With how I constantly praise the SMT series, I think it’s obvious to say that I am a big fan of the series. I’ve played all the PS2 titles, most of the DS titles, and am immensely excited for SMT V and the remaster of one of my favorite games ever, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. So with that said, it should be absolute heresy to say that I am even making this article about Persona 4. For those not in the know, SMT and Persona fans kinda, sorta, just a little bit fucking depise each other. It’s actually kind of insane how vicious they get. Like wild dogs, really. Persona fans call SMT fans edgelords who are salty because their games aren’t successful while SMT fans call Persona fans horny weebs that are ruining the franchise. In this franchise, you gotta pick one or the other. So yeah… I pick both. They both have a place in my heart for many reasons. SMT for the lore, atmosphere and music, and Persona for the general story, characters, and also music. It’s hard to say that Persona is loved more now. Sure, it’s more marketable, but SMT mainline is still big in Japan. And with us getting two mainline games for Switch while the Persona 5 Scramble game hasn’t even been released in the states yet, I think it’s safe to say that there’s still love for SMT. So yeah, I love Persona 4. (Also, to get all my thoughts out, I will be spoiling the entire game. This is the only time I will be mentioning spoilers, so if you are not all for that, take your leave now)



Picture this. It’s circa 2008, Japan. Be Katsura Hashino. Persona 3 was a pretty good success while Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne was…. Not as much. Not that Persona was in and SMT was out. It was just the spin-off craze of the time. Not just with Persona, but other spin offs like the Devil Summoner games and the Digital Devil Saga games. You like the numbers you got for Persona 3 and think, “How can I do better” and then it hits you. Yellow! Also make it a murder mystery, more rural, and don’t make your party members idiot AI. Don’t do another Devil Summoner, please. And so, with an idea set into motion and a date of 2008, which was really, really late into the lifespan of the PS2, Persona 4 was released to the world. And Persona 4 was one of those rare cases of game releases, as in it was a game that was made when newer, more modern hardware was out like the PS3 and yet despite that it was still able to pull in some hard numbers. Like, lots. Like over three hundred thousand in Japan alone, along with being a top seller in America and still breaks sales on websites like Amazon to this day. (To be fair, if my option was to buy a PS3, I’d fucking stick with a PS2 as well. Sorry, not sorry.) And the rest, they say, is history. Persona 4 went on to get spin-off after spin-off including a fighting game, a dancing game, a really, really bad chibi rendition on the 3DS, two anime adaptations, a remake on the Vita that was later ported to the PC and a crossover between RWBY and Blazblue. How did it do it? How did Persona 4 manage to break the bank so damn hard and skyrocket into popularity like this? Was it the anime aesthetic, was it the fact you could fuck a high schooler guilt free? Well, I can’t say for everyone else, but I can say why it clicked with me, personally, and just worked. And that’s because of the time I played it, and that it just felt close at home to me. And for many reasons. But let’s start with the obvious one. The Setting

I: Inaba



I’ve gone over this half a million times in all my NikPiks, or at least it feels like all of them, I have grown up in small rural towns all my life. Deadly Premonition is a fun game and hits close to home because it takes place in a small town. Diamond is Unbreakable is my favorite part because it’s in a small Japanese town. The village of Resident Evil 4 is the most realistic interpretation of a small rural town I’ve ever seen, complete with angry farmers and parasites gallor. What was I talking about? Or right, Inaba is a great setting. The setting of Inaba is as much of a character to Persona 4 as is anyone else in this game. Sure, the dorm was fun in Persona 3 and La Blanc is just cozy as all hell in Persona 5, but those are just one building. Other than that, it’s just big cities. Persona 5 has the excuse as Tokyo is always a major setting in the SMT franchise, but it doesn’t really give you a feeling other than, “Big city with stinky adults”. But Inaba, you get to know everything about it. You know the NPCs like the elderly folks that run the stores, the dog that walks around the park, the random kids at your school that hang around in the halls. And not even S. Links, just random NPCs on the streets and how you converse with them. It all just feels so cozy. I said that in Deadly Premonition that the weirdness and the strange tone made it feel believable in a small town, and that is still true. But the same is true with Inaba and how it just feels cozy, how everyone knows everyone and can strike a conversation with just anyone just gives it this welcoming feeling, which a lot of small towns are like. And even the streets start to feel like home as you walk through them for the year you are here. Just wandering this town during the days you can, from the rainy days to the sunbathed evenings to the high afternoons to the creepy foggy days, it all just feels so homey to me, all things I’ve seen in small towns, and in America too, not even Japan. Seeing the pylons across farmland that go through the mountains in the distance, seeing the roaring creek with fish swimming through it, a park, different family owned stores, it’s just so cozy. I can’t say anything other than it’s so damn cozy. Probably helped by the shade of yellow, which is a color that expresses comfort and joy, which this game does well with it’s cast of characters. And let’s discuss those characters, shall we?

