the activity instead of using the activity as a vehicle for them to interact with each other. For example, during band practice, they never talk about something unrelated to that activity, and, whenever they do talk, it is barely with one another but rather with themselves. Not to repeat myself too much, but when S.E.E.S. went to Yakushima, they used that trip as a vehicle for character growth and furthering the plot. The activity of taking a trip to Yakushima was never the important thing at play. What was important was everything unrelated to taking a trip to the beach.
I suspect the reason people seem to regard the Investigation Team as a close group of friends is because they have the most memorable moments. In Persona 5, there are also a lot of hangouts to make the Phantom Thieves seem like real friends, like in Persona 4, to compensate for the lack of a shared living space where you can find the characters interacting with each other on a day-to-day basis. The difference between Persona 4's and Persona 5's hangouts is that, in Persona 5, the writers use the activities as a vehicle for getting all the characters together and having them talk with each other about recent events.
When I talked to someone about this, they said that they barely remember these scenes at all, and I think that is because these scenes simply do not stand out. When the Phantom Thieves get together, they usually sit in one of the booths at LeBlanc or upstairs, in Joker's room. They never do something out of the ordinary, like in Persona 4. When the Investigation Team have one of their hangouts, they do not go to Junes and simply talk there, even though they do study there, from time to time. No, they do something that stands out, like going to the beach, having a band practice, having a cooking contest, etc. Because these only happen once, they naturally stand out. That is why I believe people seem to regard them as close friends. Unlike all other groups in modern Persona, the Investigation Team's hangouts are the most memorable and the most frequent. As such, it is not at all surprising that people seem to regard them as close friends when their hangouts are the easiest to remember, even though the hangouts in-of-themselves are not good.
I really like the gameplay in Persona games. I like Persona's take on turn-based combat, and I like the social sim aspect, too. However, this is only really true in the case of Persona 3, because it managed to balance these two aspects really well. In Persona 3, your daytime activity was supposed to be spent ranking up social links, whereas your nighttime activity was supposed to be spent grinding in Tartarus. This made it so that you did not have to worry about spending too many days fighting in Tartarus, since you had an abundance of free time.
In Persona 4 and onwards, you can no longer go grinding during the nighttime. Instead, this was changed to the daytime. My guess for why they decided to change it is because Junes closes at night. However, this does not really make any sense, since Yosuke could have simply let them in, considering he basically owns the place. My other guess for why they decided to change it from night to day is because it has been dangerous lately, and Dojima does not want Yu to wander the streets at night. After all, being able to go out at night was only a feature added in Golden. In the original, you could not go out at night. The problem with this is that you are not an innocent bystander. You are actively trying to solve the mystery, and, so, you know that the only place that is actually dangerous is the TV world, which you are venturing into to fight Shadows. In other words, this argument does not hold any water, since you are not trying to avoid danger but rather seek it out instead.
The reason I do not like this change is because it makes these two aspects of the game, the dungeon crawling and social sim, feel extremely unbalanced. In Persona 3, you are incentivised to split your visits to Tartarus into several bursts because of the tired mechanic. After some time fighting in Tartarus, a party member will get tired or even sick, which makes them unable to go to Tartarus until they have recovered. When returning to the entrance, they will leave Taraturs and return to the dorms. For those who have not played this game, you might think that this simply encourages you to not return to the entrance and simply keep fighting until you are done. However, that is not so. Tired party members take more damage, deal less damage, and have worse accuracy and evasion. In other words, you do not want to force them to keep fighting, especially on Hard mode.
This has two effects. Firstly, you are limited by how long you can keep fighting in Tartarus or, at the very least, incentivised to not keep fighting for too long. Secondly, because you are incentivised to not try to reach the end of the block in one sitting, you are incentivised to make multiple trips to Tartarus throughout the month. This makes the two gameplay aspects feel balanced without making one feel severely more prominent than the other. In fact, when I played Persona 3 for the first time, I played on Hard mode, and, to this day, it is the only version of modern Persona I could consider to still be more of a dungeon crawler than a social sim. For every other game, except for regular Persona 3, which is simply well balanced, they lean far too heavily into being a social sim.
Like I said, I do not mind the social sim. I quite like learning about these characters through their social links. The problem is when you are forced to only do social links for 20 days straight with no interruption, which, at least for me, translates to several hours in real time. For someone who really likes Visual Novels, this might not necessarily be a problem. However, if people can complain about Tartarus being too long and get no flak for it, then I can complain about the social sim, too. The problem with the social sim in Persona 4 is that it can very easily become very monotonous. This was not a problem in Persona 3 because you could spend a couple days doing social links and, then, go and fight in Tartarus for a while, which made the gameplay feel refreshing and not monotonous. In Persona 4, however, this is not the case, since you are incentivised to take as few trips as possible to the dungeons to spend as much time as possible maxing out all social links.
Whilst it is technically a false statement that you cannot simply ignore the social aspect completely and spend all your daytime free slots grinding or, even more broadly speaking, that you cannot visit the dungeons more than once, it is also disingenuous to suppose that you are not heavily incentivised to only take one trip per dungeon. Just like how you were incentivised to not clear each block of Tartarus in one sitting because of the tired mechanic, so does removing it instead encourage you to clear each dungeon in one sitting, since you can, and it is much easier to do so, especially when you get the fox. This, coupled with the fact that you are incentivised to max out as many social links as possible or, at the very least, want to do as many as possible because you enjoy them, makes it so that you condense all the dungeon crawling into one sitting and, then, is left with having to sit through the next 20 days doing nothing but social links, which starts to feel like a slog after 5 days or less.
Unlike most, I liked the procedurally generated floors in Tartarus, because that meant you could come back as many times as you wanted, and you would always get a new experience, which kept the multiple visits you would make during the month feeling fresh and different. The reason I bring this up is because I do not think the concept of procedurally generated dungeons, like the ones in Persona 3 and 4, is bad. On the contrary, I think it is the only way to balance the dungeon crawling with the social sim, since the only way to balance them is to make sure you can make multiple trips to the dungeon several times a month. Therefore, if the dungeons do not feel refreshing when returning to, then the dungeons are not adequate.
What makes Tartarus good compared to the dungeons in Persona 4 is the fact that you can return to it as many times as you want without it feeling odd. Most will probably not realise this, since most will clear all dungeons in one sitting, but it feels incredibly strange to not rescue someone in one sitting and instead return home. After all, you are leaving someone alone in a dangerous place with no real assurance that they will be safe until it gets foggy in the real world, which could happen any day. Once again, most will probably not realise this, since they probably also save them as soon as possible, but it feels really strange how the game encourages you to not push yourself too hard to clear a dungeon in one sitting and instead go home and rank up your social links. Imagine being the only ones capable of rescuing them. You have no idea how long they will be safe in there, or if they will even be safe in there, and, instead of trying to rescue them, you play soccer or practise the trumpet.
At its core, the problem with this design is that the developers combined Tartarus and the Full Moon Shadows into one. Instead of the dungeon and Shadow boss fight being separate, they combined them into one. The reason this is a problem is that this gives the dungeon an end goal. If you were playing Persona 3 for the first time without having been spoiled about the fact that there is an end to Tartarus, you could have easily assumed there was no end or that there was no significance to the end. In Persona 4, getting to the end of the dungeon is the goal of each dungeon, because that means you will be able to rescue the kidnapping victim. The key difference is that Tartarus was meant to be a place where you could grind so that you could, then, beat the Full Moon Shadows. In other words, it was a means to an end. The only directive you had was to advance further up. However, there was no deadline, other than Elizabeth's optional quests, to reach the end of the block before the next full moon. The only incentive you had to visit Tartarus was to get strong enough to be able to beat the next Full Moon Shadow. What this means is that it did not feel weird to not reach the end of the block in one sitting, nor did it feel weird if you had not even reached the end of the block, because that was not the goal of Tartarus. The goal of Tartarus was to become strong enough so that you could complete your actual goal: defeat the next Full Moon Shadow, for most of the game, anyway.
I usually do not care about difficulty. To me, higher difficulty does not make a game inherently better or worse. The purpose of difficulty is simply to make the game more engaging. If you make a game more difficult, the player will be forced to interact with the mechanics of the game more, which will make the game feel more engaging. Likewise, if you make a game less difficult, the player will, then, have no reason to interact with the mechanics of the game and will simply resort to spamming whatever works, which will make the game feel monotonous and unrewarding. The art of difficulty is making sure that you tread this line carefully. If you make the game too hard, then more players will simply drop the game rather than try to master the mechanics. If you make the game too easy, then more players will be able to beat the game but at the cost of eliminating any sense of reward they feel when beating a boss.
For the most part, Persona 4 does tread this line somewhat well but also very poorly. In case you were not aware, the recommended levels for each boss fight is fairly straightforward: you are supposed to be level 15 after you fight Yukiko, 25 after Kanji, 35 after Rise, 45 after Mitsuo, 55 after Naoto, 65 after Namatame, and, lastly, 75 after Adachi. Basically, it increases by 10 for each boss fight. If you are not overleveled for any boss, and you fight against them on Hard or Very Hard, then Mitsuo and Namatame's boss fights can be somewhat fun. The problem with this game's difficulty becomes painfully apparent when you deviate from this formula by becoming even slightly overleveled. If you do, then the next boss fight becomes a cake walk, no matter the difficulty. The problem is that it is very easy to get overleveled in this game very fast. Unless you play on Very Hard to intentionally limit how much EXP you can get, it is extremely easy to get massive amounts of EXP from defeating Golden Hands, which are extremely common, especially in the later dungeons.
The fundamental problem with the game's balancing is the new version of the Golden Hands added in Golden. In the original, they dropped only a single EXP. The reason you fought them was instead because they dropped a lot of money. In Golden, not only do they drop a massive amount of money, they also drop a massive amount of EXP, which you can very easily multiply with the equally busted new rendition of Shuffle Time added in Golden. For most of the game, the Golden Hands are a blessing, since they give you a large amount of EXP, which means you will have to spend less time grinding. The reason they are good until Naoto's dungeon is because they rarely spawn, and they do not drop an absurd amount of EXP. However, from Naoto's dungeon and forward, not only does their spawn rate increase by a lot, the amount of EXP they drop also increases by an insane degree.
