Walkthrough of the game Persona 4 part 1. Games of the Persona series (2024)

Quest №1. Acquire an Angel Statue
Wheretake:
When: From May 2.
Reward: 3 Chest Key
Walkthrough: Having accepted the quest, we go to Yukiko Castle, where there is an Avenger Knight on the sixth and seventh floors, from whom we knock out the Angel Statue. We take the trophy to class and receive a reward.

Quest No. 2. Acquire a Demon Statue
Where to get: School, 2nd floor, guy near the toilets.
When: From May 2 to August 31.
Reward: 3 Dokudami Tea
Walkthrough: We use the same method as last time, only we have to kill Magical Magus.

Quest №3. The Girl on the Rooftop
Where to get: Class 2-2, guy at the teacher's desk.
When: From April 25.
Reward: Goho-M
Walkthrough: We will be asked to find out about the hobby of a girl who often relaxes on the roof. We get up and ask. You need to talk to her 3 times on different days, and you won’t be able to talk to her every day. If it's raining outside, you'll have to wait it out.

Quest No. 4. Acquire a Ritz Wire
Where to get: 1st floor corridor of Practice Building
When: From May 2.
Reward: Olympic Tape
Walkthrough: In Yukiko Castle on the sixth and seventh floors, knock out the Ritz Wire from Heat Balance and bring it back.

Quest №5. Acquire Mori Ranmaru Shochu
Wheretake: A man at the Bank of the Samegawa Floodplain.
When: from May 1st.
Reward: 4000 yen.
Walkthrough: We go to the world of Yosuke, where we pick up what we are looking for at the Liquor Store.

Quest №6. I wish for love
Wheretake: Shrine,
When: Anytime.
Reward: Hermit Social Link Rank Up
Specialrequirement: Hermit Social Link Rank 1
Walkthrough: After accepting the quest at school, we talk to the girl near the locker room, after she leaves we read the note. The next day we look for this girl on the second floor closer to class 2-2 and talk to her again. We return to the temple and increase social connection.

Quest No. 7. Desk Refurbishment
Where to get: 2nd floor Practice Building, girl.
When: Since May 18.
Reward: 5Royal Jelly
Walkthrough: We go to Yukiko Castle, where, again, on the sixth and seventh floors we catch the Laughing Tables and knock out the Fitting Board from them.

Quest number 8. Book Exchange
Where to get:
When: Since May 23.
Reward: The Gentle Way
Walkthrough: All you need is to give the person Peach Seed, which are in dungeon chests.

Quest №9. Acquire an Old Key
Wheretake: Old lady at the Bank of the Samegawa.
When:: From June 5th.
Reward: Knowledge & Courage UP
Walkthrough: The item you are looking for can be obtained from Bribed Fuzz on the first and second floors of the Steamy Bathhouse.

Quest №10. Extracurricular Activities
Wheretake: School, 2nd floor, Ms. Sofue
When: Since May 18.
Reward: 2Pulsating Stone
Walkthrough: In Yukiko Castle on floors 3-5, loot Suspicious Pole from Trance Twins.

Quest №11. Acquire Coal
Wheretake: Old man in the Shopping District
When: From June 5th.
Reward: 15000 yen.
Walkthrough: In the Steamy Bathhouse on the 7th-8th floors we get Coal, which falls from Selfish Basalt.

Quest №12. Desk Refurbishing, part 2
Wheretake: Homely Students in Practice Building, 2nd floor.
When: From June 7.
Reward: 2Snuff Soul
Special requirement: Quest number 7 must be completed
Walkthrough: The Reflecting Board required to successfully complete the assignment can be obtained from the Crying Table in the Bathhouse on the 9th-10th floors.

Quest №13. I Wish I Didn't Crave Snacks
When: At the end of quest number 6.
Reward: Hermit Social Link Rank Up
Walkthrough: Go to the Shopping District and look for Slim Lady in the southern area. After talking with her, find Chie, after which you will receive 3 Meat Gum, which we give to the lady. We return and receive a reward.

Quest No. 14. Please Feed the Cat
Where to get: A guy outside a bookstore in the Shopping District.
When: From June 3.
Reward: The Punk's Way
Special requirement: Quest number 8 must be completed
Walkthrough: All you need to do is feed the cat, day after day, who doesn't mind eating the fish swimming in the Riverbed. On rainy days it will not be possible to feed the cat, but when he is satisfied, we return to the bookstore and receive a reward.

Quest №15. Acquire a Crooked Cross
Wheretake: Class 2-2, Timid Female Student
When: From June 7.
Reward: 3Ointment
Special requirement: Quest number 1 must be completed
Walkthrough: We go up to the Bathhouse to the seventh or eighth floor, where we try to get Crooked Cross from Tranquil Idol.

Quest No. 16. Acquire a Horn
Where to get: Shopping District, elderly woman in the southern part.
When: From June 9th.
Reward: 18,000 yen.
Walkthrough: Again we go to the Bathhouse, where on the 9th-10th floors we select Horn from the Grave Beetle.

Quest №17 Please Find My Younger Twin
Where to get: Shopping District, girl at the bookstore.
When: from June 9.
Reward: 5Goho-M
Walkthrough: We go to Samegawa Flood Plain, where we find the girl we need on the left near the bench. We talk to her and return.

Quest No. 18. Carbon Copy
Wheretake: Samegawa Flood Plain, the younger twin.
When: from July 13.
Reward: 3 Value Medicine
Special requirement: Quest number 1 must be completed 7.
Walkthrough: This time we will need to find Flower Brooch, which is obtained from the Soul Dancer in the strip club on the first three floors.

Quest No. 19. Acquire a Silver Lump
Wheretake: Practice Building, 1st floor, young man.
When: From June 30.
Reward: 2Uplifting Radio
Special requirement: Quest number 4 must be completed
Walkthrough: We return to the strip club, where on the 7th-10th floors we knock out the required Silver Lump from Silver Dice.

Quest No. 20. We Wish Our Dog Would Return
Wheretake: Shrine
Reward: Hermit Social Link Rank Up
Specialrequirement: Hermit Social Link Rank 3
Walkthrough: In Samegawa Flood Plain we find the dog and talk to it. The dog will run away, and you will have to look for him in the northern part of the Shopping District, but another day. At the second meeting you will need to select "Talk to it gently". The next day we look for the dog in Riverbed and again select “Talk to it gently”. Then, in the northern part of the shopping area, we buy Beef Skewer at Souzai Dogaku. The next meeting will be in Samegawa, where we feed the dog a treat, after which you can go and take the quest.

Quest No. 21. Acquire a Charmed Veil
Wheretake: Class 2-2, Timid Student.
When: From July 12th.
Reward: 5Chest Key
Special requirement: Quest number 15 must be completed
Walkthrough: Everything is as usual. Steeple club. 5-10 floors . Liberating Idol drops Charmed Veil.

Quest No. 22. Acquire Hard Boots
Where to get: A guy outside a bookstore in the Shopping District.
When: From July 3.
Reward: Guide to Pests, 5,000 yen.
Special requirement: Quest number 14 must be completed
Walkthrough: We go to the bathhouse on the 5th-8th floors, where from Dancing Hands you need to get 10 Thic Hides, which we then sell to Daidara and get Hard Boots, after which the booty must be taken to the guy at the shop.

Quest No. 23. Who's the Riddle Master!?
Wheretake: Classroom Building, 3rd floor, guy with Afro hair.
When: From April 18
Reward: 3Chest Key
Walkthrough: All you need to do is choose the correct answers to the questions asked. First Group A" and then "They"re the top six flag colors".

Quest No. 24. Acquire an Eternal Lamp
Wheretake: Refreshed Old Guy in Flood Plain
When: From August 22.
Reward: 30,000 yen
Walkthrough: The lamp is left behind by Amenti Ravens in Void Quest on the 3rd and 4th floors.

Quest No. 25. Feed the Cat
Wheretake: Flood Plain, cat =)
When: From June 3
Special requirement: Quest number 14 must be completed
Reward: Heal Jelly
Walkthrough: Find the cat and talk to him. We feed him to the limit.

Quest No. 26. I Wish I Had Friends
Wheretake: Shrine
Reward: Hermit Social Link Rank Up
Special requirement: Must complete quest number 20, Hermit Social Link Rank 4
Walkthrough: Go to Flood Plain and talk to the boy. He will ask for a sticker, which you can get on Sundays when watching Tanaka's Amazing Commodities in the morning by ordering something. But one sticker is not enough for the boy, so we talk to Nanako, who will give us a Tankiriman Sticker. We hand the item to the boy and return to him the next day The quest is completed, all that remains is to turn it in at the temple.

Quest No. 27. Acquire Some Fashionable Dishes
Wheretake:
When: From August 9
Reward: 10,000 yen, Riddlemania
Special requirement: Quest number 22 must be completed
Walkthrough: And again we go to the man at the bookstore. He will ask us to get Fashionable Dishes, which are left by Sky Balances in the strip club on the 9th and 10th floors.

Quest No. 28. Carbon Copy, Part 2
Where to get: Samegawa Floodplain
When: From August 22
Reward: 3Macca Leaf
Special requirement: Quest number 18 must be completed
Walkthrough: The younger twin will ask for the Leaf Pochette, which drops from the Blind Love Couple in the Void Quest on the 3rd-4th floor.

Quest No. 29. Experiments in Telepathy
Where to get: South side Shopping District, older twin.
When: From September 5
Reward: 5Dokudami Tea
Special requirement: Quest number 28 must be completed
Walkthrough: In Riverbank we look for the younger sister, tell her “Name a black, sweet bar” and go back.

Quest No. 30. I Wish My Life Had Meaning Again
Where to get: Shrine
Reward: Unfinished model, MF-06S Brahman, Hermit Social Link Rank Up
Special requirement: Must complete quest number 26, Hermit Social Link Rank 5
Walkthrough: In the northern part of the Shopping District at the Marutake Hobby Shop, we talk to the man (in rainy weather he will not be there.) Say “Want me to make it.” You will need to make a model of the robot. It is done for 4 days in your room. Having completed the quest, you will be given a second unfinished model, which, when assembled, will increase your Diligence skill, but you don’t have to do this.

Quest No. 31. Extracurricular Activities, part 2
Wheretake: Classroom Building, 2nd Floor, Ms. Sofue
When: From September 20
Reward: 2Mysterious Scarab
Special requirement: Quest number 10 must be completed
Walkthrough: We go to Void Quest, where on the 9th and 10th floors we try to knock out Culurium from Giant Soldier of Steel.

Quest No. 32. Acquire a Crystal Ball
Wheretake: Classroom Building, 3rd floor, Mrs. Nakayama
When: From October 8
Reward: 35,000 yen
Walkthrough: We go to the Secret Lab and fight on the first two floors with Constancy Relic, from which the Crystal Ball falls.

Quest №33. Acquire a Fine Coal
Where to get: Old Man Shrine
When: From October 9
Reward: 40,000 yen
Special requirement: Quest number 11 must be completed
Walkthrough: In Secret Lab on floors 8-9 we kill Power Castles until the required Fine Coal drops out of them.

Quest No. 34. A Test of Literary Memory
Where to get: Guy at the bookstore
When: From September 26
Reward: Who Am I?
Special requirement: Quest number 27 must be completed
Walkthrough: The good old bookworm decided to give us an oral exam. Here are the answers to the questions: “Judo medalists" names”, “How one should live as a punk”, “2 pages per pest”, “Me”.

Quest No. 35. Desk Refurbishing, part 3
Where to get: Practice Building, 2nd floor, girl
When: From September 29
Reward: Bead
Special requirement: Quest number 12 must be completed
Walkthrough: Required Proof of Passion drops from Furious Gigas on floors 3 and 4 of Secret Lab

Quest No. 36. I Wish I Was Better at Speaking
Wheretake: Shrine
Reward: Hermit Social Link Up
Specialrequirement: Must complete Quest Number 30, Hermit Social Link Rank 6, Understanding Rank 3, Courage Rank 3
Walkthrough: When there is no rain, we go up to the roof of the school and talk to the girl. Select "Do you need help speaking?", then "Give her lessons". The next day, click on “Apologize to her” and return to the temple.

Quest No. 37. Acquire a High-Speed Gear
Where to get: Classroom Building, 1st floor, girl with glasses
When: From October 8
Reward: 3Physical Mirror
Walkthrough: The girl asks for a Speed Gear, which can be obtained from the March Wheel in the Secret Lab on the 5th and 6th floors.

Quest No. 38. A Twin's Independence
Wheretake: Samegawa riverbed younger twin
When: From October 9 to November 17
Reward: Bead Chain
Special requirement: Quest number 28 must be completed
Walkthrough: You need to bring the Branch Headband, which is dropped by Elegant Mother in the Secret Lab on the 7th and 8th floors.

Quest No. 39. Acquire a Training Shell
Wheretake: Classroom Building, 3rd floor, rector.
When: From October 8
Reward: Understanding UP, Diligence UP
Walkthrough: And again we go to the Secret Lab and look for the monster Wicked Turrets, which lives on the 7th and 8th floors and drops the Training Shell we need.

Quest No. 40. Experiments in Telepathy, part 2
Wheretake: South Shopping District, twin.
When: From October 31 to November 17
Reward: 3Super Sonic
Special requirement: Must have completed quest numbers 29 and 38, Expression Rank 5
Walkthrough: First of all, we talk to the twin at the bookstore, then we go to Samegawa and talk to the younger sister, and so we run back and forth until the quest is completed.

Quest No. 41. I'd Wish I Didn't Fear Cats
Wheretake: Guy in Bank of the Samegawa floodplain
Reward: Hermit Social Link Up
Special requirement: Quest numbers 36 and 14 must be completed
Walkthrough: We ask “Is it a cat?”, then go to the protagonist’s house and talk to the cat. Select “Bring here”. The next day we talk to the man and give him Red Goldfish (if you don’t have it, catch it). We bring it, select “Show him” and return to the temple.

Quest No. 42. I Wish My Wallet Would Return
Where to get: Woman at Bank of the Samegawa
Reward: Hermit Social Link Up
Special requirement: Quest number 41 must be completed
Walkthrough: In Samegawa we talk to the girl and go to Riverbed, where we poke around in the bushes until we find the wallet. But it's not that simple. We find out upon our return that this wallet is not the one that was lost. We go to the shopping area to the north and poke around in the bushes. We return and pass the quest.

Quest No. 43. The Girl on the Rooftop, Part 2
Where to get: Guy in class 2-2
When: From November 22
Reward: Mokoi Doll
Special requirement: Quest number 3 must be completed
Walkthrough: We go to Heaven, where on the first two floors there are Prime Magus, from which the necessary Animal Guide drops

Quest No. 44. Desk Refurbishment, part 4
Where to get: Girl on the 2nd floor of the Practice Building
When: From November 22
Reward: 3Assault Signal
Special requirement: Quest number 35 must be completed
Walkthrough: Heaven. 6th and 7th floor. Revelation Pesce have Classy Lumber. Do it.

Quest No. 45. Acquire an Old Ore
Where to get: Guy on the first floor of Practice Building
When: From November 22
Reward: Mental Radio
Special requirement: Quest number 19 must be completed
Walkthrough: The Old Ore we need falls from Revelation Pesce in Heaven on the sixth and seventh floors.

Quest No. 46. Acquire a Modest Lamp
Where to get: Old Man in Flood Plain
When: From November 22
Reward: 45,000 yen
Special requirement: Quest number 24 must be completed
Walkthrough: On the 3-5th floor of Heaven, we hunt the Phantom Lord until we get the Modest Lamp.

Quest No. 47. Riddle Senpai Returns!
Where to get: Guy with afro on the third floor of the Classroom Building
When: From September 2
Reward: Snuff Soul
Special requirement: Quest number 23 must be completed
Walkthrough: Just select the answers you need: “Group A”, “Human motion”, “Group B” and “Indefinite articles”.

Quest No. 48. I Wish to See the Samegawa's Guardian
Wheretake: Shrine
Reward: Hermit Social Link Up
Special requirement: Quest number 42 must be completed
Walkthrough: First you need to catch Huge Fish and show it to the old man. We ask him about the Guardian and get a fishing kit, with which we catch the Guardian. Please note that you need to fish from November to December.

Quest No. 49. Cat Needs Food Badly!
Wheretake: Cat in Flood Plain
When: From June 3
Reward: Soma
Special requirement: Quest number 25 must be completed
Walkthrough: We feed the cat 19 times.

Quest No. 50. Revenge of Riddle Senpai!
Where to get: Classroom Building, 3rd floor, guy with afro
When: From November 12
Reward: Chewing Soul
Special requirement: Quest number 47 must be completed
Walkthrough: Again, simply select the desired answer."Group B", "The Way they"re drawn", "Promethium" and "Need".

To be honest, I didn’t expect much from the fourth part of the Persona series after Atlus managed to feed the third part, weak in many respects, to the gaming fraternity twice (and, unlike the two full-fledged parts of the second Persona, we only received the usual add -on). Naturally, the news about the fourth “Persona” is on the engine of the third and with a similar game mechanics, did not personally cause me great joy and excited anticipation. It was all the more surprising to discover, upon starting to play, that the developers carried out an impressive “work on the bugs”, raised the level of execution of all components of the gameplay by several orders of magnitude and eventually released a game that quite rightly received many titles like “RPG of the Year” and a lot of positive ratings in gaming journalism.

