Persona 4: Golden to See Release This Fall on Vita
Atlus just sent word that a remastered version of Person 4 will be coming to the PlayStation Vita later this Fall.
Below is a list of some of the bigger changes coming to the game, which were highlighted in the press release.
- Visuals have been beautifully remastered to take advantage of the PS Vita’s crisp, vibrant 5″ OLED display.
- The game’s aural presentation is better than ever, with 1.5 times the voiced dialogue of the original release.
- A new online dungeon rescue feature allows users to call on other players for assistance when they are about to die in the TV world.
- New Personas to collect
- New story events along with an all-new character
- Stunning new anime cutscenes, which include a new opening animation with a new song from master composer Shoji Meguro
- A host of fan suggested tweaks and changes, and much more!
Having been a big fan of the series for some time now, this is rather exciting news. Hopefully it plays just as well on the Vita as it did on the PlayStation 2. You know how some console RPGs don’t translate quite as well to portables. Then again, Persona 3 Portable was one of the best PSP games ever released.
I’d love to hear what your favorite parts from Persona 4 are, and if you’re looking forward to this remastered version.
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Nice Tim. Have you played Xenoblade? I’m currently getting my butt handed to me by the boss in the Ether (sp?) Mine. He’s level 25, I’m level 26, and for the life of me I can’t get to a Break because he keeps destroying me before hand. Well I should say he was causing me problems, but I’ve since beat him. The question I have is this, does the game force you to go through the boring fetch quests? I sure hope not because I’m enjoying the story and gameplay, but the side quests are horribly dull, but help you level up extremely quick.
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Fetch quests for Persona 4? Or Xenoblade? Xenoblade has tons of gathering quests and stuff, yeah. Persona 4 has a few, but they are pretty easy to do while going through the main story anyway. In Xenoblade I’m only a few hours in, about level 15. My older brother put in 88 hours in already though, lol. I can’t believe he can do 81,000 damage in one hit with Reyn!
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Never played Persona 4 so I hope I have the time to play this Vita port.
As for Xenoblade, yeah some of the fetch quests can be dull but what gets me through them is developing the relationships between the NPCs. It’s really interesting to get them tied to each other. It’s very hard to know to keep track of which side-quests net the most experience, but as you accept them…the details of how much EXP, money, and items you get should be apparent, so just complete the ones that net the most experience as rewards. You’re right though, doing them successively get you leveled up so quick. And keep in mind that practically anything you do nets you EXP…from obtaining achievements, discovering new locations, talking to new NPCs. And the dull fetching is kept to a minimum because you can fast travel practically anywhere in the game.
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The fast travel is one of the best features in the entire game. I’m also digging the battle system. Feels like an evolution of FF XII’s system of sorts. I just find the fetch quests really boring because they’re almost all the exact same thing. Find this or that, kill X number of enemy Y, etc. The best quest I did thus far had to do with a loan shark, which I prevented and kept the dude interested in his lady friend.
I think I’ll go back to Colony 9 now that I’m free to explore and see if I can finish a few more quests. I wish you could have the indicator arrow show you the direction to solve these side quests as then they would go by far quicker.
Did you finish the whole game Ahmed?
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There are a lot more interesting quests like that loan shark one you encountered. I remember that one. There are actually quests like these which are ongoing side stories. As in one quest unlocking another related to it.
I’m 70 hours in and I’m estimating that I’m around 2/3rds done. Thinking of playing more now that everyone’s hands on with it.
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Since there’s already a review of it here on the site, I’m going to do a video review for the main COE channel. It’ll essentially be my pros and cons from what I’ve experienced, but I need to play a lot more. On Friday I’m looking at putting in a solid seven to eight hours which should help progress the story a bit. Right now here are the pros and cons.
+ Evolved battle system from FF XII that works very well. The premonition system is also extremely useful, and so are the chain attacks.
+ The gem creation, arts, affinity, etc. all work perfectly and help flesh out the rest of the system.
+ Fast travel is amazing, and easily allows you to go from one area to the next with virtually no loading whatsoever.
+ Quick end for the fetch quests. The simple quests end the second you do whatever you need to.
+ Everything gives you experience. I still find you have to take part in a few too many fetch quests in order to make quick progression, but thankfully there are no shortages to acquire experience.
+ The Monado itself is pretty cool and I like how new abilities are unlocking all the time.
+ Art design is excellent, and the soundtrack is one of the best I’ve heard in a while. The voice acting is also very well done.
+/- The story hasn’t grabbed me yet, but it’s getting more interesting as more visions happen.
