Bad idea to play Persona 4 blind?

[Fryer]

The only SMT games I have played in the past were the Devil Survivor games. To my knowledge, Persona 4 has multiple endings. Would it be unwise to play this game "blind" (no guides or anything)? I am still in the beginning where I had just defeated Shadow Yosuke. Enjoying it so far.

[Modamy]

Depends on whether or not you consider yourself a perfectionist. I played Persona 4 with a guide and I look back on it now and find the entire playthrough to have been pretty miserable. You might miss some things, but I think you would have more fun making your own experience. As for getting the true ending; if you really don't know what to do I would suggest just looking it up at that time.

[Captain Karnage]

I 115% support going into this game blind, I picked it up randomly when I was 17 and thought it was one of the best RPGs and most relateable experience I have ever had in any media. Go in 100% blind, it ruins all of the surprises when you know whats coming.

6 years later, and every now and then I still think about this game's impact on me, hell I even wrote a college essay on the symbolism in P4

and every SMT game has multiple endings

[saisymbolic]

Nope. Play it blind. But if you want to or need to, look up a guide because, to be honest, without spoiling, the way to get some of the endings can be kind of bullbull. 

The only reason I knew about the multiple endings was because I can only enjoy playing rpgs with a guide, anyways.

[ping]

If you want to play it blind, it might be a good idea to keep multiple save files. You have to do specific Things to get to the good ending, but it is decided in only a few scenes. Not like, say, FE6 where you can already screw yourself in the first third of the game.

In terms of social links (in FE terms, the "supports") - I'd recommend against using a guide anyway. You'd have plan your schedules VERY specifically to max out all of them. Just focus on your party members and a few others that you enjoy.

I should also say that I have only played the original, so if you're playing Golden, I might not know about additional Good Ending Things or rebalanced support growths. ;)

Edited July 24, 2018 by ping

[Kazuya]

Bad idea to play one of the worst written and easiest MegaTen games but like nah, playing it blind is completely fine. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Use a guide for game mechanics if you don't understand stuff, but resist the urge to use the day to day max social link guide. There's RNG on how many affection points certain things will earn, so your schedule can mess up even when you've done nothing wrong. Prompting you to return to a back up save which isn't just redoing normal days but may include redoing entire dungeons. Happened to me when I attempted the max social link run on my replay. Did not finish.

[henrymidfields]

It depends on whether you enjoyed past games and stories with the surprise or you enjoyed them regardless of the spoilers. If it's the latter, then by all means, jump in with a guide. I've already known about the story of P4 by the time I got around to playing it, and I even used a guide for the social links and to get the ending, and I nevertheless very much enjoyed every bit of the characters. I actually disagree with that the spoilers are bad for enjoying the story as I enjoyed focusing on how everything in the story fell into place in the end. For the record, I'm intending to play P3P and P5 with guides for the social links and for the true ending.

I'd leave maxing out the social links to New Game Plus, though, when you don't have to worry about raising your PC's attributes (Diligence/Courage/Understanding etc).

Edited July 24, 2018 by henrymidfields

[Fryer]

7 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

It depends on whether you enjoyed past games and stories with the surprise or you enjoyed them regardless of the spoilers. If it's the latter, then by all means, jump in with a guide. I've already known about the story of P4 by the time I got around to playing it, and I even used a guide for the social links and to get the ending, and I nevertheless very much enjoyed every bit of the characters. I actually disagree with that the spoilers are bad for enjoying the story as I enjoyed focusing on how everything in the story fell into place in the end. For the record, I'm intending to play P3P and P5 with guides for the social links and for the true ending.

I'd leave maxing out the social links to New Game Plus, though, when you don't have to worry about raising your PC's attributes (Diligence/Courage/Understanding etc).

I played the DeSu games blind and I absolutely enjoyed them, though I did make a mistake in losing out some party members.

I looked at a spoiler free guide and apparently the endings branch out around December based on dialogue changes. I will be careful to make multiple files there.

 

Is the game "linear" in anyway? I played FFX and lost interest after 5 hours in. Wasn't a bad game but I felt like I was watching a film with occassional button mashing.

Edited July 24, 2018 by Fryer

[Arcphoenix]

I wouldn't necessarily call it linear in any way. It's more your choice of what to do each day. Of course, there are consequences to waiting out too long on certain things. This isn't your typical rpg where you can fool around doing sidequests as long as you want while there's a demon king about to attack a village per se. So apart from certain story-set deadlines, you're pretty much free in how you spend your time.