Plot: The first thing that stands out is the truly thoughtful approach to the plot. There is no trace of the “standard anime series about wizard schoolchildren and a robot girl fighting evil Shadows” a la Persona 3. The promotional picture with the silhouette of a corpse hanging from a power pole did not deceive us: this time we are in for a detective story skillfully mixed with urban legends. The plot is as follows: the main character’s parents, leaving Japan for work, send him to a provincial town for a year, entrusting his uncle, a police detective, to take care of him. As soon as main character turns out to be in this town, Inaba, strange murders begin to occur in it: people disappear, and after a thick fog falls on the city, they are found dead from an unknown cause, hanging from some roof or pole. In addition, the rumor that at midnight when it rains, images of future victims appear on the screen of a switched off TV turns out to be true, and the main character becomes one of the few people who is able to use this rumor to unravel the mystery of the fog and disappearances and stop killer.

Actually, this search for truth is what you will be doing. And the plot of the game does not intend to present everything to you on a plate: more than once or twice it will turn out that in reality everything is completely different from what you thought, and in some places you will have to make fateful decisions based on the facts you know. From decisions made the ending of the game will depend: perhaps you will save several people, but you will not figure out the killer and leave Inaba with difficult feelings (missing part of the game), perhaps you will stop the killer; who knows, maybe you will be able to find out more than the secret identity of the killer and the reason for his actions (and even if good people you will be spoiled about his personality, I think you will still be interested to know what motivated him).

The plot side of the game is excellent - in addition to the fact that it is really interesting to find out what will happen next, we will not meet one-sided characters here - what are the only friends of the main character, members of your team, each of whom we will “look into the soul”. This is one of the moments that sends us back to Persona 2: Innocent Sin and generally justifies the name of the game. Your friends will receive their “Personas” - entities that allow them to use supernatural abilities, after they recognize their not the most profitable, hidden sides of the soul and desires and do not allow them to take over. It happens like this: you go through a dungeon that reflects the character's inner world, and knock out the boss - his " dark side"And still, even this approach, which does not allow oneself to feel surrounded by flat dolls, was not enough for the developers, and they endowed the characters with small distinctive features, like Yukiko’s periodically swallowed “little laugh.”

In general, you will constantly be asked to think about how important friendship is, whether you need to look for the truth, how to admit your weaknesses and try to do something about them... But what’s surprising is that almost for the first time when playing a Japanese RPG this Scrolling through the dialogues with my cheek resting on my hand didn’t make me feel at all depressed, but on the contrary, it really made me think and even motivated me in some ways.

Game process: Well, the plot is good, but it’s time to remember about game process. Like the third Persona, the fourth is a fusion of RPG and life sim. This cannot be said to be a “revolution in the genre”: clearing dungeons and everyday school life and meeting with friends practically do not intersect here; by analogy one could recall the later Langrissers. However, the balance of both components is almost perfect.

As before, the calendar is at the forefront - we are allotted only a year to stay in Inaba, and every day on which something important in the plot does not happen (mostly the time “after school” and “in the evening”) must be spent with maximum benefit. However, what you do will now be influenced by the weather in Inaba - in the rain, for example, most of your friends will stay at home, but you can’t imagine a better time for fishing or a date with a textbook. And if you go crush monsters, they may drop rare materials. But on a sunny day, most of the so-called S-Links, “social connections”, that is, your friends, comrades and acquaintances, are waiting for you. Why even spend time with them? It’s simple - each of them personifies a certain Arcana of the Tarot, and the better your relationship with him, the more advanced Persona of this Arcana you can summon and the stronger it will be; Moreover, your friends will play an important role at the end of the game. When you show up for a meeting with a person, as a rule, a certain scene occurs and you are asked several questions to which you will need to choose an answer, on which the character’s reaction will depend - in general, the system is the same as in date sims .

In Persona 3, to be honest, all of these characters and their stories were very predictable and uninteresting. Here everything has changed dramatically. Try to explain to the protagonist’s little sister why her mother was taken to heaven! Or try to moralize in the spirit of the "usual" good hero RPG", talking with the spoiled daughter of rich parents Aya Ebihara - in order to later restore normal relations, you will have to try. In general, now each of these characters began to have their own character and S-Links became a really interesting pastime. The most important of them - naturally , your friends who are on your “team.” Improving relations with them, in addition to opening new Personas, will now lead to the fact that they will be able to protect you from a fatal blow in battle, conduct additional attacks, heal negative statuses... And upon achieving maximum warmth of relationships, they receive improved versions of their own Personas. I’m sure now many people remembered about local girls - so, now the main character is not obliged to make love with all the girls in S-Links, and what will “maximum warmth” mean? - strong friendship or tender love, you choose (there will be certain answers in the dialogues, which will decide what kind of relationship the characters will have). However, you can be a cool pimp and date eight girls here too - a concession for those who don’t want to replay the game many times. What’s nice is that now friends often spend time together, say, on weekends, in addition, you can improve your relationship with the character, for example, by successfully giving him advice at school or sharing breakfast with him - there are many possibilities.

Naturally, such wonderful friends cannot be undemanding to the main character. Now he has as many as five characteristics - courage, patience/perseverance, the ability to express his thoughts, the ability to understand other people and general education. And to advance most S-Links, you will have to have a non-zero level of one of these (generally speaking, these characteristics will be useful to the main character not only for friendship, but also for successfully passing exams and the like). On the other hand, there are a huge number of opportunities to improve these characteristics in the game - starting from the S-Links themselves (you go to a drama club - you learn to better express your thoughts, and so on), ending with an innovation: work. Now the main character, if his characteristics allow, can work as a tutor, a cleaner in a hospital, or a translator; the advantages are obvious - money (and often quite well complementing the amounts flying out of the monsters), advantages to the characteristics and, yes, the relationships that are being established with those people you meet at work. Probably the coolest little touch: you can boost your courage by eating expired food from your uncle’s refrigerator. Naturally, after something like this, you won’t leave the house in the evening, you won’t read a book, and you won’t have anything good to dream about. Oh yes, you can dream about your friends, which also improves your relationships... Well, you get the idea: the life-sim part has become several heads more interesting and varied than in the third Persona. To the place here and side quests, which a wide variety of people are now ready to give you: here you will be knocking out objects from enemies, feeding a voracious cat, and playing riddles. And what’s most interesting is that at school now they sometimes ask questions that require you to go to Wikipedia for answers. Hooray.

All this is wonderful, but while meeting with friends and feeding the cat, you shouldn’t forget about those people who need to be saved in time before the fog falls on Inaba - the weather forecast will not let you get distracted. We climb into the TV and go to the corresponding dungeon, admire how the shredding is done, pumping, in general, something that many value more than roleplaying. The first joy: finally we are given direct control of each character in battle. How much valuable language was spent on the characters of the third Person who did what they wanted! Therefore, I will not talk about the artificial intelligence of your team members: well, I couldn’t bring myself to give the reins to the machine again, maybe they pulled it up, but fortunately, this could remain unknown to me.

Second joy: no more than a three-hundred-story tower. Dungeons are now diverse, the world of each character has its own flavor (the coolest of all, of course, is Mitsuo with his world of a sixteen-bit game), there are nine to ten floors. In the middle there is a mini-boss, on the last floor there is a save/teleporter to the entrance and main boss. Now, if you use magic/item to fly to the entrance and re-enter the dungeon, you will be prompted to start on the floor you escaped from. Convenient, right? The only thing that has become less convenient is that now weak Shadows will not run away from you, and chests with rare things need to be opened with keys, which you can’t get so easily either.

How can you spend half the game in such a comfortable world? It's simple - now the level of enemies jumps sharply from floor to floor, and the enemies themselves are now much more often devoid of weaknesses (instant death spells are much more relevant than before). Plus, when you return to the entrance, no one will restore your HP and SP for the first time (then a fox will appear who will do this, in the best Megaten traditions, for an extortionate fee). That is, you will have to go through the dungeon, usually in several passes. As for the battle mechanism, it hasn’t changed much - the battles are turn-based, but when you hit vulnerable spot enemy (say, you fire at the Shadow, which is afraid of him), your character can do something again; at the same time, the Shadow will fall (and maybe even be knocked out during the turn if you continue to press it). If all the Shadows are lying down, you will be asked to run at them in a crowd and inflict unblockable damage on them. However, your characters also have vulnerabilities, and enemies will also take advantage of this (fortunately, they lack cynicism and the ability to rush into a crowd of you). True, just knocked down characters now do not skip a turn; although, this is even good for you, because the Shadows will no longer be able to trip up the main character on the first move, taking advantage of the vulnerability of his Persona. In addition, the ability to stand on the defensive to prevent enemies from taking advantage of your weaknesses has been added. In general, the combat system of the third Persona was probably the only thing I liked about the game, and it’s nice that by the fourth part they brought it to mind and made the battles very enjoyable and dynamic. The advantages of bosses now, in addition to a large amount of HP, also include their behavior, which will vary depending on the composition of your team: most of them have their own “aces up their sleeve” to adequately respond to your change of tactics. However, if you want more hardcore challenges, or, conversely, are too lazy to level up and fight too much, at the beginning of the game you will have the opportunity to choose the difficulty level of the battles “beginner” or “expert” (except for the toughness of the enemies, this will not affect the course of the game).

What else? The automatic updating of the list of items in the armor and weapon store has disappeared; now materials will fly out of enemies, which will need to be sold to open new items. In addition, after a battle, now sometimes not only a reaction mini-game with “get a Persona” cards appears, but also a card of one of the Tarot Arcana, which you can activate and wait for the results: either positive or negative, fifty-fifty, for example, or restoration of all SP, or, conversely, the disappearance of all of them or temporary doubling of experience/temporary deprivation of received experience completely.

Graphic arts: As for the artistic design of everything described above, nothing much has changed regarding the third part, however, the sterile metropolis and sleek private school have been replaced by the vibrant nature of the Japanese outback and the cozy corridors of the Inaba school, each location is presented in several forms (don’t forget about change of weather). Instead of blue, the main color in the game's palette has become yellow, which is good everywhere except menus, where the yellow background is quite annoying to the eyes. The design of dungeons and "battlefields" has become much richer in details and colors. Drawn anime videos are shown periodically.

Sound: Most of what the characters say is voiced, and the voice acting done by the Americans during localization is surprisingly high quality and done, dare I say it, with soul. Music, in best traditions The Persona series is, for the most part, unabashed pop... but in any case, after listening to "Reach Out To" played during battles a thousand times The Truth"with a voiceless singer, you'll get used to it. Still, Shoji Meguro knows his stuff, and even I, not a fan of "sugar" music at all, was pleased with the soundtrack - especially since very unusual and funny themes periodically pop up, like the track playing while hiking to the world of Mitsuo.

Conclusion: So, Atlus, taking into account the mistakes made before in the third part of the game, managed to release a great game - an RPG with features unusual for the genre (which other developers are slowly going to introduce into use), which, hehe, makes you think and in which it is pleasant and fun to play. And replay - here, as in the third part, bonuses are provided for replaying, this time not “allowing you to roll all the enemies you meet into asphalt,” but giving more freedom of choice in passing the game.

Around the same distant times, when the great and terrible Final Fantasy, the game saw the light of Megami Tensei, dubbed Megaten for simplicity. Due to its somewhat anti-Christian content, the game was not released in the West, but it gained a large following in Japan. After the second Megaten, the series fell into the hands of talented developers from Atlus, who called it Shin Megami Tensei (True Reincarnation of the Goddess) and began to develop it at incredible speeds, thanks to which the game acquired many different branches, one of which was the Persona series.

When the fourth part of this series was first presented, the greatest outrage was caused by the fact that the game was announced on the PlayStation 2, which has been alive for ten years and does not want to retire. The old lady doesn’t get along well with HD TVs, which almost everyone now has, the picture is not very beautiful, but the third generation Sony console at the same time shows the technical polish of the games almost to perfection, so the only thing that could save the game was that fact that PS2 is in almost every home, and Persona 3 is in the top of the best games for it.

The very fact of releasing the game on this console is a controversial decision. On the one hand, the game turned out to be one of the best jRPGs of recent years, largely thanks to the PlayStation 2, since working with the mechanics of this platform, the developers could fully concentrate on the gameplay, plot and characters, without bothering with entertainment - because, without a doubt, even with With improved graphics, such a game would not look out of place on the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. But it is for this reason that it cannot be seriously compared with other modern role-playing games. Yes, Persona 4 is quite beautiful, interesting, and exciting, but most of the game's features have already been used in the third series. Interestingly, Persona 4 did not actually become the last SMT on PS2 - after some time, a continuation of another branch of the series, Devil Summoner, was released on it. Be that as it may, Atlus apparently still managed to part with its favorite console - SMT: Devil Survivor has already been released on NDS, and PS3 is proud of the pearl game Demon's Souls.

After the game was released in America, European gamers trembled - the European release date was about to be announced. Square Enix, which put a warm hand on Atlus’s shoulder even during the release of Odin Sphere, offered its services to publish the game in Europe. And the developer didn't mind. When the game appeared on the shelves of European stores, the Square Enix inscription was already shining on the box.

Of course, for fans of the jRPG factory, the realization that their favorite company had a hand in as many as seven hit jRPGs for the PS2 is a true delight, but, nevertheless, its other attempts to warm other people’s titles under its wing are also noteworthy - here you and Disgaea 3 with Disgaea DS, and even a mindless meat grinder Modern Warfare 2. New tactics making money? If yes, then you should hope that it does not affect own games companies - their own bar is falling. The main thing is not to fall even lower.

But I digress.

The plot of Persona 4 is very, very cool. We are told about a group of schoolchildren - initially this is the Protagonist (that is, your incarnation), the unfortunate cyclist Yosuke and the Kung Fu fan Chi, who are trying to unravel a complex murder case in the small Japanese town of Inaba. The thing is that after the Protagonist’s arrival, two corpses were found here in a row, hanging from the antennas, and certainly after the appearance of fog hanging over the city. Meanwhile, a rumor appears on the Internet according to which, if you look at the screen of a switched-off TV at midnight on a rainy night, you will see your soul mate. This rumor turns out to be true, but only half - our heroes saw future victims on the screen. Moreover, on the other side of the screen there was also a whole world covered in fog, full of strange Shadows and with its own Humpty Dumpty named Teddy, who is the guide of our heroes in this strange world. The heroes were able to get into a parallel world thanks to the Protagonist’s Persona, which was asleep all this time, but still existed inside it. The rest of the heroes receive their Personas in a much more difficult way - they have to face the embodiments of their own negative feelings in the form of Shadows, recognizing a part of themselves in these unfortunate creatures.

During further investigation, the schoolchildren and the TV bear who joined them come to the conclusion that someone is pushing people into the TV, after which they generate their own Shadows. When, after several days of heavy rain, Inaba is covered in fog, in the TV world the Shadows go berserk and kill everyone they meet on their way. After death, dead victims return back to our world, finding themselves suspended on antennas, with no apparent cause of death. For the killer, this is the perfect crime that the police will never be able to solve. But our schoolchildren have Personas, and therefore they rightly believe that the fate of this matter is in their hands. But who is this cruel and sophisticated killer? Why is he doing this? We have to find out about all this, and only with a happy coincidence of circ*mstances.

The coolness of the plot lies in the fact that a lot remains unclear about everything that is happening, and at the same time, opinions can change quite often, like in a good detective story. There is also Teddy, who suffers from not knowing who he really is, and extremely ambiguous relationships between the characters, and much more that makes the passage of the game exciting and interesting.

The plot of the game is reminiscent of visual novel- models of characters appear in front of us, over whose heads anime icons periodically appear, displaying emotions, as well as a window with text that appears and disappears from time to time, next to which the anime sprite of the character speaking at the moment is displayed. At certain moments, the player has the opportunity to insert his two cents on behalf of the Protagonist, which can be very, very useful.

The gameplay can be roughly divided into two parts - ordinary teenage activities and exploration of the television world, which are quite closely intertwined with each other. Both of these activities take place after school, and you have the right to choose which days and what you do.

Typical teenage activities include, first of all, going out with friends and doing temporary work. This is necessary in order to develop social connections that are established, first of all, with your comrades in arms, with whom you explore the television world - as your connections with them strengthen, they will learn more and more different combinations and actions. Also, social connections are established with friends from school clubs, work, or even completely original characters like the Fox. Periodically, for the emergence or development of social connections, a certain level of social indicators is required. In particular, they are required to get a particular job, and they can be developed in many different ways, with a visit to a local Chinese restaurant being especially effective. The development of social connections is not a particularly interactive process, but rather resembles ordinary plot scenes, but they pay attention to the inner world of each individual character, which makes them not just cardboard dummies, but meaningful individuals. If you don’t have anyone to go for a walk with, but you still don’t want to fight, then you can go fishing by the river - for this all you need is a fishing rod and bait. Plus, the game has fifty quests, which are not necessary to complete according to the plot, but are quite useful, since they give good rewards.

