In the Japanese town of Inaba, which is normally very peaceful, there have been some weird murders happening recently. People are being found dead under suspicious circumstances, and there are whispers that the local television system is involved in some way in the strange goings-on. A young man who is still in high school goes into town and resides with his uncle, Ryotaro Dojima, who is a detective for the local police department. A TV announcer was discovered dead not long after he arrived, and her body was discovered hanging from a TV antenna. After some time had passed, the student who had discovered the victim was also found to have passed away. The new student and his classmates made the unexpected discovery that there is a parallel world that can be found within the domain of television. This world is inhabited by unearthly beings who are known as Shadows. The young people also discover that their very own Shadow Selves are able to bestow upon them special abilities of their own design. They had no choice but to venture into that mystery world and investigate there in order to discover who is behind the killings.
Persona 4 is a role-playing game in the Japanese style, with some mild social simulation features. It is conceptually similar to its predecessor, Persona 3. The player assumes charge of a party of characters that must investigate the TV world’s dungeons in order to solve the crimes that have been committed there. Each dungeon has a different possible victim linked with it and a distinct theme; nevertheless, the configurations of the dungeons themselves are produced at random. You can see your foes on the screen, and when you make contact with them, turn-based combat begins. These engagements largely concentrate on finding and exploiting enemy weaknesses and then unleashing deadly strikes after you have successfully brought your foes to their knees. In contrast to the previous game, this one allows the player to give direct orders to the main character’s allies while they are engaged in combat. A character’s abilities and qualities can be altered, much as in the other Persona games, by fusing them with supernatural beings known as Personae. These Personae can also be fused at specific locations to produce more potent versions of themselves.
Similar to the previous installment, the game takes place over the course of an entire academic year, adhering entirely to a real calendar and dividing each day into a number of distinct time slots (school, after school, evening, etc.). The protagonist may engage in conversations with other characters, pursue academic interests, sign up for extracurricular activities, work part-time jobs, and so on. Spending time with characters builds up Social Links, which, in turn, grant the player benefits when creating new Personae, unlock skills for companions, and increase the protagonist’s own attributes (Understanding, Diligence, Courage, Knowledge, and Expression). These attributes, in turn, influence further interaction and character-building.