I also get the feeling most dungeon floors are randomly generated, but don't take that from me as 1000% true

[Fryer]

14 minutes ago, Arcphoenix said:

I wouldn't necessarily call it linear in any way. It's more your choice of what to do each day. Of course, there are consequences to waiting out too long on certain things. This isn't your typical rpg where you can fool around doing sidequests as long as you want while there's a demon king about to attack a village per se. So apart from certain story-set deadlines, you're pretty much free in how you spend your time.

I also get the feeling most dungeon floors are randomly generated, but don't take that from me as 1000% true

Sounds like a great game. Will I miss out on not playing it on the PS2? I actually emulated this on my laptop. I dont have a wireless controller but I set up the layout where I can use the controllers fairly comfortably.

Edited July 24, 2018 by Fryer

[ping]

The main plot is completely linear - new dungeons open up on specific dates, you'll have to clear them until another fixed date, and one day after the deadlines, the plot will continue.

Within this frame, you have to do time management - when to do "supports", when to increase your social stats (which are needed to unlock or continue a couple of the supports), when to revisit the last dungeon in order to do sidequests, etc.

--

Most dungeon floors are indeed randomly generated.

[Arcphoenix]

1 hour ago, Fryer said:

Will I miss out on not playing it on the PS2? I actually emulated this on my laptop. I dont have a wireless controller but I set up the layout where I can use the controllers fairly comfortably.

Nope. I’m playing on PC myself.

Edited July 24, 2018 by Arcphoenix

[saisymbolic]

5 hours ago, Arcphoenix said:

I also get the feeling most dungeon floors are randomly generated, but don't take that from me as 1000% true

I think only certain important floors in the dungeons are fixed, but the rest cycle through a set number of randomly generated layouts, if that makes sense.

[Retyl]

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Edited September 6, 2018 by Retyl

[Fryer]

On 7/23/2018 at 8:59 PM, Modamy said:

Depends on whether or not you consider yourself a perfectionist. I played Persona 4 with a guide and I look back on it now and find the entire playthrough to have been pretty miserable. You might miss some things, but I think you would have more fun making your own experience. As for getting the true ending; if you really don't know what to do I would suggest just looking it up at that time.

I had just reached the point where Shadow Rise and Teddie had been defeated, so far I am enjoying it.

Is playing Nocturne or Persona 3 after Persona 4 recommended? I enjoy the music, storyline , characters, and battle system of Persona 4, but the social sim aspect of it bores me unless social linking with party members or the Dojima family. I have spoiled myself certain plot line deaths of Persona 3 after stumbling upon certain YouTube comments. The only consoles I have are my PS2 and 3ds.

[Retyl]

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Edited September 6, 2018 by Retyl

[Interdimensional Observer]

Nocturne is a bit of different monster, it's a great game, with awesome dungeon design and boss battles. Demon fusion takes a higher priority here of course, since only the Demi-Fiend is human.

It holds up very well despite its age, but it does have a few issues, namely once you learn a skill on a Magatama, if you choose to drop it, it's gone forever. Demons I felt also took a while to level and when everyone has ??? skills to learn, that is annoying, particularly when you're blindly fusing hoping those skills are worth it.

It has some things you might miss going in blind, nothing forever missable. Unless you don't complete the Labyrinth of Amala before going into the final dungeon and want the ending the LoA gives you.

It's post-apocalyptic dark, and the atmosphere is good, even if you're just wandering around without too much direction/drive most of the time, and the characters are flat. Soundtrack by the way is pretty good.

In terms of difficulty, you have Normal and Hard selectable at the start. Hard is difficult, but Normal, which has enemies dealing half the damage I believe, should be bearable. Escaping from battles is also easier I think, ambushes are rarer (or at least less likely to result in a game over), and store prices, at least on Magatamas (maybe also for Compendium summons) is halved.

 

And since you have a PS2, you should try the Digital Devil Sagas. They're more streamlined and JRPG mainlined, with no demon fusion and a stronger plot and characters than Nocturne, keeping to SMT themes, without doing alignments at all. They're both good games, even if DDS2 is in ways rushed in the plot, and its soundtrack and dungeon design also not as great as Nocturne's. The gameplay holds up well, with Mantras replacing Magatamas, and all  learned skills placed into an inventory for that character, which you can swap any time outside of battle without fear of the skills being lost. Do play DDS1 before 2 though, since 2 is a direct sequel that picks up immediately where 1 leaves off. You can also transfer clear data from DDS1 to 2 for some bonuses (you may miss some of these going in blind).

Edited August 4, 2018 by Interdimensional Observer