Exploration of the TV world is a typical "dungeon crawling", but only quite varied. The entire TV world is divided into several dungeons that open in turn, each of which consists of about ten floors, and each floor is a daily changing labyrinth full of Shadows, doors, dead ends and chests. On the top floor of each new dungeon sits a boss who simply must be dealt with before the fog hangs over the city, otherwise the next victim will die, which means “Game Over”. Time needs to be calculated carefully, because it is unlikely that you can go through an entire dungeon and destroy the boss in one sitting - without excellent SP indicators in the game you will not go far, and they have a habit of running out.

The battles take place according to the familiar STV system. In battle, there is an irreplaceable Protagonist, whom you control, and four of your comrades, whom, unlike Persona 3, you can either give commands personally or allow to act independently. The main difference between this game and similar ones is the presence of various weaknesses to the elements among friends and enemies. If you hit an enemy with an element to which he has a weakness, he will receive the Down status, and if you knock down all enemies, it will be possible to carry out an All-Out Attack, which deals damage, ignoring all the strengths that also have a place to be. The combination of weak and strong qualities of allies and opponents forces you to work out battle tactics, but even this may not help, due to the fact that enemies really like to throw out all sorts of surprises. A frank gift of old school here can be called “gamover”, which occurs after the death of the Protagonist. As a result, thanks to the spectacular effects, talkative characters, interesting design of opponents and arenas, the battles in the game look beautiful, interesting, exciting and intense. But don’t forget that this game has plenty of useful activities besides battles.

Creatures called Personas, to whom the entire series is dedicated, are the most important aspect of the gameplay. Almost everything we do in the game is dedicated to their development. All combat characters in the game have only one Persona, which cannot be changed, but can be developed, and not only by leveling up. Or rather, everyone except the Protagonist - after all, our main superman can carry as many as twelve Personas with him, but he can also use no more than one at a time in battle. Each Protagonist Persona has weaknesses and strengths, as well as abilities that the hero acquires when he “puts on” them. You can get new Personas in the “Shuffle Time” mini-game that appears periodically after battles, where you are asked to catch a card, but you should play carefully and carefully - a mistake can cost all the rewards for the battle. Personas won in this way are usually too weak for everyday use, but you always have at your disposal the services of the big-nosed guy Igor, who can cross Personas in various ways to create a more powerful specimen. This is where your social connections will come in handy, each of which, as well as all Personas, has its own Arcana, and when bred, a Person will be able to gain additional experience points due to the level of social connection of the corresponding Arcana. The higher the level of connection, the more experience the new creature in your soul will gain, which can sometimes serve you well. At the same time, some Persons need to be unlocked by increasing the level of social. connections, and without a good Persona you won’t get far in this game. You don’t have to worry about the safety of your Personas - Margaret enters every new copy you receive into her directory, from where you can always call them up for money, but all improvements to Personas must be re-registered, otherwise they may be lost forever. By themselves, the images of Personas are based on various religions and mythologies, and their total number exceeds 200. Their set is quite diverse - there are funny mascots like Jack Frost, handsome guys like Phoenix and freaks like Legion, which you’d even hate to let into your soul . The calling of Persons occurs with the help of occult Tarot cards.

The graphics in the game, to be honest, are average. Everything here looks, of course, quite nice and not bad, but after, for example, Final Fantasy XII it’s not very possible to praise it - all the emotions of the characters are expressed through static anime sprites and icons, the detailing of the locations is meager (only Dojima Residence stands out). However, the developers have an excuse - after all, this is a small town, almost a village, with small locations, a village school and low houses - what kind of mega-landscapes can you expect? The Telemir locations are beautiful, Atlus really did their best here, but they are very monotonous. The character models are cute, but there are problems with the animation. Firstly, the characters have only a small set of movements, and secondly, their interaction with the elements of the surrounding world is not done in the best way, which is why at the moment when the heroes take something in their hands, every now and then you can observe a small teleportation of an object. The models of all the Protagonist Personas, except Izanagi, look somehow faded and poorly detailed on the field - in my opinion, such a picture would have been pulled off by the PSone. But, as I already said, although the graphics are mediocre, in general everything looks very, very nice, especially on HD TVs, on which early console games would show us scary large pixels. The game has also improved compared to its predecessor, the picture and design look more elegant and lively, and the camera is not shy about showing scenes closer.

The game's voice acting was beyond praise - emotional, beautiful, without any dull mumbles. Of course, Chi’s voice is not the most gentle, Rise’s intonations sometimes make you giggle, and some of Teddy’s exclamations make your ears curl up, but everyone’s voice perfectly reveals his character. The protagonist is also not entirely silent - during the battle he makes a wide variety of grunts, and when he deals critical damage with a skill, he shouts out the name of the person being called.

The soundtrack is a separate song. Its main feature is that most of the melodies have the vocals of Shihoko Hirata, whose voice is far from the worst - it’s quite pleasant to run around locations and at the same time listen to her singing, calm and relaxing. By the way, all the melodies of Shoji Meguro sound very appropriate during the game - the action in the music appears only during battles, while the rest are quite calm, and the names of some compositions generally correspond to the environment in which they sound. For special connoisseurs of gamer music, the entire soundtrack was put on a CD distributed along with the game. But I have to admit that apart from the video sequence and the atmosphere of the game, it doesn’t sound so impressive. By the way, the developer is accused of some self-copying - during the passage you can periodically hear sounds from the predecessor game. At the same time, the CD contains only fresh compositions, so this circ*mstance is not immediately noticeable.

It is worth noting that despite the abundance of small children and teddy bears, the game is full of non-children's content. To begin with, the characters periodically swear in one way or another with all sorts of bad words (sh*t is the weakest option). Plus, since the game is dedicated to the problem of hiding unwanted opinions from others, very sensitive topics appear approximately from the middle - the hidden hom*osexuality of Kanji Tatsumi, for example. And Rise Kujikawa in this case is generally the quintessence of indecency, because her dungeon is a strip club! Shadow Rise herself argues that she is actually a show-off who just wants people to look at her while dancing a striptease, and Shadow’s image of a monster is a hefty multi-colored stripper who, when attacking, depicts the appropriate movements. In general, urgently take your children away from the screen!

But still, it would be more correct, of course, to say that Persona 4 is not indecent, but simply a fairly “adult” game, especially in relation to its predecessor. Shooting your own head with a pistol, flying bull heads, and in general the plot about high school wizards fighting evil pretty much spoiled my impression of Persona 3, while here all this nonsense was removed, adding depth and starting to sort out personal problems of people.

On the other side of the chernukha there are kilograms of humor - the game contains heaps of scenes that make it impossible not to smile. "Did you buy clothes at my expense?" Yosuke yells, "You know I'm saving money for a motorcycle!" "Yeah, but you don't need it," Chi replies with a smile. In general, the relationship between Chi and Yosuke is very funny. But the most important Petrosyan here, of course, is Teddy. Almost everything about him is funny - the way he walks, talks, tries to cross various words with the word Bear (Bear-sona!), and defends himself. Almost every scene this bear takes part in contains at least one joke, and there are some downright killer moments. His constant harassment of girls makes him smile all the time (especially considering that he is a bear, and a teddy one at that).

In general, whatever you say, Persona 4 itself is good game. Rich and varied, based on Japanese (and not only) modern culture and mythology, which is a pleasure to play through. This is such a heartfelt blow to people like the founder of Bioware, who believe that the jRPG genre is about to collapse. This is a great remedy for all those who have long been nostalgic for old-school role-playing games. This is, finally, an excellent successor to Persona 3, the creation of which, the developers turned to the proverb “the slower you go, the further you will go,” without running too far from its famous predecessor. Go through Persona 4, gentlemen, you won't regret it.

The hero is trained to change Personas, and only to him the player can give precise orders on what and how to do. Its first feature turns out to be decisive both in protracted battles and in situations where one boss is followed by another, and there is neither a save point nor a door to the Velvet Room along the way. By the way, we recommend using his starting Persona, Orpheus, without fear. The Persona that appears in the video is called Thanatos, and to get it, you need to reach the Social Link corresponding to the Death Arcana (the mysterious boy Pharos).

Mitsuru Kirijou

Mitsuru is vulnerable to fire spells and does not withstand physical attacks well. But thanks to her ice spells and healing skills, she will become an indispensable partner in the first half of the game. If the main character himself can easily provide first aid to his companions, Mitsuru can safely set the Full Assault line of action. Please note that after killing the final "monthly" boss, she will not visit Tartarus with you for some time.

Akihiko Sanada

Akihiko's persona is equipped with combat skills, but her main skills are still related to understating the enemy's performance and increasing the performance of her partners. The captain of the boxing club himself is strong enough to “take a punch.” By instructing him to follow Heal/Support tactics, you will reduce the enemy’s lethal power (Tarunda), his resourcefulness (Sukunda), and defense (Rakunda). Most importantly, don’t forget to treat Akihiko.

Yukari Takeba

If you upgrade Yukari and her Persona, sooner or later she will receive the Mediarama skill, which will be very useful in battles with bosses required in the plot. In addition, of all the partners, only Yukari uses Pierce techniques for the first half of the game (after the trip to f*ckushima, Ken Amada with the same skills and Aigis will join the heroes). The most suitable tactic for it is Heal/Support, but Full Assault should be resorted to only if all opponents have a weakness to wind spells. And remember that the hero can also get a Persona with Mediarama, without the “Achilles heel” of Takeba’s Persona.

Junpei Iori

This is a kind of "tank" of the team. He is completely useless for Heal/Support, but his physical techniques deal enormous damage to the enemy and often knock him down. Junpei and Yukari are the first to join the player. Then Sanada will join the squad, and when it comes to Mitsuru, you will have to choose who to leave on the bench. Since Mitsuru knows how to heal, it makes sense to get rid of Takeba, and only after that - from Junpei himself.

Aigis

Aigis has her own special tactic: Orgia Mode. In this mode, she turns into a berserker and continuously attacks the enemy. The description says that "she gets tired over time and it takes a few turns for her to get back on track." In fact, Aigis will get tired in two or three turns, and will be in a weak-willed state for exactly the same amount of time, vulnerable to all attacks from enemies. In other words, using Orgia Mode is highly discouraged. Instead, it is advisable to choose Full Assault or Knock Down. In addition, Aigis knows how to increase the defense and agility of heroes (she always starts with the main character). The downside is that even though Aigis is a robot, she is susceptible to status attacks, such as “panic”, “fear” and “charm”.

Koromaru

The best tactic for the dog is Knock Down, followed by Full Assault. It is useless to ask the dog to treat or help - he simply does not have such skills. But he skillfully uses Mudo skills (for a hit he kills an enemy with a weakness to darkness; later this ability will turn into Mamudo). The main disadvantage of Koromaru is that he cannot be used against opponents with spells of the elements of light, otherwise instant death is guaranteed for him. Koromaru has no weakness to ice.

Shinjiro Araki

Shinjiro has a sad fate. He will join the team closer to the middle, and it is with him that it is recommended to go through the boss required in the plot. Don't pump it. Don't give him any equipment. Don’t try to force a different tactic on him - he will still attack the enemy with one skill, and his Persona simply does not have healing skills. In battle, give him complete freedom of action and heal him from time to time. The main thing is not to level him up, go through as many bosses of Tartarus as his level allows.

Ken Amada

Ken is a very strong P3 character, but for a number of reasons it is not recommended to take him into the team. Firstly, he is not an “elemental” character, that is, he has neither elemental weaknesses nor immunity. He is equally susceptible to all attacks, except that he blocks Almighty. His Persona is vulnerable to dark spells, and the Mudo skill, unfortunately, is used more often by opponents. However, with certain tactics, Ken can also be used - he has healing skills (Diarama) and a “lightning” spell, Zionga.

Dark Hour

It's easy to skip the Dark Hour phase by ignoring the cameraman (initially Mitsuru, then Fuuka takes her place) and heading straight to your room. Visiting Tartarus regularly, with some fairly significant caveats, is not required; You can generally go there only on holidays. True, in order to see the “real” (not mean happy) ending, you will have to go through all the floors of Tartarus and defeat 12 bosses provided for by the plot.

Fatigue only shows up in characters the first time, so you shouldn’t start pumping them right away. If one hero suddenly becomes weak, it will take him several days to recover. On the eve of the full moon, fatigue does not appear, which means you can pump up your heroes as much as you need.

Returning to the first floor of Tartarus, you will fully restore the health of yourself and your team. You can return as many times as you like, but remember that if someone alone fell and you did not resurrect him first, then once on the first floor, this character will simply leave, and you will not be able to force him to join the squad again that day. Don't forget to save! Use multiple slots, preferably a week or more apart.

Search suitcases in Tartarus. In addition to precious stones, there may be money there, and not the ridiculous five hundred yen, but 78,000 at once. In addition, in Tartarus there is the best equipment for the hero and other characters. This way you can save on stores and stock up on currency for the Velvet Room. And there’s nowhere without her, take my word for it.

Day Light

During the day, the hero can walk around the city, talk with different people, shop at the pharmacy and police station, go to cafes and meet with friends. Here's what you should consider first:

Never return to the dorm immediately after classes are over. You will be able to do a lot of useful things in one day, and even if no meetings with classmates are planned, it is better to devote your free time, for example, to studying. On weekends, sometimes you will have to stay at home to improve your knowledge.

You are allowed to go shopping as much as you like. But if you go to, say, a cafe or karaoke bar, the hero will remain there until the evening.

If you have free money, buy all kinds of little things: flowers, soft toys, etc. They won’t come in handy right away, but when the moment comes, it’s better to be fully prepared.

In the evening, before going to Tartarus, you can also visit the Velvet Room. It's located in Paulownia Mall, in the karaoke cul-de-sac. In general, there are different exits from each city location, and it is recommended to immediately memorize all the routes.

Watch TV more often! This way you can not only buy interesting and useful items, but also learn a lot of interesting things. For example, on June 13 you can catch an interview with Baofu from Persona 2: Eternal Punishment...

Purchases

The hero can buy weapons, armor, and medicine. "Special items" and upgrades for Tarot cards cannot be purchased: they can be exchanged for gems, left behind by monsters. The stones will also be found in suitcases scattered throughout Tartarus. Don't waste items purchased at the antique store in battles with simple monsters or early bosses! They will be very useful at the end of the game! In addition, do not buy equipment for either the main character or other characters. All the essentials and something in addition can and should be looked for in Tartarus. If a character has not received gifts from you for a long time, he will soon buy weapons and armor for himself. Instead of spending money on katanas and bows, visit the jewelry store more often. There you can buy accessories that increase resistance to a certain element - especially useful against bosses with skills like Maragion, i.e., dealing damage to the entire squad at once. Finally, although Persons successfully cope with treatment, it is recommended to always have “healers” with you. Moreover, it is highly recommended to carry things like Dis-Charm and Dis-Poison with you. Remember that other heroes have their own inventory, and even if you don’t have, say, a Revival Bead with you, your partner may well have it.

Social Links

Contrary to popular belief, S. Links is not an opportunity to meet girls from your classmates, but a real necessity. Yes, and you will have to date not only girls. The hero is also friends with boys and also meets with them after school and on weekends. Skillful distribution of free time will help you extract the most pleasant and useful from extracurricular communication.

Operation: Babe Hunt! or school trips

Unfortunately, the beach hunt for girls is doomed to fail. No matter what you answer, the result will always be the same. But the school trip to Kyoto is accompanied by an interesting scene. To avoid being seen by girls, follow these simple rules:

girls go to the left - you are hiding in the opposite direction;
the same thing if the girls are walking on the right;
on both sides - quickly hide behind a stone.

When choosing a place (left-right), keep in mind that the side is voiced from the girls’ point of view. Don't get caught. When the check is completed, it will be announced.

Cards

With their help, you can get rare and powerful weapons, increase the experience gained, and even acquire a persona. The most useless card is the one with blue cups, which restores health. The most useful card is the one with green leaves, which increases the experience gained. If there is a choice between her and a person, there is nothing to think about, choose experience. The red sword is a weapon, and not always a useful one. But from time to time it’s worth pulling it out: both for earning money (after all, weapons can be sold) and for yourself. Starting from Tartarus level 100, rare weapons drop; It cannot be bought in a regular store for some time. Cards with coins are money. If you feel that you don’t have enough gold reserves to summon a Persona or go to the pharmacy, draw it several times. There isn't much money, but let there be some. Cards with a black sphere are dummies. Cards with a skull are cursed and are recommended to be avoided. And if you get it, quickly move to the next floor so as not to run into the Dark Reaper. Before choosing a Persona card, make sure you don't already have one. At later stages, it is better to obtain new Personas by crossing, and restore old ones from Compendium.

For myself, I have formed a simple rule that helps me. Experience first. Then money or health (if the team held back). Then weapons. And if there is absolutely nothing to take - a person.

Story Bosses

Story bosses do not pose a real danger; the only thing that needs to be taken into account is a kind of “tests” during the game. It’s quite easy to prepare for them; everyone is warned about them in advance. If you take into account that the fighters do not get tired on the night before the full moon, you can race them with pumping until you get bored. Or you won't reach the required level. I drive until I get bored =)))

9th May

Make sure to take Patra Gem with you - the boss has a habit of using Pulinpa a lot. In general, nothing complicated: choose a Persona for the hero who, at a minimum, does not have a weakness to ice (Apsaras), let Yukari and Junpei act, and heal them yourself every turn. There is no point in using Bufu - the boss can reflect ice spells.