What this means is that if you do not want to be overleveled, you cannot fight all Shadows you encounter when crawling through a dungeon and expect to be around the recommended level at the end of it. You know, like most players do. No, if you do that, you will be overleveled by at least 10 levels when you fight Naoto. So, if you do not want to be overleveled, you have to intentionally limit yourself by not fighting Golden Hands, which is kind of annoying, since they drop a lot of money. In case it was not obvious, this is not good game design. If the player has to intentionally handicap themselves to manually balance the game themselves, then the game's balancing is bad.
The quests in this game makes me want to paint my ceiling with my brain matter. Now, if that was their only fault, then I would have been able to leave it at that, but I think there was an actual intent behind why they are all fetch quests. You see, as I explained earlier, in the original game, Golden Hands only dropped a single EXP. Because of this, grinding was a much larger part of the dungeon crawling experience, since there were not any Golden Hands that could simply allow you to bypass it. No, you had to instead fight enemies and grow stronger that way. I think the reason why the developers crammed so many fetch quests into the game was to encourage players to grind by revisiting old dungeons to get the quest items. Another way they tried to encourage players to grind was by replacing the old boss with a new one at the end of the dungeons. This might also be why the first one of these, Contrarian King, is such a spike in difficulty, because they wanted to encourage players to become stronger by grinding before fighting the next boss.
The only problem with this is that the Shadows in the old dungeons give way less EXP on average than the new ones, which makes fighting them feel like a waste of SP, since you could easily just fight the Shadows in the new dungeon instead and get way more EXP. Another problem with this solution is that the problem was made moot in Golden, since Golden Hands now drop way more EXP, which allows you to simply skip the grind entirely. Ignoring how poorly balanced their loot is from Naoto's dungeon and forward, it is not a bad solution to this problem. However, it makes the quests feel extremely meaningless, because there is no incentive to do them any longer. Not to mention that if you actually do try to complete all the quests, you will be even more overleveled than what you were earlier, which further breaks the game's balancing.
Persona 4's dungeon designs are worse than Tartarus. Unlike Tartarus, they consist of nothing but linear hallways. The problem with this design is that every hallway is a chokepoint, and because the dungeons are nothing but hallways, every encounter you will have will be at a chokepoint, which makes dungeon crawling feel like a slog. If you are playing the game like the developers intended for you to play it, then this design forces the player to wait 30 seconds (which feels like 5 hours) every single time you encounter a Shadow for it to turn its back on you, so that you can, then, strike from behind and gain the advantage. This is due to the Shadow's unnecessarily sluggish movement when they have yet to notice you. Of course, once they do, they outrun you. Additionally, they are absolutely massive and take up like 40% of the already narrow pathway (when you are not overleveled, that is). With all this compounded, you are effectively forced to fight every Shadow you encounter, since it is impossible to outrun them when you are not overleveled due to every encounter being at a chokepoint.
This is further worsened by their AI being absolute garbage. For some reason, they have a tendency, which is effectively guaranteed to occur in Kanji's dungeon, to get stuck in the wall, preventing them from turning around. Obviously, this is pretty frustrating, since it means you will not be able to hit them from behind. There is also another type of behaviour, resulting from the terrible AI: if you happen to open a door, be noticed by a Shadow who, then, initiates its chase programme, run back to room you came from, and, then, go either left or right, the Shadow will, then, be stuck in the corner of the respective direction you fled to. And you will have better odds playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded chamber, hoping it will jam, than triggering a chance encounter in this situation.
Despite their movement having been sluggish in Persona 3 as well, the problem is no way as bad as it is in Persona 4, because the environmental design of Tartarus is actually fairly decent. The reason for this is that the floor layouts in Tartarus have more variety to them than simply linear hallways. Instead, there were also means of circumventing Shadows baked into the design of the floor. For example, there were large, open areas. These were great if you wanted to slip past a Shadow without them noticing, since all you had to do was hug the wall to evade it. In the case of the fourth block, the open area had been improved upon. There was a bridge in the middle of it, which could be used to hide behind, so as to wait for the most opportune moment to strike, or to run past the Shadow, without having to brute force oneself through, in case one were to be low on SP. Of course, you could also just run along the sides of the stairs or simply climb the stairs themselves. It was a simple yet infinitely more complex design choice than anything that can be found in Persona 4.
The Arcana card bonuses are really weird. For some reason, Justice increases strength, which I suppose is because there is a sword on the card. However, why does not the actual Strength Arcana increase strength? That would make a lot more sense, especially when considering the fact that Personas of the Strength Arcana have a high strength stat and learn physical skills. No, the Strength Arcana instead increases magic, when it would have made far more sense for that stat to be increased by selecting either the Magician or Priestess Arcana, considering the fact that Magician Personas predominantly learn fire skills, and Priestess Personas predominantly learn ice skills. In other words, magic skills, not physical, like Strength Personas learn.
I am well aware that Persona 4 is an asset flip of Persona 3, which makes them look alike in many ways. However, despite this, the developers clearly put in the effort to make the game as distinct from Persona 3 as possible when it came to the UI. This is why, despite the game being mechanically similar, they look distinct from each other. What therefore baffles me is why they never bothered to rework the Arcana cards. Not the paintings on them, but the backside of the actual card. First of all, it is still blue, which it only was because the main colour of Persona 3 was blue. Secondly, if you simply look at it, you can clearly see a lyre in all the corners of the card. Do you want to know why that is there? It is because Makoto's original Persona is Orpheus, who has a lyre on his back. Makoto even sits on a chair that has a back shaped like a lyre when he visits the Velvet Room. So, why did they never bother to fix this glaring issue? After all, they revamped all other aspects of the UI.
The gemstone weapons were a weird addition to Golden because they are, for all intents and purposes, virtually useless. Firstly, I have basically only been able to get two of these weapons in total across my playthroughs. The reason for this is that the droprate for the gems is incredibly low, which means you basically cannot get these weapons unless you grind for an eternity. This would not have been all too bad if it were not for the fact that you lose all your equipment on ng+, including the gemstone weapons. Secondly, they have really bad stats compared to the weapons you can simply buy, which makes you wonder why you would even buy these weapons when you can simply buy weapons from Daidara instead, without having to spend an eternity grinding for gemstones. In fact, if you were to spend that long grinding for gemstones, you would have no problems being able to afford to buy weapons from Daidara, which defeats the whole purpose of having a different currency for buying weapons in case you cannot afford to buy weapons from Daidara.
Unlike what you might think, I do not mind light-hearted stories. Hell, a substantial amount of my favourite anime is light-hearted in nature. And even if I do, generally speaking, prefer it when something tries to take itself seriously, I do not think having a serious tone makes something better by default, and that having a more light-hearted tone is inherently bad. No, my problem with Persona 4's tone is not that it is light-hearted. Rather, my problem with the tone is that the motifs are poorly integrated as an indirect consequence of the tone being too light-hearted. This is because the game squanders all time that could have been spent on trying to simply make a more complete game by instead adding more slice of life scenes, which, as I have already explained, add nothing. In other words, instead of adding more serious scenes that could have greatly strengthened the motifs, the writers instead choose to add more light-hearted scenes. As a result, the few motifs this game tries to tackle are so underdeveloped they barely even exist.
For some reason, there seems to be this misunderstanding that the original game was somehow serious whereas Golden supposedly ruined this tone by adding far too many slice of life scenes, which, instead, made the tone far too light-hearted. The problem with this is that it is pure revisionism. Like I stated in the very beginning, Persona 4 on the PS2 was a bad game. Golden only made that worse. It was not a good game that was, then, ruined by Golden. No, it was a bad game made even worse by Golden. Likewise, Persona 4 on the PS2 was not a serious game. It was a light-hearted game that was on rare occasions serious. Golden did not turn the tone from serious to light-hearted. No, it was a light-hearted game that was, then, made into an even more light-hearted and less serious game in Golden. But just because Golden was more light-hearted than the original version does not mean that the original version was not light-hearted or that it was in any way, shape or form, actually a serious game.
For this reason, Golden did not ruin Persona 4's motifs. No, the motifs are equally as bad in Golden as in the original. Just because Golden is more light-hearted does not mean that the motifs are better developed in the original. No, all that means is that Golden had the opportunity to add more serious scenes or simply integrate these motifs better but did not and instead choose to add more slice of life scenes. As previously explained, the motifs are not poorly implemented as a direct consequence of there being more light-hearted, slice of life scenes. No, the motifs are only indirectly bad because of them, since, instead of having spent time trying to make the motifs better, the writers instead choose to add more slice of life scenes. What this means is that the motifs in the original were not good simply because Golden added more slice of life scenes, because the addition of more slice of life scenes did not come at the cost of removing other scenes. No, all it did was add more slice of life scenes. The motifs, on the other hand, were completely unaltered.
At the start of the game, the writers try to present the rumour about the Midnight Channel as something that everyone at school was talking about. So, if someone would have shown up there after they had been pushed into the TV, and if people would have seen the victim's low budget programme air, you would think more people would be talking about it, especially considering how manic the programmes are. But that never happens. In fact, after the very beginning of the game, the whole concept of the Midnight Channel being a somewhat well-known rumour that people talk about basically disappears.
After I first took notice of this, it really started to bother me. You would think that if someone broadcasted themselves acting extremely out-of-character or simply really odd, and if you knew who this person was, you would spread rumours about them. Maybe you would even go up to them and ask them what that programme was all about. But that never happens. I could accept that people would not have spread rumours about Yukiko and Naoto since their programmes were not that raunchy, but Kanji's and Rise's definitely were.
There are certain instances where the writers become momentarily aware of the fact that the rumour about the Midnight Channel is something people other than the Investigation Team know about and have random NPCs reference it or who was on. For example, after you rescue Kanji and meet up at Junes, two students gossip about Kanji being in a biker gang and him being on the Midnight Channel. Kanji, then, scares them off and his appearance is never mentioned again. Admittedly, it is better than nothing, but it is also not much better than nothing, considering what his programme was, which they do not talk about. They just mention that he was on, not that he acted like a faggot. You would think people would spread rumours about him being gay, but that never happens.
For some reason, whenever an NPC brings up the topic of the Midnight Channel to another NPC, they always claim that it was a dream. Hell, even Chie and Yosuke chalk Yu's claim about getting stuck in the TV at the very beginning of the game to having been a dream. I am not entirely sure if this is something unique to Japanese culture or not. For some reason, they seem very eager to try to dismiss anything strange as a dream.
The reason I bring this up is because I do not think this is a good counter-argument for why no one in town or at school, just standing about, talks about it. Sure, if you only check the Midnight Channel once and accidentally see a programme, you might be able to dismiss it as a dream, like how the aforementioned NPC dismissed his friend's claim that Risette was on a striptease as a dream, because the media would have been all over it otherwise. But that does not stop him from checking again and again to see if he really was dreaming. Basically, there is bound to be, at least, a substantial amount of people who do not chalk it up to "just a dream."
