Persona 4: The Point of Choices?

[Lucius]

So I finally got my Vita and bought Persona 4: The Golden. Curious about the RPG elements of the game and how to survive it, I looked up the walkthrough and realized something - there's essentially a way to choose the 'best' dialogue options possible so that you could maxed out all the social links, as choosing options that don't increase your knowledge, courage, etc. don't seem to reward you with anything else.

This presents a problem: there's no point in choosing the "wrong" choices. You can't choose to be a jerk or be selfish when choosing the dialogue options and has to always choose the 'right' option so that you could have better social links and win easier. I mean, that's the point of a game, right? To win? Why would I choose otherwise just to make it harder to win, or harder to earn social links? It doesn't make sense. Every playthrough, I would just be making the same dialogue option to increase the social link stats, and there won't be any variety.

One great thing with conversation choices is that some games reward you regardless of which choice you make, and not with the same identical reward either. Choosing to be Paragon or Renegade comes with their own variation of different dialogues in Mass Effect, reflecting on the kind of character you've developed through the game thus far, making the game feel more personal and not just "choose A option to win and B and C options to lose" (or at least, lose out on certain social links because you don't have enough courage or knowledge, etc.). I've only played a bit of the game so far (I'm at April 16th), so I can't confirm if Persona 4 really has that formula, which is why I posted this thread to ask those who's played the game before to clarify this for me.

Is there a point to choosing a dialogue option that doesn't increase your social link stat?

[Darklord Rooke]

1 hour ago, Lucius said:

Is there a point to choosing a dialogue option that doesn't increase your social link stat?

No, you're fairly spot on with your post. Japanese games don't put much emphasis on the 'choice and consequence' aspect of RPGs ... outside of bad ends (deeeeeeath) and 'not getting the girl/boy'.

There's some flavour dialogue in there depending on which choice you pick, but it's not great. Not really worth it. Generally maxing your social links is the 'correct path'.

[Lucius]

2 minutes ago, Rooke said:

No, you're fairly spot on with your post. Japanese games don't put much emphasis on the 'choice and consequence' aspect of RPGs ... outside of bad ends (deeeeeeath) and 'not getting the girl/boy'.

There's some flavour dialogue in there depending on which choice you pick, but it's not great. Not really worth it. Generally maxing your social links is the 'correct path'.

I was worried it would be like that. Shit.  Well, at least it was not that expensive ($39.90) compared to another game I wanted to buy (Digimon Cyber Sleuth at $69 on PSN).

I guess I'll continue to play the game since I bought it. Wasn't really what I was expecting, but I guess I'll just have to hope that all those praises for the game are true. I got kinda bored for the first hour of the game or so because there was just long series of dialogues where I didn't get to do anything. It was like a visual novel. Which isn't bad... but when I go into a video game expecting a more 'mainstream' video game experience where I get to have more options, it was kinda daunting to spend a couple of hours doing nothing but listening to the characters talk, and then talk some more.

Oh yeah, and it's in English dub, the copy I bought. Shit.  The dub isn't too bad, but the voice-acting isn't very interesting. It's one of those generic dub-acting you'd hear from any anime dubs. There's nothing impressive or engaging about the voices, which adds to the humdrum.

Or maybe I'm just a filthy weeb. 

[Darklord Rooke]

20 minutes ago, Lucius said:

I guess I'll continue to play the game since I bought it. Wasn't really what I was expecting, but I guess I'll just have to hope that all those praises for the game are true. I got kinda bored for the first hour of the game or so because there was just long series of dialogues where I didn't get to do anything. It was like a visual novel. Which isn't bad... but when I go into a video game expecting a more 'mainstream' video game experience where I get to have more options, it was kinda daunting to spend a couple of hours doing nothing but listening to the characters talk, and then talk some more.

Not really like a VN. Persona 3 and 4 are dating sim/dungeon crawler hybrids. So a large part of the everyday sections of the game involve raising your stats to max your social links with people (you win if you get with them) and the RPG section is like a dungeon crawler (also know as the RPG sections concentrate on combat situations.) Don't really expect too much outside of that, even though both the dungeon crawling and the dating sim aspects can be fun. I think part of the reason it's hyped so much is that it's a fairly rare combination of genres.