II: Cast



So for the time being, I just wanna focus on our party of characters, all gathered here thanks to strange happenings. Strange happenings such as murders disrupting the peace of the town and with the supernatural ghosts known as Persona that our gang gets, they fight to find the killer and bring him to justice. I always find whodunit murder mysterys, despite being old as time, to still be the most interesting and gripping narratives. Maybe because they just always have a way of being unique in their own ways and staying fresh. Even the really bad ones like Heavy Rain or Life is Strange. I’m not apologizing for that. Anyway, our cast consists of the always topical BigDick Chad-Pai, the protagonist. But for the sake of understanding, let’s just call him Yu Narukami. Kind of a blank slate for the player, so I’ll just gloss over him. You got Yosuke, the loser best friend working at the local store Junes. Chie, the spunky tomboy who just wants to do kung-fu and eat meat. Yukiko, the soft spoken friend of Chie who is the heir to the town’s hotel. Kanji, the punkish brute who has a love for things cute. Rise, the teen idol with an obvious crush on the protagonist. Naoto, a young ace detective who is seeking out the killer. And Teddie, the annoying mascot character… He’s not Morgana, so I’ll take it. All of these characters are great in their own way. I will say that the Persona 3 cast, AKA The best cast, is still my favorite, being that their best is better than the Persona 4’s best, but their worst is vastly worse than Persona 4’s worst. And that’s because I hate Yukari, but don’t hate anyone in the Persona 4 cast. Yes, even the hateable Teddie. And that’s because these characters have depth, are interesting, and just have this dynamic about them that makes them fun to watch interact with without being so anime based. I have a lot of issues with the Persona 5 cast, and I will get into that in a future NikPiks, but the gist is that they felt very topical, cliche, and just…. Anime, and if I say your character is anime, that’s bad. That’s really fucking bad. But the Persona 4 characters don’t feel like they’re anime. They have moments that are anime, but they, themselves, never feel that way to me, and I enjoy their interactions. I love seeing Yosuke and Chie argue about who the bigger idiot is when everyone knows they’re both dumbasses. I love hearing about Naoto trying to keep the group on topic when they start breaking into arguments. I like hearing about the weird experiences these guys have and how they all try not to get too embarrassed about their true selves being shown to the gang. And yes, I even like it when Teddie is just being himself. I can see how Teddie can come off as absolutely annoying, but he just has this whimsical wide eyed curiosity of the human world that I just find him interesting and kind of entertaining, even if his puns drag for longer than necessary. But unlike a certain bastard cat, Teddie is just as dumb as the rest of the group and so his insults rather than being, “You know, Ryuji is kind of a retard and can’t even write a test. Lol, kill yourself, faggot”, it’s more like Teddie is calling one dumbass a dumbass while the other dumbass is too stupid to realize. It’s just harmless bickering rather than absolute vitriol, and I can’t help but enjoy it. In conclusion, fuck you, Morgana. I hate you. Please die. Post made by the Teddie Team