Before they rescue Kanji, the writers try to make it seem like if the rumour spreads and everyone were to start watching the Midnight Channel, "it could cause a huge panic…" For the first three dungeons, when you encounter each Shadow self at the half-way point of their dungeon, you can hear what Teddie refers to as Shadows and what the Investigation Team speculates to be the ones watching the Midnight Channel react to the programme. Also, for each dungeon, the reaction becomes stronger, presumably because the rumour has spread farther and the nature of the programme being rauncher than the last. But, after Rise's dungeon, this part is never brought up again, because the writers forgot about it, I guess?
I fully admit that this is a pretty minor point, but it really bothers me because of how much the writers try to make it seem like a big deal in the beginning and, then, never bring it up ever again. As stated earlier, it really makes absolutely no sense for people not to be talking about how Kanji, someone people feared because of the rumours surrounding him, acted like a flaming homosexual, and how Rise, a super popular idol, was on a striptease.
Can you, at least, begin to understand why I think it is a bit strange why basically no one talks about this? I would expect to be able to talk to NPCs at school or in town and have them talk about how they saw Kanji, for example, acting like a faggot on TV and how that is contradictory to how people talk about him. Better yet, if these rumours had had any effect on the actual story, but they do not.
In Persona 3, this was not a problem. You could hear students talk about Apathy Syndrome, like how they knew someone who had gotten it, or that they wished they could get it to not have to study for an exam or something. Before the third full moon operation, there were rumours about couples having been found unconscious near Shirakawa Boulevard, which is foreshadowing for where the next operation takes place and what the next arcana will be (or one of them, anyway). You can also find people suffering from Apathy Syndrome in town and "talk" to them. Basically, unlike Persona 4, Apathy Syndrome has a real and direct effect on the world and its effect in addition to the increase and decrease after each operation is discussed by various NPCs and on TV.
People oftentimes like to accredit Persona 4 for its motif of not taking rumours on face value and instead try to seek out the truth. However, this motif is not present in the game. This is, ironically enough, a lie. The actual theme of the game is that you should seek out the truth and not believe convenient lies. It has nothing to do with rumours, except being an extremely meta-ironic joke. I am not exactly sure where or how this headcanon (because it definitely is a headcanon) came to be, but I have an inkling suspicion it came from the same people who actually try to frame this game as being "serious" when that is just not the case, regardless of what version you play. That is not to say that the game is bad solely because it is not serious. No, the problem is instead people trying to convince other people that the game is actually not up-beat because they think that will make their Persona 3-senpai notice them or something.
Despite my claim that there is no trace of this motif in the game, there is actually an attempt at integrating this motif. Some time after the second semester starts, Yukiko makes the following remark, "Is it me, or does the town seem kind of strange lately? Everyone is in high spirits, for some reason… And they all talk about other people, but never themselves." I usually do not mind when a story goes for the tell-not-show-approach, but that is only when there is sufficient enough reason to believe the things you are told, because try as I might, and trust me, I have tried, I simply cannot make heads or tails of this. There is absolutely nothing in this entire game that could even remotely substantiate this observation.
The first problem with it is that we, the player, have absolutely no frame of reference for how Inaba used to be before we moved there. After all, like Dojima correctly states, the murders began exactly when Yu moved there. What this means is that we have no real understanding of what it truly means when the townspeople describe Inaba as a quiet town where nothing happens. What makes this even worse is that the entire premise of the game involves you fighting Shadows inside of the TV, which, by default, makes Inaba not boring. So, when Yukiko says that she thinks the town has been "kind of strange lately" and that "Everyone is in high spirits, for some reason…," we have no idea what this means because we have no frame of reference for how they should behave.
What makes this statement even worse is that the townspeople do not exactly seem strange or in particularly high spirits. If you go around town and talk to people, they do not seem to really be in "high spirits." Sure, they were in high spirits when it was revealed that Rise would be moving to Inaba, but that is to be expected when a super popular idol suddenly moves to where you live, especially when that place happens to be a small town, where you are bound to see her. You might also argue that people might be in high spirits because the police caught what they believed was the murderer, but that is also to be expected. Who would not be relieved when a serial killer is finally arrested? The point I am trying to make is that nothing about these sudden rises in high spirit is in any way "strange," despite Yukiko claiming that this sudden change in morale is strange.
Also, before I actually lose my mind, the line, "And they all talk about other people, but never themselves," is a really strange line when you think about it. If someone only talks about themselves, or if they mostly only talk about themselves, you would think that they are a narcissist. Is this what Yukiko thinks everyone should aspire to be? This is not even mentioning how in Japanese culture you are supposed to act modest and humble, which is the complete opposite to how a narcissist would behave. I suppose the reason they decided to add this line was to emphasise that people only talk about others, never themselves. However, that does not make the implications of the comment any less strange.
Then again, the intended take-away of it is that people only talk about other people and that this phenomenon is somehow strange, despite the fact that is quite literally all that normalfags do. But I digress. I think what the writers tried to do here was to make it seem strange how fast people become famous and how fast people lose interest in them. Before I explain why I think this observation is incredibly stupid, let me first say that I kind of hate the implications of what she is saying. The idea that you have to care about things that do not personally affect you, like scandals and injustices, is pretty insulting. I am busy. I have better things to do than to care about the newest flavour of the month (like writing this essay). Hell, I do not even read the news because it is just a complete waste of my time and energy. In case you were wondering, I had the same problem when I played Persona 5, but at least it made more sense in that game, since, despite the public being fully aware of the fact that Shido was corrupt to the core, they still believed in him, because they wanted to be controlled.
Anyhow, my overall problem with this is that I would have been surprised if people had not gossiped about these people. After all, all the people who get famous on TV are all unique in their own right: Yukiko is the heir to the "pride and joy of Inaba" and the most popular girl at school, Kanji is feared as a delinquent among delinquents, Rise is a popular idol, Mitsuo is thought to be the killer, Naoto is a distinguished detective at such a young age. In other words, the reason why all of Inaba suddenly starts to gossip about these people, the reason why they all suddenly get famous overnight after having only appeared on TV once, is because they are all such unique individuals. It is also not difficult to understand why people would suddenly lose interest in them. After some time, the novelty wears off, and things that once seemed so magical, suddenly feel ordinary, since you have become accustomed to them.
This behaviour is in no way, shape or form, "strange." It is perfectly observable in reality. This phenomenon is not unique to Inaba because there is some underlying, "strange" reason. No, it is very natural. If you have ever bought something you really wanted for a very long time, you, too, will probably understand that the novelty wears off after some time. Rise agrees with this when she says, "That's how society is. They all just want to get in on the latest trend. People get excited fast and lose interest even faster… It goes 'round and 'round. There's no underlying reason for it." After which, Yukiko says ominously, "I don't know, It seems a little too weird… It's like… they're all afraid of something.," which obviously is in direct contrast to Rise's statement that there is "no underlying reason for it."
It has been years since I first played this game, and I still have no fucking clue what this is supposed to be hinting towards. Is there anything in this game that the townspeople should be afraid of? Izanami? Well, no, all she does is grant the wishes of the people, and unless they wished to be afraid, that is not something she would have granted. My best guess is that the people are afraid of others, because they are afraid of what other people think of them, and because they wished to be able to understand other people better, so as to not be afraid of them, Izanami granted them the power to see other people's inner thoughts via the Midnight Channel. My only tangentially related evidence to support this is that some people claim that they feel at ease because they do not have to worry about how other people perceive them when the fog has enveloped the town.
Other than this incredibly far-fetched connection, there really is nothing to substantiate this theory and nothing else that could possibly explain this half-baked motif, because at no point in the story is it shown that the townspeople are afraid of anything besides the existence of a serial killer being on the loose. Are they trying to escape something? Are they trying to escape facing themselves? Well, that would actually make sense and tie into what Yukiko said about people never talking about themselves, even if that is still a very awkward way to phrase that. Unfortunately, this is never shown nor even remotely hinted towards, unlike in Persona 5, where it is clearly shown that the citizenry are trying to escape taking responsibility for their own lives and instead prefer to be ruled over by others. When, exactly, is something similar established in Persona 4? Because I cannot find it.
Some time shortly after Yukiko makes this observation and shortly before the school trip starts, Kanji makes a similar observation about how he has come to realise how off base most rumours really are. At first glance, this kind of makes sense, but if you think about it for more than 2 seconds, it falls apart like a house of cards.
First of all, what rumours is Kanji referring to, exactly? What rumours made him realise this? Has there ever been any actual rumours in this game? I always hear fans talk about these elusive "rumours," but I have yet to actually hear about any of them, besides the Midnight Channel, but, as already explained, that hardly constitutes as a rumour, since no one seems to know about it besides the Investigation Team, despite it supposedly being a somewhat well-known rumour.
So, that obviously begs the question, what rumours was Kanji referring to? Was he just referring to rumours in general? Well, no, the reason Kanji brings this up in the first place is because he has realised how off base most rumours are after having joined the Investigation Team, which should indicate that the reason he realised most rumours were off base is because he has had first hand experience dealing with rumours whilst solving the case. But they have not been dealing with rumours. So, what are these "rumours" he is referring to?
Excuse me for having beaten around the bush for too long, however, what Kanji is referring to can in no way, shape or form, be classified as "rumours," because what he is obviously referring to are the low budget TV programmes that air own the Midnight Channel after the victim has been pushed into the TV. In fact, I would wager most people's minds immediately made that connection when Kanji made that observation. After all, that is the only thing that could fit the bill.
The only problem is that what is shown on these programmes were never rumours. Yukiko is never rumoured to have been searching for her prince charming, Kanji is never rumoured to have been gay (except by Chie, but not by the public, at large), Rise was never rumoured to have wanted to strip nude in front of her fans, Naoto was never rumoured to have been a girl wanting to become a boy. None of these were ever rumours circulating either before or after they made their appearance on the Midnight Channel. So, how could they be classified as rumours when they were never rumours to begin with?
The most enlightening revelation I had when writing this was that I enjoyed Persona 4 the most when the story was the least present, and I believe this part is what most people reminisce about as well when they claim Persona 4 is a good game. To many, Persona 4 is "nostalgic," which would make sense if you grew up in the country, but I severely doubt everyone who is able to sympathise with this sentiment did so. The reason the term "nostalgia" is therefore used is not because it reminds them of their adolescence but rather because nothing else would be able to accurately describe this strange phenomenon.