As for the story, it's not really the main strength of Persona 4 but it isn't terrible. The story in Persona 3 was stronger, the atmosphere was also more alive (and creepier.)

23 minutes ago, Lucius said:

Or maybe I'm just a filthy weeb. 

Heh I didn't say it, that was all you  

The voice acting isn't that good, but I didn't really pay attention to it. I tend to read ahead, voice acting slows me down.

[Fred the Barber]

FWIW, I think the Persona 4 Golden voice acting is really good. You're pretty early in the game, so keep in mind that you haven't met much of the cast yet. P4G is at its best when the whole group is together; a lot of the charm is the overall group dynamic. That goes for the voice cast as much as anything: they do their best when they're playing off each other. Don't mind Rooke on that count - he's just eternally salty about voice acting.

While you're right that there is technically an optimal set of choices, and specifically there's an optimal choice for any given social link conversation, it's not by any means important that you clear the game with max everything or that you always make the right choices. I don't think you get anything but a Playstation Trophy for clearing the game with maxed out social links. I've never done it, but I've never felt that I've missed out, and in particular, I've gotten both the Good ending and the True ending. Also note that you can do a New Game+, and that will make it much easier to get all the things anyway, since you'll start with all your social stats presumably maxed.

And on the flip side, IMO, it's definitely more fun to play the game without a guide, without save scumming (much...), and to live with the consequences of your choices. That is, I expect, the way it was intended to be played. It's an RPG: try to role-play a little bit. You may stall or even screw up a relationship, but if that happened in real life, you'd come back the next chance you got and tried to fix it; you wouldn't go back in time or go read a guide online about how to talk to your friend. And, yeah, obviously that means you'll have to trade off one social link for another that you care about more. The game has a lot of time, and you'll end up finding that you care about some of the characters, and that you don't care so much about others, and you can easily prioritize your time accordingly to build relationships with all the characters you care about. When you play the game that way, it can really suck you in.

[Mkilbride]

English Voice Acting never gets any better in the game.  It's undub or nothing, and yeah, choices in the game really mean nothing, except for one...and if yer using a walkthrough, you'll find out eventually.

[Funyarinpa]

On 8/19/2016 at 1:25 AM, Mkilbride said:

English Voice Acting never gets any better in the game.  It's undub or nothing, and yeah, choices in the game really mean nothing, except for one...and if yer using a walkthrough, you'll find out eventually.

Highly disagree myself, Igor and Rise's JP performances are nowhere, NOWHERE near the dub. A case can perhaps be made for Chie (P4G's new dub is inferior to the original tbh), but overall, nah.

[Nandemonai]

Yeah, Atlus does good dubs.  Persona 3/4 are some of the only games I actually like dubbed.  I actually put in the original track in Persona 4 Arena for awhile, just to hear what the original voices sound like, and then I switched it back.

As for the gameplay, Persona 4 is in fact a hardcore dungeon crawler.  Not quite as hardcore as Persona 3 with its 200-odd floor giant tower, but still very hardcore.  It's a MegaTen game, they make mostly hardcore dungeon crawlers.  It just so happens that Persona 3/4 have a VN grafted on, and they've finagled time management into the VN parts to turn the sidequests (which is basically what each social link is, a sidequest) into a proper game mechanic by itself.

I was more of a fan of the social links in 3.  The ones in 4 seemed less polished.  The main cast of 4 is more interesting than in 3, generally, and the main plot is also better.  But I much prefer the social links in 3.

[Lucius]

On 8/18/2016 at 10:32 PM, Fred the Barber said:

FWIW, I think the Persona 4 Golden voice acting is really good. You're pretty early in the game, so keep in mind that you haven't met much of the cast yet. P4G is at its best when the whole group is together; a lot of the charm is the overall group dynamic. That goes for the voice cast as much as anything: they do their best when they're playing off each other. Don't mind Rooke on that count - he's just eternally salty about voice acting.