June 8

Empress and Emperor

Saving Fuuka will result in a battle with two bosses at once. Attention! Yukari and Mitsuru will not take part in the battle! It is recommended to get rid of Empress first - she is vulnerable to physical attacks, and with her disappearance you will eliminate all "elemental" spells from the bosses (remember, Iori has a weakness to Garu!). Emperor, on the other hand, is immune to physical attacks and weak to all magical attacks. Left alone, he will start casting Paradigm Shift, which will change his weaknesses. It is in your best interest to get rid of it as soon as possible. To find out what he's allergic to now, use Fuuki's ability. If the battle drags on and the boss continues to play around with Paradigm Shift, things will end badly - he will still have one weakness, for example, to Pierce, and your team may not have a fighter with the required skill.

July 7

Stock up on Dis-Charm (even better - Me Patra Gem), the heroes go to the love hotel! Also note that Yukari will be a mandatory participant in the operation.

Nothing complicated, the main thing is not to use Zio (let Akihiko rest), use Me Patra Gem in time and do not forget to treat Mitsuru, who will become the main one in this fight impact force.

After defeating the boss, watch the shower scene, after which the hero will have to answer several questions. It's better to resist temptation. Next, you have to find and break the mirrors in rooms 205 and 304. If you break the wrong mirror, the team will be divided again.

Let Akihiko use Tarunda and Rakunda, Mitsuru keeps attacking and the hero heals. Alternatively, everyone can attack, and only Mitsuru needs to heal, because she has a weakness for Maragion. The main thing is to heal the heroes in time after Marin-Karin - in the Charmed state they are dangerous for their own comrades.

August 6

Justice and Chariot

This is a difficult battle, and it is not leveling that will help you win here, but your ingenuity and patience. They have no weaknesses; knock down doesn't work well with them. Take Mitsuru to your team as a healer, and let Akihiko cast Tarunda and Rakunda. Aigis can become the third character, but her actions will have to be controlled especially often. The boss initially appears as one piece, but later splits into two parts. Therein lies the catch: in order to kill him, they must be separated and killed in one turn. If this does not happen, then one part will resurrect the other with a full HP line. Be careful when using spells mass destruction- there is a high probability that one part will simply dodge, and the other will die and be resurrected. Check the order of moves by pressing R1.

September 5

Iori does not participate in this battle.

Take Akihiko and Shinjiro with you. There is no point in leveling up Shinjiro for this battle - his current level will do just fine. Remember that after October 3, Shinjiro will leave the team. There is no point in using Magic Mirror in this battle, since the boss absorbs electricity. Give the main character a Persona with immunity to this element, and replace Aigis with Koromaru or Mitsuru. Make sure none of the boss's attacks immediately kill any heroes. If you are not leveled up enough, use the Magic Mirror immediately after the boss starts to “charge”. Set Akihiko to Heal/Support tactics and don’t miss the opportunity to pounce on the enemy with an All-Out Attack.

The 4th of October

Shinjiro and Ken are not involved in this battle.

Fortune and Strength

HP: 3000 and 4000

Another interesting battle! Recommended team line-up: Koromaru, Akihiko, Aigis. Koromaru or Aigis can be replaced with Mitsuru. You won't get rid of Fortune until you deal with Strength, although the former will still take part in the battle. Her trump card is the Wheel of Fortune, a kind of roulette. Don't be alarmed, a few unsuccessful attempts will teach you how to stop it to the benefit of the party. Also keep in mind that the enemy is caught in status attacks like "panic", which also opens the way for an All-Out Attack. The skill Medirama or Mediarahan (Hariti (59), Horus, Kohryu (63), Raphael) would come in very handy.

If you bought any equipment for Shinjiro, you can pick it up from his room.

the 3rd of November

The last "full moon", but still not the final boss. Get Saki Mitama with the Mediarama skill. Also get Quetzalcoatl with the Marakukaja skill. Get Jikokuten. Make sure you have enough Magic Mirror. This episode can be completed at level 42.

Takaya and Jin

Be sure to take Koromaru to your team. Also take Akihiko, give him the Heal-Support tactic. It is better to take out Jin first, without being afraid to use the Magic Mirror, and only after him take on Takaya. You can use any spells except fire, light and darkness. Ideally, no difficulties should arise, especially if you followed the advice and bought amulets at a jewelry store. To prevent the main character from dying from Jin's tricks, do not forget to exchange several homunculi in the antique store.

Don't change the composition of the team. Get ready for the next battle, long and exhausting, but not at all as difficult as it might seem after the first unsuccessful attempt.

Make sure boss moves don't kill any heroes the first time. Let Akihiko continue to follow the Heal/Support tactics, while Aigis and Koromaru focus on the targets you specify. At the beginning of the fight you should have a Persona with the Marakukaja skill, which can later be switched to one that is immune to the boss's spells. The boss himself will appear only after you destroy the statues under him. It is important to choose the moment so that there are no “shadows” under it, which the boss likes to summon. Then, after destroying the statues, the boss will fall and open up for an All-Out Attack. Equip Koromaru with an amulet that enhances fire spells - then he will become the main striking force of the team. Let Aigis destroy the “shadows,” especially when they turn into bombs. Feel free to use the remaining rare items.

Gothic lolita shouldn't be a problem. Take Koromaru with you, set everyone to Full Assault tactics, and heal yourself from time to time. The Spring of Life skill heals Chidori, so make sure you deal more damage to her than she can recover. If difficulties arise, replace Koromaru with another leveled up character (Tidori's level is 56).

This is essentially the final boss in the game. Wait until December 31st, and in a conversation with Ryoji, choose whether to kill him or not. If you kill him you will get a simple ending. If you stay alive, you'll face another boss on January 31st, this time the final one. You can save before this and watch the ending, then load and continue. You can also save after the credits and start New Game+, so you can easily reach the ending, but this time you can defeat the real boss and the optional one, Elizabeth of the Velvet Room. Before choosing the proposed option, make sure that you have registered all of your Personas.

First of all, you need to get to the 254th floor of Tartarus. After this, find the terminal that takes you back to the first floor, where you will find new portal- Monad. And although its completion is not necessary, only there you can get the best equipment and pump up well before meeting the last enemies. There are only ten floors, and on the last one you will meet a secret boss. It's best to fight Elizabeth at level 99, so take your time and explore Monad as much as you need.

This is a one-on-one battle, the hero against Elizabeth. Pre-exchange all the gems for homunculi (you'll need at least ten) and other items like Soma. Remember that you cannot use personas that block, reflect or absorb any elemental spells - otherwise Elizabeth will attack with 9999 HP damage (better take, say, Anubis and level it up to the maximum level). You will need skills that grant immunity to status attacks, as well as knowledge of counterattacks. Persons who are also desirable to have in maximum combat condition: Thanatos, Satan, Ananta, Vishnu, Lucifer.

Each turn, Elizabeth starts with a new Person. There are eight of them in total, plus one additional one - Pixie, which blocks everything except Almighty. This Persona heals Elizabeth once when her health is above 10,000, and many times when her health is below 10,000. In other words, her health will no longer rise above 10,000. The key to winning this battle is the skillful use of Mix Raid (the strongest skill - Armageddon - save for the case when you are absolutely sure that after this attack she will die). Don't attack Elizabeth when her health is just over 10000; instead, heal and wait for the counter to kick in.

After defeating Elizabeth, you will complete task number 55. In turn, to take task number 55, you must complete task number 53.

Let's return to Tartarus. At level 258, an old friend awaits the heroes.

Nothing complicated. Be sure to take Akihiko so that he can reduce the lethal force of the enemy. Also take Mitsuru as your main fighter. It's best to leave the healing to the hero, but if you've been leveling up Yukari all this time, trust her. Don't take Koromaru. Don't be afraid of the rich palette of tricks - most of them can be turned to the detriment of the boss himself by using the Magic Mirror.

Before going to floor 262, you can change the team composition and save.

Takaya is trained in all elemental spells, so either check your Magic Mirror supplies or bring characters without such weaknesses into your team. Again, if possible, take Yukari for healing. If not, the hero himself can handle it quite well. Let Akihiko lower the enemy's parameters, and the other two fighters use the Full Assault strategy. Prepare something to restore SP, because you will have to heal the entire batch at once. Good advice- take Mitsuru or Koromaru with you, equip them with amulets and just don’t forget to heal them.

Save before the final boss.

Arcana: Fool (1500HP), Death (6000HP)

The last boss, you can use up the reserves of rarities that have been carefully stored until now. There are no specific tactics to combat it. Here everything depends on the level of the main character and the Personas he has. If you were preparing for a battle with Elizabeth (even if you couldn't defeat her), just use Mix Raid techniques - they kill instantly. Also beware of his Moonless Gown skill - it reflects absolutely all techniques and spells, so it is better to wait out the dangerous moment. Be wary of the Night Queen spell, as it has status side effects. As soon as Nyx starts using it, the boss's health is depleted.

Bosses of Tartarus

The bosses of Tartarus do not pose any serious threat. Moreover, on all floors with bosses there is a terminal that allows you to go down to the first floor (replenish HP and SP) and save both before and after the battle. The only unpleasant (or rather annoying) feature of bosses is that scanning does not work on them.

14F

For this boss, it would be good to get the Apsaras persona (it can be brought out in the Velvet Room). After Assault Dive, use Cadenza's general skill. Entrust the treatment to Yukari, and let the hero and Iori attack. It is not at all necessary to level up specifically for the battle with this boss - it is enough that not a single trick of his kills the character with the first blow. If there are no Apsaras, use Pixie who has the Dia skill.

25F

Three opponents is always a tough challenge, but in this case they have a common weakness to ice spells. If possible, wait for Akihiko to join the team and go beat the boss with a full team. The Mabufu skill will come in very handy - after all, All-Out Attack does serious damage - but if you don’t have such a person, it’s okay, just use Bufu. Remember that the boss reflects physical damage.

36F

Things will be tough without Akihiko. If the team is below level 16, the boss's destructive power will have to be constantly underestimated, otherwise there is a high risk of losing all the heroes at once. The hero himself will need the Media skill. If you can’t take possession of such a person, entrust the treatment to Yukari and use something from the inventory yourself from time to time. Leveling up to defeat this boss is stupid, because if you defeat him early on, you will automatically gain a level, or even two (236 experience points). Pixie and Chimera have Tarunda and Rakunda skills. But to obtain them you will have to specifically chase experience, and this is long and not justified in the long run. at this stage path.

98F

They are vulnerable to fire, which immediately suggests tactics:

Knock Down through weakness;
All Out Attack.

All three bosses absorb ice spells, so forget about Bufu and Personas who are allergic to ice. Unfortunately, there is no other strategy other than trying to get rid of at least one boss instantly. Remember that if you hit your opponent's Achilles heel after he makes a move, but don't attack while second time, the enemy will spend the next turn recovering and will not attack. Thus, first disable all opponents and then focus on one of them.

110F

Make sure at least one of your Personas has status skills. Also be sure to take Yukari into your team, as she can heal and can withstand wind spells well. However, it is possible that you forgot about Takeba a long time ago and did not take her on forays - then you will need to make a Persona with healing skills and Marin-Karin at the same time. If the circ*mstances are successful, the boss, who is surprisingly susceptible to status attacks, will not offer any resistance at all. But it happens that he also develops immunity, so it is better to be fully prepared.

122F

Again three opponents, again the old tactics. Be sure to save before jumping into the fray. After that it all depends on luck. It is in your interests that the tanks go immediately after the main character, that is, their order is 2, 3, 4. If so, harass them with the Mabufu skill (you can Bufu, there is no big difference) and abandon the All-Out Attack. The tanks will spend a turn recovering, and other characters will finish them off. A huge advantage of this strategy is that if everything goes well, the boss will not have time to attack. The downside is that it requires a lot of SP and a Persona that can withstand the onslaught of enemies in case one tank dodges.

135F

Take your time. Ideally, it is better to wait until Shinjiro leaves the team and then go to the boss. He has no weaknesses, so get ready for a long and grueling battle. It is very important to have the Mediarama skill. If you still decide to go through the boss with Shinji in your team (why upgrade him if he’s a character for two episodes?), you will need a Jikokuten person with the Revolution skill, which increases the chance of inflicting a critical hit. However, remember that Revolution also works for the boss.

146F

Use Marin-Karin's saving skill again (even better - Narcissus's Sexy Dance), and the knights will simply kill each other. Just in case, have Akihiko cast Tarunda and Rakunda.

160F

More Hulk Hogan, more painful fist moves, but this time no special strategy. You can fight him after you finish the 12 main bosses, but then Elizabeth's quest deadlines will expire. Therefore, the only way out is pumping, pumping, pumping. Some players recommend Persona Titania, but you also need to level up well for it.

201F

It's time to take advantage of Narcissus's gift! To do this, you need to get a person with a heart near the statistics window and pump it up for some time. Once you have a Fertilized Item at your disposal, your hero will forget about the Charmed state once and for all!

Above the 220th floor of Tartarus there are bosses that you need to defeat before the 31st. We will focus only on the last one, because none of the four previous fights should cause difficulties. Enemies alternate between physical and magical immunity, so the best way to predict everything is to simply level up. Unfortunately, this is necessary, because immediately after these battles you will need especially strong Personas to summon which you also need to increase a couple of levels.

252F

Remember that the hero can use any weapon. Give him a spear or a bow. Also take Ken or Aigis to the team. If you followed the tips above, the boss will take two turns to deal with the team, so don't forget to heal. Don't use Magic Mirror as reflected damage won't harm the boss.

Elizabeth's Errands

Elizabeth's errands are interesting as side quests. There is nothing particularly interesting in the awards. But you need, after all, at least some incentive to hang out at locations =)))

Time-limited assignments related to collecting rare trophies have one peculiarity - it is better to take them before completion. If the order “get a document” can be taken after the document is received (and immediately completed), then the order “bring X players” is better taken before. I'm not sure how strict the rule is, but personally I was simply not given those rare trophies until I took on assignments.

It is also worth considering one feature: you can only subscribe to three orders at a time. So, first of all, take those tasks that you can complete, especially those that are limited in time.

R01

Before you take on your first assignment (the deadline is May 8th!), Grave Beetles will come across your path quite often. Look for shadows highlighted with a reddish color. But don’t stay on one floor for too long - if the search takes too long, either move to the next one or return to the first floor.

The documents are at the end of the Tartar block, or on the middle floors. Remember that to get them you will need to kill the boss before the time expires. If you cannot complete an assignment on time, do not despair, no punishment will follow. It is this document that lies after the boss on the 14th floor, Rampage Drive.

Muscle Drink can be found in suitcases in Tartarus. If the items Elizabeth asks for cannot be found either in the pharmacy or in Tartarus, then it’s time to visit an antique store or explore those rooms where you are usually not allowed.

R06

The catch is that when you receive the task, it will be difficult for you to make the Jack Frost Persona, and it will not be useful at this stage. However, it's worth a try for the reward. Enter Orpheus in the encyclopedia and try to catch Forneus. You can also cross Pixie and Unicorn, but this is more difficult.

R08

Valkyrie can be obtained by crossing any Personas of the Hermit Arcana with representatives of the Priestess Arcana. If the Valkyrie does not have the required Tarukaja skill, refuse the deal and remove the second Persona from the equation, and then select it again. Sooner or later, the hereditary skill must manifest itself. (If you do not re-select the second Persona, the list of skills will not change).

R12

Google-eyed doll can be exchanged for 2 Turquoise at the antique store.

R13

Shell of a Man can be found in the laboratory (ground floor) of the school where the main character goes (its real name is Anatomical Model, Elizabeth just likes to call things in her own way).

R16

You will encounter Shadow Shard throughout the game. Collect as many as you can, give one to Elizabeth, and sell the rest. They are no longer good for anything.

R17

Gekkoukan Boogie can be found in the office opposite the main character's class.

R27

Yuko will take you to the jewelry store for the first time. Remember that it is only open during the day, and there are discounts on Sundays. The store is located in Paulownia Mall and is called Be Blue.

R28

You need a Queen Elizabeth drink. You can get it by going down to the bar at Port Island Station.

R30

Homunculus is a very valuable item (protects against Hama and Mudo). It can be exchanged for Diamond and Sapphire at the antique store. But... do you really want what Elizabeth is offering in return?

R31

Again Port Island Station, again the alley where you got the Queen Elizabeth drink. Enter the building nearby and after a short conversation you will be given a Mahjong Tile. This is exactly what Elizabeth needs.

R34

This 200,000 yen is an easy prize if you have a person with Hama or Hamaon skills. Kills immediately.

R36

You need to make Black Frost for a completely ridiculous reward. Besides, you will never need it. Anyway. As soon as Igor teaches you new card layouts, collect the following Persons: King Frost, Jack Frost, Pyro Jack, Queen Mab. And then use Cross Spread.

R38

Can be obtained from Naganaki Shrine. Examine the altar near the tree, after which the grandmother will stick to the hero and give him the required Inari Sushi. (Academics should be at level six!)