Persona 4 is a mixed bag of good and bad. It has a few decently high peaks but has many terribly low valleys as well. The way out biology works is that we tend to forget the bad and only remember the good. As such, it does not matter if the bad outweighs the good counterpart as we will only remember the good in the end. The name for this phenomenon is "nostalgia" and is the reason people like Persona 4: they only remember the good parts of it, like taking in the calming atmosphere of a quiet town, listening to the great soundtrack, fighting Shadows using Personas, and ranking up some social links. And whilst these are all very enjoyable things, they do not excuse the horrible writing. As such, it is for this reason I consider the first part of the game to be somewhat enjoyable, since that is when the story is the least present, whereas the remainder is godawful, since that is when the story begins to kick into high gear.
Nanako's kidnapping is absolute garbage with zero redeeming qualities. The sheer amount of plot convenience required for this absolute shitfest to transpire is truly remarkable in its own right. And the most depressing part of all that is that this is considered one of the highlights of the game... First of all, in-order for Namatame to be able to kidnap Nanako, the writers needed to come up with a convenient excuse for why Nanako would be home alone, since, at least in the original game, the player could not even go out at night. So, under normal circumstances, it would have been impossible for Namatame to kidnap Nanako, since Yu would have been home with her.
So, they decided for Adachi to send Yu another warning letter, and for Dojima to be the one who retrieves it from the mailbox. The problem is that there is no reason why Yu would open it right in front of Dojima. Anyone even remotely using their brain would immediately be able to deduce that, after having previously received an unmarked letter that revealed itself to be a warning letter, the second unmarked letter one receives would probably also be another warning letter. And since Dojima is a detective assigned to the murder case, the contents of the letter is not something he would simply brush aside. In other words, why would Yu open it in plain view of Dojima? There is no reason for him to do that, at least in the game, since the anime, at least, tried to salvage this mess by having Dojima glare at Yu, forcing him to open it.
And for some reason not even god knows, Dojima decides to take Yu down to the police station, because when a relative receives a threat reading, "if you dont stop this time someone close will be put in and killed," your first course of action would naturally be to leave your 7-year-old daughter home alone, as she is clearly perfectly safe and is in no danger whatsoever. Then, after having subjected the player to lethal doses of cringe, Dojima decides to confiscate Yu's cellphone and have him stay the night. Why? Because, according to Adachi, he is "worried about you." Apparently, the same cannot be said about Nanako who was left home alone despite the killer having revealed to Dojima that he knows where they live. So, what is the actual reason? To hinder Yu from warning his friends when he sees Nanako's silhouette appear on the Midnight Channel and prevent her kidnapping.
The contents of the second warning letter, "if you dont stop this time someone close will be put in and killed," make absolutely no sense, because the one who wrote it was Adachi, not Namatame. Adachi is not the one who decides who gets kidnapped nor the one who does the kidnapping. Namatame is the kidnapper. Even still, he does not decide who it is he kidnaps. Namatame only kidnaps those who appear on the Midnight Channel. He never kidnaps someone who does not appear on it. How did Adachi, who has no control over who gets kidnapped, because he is neither the kidnapper nor does he have any influence on who appears on the Midnight Channel, accurately predict who got kidnapped? Also, regarding the belief that Adachi was actively manipulating Namatame throughout the game, that is blatantly false. The only time this was ever shown is when Adachi egged Namatame on in the very beginning. After that, there is no evidence to suggest Adachi had a hand in the kidnappings. So, why is it that Adachi was able to predict who the next kidnapping victim was?
Nanako's silhouette first appeared on the Midnight Channel on November 4th. The second warning letter is delivered on the following day, November 5th. This means that if we assume Adachi was able to guess that Nanako was the next victim, the timeline would make sense. Unfortunately, it does not make sense. When Nanako first appears on the Midnight Channel, it is explicitly stated that the image is substantially blurrier than usual, that you cannot tell what gender the person is, and that it was too blurry to make out any details, including how tall or short they were. In other words, how did Adachi correctly guess that Nanako was the next one to appear? If even Yu, the person who sees Nanako every single day, spends the most of time with her, and, generally speaking, is the most familiar with how she looks, was unable to distinguish her, how did Adachi, someone who is nowhere near as close to her, guess that it was her?
This is, of course, assuming he knew, because if we take an even closer inspection it makes even less sense. Why would Adachi, if he knew Nanako was the next one to appear on the Midnight Channel, write a letter warning Yu that, "if you dont stop this time someone close will be put in and killed," when that is what would have happened if they had not rescued Nanako? If we assume by "this time" Adachi meant the person who appeared on the Midnight Channel the day before (Nanako), why is it that he warns them not to rescue Nanako because, if they do, "someone close will be put in and killed," when that is precisely what will happen if Nanako is not rescued? So, did Adachi not guess that it was Nanako, then? But if Adachi did not know it was Nanako, how come the timing was so oddly fitting? Because the writing is hot garbage. Moving on.
Also, as a side note, when Naoto is trying to get to the Dojima residence as quickly as possible, why did she not ride her scooter? You know, instead of running? I am fully aware that the scooters were only added in Golden, but that does not mean it is not a problem in Golden. There is absolutely no reason for her not to be able to ride her scooter. There is not even an attempt, however pathetic, to explain why she did not. I would have been fine if they at least tried to handwave it by saying her scooter was out of gas or that it was raining, even though the game does not prevent you from riding your scooter when it is raining. If anything, you are incentivised to do so, since riding your scooter is one of the few things you can do during a rainy day.
Let me be crystal clear: the single most retarded thing that ever happens in this game is Nanako being resurrected due to the power of friendship. First of all, there is no reason for her to be in mortal peril. Granted, she was sick and had been forced to strain herself during her kidnapping. But the problem with this little theory is that the doctors confirmed that they could not identify the cause of their illness. In other words, she did not die due to a bad cold. And, yes, the doctors would have been able to diagnose the fucking common cold. Unless you were not aware, Japanese people go to the doctor if they think they have a cold. There is not a single Japanese doctor that would not immediately have been able to diagnose the common cold. Not to mention that the doctor's character model clearly portrays him as older due to having grey hair, meaning he probably has tons of experience. But that begs the question: did her cold simply disappear? Unfortunately, the only answer to that question is inconsistent writing.
Regarding the argument that Nanako's declining health was a result of exposure to the fog in the TV world, as proposed by the so-called "Investigation Team," it had clearly been established, mere moments before, from the check-ups they underwent, that the fog had not had any negative impact on their health. Furthermore, the cause for the supposed rise in illness when the fog slipped into the real world was clearly established to have been the result of mass hysteria. In other words, there should not have been any reason for Nanako to die. But she did, because reasons. Not that her resurrection makes much more sense either for that matter.
Regardless, the reason for Nanako's death should be obvious: to enrage the Investigation Team so as to give them ample justification for killing Namatame by throwing him inside the TV, which is why the canon solution for the true ending makes little to no sense. In-order for them not to have killed Namatame, Yu would have had to have been canonically unaffected by Nanako's sudden death. Otherwise, he would have simply acted on impulse and killed Namatame rather than to have come to his senses and convinced the others to not kill Namatame. And when considering the fact that Yu (who has been established to care deeply for Nanako) is canonically supposed to act this much out of character, it makes the entire scene seem really poorly written. Should he not have been the most outraged over Nanako's death?
As for Namatame's behaviour in this scene, it is incredibly frustrating. When they enter Namatame's hospital room, he is trying to escape out of a window, fueling their rage even more. It may be nitpicking, but I am fairly certain it was established his room was on the second floor of the hospital; I doubt he would not have suffered injuries if he had jumped. But I digress. The main problem with this scene is his erratic behaviour, not because it is unwarranted but rather due to whether or not he is mentally sound being wholly dependent on what is most convenient for the writers. During their first visit, Namatame is obviously distressed. This is because the writers did not want him to be able to properly defend himself and answer their questions (such as, what did he mean by "'saving' people"), leaving their preconceived belief that he is the true killer unchallenged. But when they later return to question him the following day after having decided to hear his side of the story, he has suddenly completely regained his composure. Alike Nanako who died, only to be revived later on, as her death had then served its purpose to enrage the Investigation Team, Namatame is treated as nothing more than another plot device who only exists to further the narrative, no matter how absurd the surrounding circumstances may seem.
I would like to believe very few were, at the very least, not hesitant to throw Namatame into the TV, since it clearly was not the correct course of action in that scenario. Anyone who was even remotely paying attention would have been able to understand that intuitively, given the manner in which the choice was presented. However, there is a clear difference in bad writing between forcing the player to choose a precise answer from a bunch of equally vague options, to an unnecessary amount of questions, and misdirecting the player entirely, which is the reason Namatame's Shadow's appearance on the Midnight Channel is most definitely the second worst thing that happens in the game.
The most basic guideline for good writing is consistency. If a rule or fact is established, it must remain so for the entire story, unless something else is established at a later date, before it can be applied, especially in a murder mystery (if this game can even be called that). This is an example of how not to do that. During this moment, the player has not had any reason to doubt the legitimacy of what is shown on the Midnight Channel. Although some may have already deduced that the Shadows and dungeons only show exaggerated depictions of its ego's repressed feelings, there has never been any reason to doubt the gist of what is shown, since the repressed feelings shown have been established to fundamentally be the truth, despite being exaggerations. For the writers to have been allowed to do this, it should have been established or, at the very least, even remotely alluded to that what is shown on the Midnight Channel is merely what the public wants to see, not what is the truth.
But what turned this scene from a horrible to an appalling one were the questions, which one was forced to answer consecutively correct to unlock the true ending, so that one may torture oneself even more. But I am getting ahead of myself. To clarify, I would not even have been that salty if this shit had been pulled in, for example, Umineko, but because it instead happened in Persona 4, I have every right to criticise it. The difference between Umineko and Persona 4 is that Umineko actively encourages the reader to think for themselves and solve the mysteries, whereas this is not the case in Persona 4, where the mysteries were always so easy to solve that there was never any reason to actively make deduction or take notes, at least, up until this scene. Whenever the Investigation Team speculated about the killer's modus operandi, asking the player to give their input, the correct option was not only always painfully apparent to the player, they had already figured it out one entire dungeon prior. It is for this reason the questions are incredibly insulting. The game had already made it clear that there was no reason to actively engage with the mystery in any capacity. Even if one were to pick the wrong answer, another character would simply figure it out, and the game would progress.