I've made it to September 20th in the game. Overall, the voice acting definitely got better down the story, and even Chie's voice was bear-able (had to make that Teddie-pun  ). I find Teddie's voice kinda cute... that is, until

Spoiler

Teddie revealed his true identity,

then his voice just became downright inappropriate.

I kinda wish they hired a voice actress whose voice resembles closer to Chie's original voice though. I mean, to be fair, Chie's English voice actress should be commemorated for blending a mix of the original chippy, high-spirited Japanese voice with a masculine, tomboyish kind of martial arts girl voice, producing a rather unique mixture. It's still off-putting and unattractive IMO, but hey, A+ for effort. Then again, I only find the Japanese voice attractive because I'm a weeb trash. I don't know, there's just something about Chie's English voice that made it somehow more cringey than the generic Japanese anime voice, especially whenever she tries to make those Bruce Lee martial arts outcry. And it really sucks, because I think that, her voice aside, she's probably the 'best gurl' for me since I like how she's flawed, but nonetheless retains that feminine side mixed with a tomboyish facade, and I do love tomboys... well, that was until the REAL best gurl showed up,

Spoiler

Naoto Shirogane,

making me wonder if I might have to cheat on Chie later on...

 

On 8/18/2016 at 10:32 PM, Fred the Barber said:

While you're right that there is technically an optimal set of choices, and specifically there's an optimal choice for any given social link conversation, it's not by any means important that you clear the game with max everything or that you always make the right choices. I don't think you get anything but a Playstation Trophy for clearing the game with maxed out social links. I've never done it, but I've never felt that I've missed out, and in particular, I've gotten both the Good ending and the True ending. Also note that you can do a New Game+, and that will make it much easier to get all the things anyway, since you'll start with all your social stats presumably maxed.

And on the flip side, IMO, it's definitely more fun to play the game without a guide, without save scumming (much...), and to live with the consequences of your choices. That is, I expect, the way it was intended to be played. It's an RPG: try to role-play a little bit. You may stall or even screw up a relationship, but if that happened in real life, you'd come back the next chance you got and tried to fix it; you wouldn't go back in time or go read a guide online about how to talk to your friend. And, yeah, obviously that means you'll have to trade off one social link for another that you care about more. The game has a lot of time, and you'll end up finding that you care about some of the characters, and that you don't care so much about others, and you can easily prioritize your time accordingly to build relationships with all the characters you care about. When you play the game that way, it can really suck you in.

Yeah, kinda wish I had referred back to this thread back then instead of blindly following the walkthrough. Oh well. I'm already late into September, and all of my slinks have already gotten to Level 4-8 (Chie's maxed) thanks to the walkthrough, so might as well follow it all the way through.

About New Game+ and slinks, nope, they don't carry over. You restart from Level 1 in New Game+, making completing all slinks that much more valuable if you want that trophy... which now that I think about it, is a lot less valuable than the 'live with the consequences' experience you had described. 

Screw it. I think you're right about the consequences. The Mass Effect games had optimal/ideal choices too, but by choosing the bad choices that ultimately 'punish' you with bad ends, the game does feel more personal, and it's indeed a more enriching experience. I guess I'll try and pick the choices I like from now and not follow the walkthrough so much... But the thing is, it just nags at the back of my mind, you know? Knowing that there are 'better' choices in the game that reward you with stuff, so choosing otherwise makes me feel kinda weird. It goes against the whole idea of gaming and winning ingrained into our gaming culture, so it can be a bit challenging for me to just ignore the 'correct' choices altogether.

 

On 9/3/2016 at 1:47 PM, Nandemonai said:

I was more of a fan of the social links in 3.  The ones in 4 seemed less polished.  The main cast of 4 is more interesting than in 3, generally, and the main plot is also better.  But I much prefer the social links in 3.

I heard everyone a lot of players said that P3 FES was leagues better than P4. Most of the reasons given was that it's more 'mature', which I know can come off as edgy and pretentious, but sometimes, stories that are darker, or 'more mature' so-called, do tend to deal with more interesting subjects than say, something involving friendship and determination, a common trope in anime and anime-ish games like Persona. The problem with P3 FES is that... I don't have a Playstation 2. lol I mean, I wish that they would port the director's cut FES to Vita (not counting the terrible PSP port), but most Persona fans, if not all Persona fans, probably know that that is never gonna happen. Still, if FES does get ported to Vita, it's highly likely that I would buy it.