R53

You need to defeat the demon The Reaper (Fuuka calls him Death). Forget about Magic (and Attack) Mirror, get all heroes to level 75 and put at least two fighters on Heal/Support tactics. Don't forget about the homunculi, since the boss likes to use instant death spells. Try not to delay the massacre - when the supply of SP runs out, you will not have time to replenish it. (The Reaper appears on its own, you don't need to look for it - stand in one place on any floor of Tartarus for five or ten minutes, and "Death" itself will come for the heroes.)

Fusing

In general, there are two ways to get hold of personas in the game, Shuffle Time after the battle and Fusing. In my humble opinion, neither method is unambiguously preferred, as personas are used in two ways, in combat and to spawn other personas.

For combat, definitely pumped-up people are interesting, but for production this is not critical. Of course, when pumping, additional skills appear that a new person can inherit, but you won’t get enough money to extract pumped people from Compedenium =))). On the other hand, combat merited persons are nil, while Fusing gives them a bonus based on the level of the Social Link of the corresponding Arcana.

Thus, it seems to me that an integrated approach is preferable, when it is preferable to bring out persons, but it’s good to pick up material for breeding during Shuffle Time.

When deriving, a simple rule applies, two persons of one Arcana result in a third person of the same Arcana. But this does not always work, because for this approach you need to already have two persons of the chosen Arcana. Also, some combinations of Arcana give a new Arcana. There is a sign in the manual explaining who will turn out if you mix with whom, but it didn’t help me at all, maybe I’m stupid =)))

Fool

Lv. 1. Orpheus: (Legion x Ose)
Lv. 12. Legion: (Orpheus x Nekomata x Apsaras)
Lv. 22. Ose: (Sati x Valkyrie x Zochoten)
Lv. 34. Black Frost: (King Frost x Jack Frost x Pyro Jack x Queen Mab). Only after 9/21.
Lv. 44. Decarabia: (Ose x Parvati x Rangda)
Lv. 55 Loki: (Nandi x Sakimitama x Succubus)
Lv. 76. Susa-no-O: (Orpheus x Legion x Ose x Black Frost x Decarabia x Loki. Link Fool should be maxed. Only after 9/21

Magician

Lv. 5 Nekomata: (Pixie x Asparas)
Lv. 8 Jack Frost: (Unicorn x Pixie) or (Pixie x Asparas x Nekomata)
Lv. 14 Pyro Jack: (Yomotsu-Shikome x Gurr) or (Unicorn x Chimera)
Lv. 20 Sati: (Naga x Gurr)
Lv. 28 Orobas: (Flauros x Narcissus)
Lv. 40 Rangda: (Omitsunu x Ganga)
Lv. 50 Surtr: (Decarabia x Ne Zha) or (Tchernobog x Nebiros). Magician link should be maxed out

The High Priestess

Lv. 3 Asparas: (Orpheus x Pixie)
Lv. 11 Unicorn: (Forneus x Aramitama)
Lv. 18 Sarasvati: (Jack Frost x Gurr)
Lv. 26 Ganga: (Ose x Narcissus)
Lv. 35 Parvati: (Queen Mab x Genbu)
Lv. 47 Kikuri-Hime: (Decarabia x Taraka)
Lv. 60 Scathach: (Kali x Suzaku x Trumpeter). High Priestess link should be maxed out

Empress

Lv. 33 Lhiannan Sith: (Nigimitama x Gurr)
Lv. 47 Lakashmi: (Dionysus x Omitsunu)
Lv. 57 Hariti: (Scathach x Suzaku)
Lv. 62 Gabriel: (Horus x Barong)
Lv. 69 Mother Harlot: (Set x Rephael)
Lv. 75 Skadi: (Mother Harlot x Trumpeter x Kikuri-Hime) or (Mother Harlot x Wu Kong x Surtr) or (Arahabaki x Set x Shiva) or (Mother Harlot x Gabriel x Hariti) or (Garuda x Set x Mother Harlot)
Lv. 84 Alilat: (Asura King x Susa-no-O). Empress link should be maximal

The Emperor

Lv. 7 Forneus: (Pixie x Aramitama)
Lv. 15 Oberon: (Pixie x Zochoten)
Lv. 24 Take Mikazuchi: (Fortuna x Berith)
Lv. 30 King Frost: (Orobas x Queen Mab) or (Queen Mab x Omitsunu). Available only after quest 22 Elizabeth
Lv. 36 Raja Naga: (Clotho x Taraka) or (Lhiannan Sith x Virtue)
Lv. 46 Kingu: (Lhiannan Sith x Dominion) or (Rangda x Virtue)
Lv. 52 Barong: (Titania x Koumokuten)
Lv. 57 Odin: (Surtr x Atropos). Emperor link should be maxed out

Hierophant

Lv. 7 Omoikane: (Orpheus x Nekomata) or (Apsaras x Nekomata)
Lv. 13 Berith: (Unicorn x Jack Frost)
Lv. 23 Flauros: (Take-Minakata x Mitra)
Lv. 31 Beigi Weng: (Genbu x Ose)
Lv. 41 Ananta: (Parvati x Orobas)
Lv. 53 Daisoujou: (Mitra x Aramitama x Kushimitama x Sakimitama x Nigimitama). Only available after 9/21
Lv. 61 Huang-Long: (Genbu x Seiryuu x Suzaku x Byakko). Hierophant link should be maximal. Only available after 9/21

Lovers

Lv. 2 Pixie: (Queen Mab x Narcissus)
Lv. 20 Narcissus: (Fortuna x Nigimitama)
Lv. 27 Queen Mab: (Kushimitama x Mitra)
Lv. 39 Sakimitama: (Clotho x Genbu)
Lv. 50 Titania: (Okuninushi x Lachesis) or (Jack Frost x King Frost x Skadi)
Lv. 61 Raphael: (Tchernobog x Lakshmi) or (Gabriel x Kikuri-Hime) or (Gabriel x Succubus) or (Atropos x Suzaku) or (Surtr x Horus) or (Hariti x Suzaku x Nandi)
Lv. 68 Qubele: (Suzaku x Atropos x Raphael) or (Titania x Lilith x Metatron) or (Titania x Metatron x Kikuri-Hime) or (Lilith x Metatron x Raphael). Lovers link should be maximal

Chariot

Lv. 6 Aramitama: (Pixie x Angel)
Lv. 9 Chimera: (Forneus x Omoikane)
Lv. 14 Zochoten: (Unicorn x Omoikane)
Lv. 19 Ares: (Naga x Berith)
Lv. 30 Omitsunu: (Flauros x Oberon)
Lv. 37 Nata Taishi: (Taraka x Orobas). Available after quest 29 Elizabeth
Lv. 43 Komokuten: (Lhiannan Sith x Nrisinha)
Lv. 53 Thor: (Atropos x Throne). Chariot link should be maxed out

Strength

Lv. 13 Valkyrie: (Yomotsu-Shikome x Apsaras)
Lv. 21 Titan: (Naga x Unicorn)
Lv. 29 Jikokuten: (Lamia x Ganga)
Lv. 37 Hanuman: (Taraka x King Frost)
Lv. 46 Nrisinha: (Raja Naga x Kurama-Tengu)
Lv. 49 Kali: (Ubelluris x Kikuri-Hime)
Lv. 55 Siegfried: (Atropos x Mother Harlot) or (Nrisinha x Atropos x Barong). Link Strength should be at maximum

Hermit

Lv. 09 Yomotsu-Shikome: (Aramitama x Angel)
Lv. 17 Naga: (Zochoten x Angel)
Lv. 25 Lamia: (Take-Minakata x Oberon)
Lv. 32 Taraka: (Orthrus x Queen Mab)
Lv. 41 Kurama-Tengu: (Vasuki x Jikokuten) or (Parvati x Hanuman)
Lv. 50 Nebiros: (Kali x Kikuri-Hime). Available only after quest 42 Elizabeth
Lv. 54 Arahabaki: (Omoikane x Take-Minakata x Okuninushi x Kikuri-Hime). The Hermit link should be maximal. Only available after 9/21

Wheel of Fortune

Lv. 17 Fortuna: (Gurr x Zochoten)
Lv. 23 Kushimitama: (Naga x Take-Minakata)
Lv. 33 Clotho: (Yamata-no-Orochi x Ose)
Lv. 45 Lachesis: (Vasuki x Taraka)
Lv. 54 Atropos: (Nrisinha x Succubus)
Lv. 62 Norn: (Clotho x Lachesis x Atropos). Wheel of Fortune link must be maxed (Special demon fusion)

Justice

Lv. 04 Angel: (Orpheus x Apsaras)
Lv. 10 Archangel: (Aramitama x Omoikana)
Lv. 16 Principality: (Berith x Zochoten)
Lv. 25 Power: (Oberon x Sarasvati)
Lv. 32 Virtue: (Lamia x Queen Mab)
Lv. 42 Dominion: (Parvati x King Frost)
Lv. 51 Throne: (Decarabia x Lachesis)
Lv. 59 Melchizedek: (Kikuri-Hime x Loki) or (Raphael x Mother Harlot x Suzaku). Justice link should be maxed out

Hanged Man

Lv. 10 Inugami: (Nigimitama x Forneus)
Lv. 21 Take-Minakata: (Nigimitama x Yomtsu-Shikome)
Lv. 28 Orthrus: (Titan x Yamata-no-Orochi) or (Titan x Pale Rider)
Lv. 38 Vasuki: (Taraka x Genbu)
Lv. 48 Ubelluris: (Decarabia x Hanuman)
Lv. 58 Attis: (Inugami x Take-Minakata x Orthrus x Vasuki x Ubelluris). Hanged Man's link should be maxed out. Only available after 9/21

Death

Lv. 19 Loa: (Nigimitama x Chimera)
Lv. 24 Pale Rider: (Vetala x Naga). Available only after the 8th Elizabeth assignment
Lv. 35 Samael: (Lamia x Vetala) or (Orobas x Mitra)
Lv. 45 Mot: (Incubus x Seiryuu)
Lv. 56 Alice: (Lilim x Pixie x Nata Taishi x Narcissus). Only available after 9/21
Lv. 64 Thanatos: (Loa x Pale Rider x Samael x Mot x Alice). Death Link should be maxed out. Only available after 9/21

Temperance

Lv. 12 Nigimitama: (Yomotsu-Shikome x Aramitama)
Lv. 22 Mitra: (Naga x Zochoten)
Lv. 29 Genbu: (Kushimitama x Zochoten x Power) or (Omitsunu x Lamia)
Lv. 36 Seiryuu: (Raja-Naga x Orobas)
Lv. 44 Okuninushi: (Raja-Naga x Rangda)
Lv. 51 Suzaku: (Succubus x Rangda)
Lv. 56 Byakko: (Surtr x Barong). Temperance link should be maxed out

Devil

Lv. 08 Lilim: (Aramitama x Nekomata)
Lv. 24 Vetala: (Arch-Angel x Forneus) or (Chimera x Jack Frost) or (Take-Minakata x Jack Frost)
Lv. 34 Incubus: (Pale Rider x Queen Mab)
Lv. 52 Succubus: (Vasuki x Samael) or (Gabriel x Samael)
Lv. 61 Lilith: (Lilim x Vetala x Incubus x Succubus). Available only after quest 48 Elizabeth. Only available after 9/21
Lv. 70 Abaddon: (Succubus x Nata Taishi x Surtr) or (Gabriel x Koumokuten) or (Raphael x Thanatos) or (Titania x Alice) or (Uriel x Genbu x Lilith)
Lv. 81 Beelzebub: (Lilim x Vetala x Incubus x Succubus x Lilith x Abaddon). Devil Link should be maxed out. Only available after 9/21

Tower

Lv. 31 Eligor: (Incubus x Yamata-no-Orochi x Sati) or (Lilim x Pixie x Loa) or (Ganga x Take-Mikazuchi x Power)
Lv. 40 Cu Chulainn: (Incubus x Nandi x Taraka) or (Incubus x Nandi x Genbu) or (Incubus x Fortuna x Beiji Weng)
Lv. 54 Uriel: (Okuninushi x Kurama-Tengu x Incubus) or (Anubis x Flauros x Ganga) or (Mot x Barong x Vasuki) or (Mot x Barong x Virtue) or (Dominion x Jikokuten x Mot) or (Seiryuu x Eligor x kingu)
Lv. 60 Bishamonten: (Succubus x Suzaku x Surtr) or (Garuda x Seth x King Frost)
Lv. 67 Wu-Kong: (Garuda x Set x Kikuri-Hime) or (Garuda x Set x Kaiwan) or (Titania x Lilith x Thanatos)
Lv. 73 Masakado: (Bishamonten x Jikokuten x Koumokuten x Zochoten). Only available after Elizabeth's 52nd quest. Only available after 9/21
Lv. 82 Shiva: (Barong x Rangda) (Special demon fusion)
Lv. 86 Chi-You: (Ganesha x Saturnus x Set) or (Lucifer x Saturnus x Seth) or (Garuda x Odin x Abaddon) or (Suzaku x Abaddon x Saturnus) or (Mother Harlot x Bishamonten x Trumpeter). Link Tower must be maxed out

Star

Lv. 39 Nandi: (Gurr x Unicorn)
Lv. 49 Kaiwan: (Kikuri-Hime x Dionysus)
Lv. 58 Ganesha: (Anubis x Decarabia) or (Succubus x Kikuri-Hime x Ananta) or (Alice x Girimehkala)
Lv. 65 Garuda: (Bishamonten x Raphael) or (Alice x Seth)
Lv. 74 Saturnus: (Raphael x Shiva) or (Throne x Shiva) or (Garuda x Seth x Loki) or (Garuda x Suzaku x Horus) or (Garuda x Suzaku x Thanatos)
Lv. 88 Lucifer: (Kali x Vishnu x Saturnus) or (Mother Harlot x Abaddon x Shiva) or (Set x Kikuri-Hime x Saturnus) or (Shiva x Qubele) or (Gabriel x Abaddon x Shiva) or (Susa-no-O x Messiah) or (Vishnu x Messiah) or (Loki x Saturnus x Trumpeter). Link Star should be maximal

Moon

Lv. 15 Gurr: (Oprheus x Nekomata x Angel) or (Valkyrie x Nigimitama)
Lv. 26 Yamata-no-Orochi: (Loa x Oberon) or (Mitra x Valkyrie)
Lv. 42 Girimehkala: (Gurr x Rangda x Vetala x Taraka). Only available after 9/21
Lv. 48 Dionysus: (Vetala x Orthrus)
Lv. 58 Tchernobog: (Suzaku x Throne)
Lv. 66 Seth: (Ubelluris x Succubus x Tchernobog) or (Melchizedek x Alice x Jatayu) or (King Frost x Melchizedek x Satan) or (Atropos x Garuda) or (Garyda x Barong x Thanatos)
Lv. 71 Sandalphon: (Garuda x Suzaku x Yata-Garasu x Gurr x Horus). Link Moon should be maxed out. Only available after 9/21

Sun

Lv. 30 Yata-Garasu: (Fortuna x Sati x Clotho)
Lv. 43 Quetzalcoatl: (Hanuman x Jikokuten x Taraka)
Lv. 55 Jatayu: (Quetzalcoatl x Atropos x Throne)
Lv. 63 Horus: (Yata-Garasu x Quetzalcoatl x Jatayu)
Lv. 75 Metatron: (Michael x Uriel x Raphael x Gabriel). Only available after 9/21
Lv. 78 Vishnu: (Arahabaki x Raphael x Shiva) or (Arahabaki x Abaddon x Shiva) or (Garuda x Set x Ganesha) or (Garuda x Ganesha x Atropos) or (Garuda x Set x Kaiwan) or (Bishamonten x Uriel x Thanatos)
Lv. 85. Asura King: (Yata-Garasu x Quetzalcoatl x Jatayu x Horus x Metatron x Vishnu). The Sun link should be maximal. Only available after 9/21

Judgment

Lv. 59 Anubis: (Eligor x Arch-Angel x Forneus)
Lv. 65 Trumpeter: (Garuda x Bishamonten x Uriel) or (Surtr x Horus x Lilith) or (Bishamonten x Uriel x Lilith) or (Kaiwan x Horus x Anubis)
Lv. 72 Michael: (Cu-Chulainn x Raphael x Shiva) or (Gabriel x Horus x Ganesha) or (Satan x Messiah) or (Thanatos x Gabriel x Raphael)
Lv. 79 Satan: (Michael x Anubis x Trumpeter) or (Raphael x Thanatos x Shiva) or (Lilith x Abaddon x Masakado) or (Suzaku x Michael x Abaddon)
Lv. 90 Messiah: (Orpheus x Thanatos). Link Judgment must be maximal (Special demon fusion)

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Persona 4 is a Japanese role-playing game developed by Atlus for set-top box PS2 back in 2008, was re-released for a new portable console Sony - PlayStation VITA. Golden The version includes several new elements, and, as with the original, it is one of those rare RPGs that does not focus on endless battles with random opponents, but favors social role-playing, with numerous dialogues and choices.