If you want to write a story where the dialogue choices have an impact on the story, that is completely fine. Visual Novels do it all the time with different routes and whatnot. But this mechanic must be present from the beginning. And even if it is not, you cannot expect the player to suddenly expect the dialogue options to matter when they have spent the majority of the game picking dialogue options that all lead to the same destination, knowing they will all have the same outcome with the only difference being a slight difference in dialogue. When I watch a slice of life anime about cute girls doing cute things, I am not going to approach it with the same amount of attention and respect as I would when I read philosophy and vice versa, because I know that is not what the director intended for the viewer to do.
Lastly, how was Yosuke actually swayed by the supposed true dialogue options in any way? There is nothing of actual substance to them that would have logically been able to convince him that they are, in fact, "missing something." All that is said is that they need to calm down and think about it more carefully because they are missing something. But all that I am seeing that they are missing is what this "missing something" even is. Yosuke even asked what they were missing but received no proper answer. How, exactly, did "Calm the hell down!" convince him of anything? What, exactly, were they missing? What, exactly, did they need to mull over? Nothing. Yu does not provide even the slightest hint at any concrete counter-evidence to the belief that Namatame is the true killer. How was anyone convinced by this? Pure pathos? Well, that would require the story to actually make sense, which, if anything, has been established to not be the case.
There really is no reason why the Investigation Team decided to simply stop pursuing the case any further after they figured out the pattern behind the kidnappings. The only reason they did was because this format allowed for a party member to get kidnapped, accept their Shadow, awaken to their Persona, and join the Investigation Team. The actual investigation was, then, put on hold until all party members had joined. After all, they obviously could not be allowed to catch Adachi before Naoto joins, since all party members have to join before that happens.
The problem is that there still needs to be an established reason why the Investigation Team does not pursue the case any further. Sure, they figured out the pattern behind the kidnappings. That is great. That is a good step in the right direction. But they cannot simply stop pursuing the case after that simply because all party members have yet to join. Even if they would have been unable to find any clues about the culprit, after having asked around town or something, that would have been fine. The pacing would have still been bad, but, at least, there would have been one less plot hole in a sea of them. They could have concluded that since the culprit was using the TV World, there would naturally not be a lot of clues left. So, the best course of action would be to simply wait and see if any evidence surfaces during one of the kidnappings or from a victim's testimony.
Now, you might object and say that they kind of do just that. They conclude that they should simply wait for someone to get kidnapped and, then, question them for new evidence. The difference is, and the difference is actually really important, in the game, they never actually try to search for clues about the culprit's identity after they discover the pattern behind the kidnappings. Therefore, it is impossible for them to actually conclude that there is nothing more they can do, because they never actually had that confirmed. If they had tried to investigate further but came up empty handed, regardless, then they would, at least, have had a reason to sit around and do fuck all, because there would have been nothing more for them to do.
And, as usual, this made sense in Persona 3, since the Full Moon Shadows only appear on a full moon. Until then, all that S.E.E.S. could do was to prepare for the next ordeal by training in Tartarus. All they needed to do was to eliminate all 12 Full Moon Shadows. That was their purpose. The purpose of the Investigation Team is not to rescue the kidnapping victims. No, the purpose of the Investigation Team is to figure out who is behind the kidnappings and put them behind bars. Rescuing the kidnapping victims is only something they feel themselves morally obliged to do since no one else but them can save them (and because that is how they get new party members). It is not the reason why they decided to pursue the case.
From what limited knowledge I have of the mystery genre, there should ideally exist at least one "Sherlock" and one "Watson." The Sherlock should be the one driving the mystery forward by making deductions. The Watson, on the other hand, should be a self-insert for the average person. He should not be too quick on the uptake and ask the Sherlock questions so that a person of average intelligence would be able to understand the mystery. Basically, the Sherlock is the one who actually solves the mystery, whereas the Watson acts as a means of making the mystery more legible.
In Persona 4, for most of the game, until Naoto joins, you are the Sherlock, whilst the rest of the Investigation Team is the Watson. This is obviously a problem because the Sherlock, you, is supposed to be the one driving the plot forward by trying to solve the mystery. Unfortunately, because you cannot speak freely or actively advance the plot by yourself, you cannot fulfill your role as the Sherlock, which means that the plot simply refuses to move forward, because there is no detective to advance it until Naoto joins.
What boggles my mind is how poorly the actual investigation is conducted when it actually is conducted. For the first two dungeons, the Investigation Team, at least, made an earnest attempt at deducing the killer's modus operandi, and they would have been able to pretty much solve it if they had not been written to be retarded. Figuring out that the people who get famous on TV are the ones who get kidnapped is something that should have been established before Kanji gets kidnapped. After all, that was when I and pretty much everyone else figured it out.
However, that is not what happens. Instead, the game honestly expects you to think the murders have any connection to the first victim, Yamano. This only made an inkling of sense when Saki and Yukiko were targeted, since Saki found the body, and Yukiko's family owns the inn Yamano stayed at. Even if there is no concrete reason as to why Yukiko specifically got targeted instead of her mother, father, or her entire family, it is still not an unreasonable angle to, at least, consider, especially at the time, considering how likely it was that the reason Saki was targeted was because she found the body. But that is where that line of thinking ends.
For some bizarre reason, the writers decided to keep this charade going by insisting that the reason Kanji had been targeted was because Yamano had placed an order at Tatsumi Textiles. What kind of bullshit excuse for a motive is that? If the Investigation Team was in any way, shape or form, actually somewhat competent, they would have dropped that entire angle at this point. But they do not. Instead, it keeps on going until Rise gets kidnapped.
The problem is that the reason why Rise is not connected to the murders is basically equally as flimsy as to why Kanji would be connected to the murders. If you can get targeted for having been tasked with knitting a scarf, then why is it that Rise is somehow an exception to this rule when she has been on the same show as Yamano a couple of times, because they have been on the same show a couple of times? What metric, what distinction is there between these two scenarios to justify them ruling out the need for the victims to be connected to the first victim?
This is not even mentioning why it specifically is children who get targeted instead of their mothers. I am not sure where their fathers are. I guess they simply do not have any? Even though, during Yukiko's social link, she refers to her immediate family as "parents" instead of "mother." But I digress. The point is, they simply gloss over this clearly glaring logic error by ignoring it. They also outright ignore how this could even constitute a motive. Why would the killer specifically target the children whose mothers were acquainted with Yamano? How could that warrant murder?
Then, the day after they warn Rise about her maybe being the next kidnapping victim and, then, during the evening, clearly see her on the Midnight Channel, they finally strip away all the bullshit, leaving us with the much more sane deduction that those who get famous on TV are the ones who get kidnapped. Of course, this breath of fresh air lasts for about a second, because, then, they suddenly speculate about what grudge the killer could have against all the victims, when they just, moments before, clearly established that the killer does not choose who their victims are. Instead, the killer only targets those who get famous on TV. In other words, they have no grudge against them, because they do not target their victims based on grudges. They target them based on if they become popular on TV. Can you begin to understand why this game makes my brain hurt?
I am not even exactly sure why the writers decided to pursue this "grudge" line of thinking. A much better question would have been why the killer targets people who become famous on TV or how the Midnight Channel works in more detail than simply broadcasting the killer's intent. If I had to guess, the reason why they decided to even bring the idea of a grudge up was to give the impression that Mitsuo was the true culprit. That is, after all, the only thing they bring up when they question him after returning from the TV world. Why did he do it? What were his intentions? Did he hold a grudge against them? Other than in that specific scenario, the idea of a "grudge" is never brought up ever again.
The last one of these embarrassments happens after Naoto recovers. This scene perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with the murder mystery: the pacing is atrocious. I normally do not mind a slower pacing so long as it is not slow because it is unnecessarily padded out, which Persona 4's pacing is. Until now, the writers have tried to pad the mystery out by coming up with retarded tangents that lead nowhere in a vain attempt to trick the feebleminded into believing that actual progress is made when, in reality, it is all smoke and mirrors. What happens in this scene, however, is somehow both less and more insulting than all the other diversions: instead of simply going on an unrelated tangent, they simply drop it entirely.
Naoto explains that the time between when she was kidnapped and thrown into the TV was a matter of minutes. Chie, then, speculates that maybe there was a TV at the side of the road. Afterwards, this angle is entirely ignored. If the mystery had not been artificially stifled by the writers, this angle would have definitely raised an eyebrow: did the culprit have a TV prepared for throwing people into, or was it merely fortune that a TV happened to be nearby? If he did not have a TV prepared, that must mean he was, then, able to transport a person without anyone being able to notice. In other words, he probably transported them using a van and, then, threw them into a TV. However, if he had access to a van, it would have instead been far less cumberstone to simply bring a TV with him.
I get that hindsight is 20/20, however, I believe this counter-argument to no longer hold any water. Before this was established, I would have agreed. Without what is established in this scene, the deduction that the culprit was transporting a TV in a van solely from the fact that he rang the doorbell is far-fetched. However, it is not entirely far-fetched. Like stated earlier, if the culprit went up to the front door, rang the doorbell, and knocked them unconscious, he must have either have transported their body without having been noticed or had easy access to a TV. It is indeed fascinating to realise how well the writers managed to avert our eyes from the truth. By forcing us to think about "why" the victims were kidnapped, we stopped thinking of the very obvious "how" they were kidnapped, because, if we had, then the mystery would have been solved within the first month.
One of the most common criticisms of Persona 3 is that nothing happens until October when Shinjirou dies and, then, nothing happens until you confront Nyx in Januari. However, this is simply not true. In fact, a lot happens. Other than people simply having shit memory and bad reading comprehension, I think one of the reasons why people seem to forget that things actually happen in the meantime is because they are quite subtle, but that does not mean they do not exist, or that they are poorly paced. Or, I suppose they might think that the only thing that counts as progress in a story is when someone dies.
Sure, Shinjirou dying is definitely going to be a much more memorable moment in the story compared to everything leading up to it, except for Makoto's awakening, but that does not mean it comes out of nowhere. Shinjirou does not die for no reason. His death is the culmination of plot points going back several months, from Akihiko trying to recruit him again, to Ken learning who he is and slowly building up the resolve to kill him to avenge his mother. Without any of this build up, as subtle as it is, Shinjirou's death would have not been as impactful as it was nor would it have even made any sense.