But there’s more depth to these characters. More in their Shadow forms. Their Shadows, beings that are the manifestations of their true selves, the selves they are but don’t think would be accepted, so they keep them buried within themselves and hide away from the world. And okay….. Let me get this out of the way. A common misconception I always see is what the Shadow forms really mean. And let me just state these facts right now. No, Kanji’s Shadow is not about him being a closet homosexual. No, Rise’s shadow is not about her being an slut. No, Naoto’s Shadow is not about her being transgender. The shadows take the forms that they have deep inside and exaggerate it to dangerous levels because the Shadows, when rejected, don’t want to help their host. They’re content with killing them. As shown by each and every time they shout, “You’re not me” and a boss fight begins. I like that this is where they go, but I think some people read a bit too literally into these Shadows. So let me explain. Kanji’s Shadow is, again, not about him being a closet homosexual. Even I made this mistake at one point. Kanji’s Shadow is how he is troubled by how no one will accept him for who he is, not as a homosexual, but because he is a soft spoken and nice guy who likes soft things from working at his mothers tailor shop, making dolls and liking cute animals. That caused him to adopt a different style and become more of a punk, because guys can’t like cute things. Rise’s is not because she wants to strip for the world, but because she just wants attention. She wants to be noticed by people, which is why she became an idol, but that attention doesn’t matter because it’s not Rise the people see, it’s Risette, her idol persona. Naoto is not about her being transgender, in fact she is openly female. It’s because she wants to be a detective, like the kind of fictional characters she’s idolized in the books she read as a kid. But there’s no way she’d make it as a detective in a field that is so male dominated, a problem that Japan has faced in 2008 and still continues to face twelve years later. Sorry to go “Um, actually…” on you all, but this just gets my symbolic retard within me boiling. In short, yeah, I like the subtlety of the Shadows, maybe a bit too subtle, but it’s good shit. And I like the dungeons design. It’s good shit. Repetitive from a gameplay mechanic, drag on way too long, but it’s no Tartarus, so that’s a plus. But hey, on the topic of characters, let’s discuss some of the side characters we meet. You know what time it is.

III: S. Links



Social Links…. Are fucking stupid. Yeah, I don’t like Social Links. When I played Persona 4 back in high school, I loved these. I thought they were an amazing mechanic, but now, looking at it… ugh. Look, in Persona 3, I didn’t mind them so much because they were limited mostly to side characters and even the ones made for main characters were side stories that you could involve with and weren’t directly related to their character development. But with Persona 4? Ugh. It’s one thing to have development for your side characters, but it’s another thing to have it be for main characters. Don’t put your development in a side thing that you will barely be able to finish all of on your first playthrough, let alone complete every single one on a playthrough without a guide. Good luck getting every last Social Link in a playthrough without a guide of some sorts, because with the amount of dungeon grinding, days where nobody wants to talk to you, or just other shit you want to do, it’ll be a miracle if you even get through the ones you want. And ten different levels for stories that may or may not be good? Come on. Death is a great story, but doesn’t pick up until like Rank 5. Hanged Man not until Rank 6. And I didn’t give a fuck about Temperance or Tower. They sucked throughout. And here’s the thing, the rewards you get aren’t really that worth it. Oh, sure, if you unlocked Satan in an SMT game, you’d want to get your hands on that immediately, the bullshit would be super worth it. But Persona is really, really easy, at least compared to a mainline SMT game. On all three playthroughs, I beat the game with minor fusing and just Persona I picked up from the minigame. So with all that complaining, and my obvious dislike of the use of Social Links, why do I even talk about it in an article where I am praising Persona 4? Well because there are S. Links that I like. Maybe not for the reasons of them dragging out, but because you can get really good stories from these characters. I did say that they don’t pick up until halfway or even most of the way through, but when they pick up, they really pick up. Hearing about how Naoki is just doing what he can to enjoy life with his friends despite his sister being murdered and everyone coddling him is a far more relatable situation than any other involving death I can think of. The S. Link with the Devil is a legit vile one, yet so interesting with where it goes and how it turns on its head. I don’t hate these characters. Far from it. I just hate that their development is hidden behind a long process of tedium. I get it, it’s the main gimmick of Persona, its lifeblood, to have Social Links. But maybe work them out for something more creative. Anything but make them so long to pick up and be interesting. Hell, one of my favorite S. Links, The Moon, is interesting because you can fuck it up. Completely. In Persona, there is a chance that if you say something wrong in a conversation, you have a chance of Reversing the Social Link. This means that you can’t progress any further until you fix it. And, in the Moon’s case, it is one of the rare situations where the S. Link can become Broken. It’s done. You will not progress that story. It’s over. And I can get behind that. No matter how hard you try in life, whether you want it to work out, things just don’t. People just can’t click sometimes, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just how things are. And just seeing these characters around town, at different points depending on the time or day is just a nice touch. It adds onto that small town feel. But, we’re talking about S. Links and I haven’t even brought up the true MvPs, the best this game has to offer. And it’s the possible first of everyone. Yes, I’m talking about the S. Links for Hierophant and Justice, Ryotaro Dojima and his daughter, Nanako