The thing I didn't like about P3 was the hardcore dungeon-crawling gameplay because it was so repetitive. I mean, 200 odd floors, holy cow. But you know, if the story of P3 FES is truly better than P4, then it might be worth grinding through those 200 floors just to get to the heart of the story. And hey, I could always tone down the difficulty (like I'm currently doing with P4G... in safety mode  ).

But if P3 FES being ported to Vita is an absolute impossibility, then I have my fingers crossed for Persona 5 being ported to Vita. Like, seriously Atlus. Quit screwing around with us. Where's the P5 Vita-port news?! I mean, it only took me forever to buy a Vita. Can't exactly fork out another 400-450 bucks to buy a PS4 now...

[Fred the Barber]

1 hour ago, Lucius said:

I heard everyone a lot of players said that P3 FES was leagues better than P4. Most of the reasons given was that it's more 'mature', which I know can come off as edgy and pretentious, but sometimes, stories that are darker, or 'more mature' so-called, do tend to deal with more interesting subjects than say, something involving friendship and determination, a common trope in anime and anime-ish games like Persona. The problem with P3 FES is that... I don't have a Playstation 2. lol I mean, I wish that they would port the director's cut FES to Vita (not counting the terrible PSP port), but most Persona fans, if not all Persona fans, probably know that that is never gonna happen. Still, if FES does get ported to Vita, it's highly likely that I would buy it.

The thing I didn't like about P3 was the hardcore dungeon-crawling gameplay because it was so repetitive. I mean, 200 odd floors, holy cow. But you know, if the story of P3 FES is truly better than P4, then it might be worth grinding through those 200 floors just to get to the heart of the story. And hey, I could always tone down the difficulty (like I'm currently doing with P4G... in safety mode  ).

But if P3 FES being ported to Vita is an absolute impossibility, then I have my fingers crossed for Persona 5 being ported to Vita. Like, seriously Atlus. Quit screwing around with us. Where's the P5 Vita-port news?! I mean, it only took me forever to buy a Vita. Can't exactly fork out another 400-450 bucks to buy a PS4 now...

I thought you could play P3FES on the Vita, but I must have been mistaken. It looks like you can play it on a PS2, but also through PlayStation store on a PS3, in case that's an option for you. While I can understand why you're calling P3P "terrible", it's actually not so clear-cut; I actually see more people preferring it than preferring vanilla or FES. There's a couple reasons for that:

• The combat is vastly more playable in P3P vs. the other two versions, since you can control all the characters, rather than the AI controlling all your allies and being extremely sub-optimal.
• The optional FMC path is, in a lot of ways, a whole different story. Some events are completely different, and the social links play out very, very differently (including some social links being swapped out for others).

FWIW, I only played P3P, but I loved it, probably more than P4G. It's got a very different tone, and it's a perfect game to play after you finish P4G, IMO.

Yes, if you play P3P, you'll lose the polygon graphics, and you don't even get to run around the scenery and whatnot. But in fairness, the sprites they put for all the conversations look pretty good. I think the graphics are the only con, whereas to compensate you get those very substantial pros I listed above. I guess P3FES also has the extra post-game episode, The Answer, but from what I understand, that's a huge grindfest with very little payout - you're almost certainly better off reading a summary of it than actually playing it (I was pretty satisfied after reading the Wikipedia summary of it, at least, and I'm a contender for world's biggest Aigis fanboy).

As far as P5 on the Vita... I wouldn't hold my breath. I guess it's possible, but the Vita's not exactly platform of choice right now for anybody (except otome games, I guess?), so even if it does happen, it probably won't be for a few years.