The reason I bring this up is because people like to compare Persona 3 and 4 and say that nothing happens in both games until October when the plot, all of a sudden, for no reason, kicks into high gear. However, this is only true for Persona 4, not 3. In Persona 3, not only is it a blatantly false statement that nothing happens before Shinjirou dies, there is also a perfectly good reason why Shinjirou dies in October and not earlier. In Persona 4, however, there is actually no reason why the story only begins to pick up pace in October other than the fact that all party members have yet to join.
Another thing that irritates me about this entire comparison is when people either claim Persona 3 and 4 have equally bad pacing or that 4 has better pacing. As already established, it takes the Investigation Team until the start of the third dungeon to figure out the pattern behind the kidnappings. S.E.E.S, on the other hand, figured out the pattern behind the Full Moon Shadows during the second full moon operation. This means that there is a difference of 19 days between them. Whilst this may not seem like a big difference, you have to remember two very important things.
Firstly, the Investigation Team get together to try to solve the case before and after Kanji's dungeon, and, in case you do not remember, this is where the writers try to convince you that the reason Kanji was targeted is because his mother was acquainted with Yamano in some way, even though that makes absolutely no sense, since, in a town as small and as close knit as Inaba, you are bound to be acquainted with everyone on some level. They, then, try to keep this charade going for an entire month until Rise is targeted. This does not happen in Persona 3. They never try to pad the story out unnecessarily long for no reason. Instead, there is a steady and natural flow and progression all the time that is not stifled simply because the story cannot be allowed to unfold itself yet.
Secondly, S.E.E.S. was not trying to actively solve the mystery behind the two unusually large Shadows that appeared, because they did not think there was a pattern behind their appearance. After all, Shadows had appeared outside of Tartarus before, like when Akihiko, Mitsuru, and Shinjirou chased down a Shadow, and Shinjirou lost control of his Persona and killed Amada's mother. That said, they did decide to remain vigilant of these types of Shadows since the Priestess hijacked the monorail, something that had never happened before, which could have caused severe problems. However, when it happened for the third time, which, as the saying goes, makes it a pattern, Akihiko, then, took notice of the pattern. After which, the Full Moon Shadows appeared, which confirmed his theory.
This is in stark contrast to the Investigation Team, since they were actively trying to figure out the pattern behind the kidnappings and the culprit behind them. S.E.E.S. never had a reason to suspect that there was a pattern behind these unusual Shadows, since everything pointed to them simply being nothing more than anomalies. It was only when they had appeared three times, all on a full moon, that it became obvious that there was a pattern behind their appearances. The Investigation Team, however, does not have this excuse, because they were actively trying to figure out the pattern behind the kidnappings. They did not suddenly stumble upon the pattern when looking at the moon one night, since they had no idea that there even was a pattern that could be found. No, they knew that there was a pattern, and they tried to find that pattern.
Unlike a lot of other problems with this game, Mitsuo does not make me angry, and unlike most players, I actually quite enjoyed both his dungeon and boss fight. Not to mention that I actually thought his inner turmoil was one of the more interesting ones in the game. But, then, he just kind of disappears and is never brought up ever again. You could effectively remove his entire presence from the story, and it would not change anything. He basically just exists to pad out the story to make it as long as it was in Persona 3, which is honestly a shame, since it would have been pretty cool to have had him as a party member. Then again, he did murder Morooka, so I guess it would not have made sense for him to get off scot-free.
The problem with Mitsuo as a red herring is that no one who has ever played this game thought that he was the true culprit for even one second. There are a couple reasons for this. The most obvious one is that he comes out of nowhere, without any form of build up to his reveal. If I had to guess, this is the main reason no one believed that he was the true culprit, because he just did not seem like it. Secondly, Morooka was never shown on TV, which makes it seem like this murder was an oddity. Because of the lack of any real build up and the odd circumstances surrounding the murder, it is very difficult to get the impression that he is supposed to be the true culprit.
Lastly, from a meta-contextual perspective, it makes absolutely no sense for the game to end here. In Persona 3, the recommended level for fighting Nyx was 75, since that is the level when party members have unlocked all their skills. At this point in the story, before his dungeon, you are probably going to be hovering around level 25, and after it, 35. In other words, this is only the halfway point in the story. You still have another 30 whole levels to go. And even if someone had not played Persona 3 and was not aware of this, I doubt that they would not have thought that it was weird that the game ended so early, considering that they had barely filled out the compendium or even done all their social links. Not to mention that Naoto had yet to join as a party member, despite being featured in both openings along with the rest of the Investigation Team, which would clearly indicate that she is supposed to be a party member.
The actual murder mystery of this game is lousy, at best. At first glance, it seems fine, but, as with everything else in this game, a more careful examination reveals all the cracks. Perhaps the game was written with the intention of being bad? After all, the theme of the game is to search for the truth, and what better way to implement this theme than into the very essence of the game itself? In other words, the final test, so to speak, as they say, is to look at the game itself and see the truth for what it is. But I digress.
I would not claim to be an expert on the mystery genre, but I do believe even a novice such as myself can spot the flaws with how the evidence is handled. First of all, there is no evidence for Adachi being the true culprit. No concrete evidence, at least. The only evidence the game provides for him being the true culprit is circumstantial, at best. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that it would be an insult to the looked down upon connotation of circumstantial evidence to claim that this evidence is circumstantial.
The first piece of evidence for Adachi being the true culprit is his comments on the list of victims, documented by Namatame in his diary. In fact, this is more or less the strongest piece of evidence they have for him being the true culprit since it is basically the only thing Naoto brings up when they confront him. The problem is that it really does not prove anything.
The logic is that the notebook contained the names of both the victims that were broadcasted to the public and those who were not, and because Adachi commented on that by saying, "well that settles it, then," when he should have instead questioned what Naoto had meant with those who were not released to the public, he is the true culprit because he did not think such a statement was odd.
The obvious problem with this form of reasoning is that it is not evidence for anything other than Adachi not having thought about his comments too much. He could have easily evaded any form of suspicion cast upon him by saying something around the likes of, "Oh, my bad. I misspoke. Sorry." and that would have been a sufficient counter-argument. After all, sometimes people simply do not think before they speak or make an error when they think.
To suppose that people cannot make mistakes, especially when emotions are high, is absurd. Even more so when Naoto presented the notebook as evidence for Namatame being the true culprit. What detective would not be happy that they found evidence for a case that has already claimed the lives of three people? If someone were to present something as being great, and you also happen to think that thing is good, then you probably will not think too hard about it at first glance. Like with most things, the critical thinking part comes secondary.
The other piece of evidence for him being the true culprit is the warning letter. As stated in the game, Adachi delivering the letter directly to their mailbox is not out of the ordinary considering the fact that he is Dojima's partner and someone who frequently stays and eats dinner there. In fact, Adachi is the only guest the Dojima's have besides Yu's friends. In other words, it would not be strange for him to visit them or go near their house.
The only problem with this form of logic is that the culprit did not enter the house in any capacity. The culprit did not enter the household and leave the letter on the dinner table, for example. The letter was dropped off in the mailbox, which is found outside. In other words, just because Adachi is one of the few visitors the Dojimas get does not mean he is the culprit, because the question is not if the culprit can enter the Dojima residence without seeming suspicious. The question is if the culprit can directly deliver a letter to the Dojima residence's mailbox without seeming suspicious.
Now, in case you, the person reading this, is younger than 10-years-old, then you may not remember a time period when people even used mail (and by that I mean real, pen and paper mail), in which case this may not be obvious to you, so let me explain. Persona 4 is set in 2011. During this time, people still sent mail to one another. Additionally, it takes place in Japan, a country where people still use fax machines and, for some reason, love paperwork. Not to mention that the game takes place in rural Japan, where there are a lot more people who may prefer to send mail rather than to place a phone call or send an email, since they may not even have access to the internet.
With all this in mind, it is not exactly out of the ordinary for someone to deliver a letter directly to the Dojima's. For example, a neighbour could have delivered it. If they had wanted to deliver a notice, it would not have been an odd thing to simply deliver a brochure directly to their neighbours'. In fact, and I am actually pretty confused as to why this is never brought up at all, the mailman could have delivered it. I know that there was no address written on the letter, but, just because there was no address on the letter does not mean the mailman could not have been the one to deliver it. All that means is that the culprit could not have delivered the letter via the mailman. The mailman could have still been the culprit or collaborated with the culprit.
In other words, it would not have been odd for someone, basically anyone, to deliver a letter directly to the Dojima's. Sure, if anyone had seen it, it may have raised an eyebrow, if they were feeling on edge that day, as to why they did not simply let the mailman deliver it, but it would not have stood out to the extent of them having been labelled a "suspicious person" as per the description the Investigation team searched for when they tried to find intel on a possible suspect. What this means is that basically anyone in Inaba could have delivered the letter without having seemed suspicious. For example, it could have been a birthday invitation. After all, Nanako is still at that age when she is invited to all birthday parties (and when they are a big deal).
Then, we finally arrive at the scene where the Investigation Team gather at Aiya to discuss their findings. If we for a moment ignore the fact that all the evidence they use to deduce that Adachi is the true culprit is nonsense, there is something else that makes this murder mystery feel cheap. That being, the suspect list. When Yu, Yosuke, and Naoto all stand outside Aiya to get some air, you, the player, is tasked with solving the case yourself. You get a list of all the possible suspects. If you answer correctly, the game proceeds. If you answer incorrectly, you get a bad ending. Of course, you could choose to protect Adachi and do the accomplice ending.
I will say, before I move on to what is actually wrong about this, that I do not particularly mind how the game handles this. What I mean by that is that it is not impossible to deduce that Adachi is the true culprit. In fact, once you are actually faced with the possible suspects, it is kind of difficult to not suspect him. All you really need to do is a process of elimination, starting with your party members, then your social links, then the shopkeepers, and lo and behold, the only one left is Adachi. My problem with how they went about this is that, even when I played it for the first time, the first thought that popped into my mind was that the writers had no idea how to write dialogue that would have organically led the Investigation Team to believe Adachi was the true culprit. But, like I said, I do not particularly mind how they went about it. It just feels lazy and cheap.
My actual problem with this scene is the suspects list. To put it into perspective, in Umineko, it makes sense that all the suspects are characters you know. The game takes place on Rokkenjima, a private, remote island owned by the Ushiromiya family. In other words, all the people on this island are members of the Ushiromiya family or their servants. During the evening, a bad storm hits the island and is said to stay in effect for the next two days. Naturally, this means that no one will be able to either leave or come to the island for as long as the storm is there (except for a certain detective). They are, for all intents and purposes, stuck there. Furthermore, because it is a private island, everyone present on that island is known to the player. Therefore, it makes sense as to why there can even be a suspects list for this game.