Plot Persona 4 was inspired by the works of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle and presents a complex detective story richly flavored with mysticism. The main character of the game finds himself in a blue velvet room inside a luxurious limousine, which is rushing to God knows where in the fog somewhere on the border between reality and fantasy. There he meets two mysterious characters - Igor and Margaret, who greet him and warn him about the terrible events that will happen to him in the coming year. If the hero cannot solve the mystery, then his future will be lost forever. What exactly the events are and what the secret is - we have to find out, and the role of the inhabitants of the velvet room is reduced only to providing assistance throughout the entire adventure.

^ The interior of a limousine and its mysterious inhabitants

Unlike most role playing games, action Persona 4 Golden takes place not in a fantasy Middle Ages or a dystopian future, but in modern world, in Japan. Inaba, where the main character moved for a while until his parents return from a long trip, will become our main platform for investigation for the whole year. The city is very tiny, so rumors spread very quickly - everyone is talking about a local scandal. One of the politicians - Taro Namatame cheated on his wife with TV presenter Mayumi Yamano, for which he was fired from the city council. Miss Yamano, in turn, was suspended from television work. A little later, she is found dead, hanging upside down on television wires ... The death of the presenter greatly shocked the public, accustomed to a quiet rural life. Moreover, it was never possible to establish the cause of Miss Yamano’s death. You live in your uncle's house, watching the latest news reports and weather forecasts. Uncle works as a police detective, and you go to school every day (the hero is a high school student) and get to know your peers. Soon you will make friends with the cheerful sports girl Chie Satonaka, the heiress of the local old hotel Yukiko Amagi, the son of the director of the largest supermarket Junes Yosuke Hanamura and others. One day, Chiyo learns about an urban legend about the Midnight Channel, which appears inside a switched-off TV at 12 o'clock at night. The hero decides to check if this is true and waits until midnight. Suddenly the TV screen lights up with a dim light, and the silhouette of a girl begins to be visible in the image. The hero tries to touch the screen, and his hand falls through the glass. It is not possible to penetrate completely inside, since the TV is too small. The next day, the friends realize that they all saw the same thing, and decide to try to repeat the experiment, but this time with a large diagonal TV, which is located in the Junes store. Having touched it, they find themselves inside, in another dimension full of fog. There they are met by a strange creature, shaped like a bear and a Kinder Surprise. The creature introduces itself as Teddy and asks the heroes to leave as soon as possible... Returning back to Inaba, the characters, stunned by their discovery, learn the terrible news - the girl who found Miss Yamano's corpse is dead. She, like the TV presenter, was found on wires, and the police also cannot establish the cause of death. Moreover, the heroes understand that it was her image that they saw on the screen of the Midnight Channel, which means the world behind the TV screen and the murders in Inaba are somehow connected...

^ The theme of the Velvet Room will remain in your head for a long time

They decide to return to the other world to find out as many details as possible. They are met again by Teddy, who mistakenly accuses them of throwing people inside the Midnight Channel, dooming the unfortunate people to certain death. The heroes convince him of their innocence and promise to find the killer. For this, Teddy gives them glasses that allow them to see through the fog. While exploring this world, they are attacked by strange black creatures, which the bear calls “shadows.” The main character hears a voice calling to him, which awakens his true self - the tarot card with the deity Izanagi stored inside. This way you get your first persona.

Personas are rebirths of the dark side of human consciousness. Only when the characters accept their inner selves for who they are does a person emerge ready to protect the hero. There are about a hundred of them in the game, divided into arcana, of which there are 24 types. Each person has their own backstory and origin, be it demons from Japanese or Indian folklore, gods of Norse mythology, evil spirits of Goetia and characters of Celtic belief. There are even such rare representatives as the Balinese witch and the cursed Slavic god of darkness Chernobog.

^ Persona Kaguya level 77 (Aeon Arcana)

Despite the cultural difference, the talent of the artist of the series Shin Megami Tensei Kazuma Kaneko helped combine all this diversity into one common style. Although in some places, some representatives still stand out, but this is rather an exception to the rule.

From a gaming point of view, each person appears at the player's discretion and has their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as a set of abilities that increase when certain levels are reached. There are several types of abilities. Some act automatically, for example, a threefold bonus to evading all types of attacks or absorbing certain types of damage, while others must be activated in battle. These can be physical attacks, fire, ice, electric and air spells. Or more complex magic of light and darkness, and so on. In addition, with the help of personas, heroes can apply various buffs and debuffs, which are especially important in battles with bosses and some rare enemies.

The combat system involves searching for vulnerabilities to certain types of damage in enemies and using appropriate attacks. Hitting the bull's eye knocks the enemy to the floor, adding one extra move to you. Provided that all opponents are lying on the floor, the option of a joint super attack appears. With the right tactics and the right spells, turn-based battles become fast-paced, exciting extravaganzas where you keep your opponents at bay. Using this power, the heroes begin to fully explore the world beyond the TV in an attempt to track down the killer and save the innocent.

Each character in Persona 4 has their own unique personality and backstory, and slowly reveals them throughout the game. The evolution of the characters' inner world is realized in the manner of Western role-playing games and Japanese simulators dates. By spending time with the heroes in conversations and, for example, walking together in nature or in a cafe, you can take communication to a new level and build up the so-called Social Link, which opens up new abilities and bonuses in battles. Depending on your relationship with your teammates, they may help you even when they are not in the active party while exploring dungeons. And you can have an affair with female characters. By bringing communication with a character to level 10, his persona is reborn into a more advanced form, and you get the opportunity to create the highest ultimate persona of this arcana.

^ The moment of reaching the maximum level in the relationship between the characters is accompanied by beautiful effects accompanied by amazing music

Creating personas is an important aspect of the game, especially if you want to explore the game to the end, or are playing on high level difficulties. The fact is that each person can remember only a limited number of abilities, and if there are too many of them, then something will have to be “forgotten,” so it is advisable to have a few more people in reserve with other skills. To create a new persona, you need to merge old ones. There are 5 connection options in total. Some of the recipes are already present in the game, the rest can be obtained randomly (new people do not have specific icon next to the name, so it’s not very easy to understand which one you have yet), or look at the guide on the Internet. Depending on the arcana of each specific person and the level of Social Link with the character of this arcana, during creation an additional amount of experience is allocated, which immediately pumps up your new person. Roughly speaking, the more you get close to the characters, the stronger the personas you get, which you can then level up in battles. The calendar day also affects the result: depending on the day (you can find it out from Margaret in the velvet room), you will or will not receive this or that bonus. And if you don’t like your person’s abilities, you can learn new ones using special cards that drop out as loot after the battle. Some skills are borrowed from other people in a special cafe, and the blacksmith will make you any weapon, armor and amulet from the garbage received in battles for a fee. In addition to skill cards, after the battle you can receive bonuses for upgrading basic parameters and other useful things, which complements the already very flexible and thoughtful customization of your hero.

Another feature Persona 4- weather system. Just like in reality, the weather changes from day to day. You can find out the forecast for the week on television, or from the girl on the roof of the school. And if sunny weather does not bode well, then rain means that rare strong opponents await you in the other world. Moreover, some shops and cafes either do not open during rain or offer other goods. Fog is the most dangerous time, which signals only one thing - the enemy has found a new victim, and if you do not have time to save him before the next appearance of the fog, the game will be over.

^ The design of the opponents is beyond praise, as is the overall graphic design of the game

The search for the whereabouts of victims in the other world is organized in the manner of a small investigation. In order for Teddy's nose to sense which direction to move, it is necessary to collect as much information as possible about the victim by asking various characters in the city. This is an interesting idea, but it is implemented rather clumsily. Despite the fact that you often still receive hints where to go and where to ask, in any case, you have to “call” all the NPCs in Inaba, sometimes even several times in a row. After which a new story “dungeon” will open to you, appearance and the content of which depends on the psychological portrait of the character, or rather his hidden “I”. And here Atlus decides to expose the dark side of people for everyone to see. A modest girl turns into a vulgar participant in a love show, a cool macho cannot decide on his sexual orientation, inviting him into the sauna of his own imagination, and with a nerd everything is clear - his dungeon is a video game reminiscent of the very first Final Fantasy And Minecraft... Unfortunately, in essence, each dungeon consists of ten floors of empty corridors with three dead ends and an exit to the next floor. Moreover, most of them are created anew each time from pre-assembled sets of floor and wall textures. Riddles there are also extremely rare; they usually involve searching for a specific enemy who has the key to the next floor, and if you clear everything completely, you may not even notice how you opened the passage.

Luckily, as mentioned earlier, the game itself focuses on social roleplaying and interacting with characters, so the dungeons in the game are very few and short-lived. What keeps things interesting is the combat system, one of the best in the genre, which is so exciting and dynamic, while remaining completely turn-based and tactical, that it is simply impossible to put down. You will wander through dungeons for a long time, gain experience by participating in battles with opponents visible on the map, and increase the level of your party. In a portable format with a sleep mode option, this is especially convenient. As well as automatic quick saves between floors and before the boss on normal difficulty.

There is a lot that can be said about the game, it is so deep and exciting game created Atlus. But it’s better to try once: it’s not easy Best game on PSVITA and the only real reason to buy it, but also one of the best RPGs ever made. The game fascinates with its lively characters, vivid story scenes and social role-playing. During the passage, which can last for 100 hours or more, it will seem to you that you really lived that year in the small rural town of Inaba, became close to the local residents, and became roads for someone. And this is the main magic Persona 4 Golden.

The game was completed on PSVITA.

Urban legends are the cornerstone on which the entire spiral of events in the storylines of the games in the series is wound. Persona. and wrapped the intrigue around mysterious wish granters/hired killers who appeared if the unlucky person happened to call a certain number. , which dramatically changed the focus of the gameplay into what the series is to this day, began broadcasting from a private school, whose students diligently attended classes during the day, and at night descended into Tartarus and began to fight monsters, being members of the “squad” special purpose» SEES. At the same time, they called their guardian Persons not through cards, as usual in the series, but by putting a special pistol to their head - "Evoker", and pulling the trigger. It managed, although without murder, but, apparently, in the fourth part Atlus decided not to flirt with such delicate nuances anymore and everything returned to normal - now the heroes summon Persons from cards in the old fashioned way, breaking them with a spectacular blow. All other details remained unchanged, having migrated from the third part more polished than innovative.

Mysticism of the rainy season

The protagonist, being an exchange student, comes to the small provincial town of Inaba while his parents are on a long business trip. He will be staying here for a whole year, with his uncle Ryotaro, who lives alone with his daughter Nanako, and therefore it’s time to get a job at a local school. But just a few days after appearing at school, he hears rumors about the existence of the so-called Midnight Channel ( midnight channel), which begins broadcasting exactly at midnight, only when it is raining outside, and usually only a fuzzy silhouette of a person is shown. At first, the main character's classmates hypothesize that the channel shows the soul mate of the one who watches it or something like that. But very soon it turns out that the people whom the Midnight Channel displays will soon die under mysterious circ*mstances.

The weirdness doesn't end there. Our protégé, along with his new friends, discovers the ability to get inside the TV, which shows the Midnight Channel, where he learns that the victims can still be saved, the main thing is to do it before the fog falls on the city, which usually appears after a few rainy days. The search for the culprit very quickly becomes a personal matter for our heroes. Simple curiosity is no longer enough - close friends die, and even more people find themselves in danger, and there are no leads to the killer - those who were pulled out from the other side of the screen remember absolutely nothing. The police, led by Ryotaro, are conducting their investigation, but, not realizing the true nature of the murders, they are marking time, not knowing what else to grab onto. Time passes, and another victim appears on the screen, and there are only a couple of weeks left until the fog appears... The innovation of the fourth part - the weather system has become the core of an excellent detective plot, which is interesting not so much for the suspense or building up the atmosphere, but for the events that occur between visits television "dungeons", thus defusing the situation, but saturating it with little things that make the game world believable.

science granite

Like her predecessor, Persona 4 multifaceted in its simplicity. The essence of the game is focused on two poles - the exploration of labyrinths hidden inside out midnight channel, and school everyday life - everyday reality, into which are inserted jogs through the insides of a crazy world. At the same time, the stumbling block – running around and destroying “shadows” – seems to have been pushed into the background, and the school is the very point at which the main variety of the game is concentrated.

The social simulator, which formed the basis of the threequel, was finally polished to a mirror shine in the fourth part, depriving it of the last annoying little things like the inability to quickly move around key points in the game. Now we have fast teleportation at our service, which does not come to the fore, but is always ready to help if the process of running around locations begins to tire. It's a small thing, but nice.

A more serious change lies in the fundamental refinement of the mechanism of social relations, on which the main “lure” of the third part was based. By increasing the total number of characteristics to five, the developers simultaneously expanded the arsenal of “after-school” activities, giving, for example, the opportunity to get a part-time job, which, in addition to money, will also bring an increase gaming characteristics. Almost all social elements now carry the opportunity to “pump up” the main character, thus allowing you not to be scattered about ten classes at once, but to plan your schedule more competently.

Those who played Persona 3 They will probably remember that the protagonist there was deprived of the opportunity to develop connections with his teammates, with the exception of the female half (it turned out to be a kind of mini-date sim). Now everything is as it should be - the social element concerns all team members, without division by gender. Moreover, regular time together not only more fully reveals the character of party members, but also bears fruit when it comes to battle: friends learn to cover the main character, then become able to carry out all kinds of special attacks... And the increase in the strength of Persons as a result of developed acquaintances continues on the spot. However, it’s nice to watch the scenes themselves anyway. They still do not have much influence on the course of the main storyline, but this is not required.

One hundred handicap points

From everyday everyday little things, as before, all the magic of the game is formed when Persona 4 does not let you get bored, constantly slipping in some pleasant details, thereby distracting you from the main thing. But the hero’s friend calls and asks to spend a free weekend with her - do you agree or not? Now you need to prepare dinner for tomorrow, because then you can eat it with someone at recess, thereby getting closer to your “eating buddy.” Or without getting closer, because you also need to be able to cook! But it’s a day free from classes, and you can run to have a snack at a roadside cafe, because it’s raining, and when it rains, the cafe holds a competition “who can eat the most,” which, among other things, increases a whole lot of characteristics...

The protagonist's companions and, in general, all the people inhabiting Inaba, this time it seems that they came out Atlus as human as possible. The developers outdid themselves in creating personalities who behave as naturally as possible in various life situations: they endowed them with character traits that are not repulsive in their falsity, forgot about party stereotypes, removed unhealthy pathos and threw out the stupid jRPG cliche to hell: "a teenager equals a fool". The actions of the heroes are adequate, it is difficult to disagree with their motivation, and they find the justification for their actions themselves, in wonderful dialogues that outline their characters exactly as needed, without ever making you think about what someone seems to have completely no brains. Without stepping on the typical pitfalls of slow-wittedness, they thereby make it clear that portraying people in such a way that one can believe in them is real. There would be a desire. After completing the passage, a strange paranoid feeling appears of inflated standards and the fact that all subsequent heroes of old and new jRPGs cannot avoid comparison with Persona 4 for the worse for them. But these are already emotions. The fact remains that the bugs have been worked out, and the overall plot of Persona 4 is head and shoulders above what we could see in its predecessor. Brilliantly.

First of all, TV...

Persona 4– that hardcore that has been polished to the point of extreme user friendliness. Crawling into the insides of the TV, the heroes encounter a dungeon crawler and its indispensable attributes - randomly generated labyrinths and turn-based battles. As before, enemies are visible on the map and are easy to escape from, but it has become significantly more difficult to get the right to make the first move. But the game remembers the last floor of the dungeon that the player reached, immediately offering to start there later or from the very beginning, if you suddenly want to level up and have extra time. No more “checkpoints”, fortunately. Escape from the battlefield is no longer carried out according to the usual “random” scheme, but instead the game first “looks for a loophole” for escape, taking away several extra moves, but then escape is guaranteed.

Destroyed enemies drop ingredients that can and should be handed over to the antique weapons seller in the city, thus replenishing the assortment of his store. There is no point in keeping them with you, and the game itself immediately warns you about this. Sell, they say, extra money and new weapons never hurt. In addition, it has finally become possible to directly control the entire party in battle, and not just the main character - the strange innovation of the third part still remains here, but the “autopilot” can already be turned off at will. The ability to view a map of the entire floor has been added, but the option to run around the floors as a group in order to look for useful items has disappeared.

The total length of the labyrinths has noticeably decreased. Compared to the 270-story Tartarus, the scale of the local catacombs has decreased by three times, if not more. And this is a compliment: quantity, as you know, does not mean quality at all. The only complaint regarding the gameplay is the somewhat truncated system of bonus cards issued after the battle. There are no more cards that bring money, experience and free treatment. Now we either draw a Persona, or we don't draw anything at all. To be fair, it is worth noting that filling out the entire encyclopedia of possible Personas is much easier than in P3. And the balance has been noticeably adjusted - now the accrual of experience is much smoother, and by carefully navigating the next television tangle of corridors, the party usually gets to the boss at the optimal level.

In addition to this, two more drawbacks are striking: at times, overacting/underacting actors in the English voice acting (the same problem was present in the threequel), and the inability to skip long story scenes in front of the bosses. After the third or fourth loss, reading the same thing for several minutes in a row gets pretty tiring.
But the picture got better. It still lacks stars from the sky, but the style is impeccably maintained, and most of the graphic “jambs” are eliminated by the same juggling of colors and competent selection of lighting. A stylish noise filter has been added to battles, simulating a grainy television picture. Soundtrack, generally following the same path as in Persona 3, produced a much more impressive selection, in which there are often simply magnificent things (more specifically, almost all combat themes and some “peaceful” ambient compositions) worthy of an honorary inclusion in the playlist.

