Players can now take full control over their teammates, and the battles of P4 are as hard as they come. Even basic enemies are capable of ripping you apart in two turns if you’re not careful, but lurking beneath the simplistic veneer of turn-based combat is a complex system of Personas to keep that from happening. You can hold up to five Personas at a time, plus the three attached to your teammates, and each Persona gains new skills (magical abilities) as it levels up. The best way to win a battle is to find an enemy’s elemental weakness and chain bonus attacks one after another. On the flipside, enemies can exploit your Persona’s weakness just as easily, so there is a constant struggle in managing a diverse range of Personas and permanently fusing them together to craft new ones to stay one step ahead.

It’s a strange contradiction, but battle is both the rarest of events, and the focus of every action in the game. Proceeding day-by-day, you have exactly one in-game year to complete the story, and each day is part of an overarching strategy surrounding your Personas. A Persona’s power is inextricably tied to the strength of a corresponding Social Link, so instead of rushing into battle for the night, you might want to hang out with your buddy Yosuke or go practice with one of the sports clubs. Just don’t miss the sign-up date. Some people won’t give you the time of day without the right attributes, so you could skip hanging out to study at the library and raise your Knowledge, or embolden your Courage with the Mabo Tofu at the Chinese Diner. P4 is a lot like The Sims, but with a purpose.

P4 is constantly enveloped by an aura of dire urgency. Shadows only attack after it rains, and failing to save even one person from TV World is grounds for Game Over. Imagine for a moment that the weather report indicates two days of rain ahead. That’s two days to save someone’s life, but Drama practice is tomorrow and you’re sure that it’ll give you the boost needed to fuse the perfect Persona for an edge. Do you head into TV World right away in case you have to back out for more supplies and return the next day, or do you fuse the Persona and hope that you can get through the dungeon in one go?

The game is confined to a relatively small area, and yet it’s so massive in scope that this review hardly qualifies as a suitable summary of everything you can do. Choices are only as important as the ramifications though, and that’s why Persona 4 is such a beautiful experience. You get involved with the characters and the town on such a personal level that statistics melt into the background. On more than one occasion, I ditched beneficial Social Links because I preferred the company of my other friends, and it’s an incredibly rare and surrealistic moment when you realize that you think of a 3D model as a friend.

Questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you .