- Lip-syncing is awful, and the amount of repeated dialogue during battles is beyond annoying. I wish I could shut if off. If I hear “what a bunch of jokers” one more time…!
- This looks like the nicest GameCube game I’ve ever played. Having just played through four different GameCube games, this looks like a sensational GameCube game, or a really high-end Xbox release. Everything from muddied textures, to clipping issues and pop-in distract from the stunning art design. This would have looked incredible on the Xbox 360 or PS3. One can only hope this universe will be visited again on a next-gen console (as in Wii U, PS4 of the next Xbox).
- The fetch quests are simply too numerous. Speaking to the same person four times, right after the other, will often give you four different variations of the exact same fetch quest. Kill monster X in this location.
That’s the gist of things right now. How some are saying this is a 9.5 game, or the best RPG of the year I don’t know. Right now it’s certainly the best RPG on the Wii, but it’s also the only one I’ve ever played on the system. I will say it’s growing on me the more I spend with it so perhaps I’ll become completely engrossed before long.
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There are a lot of fetch quests, so you may get tired of those. Sometimes it’s hard just to find people at all, since everyone has a strict schedule (time of day appearance) and they may change where they appear. Other times, since the areas are so massive, it’s just difficult to track down specific things. I think the most frustrating quests are the ones where you need to collect rare item drops–it takes forever. Still, it’s not a “bad” problem, it’s one that comes with the territory I think. Kind of has shades of MMO in it, but I still like it. In fact, I REALLY enjoy this game. One of my favorite RPGs in quite some time and I admit to buying into the hype for this one. I’d personally give it 9.5 or so, maybe even 10.
The combat system is brilliant and deep. I like how you can approach how to play the game. It does feel like FFXII’s system slightly, but mixed with shades of other games. For example, I like to deal damage quickly so I’m more apt to using Shulk primarily, but my older brother likes to be a tank so he prefers to use Reyn. It’s a neat system. The art design and the world are exquisite. I know everyone is so busy harping on the graphics, but honestly, I’m still taken aback by the game–I think it’s beautiful. Yeah, it would’ve been neat to see this game in HD, but I think it’s a little unfair to criticize the game for what it isn’t. Besides, had it been developed as an HD release for 360 or PS3, it would’ve taken a massive budget and probably 3 times the development time. Keeping it on the Wii let them release the game in a timely fashion and keep it pretty inexpensive. I’d argue that Xenoblade is even bigger than Skyrim (maybe not in map space, but scale), and we all know how glitchy and broken that game can be. When I travel the world in Xenoblade and I can see the Bionis or Mechonis looming ahead, or the giant sword in the sky, or even see the locations I’ve been to from far away, I get a sense of wonder. The music is also FANTASTIC.
Story has been spoiled for me thanks to my brother powering through the game so fast, but I gotta say–I am very impressed.
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If you read my review you know that I’m with Tim on this one. The world design, the scale, the micromanaging, the battle system — they’re all absolutely incredible. I agree that they could’ve made it a bit easier to track NPCs because it’s too overwhelming, but the menus (especially the affinity chart) are still detailed and well designed. I had a session yesterday, closing in to 80 hours and I’m nowhere finished with the game. Every time I do side-quests, I discover more cool ones that pop out…and they’re just too damn addicting. Glad I’m not playing actual MMOs. I haven’t played Skyrim, but I’m pretty sure that Xenoblade matches it in scale and epicness.
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I don’t find it tough to keep track of anything, but like you said it’s overwhelming how many quests there are. Just today I activated another 30 quests without even trying, and all but 2 were either to collect drops, or kill certain enemies. This is clearly not a “good” or a “so-so” thing in my book. It’s simply a means to extend gameplay as these quests offer nothing to the player outside of experience. This is the whole reason I don’t play MMOs, and if I did I’d review them as such. I just find it completely overboard and unnecessary. Now the other quests, the one where you interact with different characters, or actually change their lives in some way, shape or form are much better. I just wish we only had those and forgot all the rest.
If you guys notice the points I wrote above, I have far more positives than I do negatives, but I’m not blind to them either. This is a really solid RPG, and I’m enjoying myself, but not to call on obvious flaws isn’t my style…unless this is a Zelda game :-P The graphics aren’t something I’d harp on, but they’re clearly distracting at times with the clipping and pop-in issues. The lip-syncing is also distracting , but all of these pale in comparison to the war cries. I love the soundtrack, but I find myself actually muting the game now because I’m so annoyed by the repeated chants the team does. This is an archaic design flaw that should be put to rest.