Sit down, student, “excellent”

And this is not surprising. Having brought my own developments to mind, Atlus gave us an almost flawless example of how modern jRPGs should be made. To everyone's envy and surprise. Not to mention the fact that in the final credits there arises a long-forgotten feeling that it is a pity to part with the heroes and you want to stay in this world for a while longer... And this is worth a lot.

...It will be very pleasant to visit them during the second playthrough. Even if it takes a few more tens of hours. Not scary.

P.S. And don’t rush to leave Inaba after destroying the “final boss”. In fact, the real final boss is yet to come...

Written By: Sektor Freeze

Articles on the topic

Around the same distant times when the great and terrible Final Fantasy was created, the game Megami Tensei was released, christened Megaten for simplicity. Due to its somewhat anti-Christian content, the game was not released in the West, but it gained a large following in Japan. After the second Megaten, the series fell into the hands of talented developers from Atlus, who called it Shin Megami Tensei (True Reincarnation of the Goddess) and began to develop it at incredible speeds, thanks to which the game acquired many different branches, one of which was the Persona series.

After the game was released in America, European gamers trembled - the European release date was about to be announced. Square Enix, which put a warm hand on Atlus's shoulder even with the release of Odin Sphere, offered its services to publish the game in Europe. And the developer didn't mind. When the game appeared on the shelves of European stores, the Square Enix inscription was already shining on the box.

Of course, for fans of the jRPG factory, the realization that their favorite company had a hand in as many as seven hit jRPGs for the PS2 is a true delight, but, nevertheless, its other attempts to warm other people’s titles under its wing are also noteworthy - here you and Disgaea 3 with Disgaea DS, and even the mindless meat grinder Modern Warfare 2. New tactics for making money? If so, then you should hope that it does not affect the company's own games - their own bar is falling. The main thing is not to fall even lower.

But I digress.

The presentation of the plot in the game is reminiscent of a visual novel - character models appear before us, over whose heads anime icons periodically appear that display emotions, as well as a window with text that appears and disappears from time to time, next to which the anime sprite of the character currently speaking is displayed . At certain moments, the player has the opportunity to insert his two cents on behalf of the Protagonist, which can be very, very useful.

All in all, whatever you say, Persona 4 itself is a great game. Rich and varied, based on Japanese (and not only) modern culture and mythology, which is a pleasure to play through. This is such a heartfelt blow to people like the founder of Bioware, who believe that the jRPG genre is about to collapse. This is a great remedy for all those who have long been nostalgic for old-school role-playing games. This is, finally, an excellent successor to Persona 3, the creation of which, the developers turned to the proverb “the slower you go, the further you will go,” without running too far from its famous predecessor. Go through Persona 4, gentlemen, you won't regret it.

Urban legends are the cornerstone on which the entire spiral of events in the storylines of the games in the series is wound. Persona. and wrapped the intrigue around mysterious wish granters/hired killers who appeared if the unlucky person happened to call a certain number. , which dramatically changed the focus of the gameplay into what the series is to this day, began broadcasting from a private school, whose students diligently attended classes during the day, and at night descended into Tartarus and began to fight monsters, being members of a “special forces squad” SEES. At the same time, they called their guardian Persons not through cards, as usual in the series, but by putting a special pistol to their head - "Evoker", and pulling the trigger. It managed, although without murder, but, apparently, in the fourth part Atlus decided not to flirt with such delicate nuances anymore and everything returned to normal - now the heroes summon Persons from cards in the old fashioned way, breaking them with a spectacular blow. All other details remained unchanged, having migrated from the third part more polished than innovative.

Mysticism of the rainy season

science granite

A more serious change lies in the fundamental refinement of the mechanism of social relations, on which the main “lure” of the third part was based. By increasing the total number of characteristics to five, the developers simultaneously expanded the arsenal of “after-school” activities, giving, for example, the opportunity to get a part-time job, which, in addition to money, will also bring an increase in gaming characteristics. Almost all social elements now carry the opportunity to “pump up” the main character, thus allowing you not to be scattered about ten classes at once, but to plan your schedule more competently.

Those who played Persona 3 They will probably remember that the protagonist there was deprived of the opportunity to develop connections with his teammates, with the exception of the female half (it turned out to be a kind of mini-date sim). Now everything is as it should be - the social element concerns all team members, without division by gender. Moreover, regular time together not only more fully reveals the character of party members, but also bears fruit when it comes to battle: friends learn to cover the main character, then become able to carry out all kinds of special attacks... And the increase in the strength of Persons as a result of developed acquaintances continues on the spot. However, it’s nice to watch the scenes themselves anyway. They still don't have much impact on the flow of the main storyline, but they don't need to.

One hundred handicap points

First of all, TV...

Sit down, student, “excellent”

...It will be very pleasant to visit them during the second playthrough. Even if it takes a few more tens of hours. Not scary.

P.S. And don’t rush to leave Inaba after destroying the “final boss”. In fact, the real final boss is yet to come...

Written By : Sektor Freeze

IN last days simulators were excited by the news of the return of loading screens, and information about the structure of the town in Sims 4 was vague, which caused a lot of misunderstanding, including among us. However, SimGuruGraham has clarified the details in his forum posts and interviews, and we're here to tell you how it will all work.

Let's define the terms. IN Sims 4 There are cities (world), areas (neighborhood), areas (lot) and public areas (public spaces). At the moment there is only one city - Willow Creek. According to Graham, other towns may appear in future addons. Willow Creek has 5 unique neighborhoods, each with several lots - no more than 5 - and public areas. In general, technically there are 6 districts - just one of them is one large park. The plots can be residential or public. It is known that apartments or apartments in base game will not, as reported by SimGuruSarah.

With plots players in The Sims familiar, but what is this public area? – This is the territory of the district outside the boundaries of the plots, the surrounding space: streets, playgrounds, green areas with benches, etc. Public areas can contain pieces of furniture, such as benches, because now objects do not necessarily need areas to be placed on them, they are located right on the street! However, buildings are still only possible on lots.

During the game in life mode, there is always an active area - the one on which the player is located, in other words - the area that is currently loaded. At the same time, we see everything that happens in the public areas of the given area and at any moment we can interact with the characters and objects located in them. Sims can even go outside on their own and engage in interesting activities; their minds are no longer limited by lot boundaries!

How will moving around the city work? While the need for transportation remains unclear, the gist can already be grasped. For clarity, I will give hypothetical examples.

Let's imagine that we live in a residential area, we are at home and we want to go visit a neighbor who lives right across the street from us. Our character leaves the house, and at this time children are playing on the playground. Then we see a loading screen that accompanies the loading of another section. After loading, our Sim is on the same street, sees the same children playing, but the neighbor’s lot becomes active.

Now imagine that from a neighbor we decided to go to a bar. The bar is not located in our quiet residential area, but in another, let's call it the Center. Our character goes outside where children are still playing, and then another area loads. After the loading screen, he ends up on the road right in front of the bar. Here we no longer see those children playing - we have arrived in a different area! Not far from the bar, lovers are sitting on a bench, and on the other side some Sims are singing songs. We can go to a bar, or we can walk around the area, meet the characters and take part in some activities. At the same time, the area with the bar remains active.

Let's say we didn't like it at the bar and decided to go to that jazz club over there instead. We see the loading screen, and the section of the club becomes selected, while our character is still on the same streets of the Center where we saw the cooing lovers and the singing company. While our Sim is having fun at the Jazz Club, life on the street in the public areas continues to boil. Now the lovers who were sitting on the bench had a fight and ran away, and soon someone nice sat down on this bench. We can quickly send our Sim to get acquainted without having to download some other item.

Sooner or later we decided that it was time to go home. It’s already completely dark outside, and we pass by and out of the corner of our eyes we notice that the company of singing Sims has noticeably thinned out, and the songs have become more mournful. Then we see the loading screen, and immediately after it the character finds himself in front of his house on his native street in the Dormitory area. There are no children playing on the playground anymore, because look at the time - it’s already night! Yes, while we were having fun at the Center, time in our area and around the world kept ticking, and our Sim has to work tomorrow...

So, to move around the world, we always select the lot we are going to, and the area and its public areas are automatically loaded around the lot.

Will there be a loading screen when a Sim leaves the lot and enters the public area of the area? - No.
Will there be a loading screen when moving to another area? - Yes.
Will there be a second, additional loading screen if the destination is in a different area? - No.

Now, what if we have two characters in our family and they want to go to different places? We can send any character to any lot in the city (and then, possibly, to other cities when they appear). At the same time, we ourselves see only one, active area. What area it will be is up to us to decide. All characters located in other areas will not be visible to us, but they will continue to live in the background, and we will be able to remotely control them by giving tasks. It is not yet known what actions we will be limited to, perhaps the system will resemble managing characters in rabbit holes in Sims 3, and maybe it will be more detailed.

Can we switch to a background character? - Yes. We can call him to us (to the lot that is currently active) or go to him ourselves - through the loading screen of the site where he is located. So the player can alternately take control of any member of the controlled family.

When asked about managing missing characters and having rabbit holes, SimGuruGraham replied that there will be no “rabbit holes” in the usual sense, but some surprise awaits us. One can only guess what he meant.

Questions also remain unclear: do our characters now need cars and will they even be in the game? We all saw trams and cars in different videos and pictures, but the areas shown to us are suspiciously devoid of garages and parking lots, and in the purchase and construction mode, no one noticed a hint of the presence of functional transport.

We discuss the details and add, as always, on the forum in the section

After completing the game, we will have the opportunity to go through it again.

To make the player want to go through the game a second time, the creators have added a number of goodies that will only be available upon replaying the game (and by the way, it is advisable to complete the game with a True Ending ending).

What will go into the second playthrough from the first:

1. The status of the main character, all five of his parameters (knowledge, courage, etc.) will be the level to which you upgraded them during the first playthrough.

2. All persons that were recorded in your Persona compendium will be available to you. In other words, the entire Persona compendium will carry over to the second playthrough (you can summon a person, even if your level is lower than the level of the summoned person).

3. Items you received for Maxed Social Links. When activating a Social Link on a repeat playthrough, if you had it at maximum on your first playthrough (and you have something to prove it), it will immediately become maximum (thus, on a repeat playthrough it’s easy to make all Social Links max).

4. Money.

5. Margaret's discounts.

6. The number of persons in your inventory will be 12 from the very beginning.

7. Game time. During a new playthrough, the game time will be added to the time spent on the first playthrough.

What will not go with you:

1. Main character's combat status (LV, Max HP, Max SP...)

2. Things.

3. Materials for making equipment.

4. Equipment (weapons, armor, accessories).

So, before the end of the game, sell everything! (the money will go with you)

5. Persons (only those recorded in the compendium will transfer. They will then have to be called for money.)

6. Analysis of shadows (all their strengths and weaknesses will have to be learned again).

7. Margaret gifts that you received for completing 50% and 100% Social Links.

Goodies that become available upon repeated playthrough:

1. Death.

Death can randomly appear when you open chests (this usually happens at the end of the game in the last or penultimate dungeon). When opening a chest you will be asked if you really want to open it, answering yes will start the fight with Death. After winning, you will receive the best weapon in the game.

2. World persona.(only if you completed the game with the True Ending ending).

You can create the best person in the game - " Izanagi-no-Okami". Created when 12 persons merge, does not inherit the skills of the persons participating in the merger and cannot be recorded in the compendium. Your level must be at least 91.

Here is the list of people to merge:

イザナギ (Izanagi)

ザントマン (Sandman)

ナタタイシ (Nata Taishi)

ギリメカラ (Girimehkala)

ノルン (Norn)

オオクニヌシ (Okuninushi)

オルトロス (Orthrus)

カルティケーヤ (Kartikeya)

ミトラ (Mithra)

ツィツィミトル (Tzitzimitl)

クー・フーリン (Cu Chulain)

レギオン (Legion)

Characteristics:

伊邪那岐大神(Izanagi Okami) （Lv.91）World

Resists: Phy, Fire, Ice, Elec, Wind

Default skills:

Can learn at level up:

3. Hidden boss.

You receive - Indigo Invitation Card, from Igor (if you completed the game with the True Ending ending). Next, go to the Heaven dungeon and challenge Margaret.

Here's what's needed for the fight to take place:

2nd playthrough

Maximum level Empress social link

All secondary bosses in all dungeons must be defeated.

At the moment, this is all I know about the second playthrough of Persona 4, I hope you won’t be stopped by the fact that in order to try all the innovations of the second playthrough, you will have to almost completely complete the game (the second time).

After all, games need to be played to the maximum!

^ The interior of a limousine and its mysterious inhabitants

Unlike most role-playing games, the action Persona 4 Golden takes place not in a fantasy Middle Ages or a dystopian future, but in the modern world, in Japan. Inaba, where the main character moved for a while until his parents return from a long trip, will become our main platform for investigation for the whole year. The city is very tiny, so rumors spread very quickly - everyone is talking about a local scandal. One of the politicians - Taro Namatame cheated on his wife with TV presenter Mayumi Yamano, for which he was fired from the city council. Miss Yamano, in turn, was suspended from television work. A little later, she is found dead, hanging upside down on television wires ... The death of the presenter greatly shocked the public, accustomed to a quiet rural life. Moreover, it was never possible to establish the cause of Miss Yamano’s death. You live in your uncle's house, watching the latest news reports and weather forecasts. Uncle works as a police detective, and you go to school every day (the hero is a high school student) and get to know your peers. Soon you will make friends with the cheerful sports girl Chie Satonaka, the heiress of the local old hotel Yukiko Amagi, the son of the director of the largest supermarket Junes Yosuke Hanamura and others. One day, Chiyo learns about an urban legend about the Midnight Channel, which appears inside a switched-off TV at 12 o'clock at night. The hero decides to check if this is true and waits until midnight. Suddenly the TV screen lights up with a dim light, and the silhouette of a girl begins to be visible in the image. The hero tries to touch the screen, and his hand falls through the glass. It is not possible to penetrate completely inside, since the TV is too small. The next day, the friends realize that they all saw the same thing, and decide to try to repeat the experiment, but this time with a large diagonal TV, which is located in the Junes store. Having touched it, they find themselves inside, in another dimension full of fog. There they are met by a strange creature, shaped like a bear and a Kinder Surprise. The creature introduces itself as Teddy and asks the heroes to leave as soon as possible... Returning back to Inaba, the characters, stunned by their discovery, learn the terrible news - the girl who found Miss Yamano's corpse is dead. She, like the TV presenter, was found on wires, and the police also cannot establish the cause of death. Moreover, the heroes understand that it was her image that they saw on the screen of the Midnight Channel, which means the world behind the TV screen and the murders in Inaba are somehow connected...

^ The theme of the Velvet Room will remain in your head for a long time

^ Persona Kaguya level 77 (Aeon Arcana)

Each character in Persona 4 has their own unique personality and backstory, and slowly reveals them throughout the game. The evolution of the characters' inner world is implemented in the manner of Western role-playing games and Japanese dating simulators. By spending time with the heroes in conversations and, for example, walking together in nature or in a cafe, you can take communication to a new level and build up the so-called Social Link, which opens up new abilities and bonuses in battles. Depending on your relationship with your teammates, they may help you even when they are not in the active party while exploring dungeons. And you can have an affair with female characters. By bringing communication with a character to level 10, his persona is reborn into a more advanced form, and you get the opportunity to create the highest ultimate persona of this arcana.

^ The moment of reaching the maximum level in the relationship between the characters is accompanied by beautiful effects accompanied by amazing music

Creating personas is an important aspect of the game, especially if you want to explore the game to the end or play on a high difficulty level. The fact is that each person can remember only a limited number of abilities, and if there are too many of them, then something will have to be “forgotten,” so it is advisable to have a few more people in reserve with other skills. To create a new persona, you need to merge old ones. There are 5 connection options in total. Some of the recipes are already present in the game, the rest can be obtained randomly (new people do not have a specific icon next to their name, so it’s not very easy to understand which one you have yet), or you can look at the guide on the Internet. Depending on the arcana of each specific person and the level of Social Link with the character of this arcana, during creation an additional amount of experience is allocated, which immediately pumps up your new person. Roughly speaking, the more you get close to the characters, the stronger the personas you get, which you can then level up in battles. The calendar day also affects the result: depending on the day (you can find it out from Margaret in the velvet room), you will or will not receive this or that bonus. And if you don’t like your person’s abilities, you can learn new ones using special cards that drop out as loot after the battle. Some skills are borrowed from other people in a special cafe, and the blacksmith will make you any weapon, armor and amulet from the garbage received in battles for a fee. In addition to skill cards, after the battle you can receive bonuses for upgrading basic parameters and other useful things, which complements the already very flexible and thoughtful customization of your hero.