Now, compare this to Persona 4. We are presented with a suspect list of all named characters in the game. These are the only characters we can suspect. We cannot, for example, suspect any of the nameless NPCs walking around town. And this is a problem, because there is no reason why we should not be able to suspect them. In Umineko, it makes perfect sense as to why we can only suspect those who we can suspect. After all, those are the only people on the island. But, in Persona 4, there really is no reason why we cannot suspect anyone else but the named characters. We just cannot, because they are not named characters and therefore could not have been the murderer. Obviously.
Then again, it does not matter that they have no evidence for Adachi being the true culprit when the writers can simply make Adachi fumble so badly so as to admit it himself. Funnily enough, even after having been defeated by the Investigation Team, Adachi could have gotten off scot-free. If the writers had not made Adachi confess his crimes, there would have been no way to prosecute him, because there is no evidence. All he would have had to have done was skip town, and he would have been a free man with an untainted reputation. Even the slip up he makes when the Investigation Team confronts him is, at the end of the day, nothing more than circumstantial evidence that would not hold up in court, because it hinges on the existence of the TV world, which is not something a judge would take seriously. Not to mention that they would have been unable to prove that he even said it, in the first place.
My problem with Adachi is not that he is a poorly written character. On the contrary, the mere fact that a lot of people are able to relate to his struggles is proof alone that he is a realistic and well-written character. My problem with Adachi, however, is that he is a poorly written villain. Normally, a character's motive should condition their behaviour. For example, the main villain wants to conquer earth. Therefore, he tries to conquer earth. But, in the case of Adachi, it appears as if his motivations are instead a result of his actions. This is because Adachi was merely given the role of villain to tie all the loose plot threads together and, as a result of that, has a myriad of different motives, which is the reason his character is a complete enigma to most players, resulting in a lot of people mistakenly conflating Adachi's lies with his true beliefs. This is because he does not have a concrete goal. After all, he simply behaves however the plot demands he does. Everything he says is more or less a lie or a twisted version of the truth, said only to deflect blame from him, or because it is the most convenient excuse for him to perpetuate in that particular moment. For example, he claims that he did not intend to kill Yamano or Saki, and that he did not even know the TV world was dangerous, but, then, he says in a flashback, after having pushed Saki into the TV world, that the would never "walk into a death trap like that," referring to the the TV world. It is for this reason it is impossible to believe anything he says prima facie, unless it aligns with his actions.
Accordingly, Adachi did not become a murderer because he lacked "talent," as many like to believe. Although, his perceived lack of "talent," in addition to having been sent to Inaba, eventually culminated in Adachi lashing out by taking his frustrations out on Yamano and Saki by killing them, instead of relieving his stress by having sex, as was his original intention, until they did not reciprocate. Adachi's motive for killing them was not due to his lack of "talent" but was instead due to them rejecting his advances. Similarly, his belief that he lacked "talent" was not the reason he sat back and watched as Namatame kept perpetuating a cat-and-mouse game with the Investigation Team. It was, as he himself admits when asked about his motive, because he could and it was entertaining to watch. Why did he want everyone to turn into Shadows? Was it because he lacked "talent?" No, it was because he had become a wanted criminal in the real world and no longer had any reason to care about what happened to it, in addition to the possibility that no one would care if he had murdered people if everyone started to act on nothing but impulse and were blind to everyone and everything around them, including a murderer.
For some reason, unlike any other game in the franchise and despite its rather amicable message and general tone, Persona 4 has a lot of controversies surrounding it. One of these is whether Adachi was right or not. But, before I even begin to lay the groundwork for that discussion, I need to clarify a few things. For some reason, it is impossible to have a civil discussion about this scene, because, if you do criticise it, then you must obviously agree with everything Adachi says. Because of this, it is basically impossible to actually criticise the Investigation Team's arguments or the writing in general because people will think you are defending Adachi, which is not what I am about to do.
One extremely important facet to consider when critiquing this scene is that it seems as if no one can withdraw their own projections. If you agree with Adachi, you will project yourself unto Adachi. If you disagree with Adachi, you will project yourself unto the Investigation Team. Notice the exact wording I used there. I did not say, "If you agree with the Investigation Team, you will project yourself unto the Investigation Team," like I did with Adachi. No, I said, "If you disagree with Adachi, you will project yourself unto the Investigation Team." This detail may seem innocuous, but it is extremely important to consider, because it perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with the writing of this scene.
The problem with this scene is that the Investigation Team does not represent anything. Adachi clearly states his thesis. The Investigation Team does not. We can only assume they are supposed to represent the opposite of what he believes. Adachi also argues for his thesis very well. His arguments are sound and make sense. He is not being irrational. You can actually understand his perspective. This is not the case with the Investigation Team. They do not argue for anything. When they try to "counter" Adachi's arguments, most of the time, it is simply them asking Adachi to explain himself, which simply gives Adachi the chance to further explain what he means.
What this means is that it is impossible for the Investigation Team to actually refute anything Adachi says. Just because you can put "anti" or "not" before what Adachi believes does not mean you can produce good enough arguments to refute him, which is actually precisely what the Investigation Team needed to do if they wanted to refute him. For example, if I were to point at a red ball and claim that it was blue, you cannot refute me by simply declaring, "no." You have to counter me by stating that the ball is actually red. To provide another example, let us say I was to claim my phone was broken. You cannot simply handwave that claim away by declaring it is not if you want to convince me or the metaphysical audience. You have to either rationally explain why it is not broken or physically demonstrate that it is not broken. For example, by charging the battery, which would reveal it to have had an empty battery.
This is precisely why the writing in this scene is so poor. The Investigation Team simply tells him he is wrong without explaining or proving him to be wrong. However, they still act as an opposing will to him; even though the Investigation Team does not represent anything on their own and are only able to derive their beliefs from acting in opposition to Adachi, because they oppose him, it allows for people to be able to project their own beliefs onto them. If you simply do not like Adachi because he is a murderer, or if you disagree with his beliefs, you can project yourself onto the Investigation Team and refute him using your own arguments.
This is exactly what people do when they debate about this topic. If you agree with Adachi, you will use his own arguments to argue your point. However, if you disagree with Adachi and want to refute him, you will not use the Investigation Team's arguments. You will use your own, because the Investigation Team has no arguments. If someone does bring up one of their arguments, it is only ever Yukiko's, which is not referenced because they think it is a good argument, but because they want to point out how out-of-touch or callous she is. In other words, no one cares about what the Investigation Team actually says here. Instead, they have to make up their own arguments, which is hilarious to me, because it single-handedly proves that the Investigation Team utterly failed to refute Adachi and did not represent the truth in the slightest. Once again, it does not matter if you can point at them and say one is right and the other is wrong, because that is just how it is. What matters is that they can actually argue their point, which they sorely failed to.
I suspect the reason why this topic has even become so heavily debated, in the first place, is because the Investigation failed to properly refute Adachi or, at the very least, provide a more concrete and realised alternative. As I have repeatedly tried to explain now, the problem with this scene is that the Investigation Team neither represents anything nor do they argue for anything. This is a major problem because Adachi's beliefs make a lot of sense. Sure, his idea of turning everyone into Shadows is pretty mental, but I think both you and I know that when someone tries to defend Adachi, this is not the point they are trying to argue. No, they are instead trying to argue that life is inherently unfair, which it is.
At its core, this is the problem. You cannot refute that life is by design unfair. You can only refute what kind of mentality that information gives birth to, and to do that, you have to provide an alternative vision of reality. When Adachi explains himself, it is obvious by his wording that his line of thinking leads one to stop trying. If you simply were not lucky to be talented enough in life, you should simply stop trying to succeed, because there is nothing you can do to win. The very obvious argument against this is that if you think you will not succeed and therefore do not even try to succeed, it is very obvious that you will not succeed, because you did not even try to begin with. You just gave up.
This is what the Investigation Team should have done: they should have provided an alternative perspective on reality. Unfortunately, that is not what they did. And because Adachi was never refuted and because his initial premise of the world being unfair, which a lot of people can certainly relate to, makes sense, it was only natural that a substantial amount of people would come to regard Adachi as having been correct here, which is not even difficult to sympathise with since, after all, he is partially correct and was never even refuted.
The final layer in this pancake tower of problems is the fact that the Investigation Team did not represent the truth. If the moral of the game is supposed to be searching for the truth, then that is what the Investigation Team must do, because they are the good guys and are therefore supposed to embody the moral of the game. Once again, the problem with this scene is that it is extremely difficult to think Adachi was not correct, because not only does his beliefs make sense, the Investigation Team does not even bother to refute him. This is, of course, a major problem because not only does it not portray the Investigation Team as a beacon of truth, but it actually portrays Adachi as the one speaking the truth, which is contradictory to what the game is trying to portray them as. Adachi is not meant to represent the moral of the game. He is meant to represent what happens if you do not follow the moral of the game. That is why he is the villain of the story. Unfortunately, in this scene, like I keep repeating like a broken record, Adachi is the one who seems to be the one who is right because the Investigation Team does not even try to refute his otherwise sound arguments.
Adachi should have been the final boss, and the game should have ended shortly thereafter. Absolutely no one fucking cares about Ameno-Sagiri, Ameno-who-fucking-cares (Marie), and Izanami because they have no build-up to speak off and just pop out of nowhere. The reason why people like Nyx compared to these nobodies is due to the epic execution of her characterisation. Unlike the deities who have no build-up, the entirety of Persona 3 is the build-up to Nyx.
Every Full Moon Shadow S.E.E.S. defeat is another part of Nyx and the culmination of their defeat results in the birth of Nyx. From there on, Tatsumi Port Island becomes increasingly more desolate: its inhabitants succumb, one after another, to Apathy Syndrome, people start wishing for Nyx's salvation, and the Cult of Nyx spreads like wildfire, all the while garbage bags and flyers fill the streets, as everyone has given up on life. As such, Nyx actually feels like the final boss. After all, her avatar is the culmination of everything that has happened in the game, which is beautifully illustrated by the Arcana readings, eventually leading to Death, Nyx.