As for a score, right now this is in the mid-8 range for me. The main culprit is that the storyline just hasn’t taken off just yet. It’s getting better though and I’m only 14 hours in so give me a chance ;) I almost never give into hype though so maybe that’s just it. I’ll say this though, it sure does some interesting things and the battle system has grown on me greatly.
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Yeah I agree that those type of quests are just there to extend gameplay, but I tend to stumble upon finishing them naturally without having the need to backtrack to defeat certain enemies or collect certain drops. The stuff they tell you to collect or defeat are extremely common and the fact that you don’t need to track back to the NPC who asked of this type of side-quest makes it a lot less repetitive than shown on paper. It’s the complex quests which really engross me. I swear that these quest are on a league of their own very interesting premises, sub-plots and objectives.
Agreed with the graphics and lip-syncing. They’re not up to par even with Wii standards and I called the game out for those. But the environments are really detailed with decent draw distances. And I didn’t experience any bugs, slowdown, or long load times considering the massive scope of the world. So it’s a double edge sword for me. And regarding the annoying battle cries, personally they’re not annoying to the degree that I mute the game’s beautiful soundtrack. And it’s a nitpick in my book, a valid one, but nothing game breaking in my opinion as the voice acting itself is very solid. If it annoys you that much, Jarrod, switch to Japanese voice overs. The battle cries are much more tolerable there.
Agreed with the very slow pace of the plot. I like the premise, but to me it just hasn’t taken off to epic proportions, even where I’m at now. But the plot of the side-content really engrosses me I sometimes tend to forget about the main plot. It also takes awhile until you get to the meat of the story, so that is an obvious flaw…but it’s something that most RPGs fall into, nothing specific on Xenoblade. Even Zelda: Skyward Sword, which has a nice plot, took a long while to get starting. It’s intro was just boring to me.
I think it’s a matter of how impressed one gets and how each of us views the flaws of the game in contrast to the positives. Your flaws are totally in place and I agree with them…the difference between us is that I don’t find them to be major issues in comparison to the game’s awesome positives.
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That’s why we’re human ;) The difference of opinions is what makes us unique. There is one issue that has started to pop up now that the game is increasing in difficulty, the lack of tactics management. Maybe I just can’t find it, but it seems odd to me that I can’t have my medic actually heal me or cast offensive and defensive spells, unless I actually play as them. That seems very odd. I did 20 battles as a test and only in 3 of those did Sharla cast any type of protective spell even though that’s all she knows right now outside of healing. I’ve also had to heal myself constantly because she either focuses on healing herself and one of the other team-members, even though she knows a party heal spell. So I’m wondering if there’s a way I can make her focus her efforts on healing instead of attacking. It’s actually caused me to die a few times now because I always have to be on the lookout for my health instead of being able to rely on Sharla. Again though, I might be missing something so please let me know guys.
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Interesting issues. Probably the reason why I haven’t noticed them is that I love focusing on sidequests so my level is usually much higher than what its supposed to be so personally I have not found the game to be difficult at all aside from the first couple of hours. And Sharla does heal me when she needs to heal me and the AI in general does what I want it to do aside from a couple of knacks. I do understand where you’re coming from in a sense that you can’t exactly direct your AI to do certain things like FFXII. Here are things you should be aware of. Sharla’s unique in a sense that her rifle needs to cool down for awhile if you overheat it with attacks and ability usage, so she may lag when she’s casting too much spells. This rifle cooldown mechanic is separate from the game mechanic of individual cooldown spells. My advice is if you want her to focus on healing, try un-equipping the offensive abilities, equipping all of her healing abilities and level them up as much as possible. That will at least have you easily cast them successively.
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The only thing you can do from and AI point of view as far as I know is command them to focus their attacks on one enemy, attack individually or fall black. You can access these commands by pressing one of the bumpers in the classic controller pro (can’t remember which button). You’ll also get other types of commands when you learn some Monado powers later in the game. What’s the last power you have right now?
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In other words, when it comes to Sharla, she will heal when it is needed…not randomly. And most of the time from my experience, she actually healed me when I was low on HP. AI also revived me from battle when necessary. If you want her to heal manually, you gotta control her directly. Same thing when it comes to the stun/topple/dizzy attacks. The AI almost always follows up with what I want it to do and it didn’t flinch with me. When I put a stun attack (pink), the AI will automatically find its topple attack (green) and use it, and same case with the other dizziness attack (yellow). So I’m personally not having any major issues with the AI at all, but I understand that you’ll want more control over it ala FFXII.