^ The design of the opponents is beyond praise, as is the overall graphic design of the game

The search for the whereabouts of victims in the other world is organized in the manner of a small investigation. In order for Teddy's nose to sense which direction to move, it is necessary to collect as much information as possible about the victim by asking various characters in the city. This is an interesting idea, but it is implemented rather clumsily. Despite the fact that you often still receive hints where to go and where to ask, in any case, you have to “call” all the NPCs in Inaba, sometimes even several times in a row. After which a new plot “dungeon” will be opened to you, the appearance and content of which depends on the psychological portrait of the character, or rather his hidden “I”. And here Atlus decides to expose the dark side of people for everyone to see. A modest girl turns into a vulgar participant in a love show, a cool macho cannot decide on his sexual orientation, inviting him into the sauna of his own imagination, and with a nerd everything is clear - his dungeon is a video game reminiscent of the very first Final Fantasy And Minecraft... Unfortunately, in essence, each dungeon consists of ten floors of empty corridors with three dead ends and an exit to the next floor. Moreover, most of them are created anew each time from pre-assembled sets of floor and wall textures. Riddles there are also extremely rare; they usually involve searching for a specific enemy who has the key to the next floor, and if you clear everything completely, you may not even notice how you opened the passage.

You can talk a lot about the game, such a deep and exciting game was created by Atlus. But it's better to try once: this is not just the best game on PSVITA and the only real reason to buy it, but also one of the best RPGs ever made. The game fascinates with its lively characters, vivid story scenes and social role-playing. During the passage, which can last for 100 hours or more, it will seem to you that you really lived that year in the small rural town of Inaba, became close to the local residents, and became roads for someone. And this is the main magic Persona 4 Golden.

The game was completed on PSVITA.

To be honest, I didn’t expect much from the fourth part of the Persona series after Atlus managed to feed the third part, weak in many respects, to the gaming fraternity twice (and, unlike the two full-fledged parts of the second Persona, we only received the usual add -on). Naturally, the news about the fourth “Persona” - on the engine of the third and with similar game mechanics, did not cause me personally great joy and excited anticipation. It was all the more surprising to discover, upon starting to play, that the developers carried out an impressive “work on the bugs”, raised the level of execution of all components of the gameplay by several orders of magnitude and eventually released a game that quite rightly received many titles like “RPG of the Year” and a lot of positive ratings in gaming journalism.

Plot: The first thing that stands out is the truly thoughtful approach to the plot. There is no trace of the “standard anime series about wizard schoolchildren and a robot girl fighting evil Shadows” a la Persona 3. The promotional picture with the silhouette of a corpse hanging from a power pole did not deceive us: this time we are in for a detective story skillfully mixed with urban legends. The plot is as follows: the main character’s parents, leaving Japan for work, send him to a provincial town for a year, entrusting his uncle, a police detective, to take care of him. As soon as the main character finds himself in this town, Inaba, strange murders begin to occur there: people disappear, and after a thick fog falls on the city, they are found dead from an unknown cause, hanging from some roof or pillar. In addition, the rumor that at midnight when it rains, images of future victims appear on the screen of a switched off TV turns out to be true, and the main character becomes one of the few people who is able to use this rumor to unravel the mystery of the fog and disappearances and stop killer.

Actually, this search for truth is what you will be doing. And the plot of the game does not intend to present everything to you on a plate: more than once or twice it will turn out that in reality everything is completely different from what you thought, and in some places you will have to make fateful decisions based on the facts you know. The ending of the game will depend on the decisions you make: perhaps you will save several people, but you will not find the killer and you will leave Inaba with difficult feelings (missing part of the game), perhaps you will stop the killer; who knows, maybe you will be able to find out more than the secret identity of the killer and the reason for his actions (and even if good people spoil you about his identity, I think you will still be interested in finding out what motivated him).

The plot side of the game is excellent - in addition to the fact that it is really interesting to find out what will happen next, we will not meet one-sided characters here - what are the only friends of the main character, members of your team, each of whom we will “look into the soul”. This is one of the moments that sends us back to Persona 2: Innocent Sin and generally justifies the name of the game. Your friends will receive their “Personas” - entities that allow them to use supernatural abilities, after they recognize their not the most profitable, hidden sides of the soul and desires and do not allow them to take over. It happens like this: you go through a dungeon, reflecting the character’s inner world, and knock out the boss - his “dark side”. And yet, even this approach, which does not allow oneself to feel surrounded by flat dolls, was not enough for the developers, and they endowed the characters with small distinctive features, such as Yukiko’s periodically swallowed “laughs.”

Game process: Well, the plot is good, but it’s time to remember about the gameplay. Like the third Persona, the fourth is a fusion of RPG and life sim. This cannot be said to be a “revolution in the genre”: clearing dungeons and everyday school life and meeting with friends practically do not intersect here; by analogy one could recall the later Langrissers. However, the balance of both components is almost perfect.

In Persona 3, to be honest, all of these characters and their stories were very predictable and uninteresting. Here everything has changed dramatically. Try to explain to the protagonist’s little sister why her mother was taken to heaven! Or try to moralize in the spirit of an “ordinary good RPG hero”, talking with the spoiled daughter of rich parents Aya Ebihara - in order to restore normal relations later, you will have to try. In general, now each of these characters began to have their own character and S-Links became a really interesting pastime. The most important of them are, naturally, your friends who are on your “team”. Improving relations with them, in addition to opening new Personas, will now lead to the fact that they will be able to protect you from a fatal blow in battle, conduct additional attacks, heal negative statuses... And upon reaching maximum warmth of relations, they receive improved versions of their own Personas. I’m sure that now many people have remembered about local girls - so, now the main character is not obliged to make love with all the girls in S-Links, and what “maximum warmth” will mean - strong friendship or tender love, you choose (in dialogues there will be certain answers that will decide what kind of relationship the characters will have). However, you can be a cool pimp and date eight girls here too - a concession for those who don’t want to replay the game many times. What’s nice is that now friends often spend time together, say, on weekends, in addition, you can improve your relationship with the character, for example, by successfully giving him advice at school or sharing breakfast with him - there are many possibilities.

Naturally, such wonderful friends cannot be undemanding to the main character. Now he has as many as five characteristics - courage, patience/perseverance, the ability to express his thoughts, the ability to understand other people and general education. And to advance most S-Links, you will have to have a non-zero level of one of these (generally speaking, these characteristics will be useful to the main character not only for friendship, but also for successfully passing exams and the like). On the other hand, there are a huge number of opportunities to improve these characteristics in the game - starting from the S-Links themselves (you go to a drama club - you learn to better express your thoughts, and so on), ending with an innovation: work. Now the main character, if his characteristics allow, can work as a tutor, a cleaner in a hospital, or a translator; the advantages are obvious - money (and often quite well complementing the amounts flying out of the monsters), advantages to the characteristics and, yes, the relationships that are being established with those people you meet at work. Probably the coolest little touch: you can boost your courage by eating expired food from your uncle’s refrigerator. Naturally, after something like this, you won’t leave the house in the evening, you won’t read a book, and you won’t have anything good to dream about. Oh yes, you can dream about your friends, which also improves your relationships... Well, you get the idea: the life-sim part has become several heads more interesting and varied than in the third Persona. There are also side quests that are now ready to be given to you by a wide variety of people: here you will be knocking out objects from enemies, feeding a voracious cat, and playing riddles. And what’s most interesting is that at school now they sometimes ask questions that require you to go to Wikipedia for answers. Hooray.

Second joy: no more than a three-hundred-story tower. Dungeons are now diverse, the world of each character has its own flavor (the coolest of all, of course, is Mitsuo with his world of a sixteen-bit game), there are nine to ten floors. In the middle there is a mini-boss, on the last floor there is a save/teleporter to the entrance and the main boss. Now, if you use magic/item to fly to the entrance and re-enter the dungeon, you will be prompted to start on the floor you escaped from. Convenient, right? The only thing that has become less convenient is that now weak Shadows will not run away from you, and chests with rare things need to be opened with keys, which you can’t get so easily either.

How can you spend half the game in such a comfortable world? It's simple - now the level of enemies jumps sharply from floor to floor, and the enemies themselves are now much more often devoid of weaknesses (instant death spells are much more relevant than before). Plus, when you return to the entrance, no one will restore your HP and SP for the first time (then a fox will appear who will do this, in the best Megaten traditions, for an extortionate fee). That is, you will have to go through the dungeon, usually in several passes. As for the battle mechanism, it hasn’t changed much - the battles are turn-based, but if you hit the enemy’s weak spot (let’s say, you fire at the Shadow, which is afraid of him), your character can do something again; at the same time, the Shadow will fall (and maybe even be knocked out during the turn if you continue to press it). If all the Shadows are lying down, you will be asked to run at them in a crowd and inflict unblockable damage on them. However, your characters also have vulnerabilities, and enemies will also take advantage of this (fortunately, they lack cynicism and the ability to rush into a crowd of you). True, just knocked down characters now do not skip a turn; although, this is even good for you, because the Shadows will no longer be able to trip up the main character on the first move, taking advantage of the vulnerability of his Persona. In addition, the ability to stand on the defensive to prevent enemies from taking advantage of your weaknesses has been added. In general, the combat system of the third Persona was probably the only thing I liked about the game, and it’s nice that by the fourth part they brought it to mind and made the battles very enjoyable and dynamic. The advantages of bosses now, in addition to a large amount of HP, also include their behavior, which will vary depending on the composition of your team: most of them have their own “aces up their sleeve” to adequately respond to your change of tactics. However, if you want more hardcore challenges, or, conversely, are too lazy to level up and fight too much, at the beginning of the game you will have the opportunity to choose the difficulty level of the battles “beginner” or “expert” (except for the toughness of the enemies, this will not affect the course of the game).

Sound: Most of what the characters say is voiced, and the voice acting done by the Americans during localization is surprisingly high quality and done, dare I say it, with soul. The music, in the best traditions of the Persona series, is mostly unabashed pop... but in any case, after listening to “Reach Out To The Truth” played during battles with a voiceless singer a thousand times, you’ll get used to it. Still, Shoji Meguro knows his stuff, and even I, who is not at all a fan of “sugar” music, was pleased with the soundtrack - especially since very unusual and funny themes pop up from time to time, like the track that plays while trekking through the world of Mitsuo.

Things have not gone well for me for a long time with megatenes, because, it seems to me, they were not very made for people - just before the parts put in the title. I tried SMT3, I had enough for several hours of terribly dull corridors with no plot and no motivation to move on (well, enemies attacking from behind, instantly killing the hero due to his vulnerability, just drove the last nail into the game's coffin). I tried Devil Survivor, and I even liked the premise in it, but by the middle of the game, the plot completely stalled, and the difficulty jumped up, and instead of swinging, I decided to just leave it. The third and fourth "Persons" came out on PS2 when I almost did not turn it on, so I decided to get acquainted with the series with the portable version of P4 - and I did not lose.

Roughly imagining the characters and the general reality of the game, I thought that I would send the hero to play tricks with Chie, because in general I like the archetype genki, and I’ll put a bolt on Rhys, because it’s terrible for an idor. It turned out quite the opposite: Chie came out completely dull, she was the first to leave the party, and I completely abandoned the social link with her. And Rise impressed with an unusual look at herself and her versatility, plus she and Kanji turned out to have the best dungeons and bosses (although I like the music in Yukiko's castle the most).

Of the characters, I liked smart Naoto the most, but the game brazenly cheated me with her: it turns out that in order to have a relationship with her, it was necessary to stress her femininity, but this seemed inappropriate and vulgar to me. You probably should have guessed that the whole game was vulgar. After one wrong answer, nothing else helped. In the end, he left the hero with Yumi, because Rise had a grammatical holocaust in SMS, and Yumi confessed very coolly.

In general, the game has a lot of cool and strong scenes, but at the same time, its two components - non-linear time management with pumping skills and relationships and the linear passage of a detective story - are in no way connected with each other. The pumping of relations does not affect anything: there is intimacy, no - all the same, Rise will stick to the hero, and Yumi will remain completely unnecessary anywhere. I blew Risa off for Christmas - zero reaction, I kicked her off New Year- zero reaction, sent off on Valentine's Day - "sniff, I understand everything, you have another, I'm sad", and then in the dungeon / at parting - zero difference. Even if the hero gets into intimacy with all this four girls who communicate closely with each other, no one will have any questions, no problems, nothing. They only whine once in mid-February. And, by the way, in the end the hero, who remained in my relationship with Yumi, said goodbye to her somehow completely poker-faced, as if nothing had happened there, and Yumi was not in the epilogue at all. Everything is empty and futile.

And this is not to mention the lack of correlation between soul links and the plot. What actually happened to me: Nanako returns from the hospital, there is a most touching scene where she is splashing with happiness, I then talk to her, the seventh level of the soul link is activated, and she yells at Dojima “ahh, you are not my father” and runs away from home . The same thing is with the comical scenes that are obligatory in the plot - the dissonance in P4 is ubiquitous, and with the increase in the number of such scenes in P4G it only became greater.

And the soul links are monotonous. Here is the recipe for their development: “I do what is expected of me” - “I didn’t choose this, I don’t want this” - angst - “I won’t do this anymore” - “oh, you know, I realized that everything “I will do it anyway, but this time it’s my choice, so it’s okay.” Denial-anger-bargaining-depression-straightforward acceptance.

And the underlying detective story is no good. Knowing the spoilers, I deliberately looked with all my eyes, looking for hints, and there were none. Just zero. Yes, with Mitsuo it was immediately clear that he was a walking red herring: at the beginning of the game he was thrust too thickly right under his nose. But if everything is more or less normal with Namatame, then the two main opponents are pianos from the bushes. Moreover, in order to get through these bushes, you need to give the correct answers to six idiotic translucent questions under Namatama and go through a series of hellish triggerhunting before leaving. You can not do it this way.

And the worst thing is that in plot scenes related to detective work, all the heroes degrade and turn into a faceless mass, shouting to the enemies “what do you think you are” in ten variations, and to the hero - “we must do this!”, “yes, senpai , Let's!" and “the power of friendship will prevail.” In the end, the game turns into continuous Senanov-style cheerleading, putting an end to everything interesting and unusual that was in it, and in the epilogue the heroes turn into hell. And then how many more sequels and spinoffs come out? In general, Atlus itself buried its best initiative.

What about the gameplay in P4G: it was tolerable at best. My final team was the hero-Yosuke-Naoto-Teddy, there were practically no problems at relatively low levels and without fusion of persons: I got Valkyrie in the first dungeon and did not take it off the entire game (switched only to lower the enemy’s attack) : she constantly received bonuses to her stats from the cards she received after the battle and therefore was cooler than people of comparable level, and a wide range of spells allowed her to hit everyone at their vulnerability and get extra moves. However, I did not get any pleasure from the long random dungeons and monotonous battles, and they made up a good half of the game.

In general, I definitely won’t put Persona 4 on the list of my favorite/best games, but it’s probably worth recommending to fans of the genre.

A year and a half after P4, I tried Shin Megami Tensei 4, not really hoping for anything (I understood that SMT was a completely different game plan than Persona), and was pleasantly surprised: the developers finally managed to make SMT with a human face .

Battles are no longer random. The death of a hero no longer means death - moreover, those killed in battle can be resurrected. Hamover can be canceled with money or 3DS coins. There is an easy mode, which leaves the game quite difficult, but removes the idiotic dependence on randomness (the hero and his team rarely miss, enemies very rarely crit - I don’t ask for more).

The introduction introducing the setting is not erased by the apocalypse, but is supplemented by it: two settings here exist in parallel, and although the plot moves very slowly and is generally not very satisfying, this allows you to maintain motivation at the required level - there is always some kind of support, some kind of support. then a constant in the form of a starting kingdom. There are also a bunch of sidequests that allow you to achieve intermediate goals and not be so upset about downtime in the main plot. And the music is cool.

The nonlinearity until the final fork is rather weak, and the “order-chaos” dichotomy is very strange: there is too adequate chaos and too disgusting order. There is little ambiguity - in terms of elections, there is a noticeable bias in Walter's favor. In the end, I chose a neutral ending, but there’s still not much cool in the game - the characters are rather flat and faceless, the plot is not impressive, the battles are a little more interesting than in P4, thanks to the desire to recruit and cross all the demons, but overall it’s also not that great. But the game turned out well and was quite addictive thanks to its Pokemon nature and sidequests. I would recommend it only to very seasoned fans of the genre or to those who are interested in SMT in principle, but were afraid of excessive hardcore and unfriendliness previous parts. Oh, and, of course, it's important that it's portable. Without portability, there would be no patience.

I suspect that the plots in the previous parts could have been more interesting (especially in Digital Devil Saga), but I don’t expect acceptable gameplay in them, and therefore I won’t try. I'll probably try Persona 5. Some day. I’m not going to buy it at the release: P4 didn’t convince me at all to become a fan of the series.

Thematic materials:

Kasparov now. Kasparov Garry Kimovich

Garry Kasparov - biography and personal life, interesting facts

Last Day on Earth: Survival - interesting features How to run Last Day on Earth: Survival on a computer or laptop

How to correctly navigate the terrain using a compass - practical tips

Dress up for girls to be judged by the jury

All world edit commands How to install the world edit plugin

Manufacturers of board games in Russia How much does it cost to produce a board game?

We produce and sell board games Board game production business

Updated: 03/04/2020

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