This also happens in Persona 4. Presumably, because the writers simply copied Persona 3. The entirety of Persona 4 is the build-up to the truth behind everything that has been going on. The game follows the Investigation Team trying to figure out the identity of the person kidnapping people and putting them inside the TV. As the game goes on, they make more discoveries about the case and make steady progress to figuring out the truth. This all culminates when they figure out it was Adachi, and when he flees into the TV world to evade them, which causes the fog inside the TV to leak into the real world. As such, Adachi actually feels like the final boss. After all, his reveal as the true culprit is the culmination of everything that has happened in the game.
The reason why both Nyx and Adachi are the only bosses that feel like the final boss of their respective game, and why I do not give a single fuck about any of the Sagiri that come after Adachi, is because of their build-up and because everything is on the line when you fight them. If you do not defeat Nyx, everyone will get apathy syndrome, which would be the end of mankind. If you do not defeat Adachi, everyone will get turned into Shadows, which would be the end of mankind. This, coupled with the fact that when they are revealed to be the final boss, the world becomes distorted. Tatsumi Port Island becomes desolate, whereas Inaba becomes enveloped in thick fog. The residents of Tatsumi Port Island relinquish their will to live, whereas the residents of Inaba stop searching for the truth.
There is nothing that could replace Nyx, there is nothing that could supersede Nyx, and there is nothing that should supersede Nyx, because Nyx served her thematic purpose well. Similarly, there is nothing that could replace Adachi, there is nothing that could supersede Adachi, and there is nothing that should have attempted to supersede Adachi, because Adachi served his thematic purpose well. As such, all bosses after Adachi are completely redundant. All they do is repeat the exact same thing that had already been established by Adachi (or Namatame). They serve no other purpose than to dilute an already too long and poorly written story.
The criteria for unlocking the true ending are incredibly unclear, unless you were using a guide. Truthfully, I do not believe a single person has ever actually unlocked the true ending without either a guide or without having stumbled upon it by "accident." There is not a single person who thought, when prompted with the option to either go home or stay, that they were still missing something crucial (apart from double-checking if they had talked to everyone), because there is nothing to indicate that something is missing.
No, Adachi's letter does not count because that scene is only triggered after you choose to stay when prompted to go home for the day. No one in their right mind would have gone back to Junes after having already talked with Teddie and Yosuke there, because there would be no actual reason to return there again after having seen that scene play out. The only scenario in which this scene would ever play out is if the player went back there for the heck of it or by mistake. No one has, and no one ever will, return to Junes with the explicit intention of uncovering the truth behind the case, and anyone who claims otherwise is simply lying.
No, (You) did not think it strange that Yu was the only one to awaken to his Persona without having faced his Shadow before you read Adachi's letter, because the letter is only read once you return to Junes again, not before. (You) probably do not even remember the fact that this topic was brought up after Rise was rescued. So, how would you have thought about it prior to having read Adachi's letter? Furthermore, even if, when prompted with the option to go home, you thought it a bit strange that there still was no explanation as to why Yu was the only one who did not have to face his Shadow to awaken to his Persona, there is still no logical reasoning for why (You) would return to Junes, specifically, with the explicit intention of figuring that out. This is, of course, assuming (You) did remember this, at that particular moment, which (You) did not, and anyone who claims otherwise is simply lying.
No, having hidden endings is not a good thing, actually. Hiding something as significant as the true ending is not good game design. Easter eggs or achievements are one thing, but the true ending is another. Persona 4 is a 100 hour long game. For the average person, that is a lot of time spent on a single playthrough. Even for the people who play these games multiple times with no issue (like myself), 100 hours is still 100 hours, which is a lot of time. This is not a game you can finish during the weekend if you play it casually. To therefore find out that you were not able to get the most out of this game, which you just spent the last 2 weeks playing, simply because of bad game design is not something most will appreciate, especially when the reward is a boring dungeon and a lacklustre boss fight.
No, hiding the true ending does absolutely nothing to somehow enhance the theme of the game. Everything this ending wants to accomplish has already been established. The idea that you cannot be content with convenient truths and have to always continue to seek for the truth was already established when the Investigation Team debated whether they should kill Namatame or not. They could have simply ignored the fact that he had an alibi and killed him, but they did not. Instead, they decided to not turn a blind eye to the inconsistencies and sought out the truth. Repeating this again is simply a waste of time.
No, you cannot dismiss this problem by saying that this is just how JRPGs are: they are not complete until you kill God at the end. Unfortunately, that is not an argument. That is an example of the is-ought fallacy. Simply because that is considered the norm does not mean it is a good thing or even a requirement. If you can seamlessly integrate it into the story, like in Persona 3, then it is not a problem, but Izanami is not seamlessly integrated into the story. She is instead awkwardly tacked on.
The problem with Izanami's dungeon is the same as with Marie's: you make no meaningful progress. Normally, the purpose of a dungeon is to allow the player to grind so that you can get to a high enough level to be able to beat the boss. However, at the start of both their dungeons, you are already at a high enough level to defeat the boss, which means that you have no incentive to even fight the Shadows there, since you are already strong enough to defeat Izanami with ease.
This is not even mentioning how the dungeon feels boring. The developers clearly intended for the dungeon to have a more serene atmosphere because you are supposed to be in the same realm as a god, but that does not make it any less uninspiring. The biggest problem with the dungeon are the visuals. In both Persona 1 and 2 you enter Avidya Cavern, which has a similar atmosphere to Yomotsu Hirasaka. The reason why Avidya Cavern has a good atmosphere is because the visuals are oppressive whereas the music is serene, which gives off this confusing blend of both safety and danger. Yomotsu Hirasaka lacks this oppressive element, which makes the dungeon just feel boring because of how serene it is.
The boss itself is a complete bore because of how braindead easy it is. After all, because of how easy it is to become overleveled in this game as is, and how much easier it is compared to Persona 3, this should not be all too surprising, but the boss is somehow easy by the easy difficulty standards of this game. I mean, the second half of the boss fight is basically scripted, and the first half is a snoozefest.
The visuals are murky and non-oppressive. They are just there, and I just look at them, and my brain barely registers that they are even there. I am not even sure where the boss fight takes place. In Persona 3, you fought Nyx at the top of Tartarus, which makes a lot of sense. In Persona 4, you fight Izanami at the end of her dungeon, which also makes a lot of sense. However, they are distinctly different. The top of Tartarus looks like the top of Tartarus, whereas the end of Yomotsu Hirasaka is just an open space with some red objects scattered about. It does not look like the end of anything. It does not look like there is anything special or important about it. It is just an open space, which is what the entire dungeon also has been up until that point.
One of the many things I love about Nyx's boss fight is how the moon is clearly visible behind Nyx. They tried to replicate this motif by having the universe behind Izanami. The only problem with this is that the universe has nothing to do with either her or the rest of Persona 4, for that matter. Sure, you could argue that the universe is a reference to Izanagi-no-Okami's arcana, the World, but that is really stretching it by a lot compared to the very simple and obvious connection between the moon and the Dark Hour. It would be like trying to argue that the moon overlooking the fight actually represents Shinjirou watching over you from heaven (because his social link arcana is the Moon), which is not false, since he does make an appearance at the very end, but that is not what the moon is supposed to symbolise.
The music is also really bad. The track that plays during her first phase, "Mist," is really good, but the one that plays during her second phase, "Genesis," is really bad. The problem with it is that it was inspired by classical music, which, although great in its own right, does not fit this boss fight. Like most classical music, the track is a slowburn. It has a slow and steady build up to the eventual culmination, which, admittedly, does sound epic. However, that epic culmination, which lasts for about 30 seconds, comes at the cost of the rest of the song, which goes on for about 7 minutes, being murky and boring. To put it bluntly, a slow-paced song does not fit into a fast-paced game.
The fatal flaw of this boss fight is that there is nothing memorable about it. Apart from Yu using Myriad Truths to defeat Izanami, there is nothing. Nyx, on the other hand, has a lot of memorable things about her. For example, the arcana shifts, the fact that the boss fight is not a complete push over, the music, etc. There are simply far more aspects about that fight that make it really memorable. Izanami's boss fight really has nothing going for it. There really is no gimmick or anything that really affects the actual boss fight to make it memorable in the same way the arcana shifts made Nyx's boss fight so memorable.
If the recent rumours are becoming reality, then it seems like Persona 4 is going to get a remake. Upon discovering this, a lot of people have given their suggestions on how the remake could improve the game. For example, by making the dungeons more akin to Persona 5's, etc. Whilst there definitely is a lot of room for improvement, if the remake is made with the intention of being as faithful to the original as possible, like Reload was, then it would still be impossible to salvage, due to how ingrained its flaws are with the story. Sure, you could improve the graphics, which would certainly make the game look better, but that does not mean you can fix the actual problems that were present in the original. The only way to actually fix Persona 4 would be to take some extreme creative liberties. By that I mean, scraping the entire manuscript and rewriting it, since, in case you have not been paying any attention, the game is bad from start to finish.
Unlike Persona 4, the only real problem with the Persona 3 (to some people, at least) was that Tartarus was poorly designed, which is a very minor problem that is not even integral to the story, besides being thematically brilliant, but since this is not an analysis of Persona 3 (despite my attempts), I will refrain from going overboard. Basically, it does not matter how the blocks of Tartarus are designed. They can look like they did in the original or in the remake, and it would not matter, because it does not impact the actual story; you do not have to rewrite entire scenes to accommodate for these changes. But this is not the case with Persona 4. If you want to fix it, then you have to rewrite the entire script, which is not something Atlus is going to do.
In conclusion, it should not come as a surprise that I think Persona 4 is a bad game. After all, I have spent the last 14 thousand words (it has grown by north of 10 thousand words since I last recorded this) critiquing it. I could definitely understand how someone could overlook some minor issues due to its game development having been rushed. Not to mention that every game has its fair share of flaws, so it is definitely fair to excuse some problems if the overall product is otherwise good. But these problems are far more severe and far more frequent than simply some minor problems, here and there, which could have easily been fixed if the game had only remained in development for a few more months, to the point that the game has more flaws than actual good qualities.
The problem with the writing, in general, is that, on the surface, it looks fine. If you do not critically analyse anything in this game and simply go by how things are presented and framed, then you will not spot anything wrong with it. However, the moment you actually take a closer look at the dialogue and start to think about it for more than a fraction of a second, you will very quickly realise that nothing in this game makes even the slightest sense. There was once released a critique of Persona 5 that called it "style over substance," which was, then, later refuted for taking things out of context or simply arguing in very bad faith. Maybe it is not too wise to use the same epitaph, given its history, but I think if any Persona game deserves to be labelled as such it would be Persona 4: style over substance.