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Agreed. Ballsy and risky. But for me so far I have no major complaints because the AI is perfectly functional. The only issues I’ve had is when one of my party members gets stuck somewhere far off and doesn’t come into battle with me. It seldom happens, but when it does they either teleport him/her to where I am or they just stay stuck there until I do something. So keep updating me with your situation with the AI partners because I’m curious if they are more flaws that I didn’t encounter thus far. With the abilities, like I said, if you want certain AI to use specific abilities, just level those up, equip them and unequip the rest. I haven’t had any issues with ability usage during battle, but keep me informed about this.
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So today I tried a little experiment. I did nothing but side quests and fetch quests all day long. I’m now 21 hours in, at level 29. I was rather shocked how quickly I leveled up by doing all those missions. Needless to say though, I’m zonked lol. I just arrived at the Satorl Marsh and saved my game. I have completed every quest I could activate accept for one from Colony 9 called Mementos of a lost son. I can’t find the last item I need to finish it. All the others are complete though. Before doing these quests I was at level 26, and was having trouble at Xord (level 25), but now I am extremely powerful. Most of the enemies I’m facing are level 21 to 25, which are a complete breeze.
I assume that as I unlock new areas more quests will open up in Colony 9 and the refugee camp?
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The more quests you do and the higher you level up, the more quests are unlocked. Some quests are also locked to your progress, but there’s no way to know when all this happens unless you have a strategy guide or something. Just keep checking around from time to time.
And yeah, side-quests make you level up so quickly man. I’m so super powerful right now it’s just fun to breeze through.
You’ll find a ton of quests in the Marsh so be on the lookout there. As for the refugee camp, you’re in for a nice surprise as soon as you’re done with the Marsh which is related to that.
BTW, Satorl Marsh at night is freakin’ EPIC. The music and the scenery become absolutely magical.
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I’ll keep you posted, I just arrived, saved and shut it off so I’ll continue on Monday. My weekend is completely booked sadly so no time for gaming :( Like I said above, I only wish more of the quests were of the interesting kind. I had a hard time making it through the Bionis’ Leg fetch quests because of the sheer size of the area. It was downright epic in size and scope though. I can’t imagine how spectacular that would have looked in HD.
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Well I won’t be surprised if they re-release it for the Wii U at some point. If you look at the Dolphin emulation footage of Xenoblade in HD, it looks absolutely beautiful. Makes me wish that I could play it in HD too but Dolphin emulation is sort of iffy to me. Keep in mind that a release outside of Nintendo is impossible as Monolith is fully owned by the company.
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Once the PVR I ordered comes in I’m going to capture 480p direct widescreen footage and see how that looks. Right now the SD footage looks not bad, but it’s so much better in progressive.
As for the Dolphin HD output I’ve seen some footage and it looked quite nice. I think this is a super missed opertunity on Nintendo’s part for not including HD upsclaing on their Wii games on Wii U.
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Yeah. Instead of that crappy GameCube-less version of the Wii they released a year or two ago, they could’ve easily had a Wii HD on the market as a newer version of the console. Nobody would’ve complained as the PS3 and Xbox 360 both underwent revisions, with the 360 even not having HDMI when it first shipped! I have no idea why Nintendo didn’t jump that gun. They could’ve made a lot of cash with that.
And by the way, the Dolphin’s real function is not upscaling if you can believe it. It actually has the ability to render the Wii games in native HD resolutions, which is why the footage looks awesome. If I had a better PC I would totally give it a go.
I’m curious though; what’s the side of your HDTV and are you using component cables? I’m not complaining too much from my end because I’m loving the HDMI 1080p upscaling that I’m using. Makes Wii games look even clearer and more colorful by having the 3rd party HDMI accessory and the upscaling chip on my amplifier. On the downside, my TV is 55 inches so Wii games do look grainier than usual…in smaller TVs the image looks a lot clearer. So it’s a good thing I have upscaling.
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My TV is 46″ and upscales natively. I use the component cables, and it’s good enough for what it does. The different it’s going to make switching to an HDMI accessary isn’t going to do much because component itself can output 1080p just fine. That’s the misconception people have with component and HDMI, there’s no difference unless the source is HDMI 1.3 or higher. The Wii is way below that, heck even the PS3 and Xbox 360 are below that. Those games go through upscaling locally at the console-level though.
I just hope for the Wii U they at least have 1080p native support, which no one does right now.
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Day one purchase from me. I’m buying a Vita just for this. Persona 4 is one of my favorite games of all time and I’d say arguably one of the best games of the last decade (or ever)! Can’t wait!