Persona 4: Golden - Steam/PC.
So, I recently (i.e. last night) purchased this (Persona 4: Golden) for the PC. I have some thoughts on this legendary JRPG that is loved by fans & critics alike, after some say 4.2 hours in total here spent with it, so....let's begin.
A lot of games, they often take care one a certain thing, first and foremost: being a game. Often, games are more so built on game mechanics than actual focusing on storytelling, narrative, and character development. Well, enter Person 4: Golden here, as it definitely makes sure that storytelling, narrative, and character development is extremely important in this game. This game certainly takes its time with all of this stuff - and this is also for the best here, as it's great so far at all of this stuff. If this isn't enough, this game certainly takes its time to often develop all of this & litter the game with lots of details in this regard, too.
Then there's the voice-acting. A lot of the main story stuff is voice-acted here. While there is some stuff that isn't voice-acted here, it's often unimportant stuff period and/or NPC's who aren't main characters that isn't voice-acted, so this isn't a big deal and isn't even a matter at all. Also, what's here that is voice-acted is also great, for the most part.
Oh, and if this all isn't enough - there's plenty of world-building and Lore here, which will also keep the player immersed in the game & its actual world. Since the game is done on a daily schedule and in that matter, you will often be going around to the same places & areas often - you'll get to know the areas & learn the area, which will immerse the player into the place & give the player the feeling that they are also in a place that they can & will call home.
At 1080p on my old laptop (i7 4720HQ; 16 GB RAM; 4GB of GTX 960m; W10 x64), this game runs really well. At 60fps without any hitches & issues here, which is what's expected here as this game isn't really new or anything of that sort, this game runs just fine & flawless. Cranked-up to the max here and rendered at 200%, the game looks fine in the game-world. The character models have their own doll-like look & style, which is fine & nice. P4 (original) came out in 2008 and this Golden version hit the Vita in 2012, so I'm not expecting the moon here in technical graphics quality here - but what's here does look fine & probably is very much cleaned-up since its original release.
Combat is here is a turn-based affair, similar to that of older Final Fantasy games and even FF13. While I haven't run into a ton of dungeons and combat so far over the 4 hours of so of game-time here, what's here feels very old-school FF. You have a party, but so far...mainly you control your main character and the AI controls any other party members. You have attacks, items you can use, skills, and even Personas (i.e. Summons) that you can use for battles.
But, of course - that's certainly not everything, as I'm only 4 hours in or so; and this game often takes cliches, tropes, and whatnot - and then does something with them, whether expanding on them or doing something else with them. I don't know if this game opens up more & gets more free-form at times, at all, and/or whatever else. I don't know if these first few hours here are mostly tutorial and will stop a lot of the hand-holding and be more free-form. I don't know if there'll be more combat and/or grind, later on in the game...or not. I don't know who the killer is yet and why these people are disappearing - but I pretty much will guarantee you at some point, I want to find out & I'm going to find out all of this, at some point.
So far, this JRPG is great. Need to go play more.
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