[Nandemonai]

New Game + does carry over your social stats.  You don't have to spend time grinding them to max on the replay, which gives you more time.  So NG+ actually does make the social links easier, simply because you have more time.  Also, the Persona Compendium in NG+ ignores level restrictions, and has all your old stuff.  As soon as you can scrape up the cash, you can summon stuff way overlevelled.  As soon as you can afford to summon an end-game persona you pretty much steamroller everything.  And if you're playing P4G or P3P, then once you re-summon your persona with NULL or better to everything, the game's basically over.  (In more recent games, they don't give you NULL/REFLECT/ABSORB ELEMENT skill cards anymore, so it's much harder to make yourself mostly-invincible).

[Nandemonai]

3 hours ago, Lucius said:

(like I'm currently doing with P4G... in safety mode  ).

Really, it's not necessary.

The first key to understanding the game mechanics is that your party members are actively harmful.  They are worse than useless, so evict those losers as soon as you can.  They're so much less powerful than the MC that all they do is hold him back, except in the very beginning when soloing is too tough.  You want the extra EXP you get from running solo.  Level trumps almost everything in this game; you're always better off having the extra levels that come from getting 4X EXP all the time.  (Or almost always.  There are a few bosses that have Almighty attacks, and they can actually hurt you.)

The MC gets access to skills that regen SP every fight.  He gets access to skills that void elements, and Personae naturally voiding more than one element, including physical attacks.  What you want to do is check the FAQs to find Personas teaching "NULL WIND" etc, and get as many of those skills onto one Persona as you can.  For about 3 or 4 skill slots, you can build a Persona that is essentially immune to all damage except Almighty.  But the main one is NULL PHYS.  In Persona 3, it's relatively easy to get the accessory that voids most status effects; P4 is slightly harder, but most of the status effects aren't that big a deal if you're nigh-indestructible anyway.

Keeping your pathetic weakling friends in your party means it takes you longer to get access to these game-breaking skills, and therefore it makes you weaker.

I really hope they fixed this in Persona 5.  At least in SMT 4, they fixed some of the math problems in their game mechanics.  (Basically, in P3 and P4, and I'm pretty sure in DDS 1/2 and Nocturne also - the formula for computing damage scales more or less linearly with level ... but scales with the square root of your stats.  See above for "being high level is the most important thing you can do".  Individual stat points rapidly become almost worthless in terms of "how much more damage did this get me".)

[Lucius]

6 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

I actually see more people preferring it than preferring vanilla or FES.

Yeah, I've read about the pros in gameplay for P3P. For me, the director's cut of FES that gives you extra story content feels more interesting than 'better gameplay', and I hate missing out on a good story.

6 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

As far as P5 on the Vita... I wouldn't hold my breath.

Well, jeez, you couldn't let a boy dream?! 

lol I'm so not gonna buy a PS4 any time soon. I don't even have a proper television for it since my parents are using the only one in the house. And no, streaming the PS4 onto my iMac is not an option (I heard it's incredibly laggy/buggy).

 

4 hours ago, Nandemonai said:

Really, it's not necessary.

Huh. I didn't know they suck up all my XP. Freaking vultures.

But seriously, the battles just don't feel as fun when I'm going solo. The dynamic atmosphere from being around those 'pathetic weaklings' keeps the constant grinding from causing me clinical depression. Like, I really hate grinding. It's such a chore.

[Nandemonai]

The amount of XP you get is divided by the number of party members.  So yeah, you earn 4X XP by yourself, and even one other person cuts your XP in half.

I consider this a pretty big flaw in the otherwise-stellar game design.  The game clearly intends for you to only use this to go thru previous dungeons to train up a bit; but it's just too good not to use it all the time.  The designers spent so much time and effort building in cool stuff for your allies to do, especially in P4G (where they added a lot of cool customization).  Hell, a major theme running through the story of both games is the impossibility of doing it alone, and how you need help (that's the whole point of the Social Link system to begin with)!  But your party members are so weak, and the battle system so disproportionately tilted towards being high level above all else, that you really are worse off if you have anyone around.  (And I like those 'pathetic weaklings'.  P3 and P4 both have great casts of player characters.  I can't point to even a single one that I didn't want around in my party.  I just didn't want to actually take said party into the actual dungeons, because they kind of suck at them.)