Persona 4 Golden (Switch) Review

The Persona franchise, without question, has become the primary golden goose for Atlus of late. Despite a healthy number of sequels and remakes of the Shin Megami Tensei series (itself a quality RPG line) it’s the Persona spin-off that has become a tentpole franchise for the Japanese developer, and it’s easy to see why. From an early era of gritty sci-fi to more recent outings with jazzy overtures and a loveable gallery of protagonists, the brand has continually evolved in colourful ways despite its continued exploration of darker themes. But as much as Persona 5 and its update Royal have taken the series to new heights in the west, it’s Persona 4 Golden that kickstarted its growth outside of Japan. Now, having escaped the confines of the PSVita and PC, Persona 4 Golden arrives on the Nintendo Switch, allowing even more fans to get their hands on one of the best entries in the series.

If you’ve come here having spent a good 100 hours in Persona 5 Royal as your first taste of teenagers playing with ghostly alter-egos, Persona 4 Golden will immediately seem familiar. A young high schooler moves from the big city to a smaller country town, only to find himself caught up in some strange events that both confuse and scare the local townsfolk. What’s worse, you discover what the kids of your new school call the ‘Midnight Channel’, a strange late-night occurrence on broadcast television. From here, your young hero is pulled into a strange alternate dimension inside the TV, full of dark shadows, a murder mystery and a talking teddy bear.

For all the praise we constantly heap on Persona 5 (which it duly earns) many of its ideas were refined concepts from the previous entries in the series. Persona 4 Golden plays mostly to those same strengths of weird world building, intriguing character development and a healthy dose of excellent dungeon crawling role play with a side of turn-based combat. There are some minor differences, the UI isn’t quite as refined as the sequel’s excellent design for example, but newcomers to the game will feel right at home here as its best elements continue to hold up.

Wednesday reference, anyone?

The most common link between every game in the series is the use of Personas, powerful creatures that will level up along with your party members, and the ability to access the Velvet Room. This strange place that exists outside of outside of reality, hosted by an equally unusual figure named Igor, is considered a safe haven for Persona users that will allow you the option of fusing collection Persona together to birth more powerful entities. You can combine that with the Social Link system, where you build bonds by spending time with various characters, in turn gaining more power from your fuses. It remains a clever and well-developed system (it’s not as complex as it sounds), and carrying on everyday activities in the real world such as working day jobs or schoolwork to build your personal stats improves your chances at completing each dungeon, unlocking every ability or discovering every Persona available.

One thing unique to P4G is the Wild Card system. Wild Cards can randomly appear after a battle allowing you to choose from various awards, be they new Persona to add to your party, keys to unlock hidden treasure chests or an increase in XP. It’s a completely random occurrence and though the rewards can be fair, it’s not quite as engaging a system as the ability to convince a Persona to join your party in P5R, for example, at least from an interactive level.

As much as I’m a fan of Joker and the P5 gang, Persona 4 Golden’s cast is just as adorably silly, from father figure Ryoatro’s balancing of life and single parenthood to Yosuke’s evolution from a simple comic relief, and (of course) Teddie, one of the most likeable characters with a traditionally sad backstory. The anime cutscenes remain a series highlight, wonderfully vibrant and backed by an enjoyable score full of earworm creators, though given the evolution to Persona 5 there’s a little bit of age showing in certain animations and a healthy dose of motion blur, a leftover of the original engine design. As a complete package, however, Persona 4 Golden is still a must play, enjoyably dark and weird where it needs to be and warmly light-hearted at the right times. If you’re coming into Persona 4 Golden for the first time, you’re honestly in for a treat.

South Park reference, anyone?

Final Thoughts

Persona 4 Golden remains a quality, well developed RPG that fans who jumped onboard following the success of Persona 5 would do well to dive into here. Its murder mystery narrative is enjoyably dark and creative, its cast of characters memorable and well thought-out. Though its port to new consoles doesn’t bring with it any massive bells and whistles, outside of an upgrade in resolution befitting the consoles they appear on, it only really needed a quality translation given its excellent design in the first place. Thankfully that’s the result here, meaning even more fans can dive into a world that’s equally as creative and memorable as Persona 5 Royal.

Reviewed on Switch // Review code supplied by publisher

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