IV: The Dojimas



From the start of the game, you move into the home with a warm welcome from Ryotaro, the protagonist's uncle, and his daughter, Nanako. And from the start, you can already get this uneasy feeling in the household. It’s only these two, and every day, Dojima leaves the house for work on a regular basis and always comes home late, tired, or late and drunk. Nanako is always left at home alone with nothing but the TV to keep her company and having to cook her own meals and prepare for bed before Dojima even gets home. As for Nanako’s mother, she died in a car accident years ago. And it’s in these S. Links where you learn about the two, and not once was it boring to hear about these two. They aren’t major characters in the party, so their development makes sense to be on the side, and their side stories manage to take off almost immediately. With Nanako, she gets this feeling that she’s just a burden to Dojima, that his work is more important to her and that she’d be better off not being born at all. It was a feeling she always felt, but never thought upon it until the protagonist came into the household, finally ending that lonely feeling in the household. Always there to greet you with a smile and those words, “Welcome home, big bro”. As for Dojima, his S. Link is all about investigating the death of his wife, which was not an accident, but a hit and run. For most of Nanako’s life, all Dojima could think of was catching the man, to bring solace to their lives, thinking that all he could do was to find him and give them both closure, thinking that’s the only reason why Nanako hates him, but he couldn’t be more wrong. Nanako only wants her father to be there for her and for them to be like a real family rather than Dojima put his work before anything else, and it only takes him opening up to you to figure that out. As you slowly hear them out in their S. Links, you slowly start to feel like you're part of the family, like you’re one of the Dojima’s, and it makes you feel happy to help them out and to be there for them… And it makes it all the more tragic when Nanako dies.
After saving another party member from another failed attempt by the killer, and after mysterious notes are left in the mail, Dojima takes you to the police station to question your involvement in the investigation. He’s more than just some rugged cop, he’s an actually decent detective. Even without a Persona, even with no knowledge of the Shadow World, he is able to stay one step behind you and the gang at every chance and is already aware that you are getting too deep into the investigation for your own safety and leaves you in the interrogation room for the night, and leaves Nanako as the next victim for the killer. After getting out and chasing the killer into the TV, you are introduced to Nanako’s dungeon, known as Heaven, which plays possibly the best dungeon theme in the game. And after a boss fight against the “killer”, Namatame, Nanako is saved but is in hospital care. You and the gang plan on how you’ll celebrate the upcoming holiday season when you get a call from Adachi, Dojima’s partner in the investigation, where he tells you that Nanako has gone into critical condition, and as you arrive at the hospital, it’s here where Nanako dies. And the scene is just a strong one. Of course it was bound to happen. Anyone exposed to the Shadow World with no chance of fighting it off would become weakened by it, and with Nanako dead, the group is in complete shock and sadness. And then Namatame, his confession being too insane for anyone to believe, of TVs and Persona, that it would be impossible to charge him with the crime. With no one left and the suspect getting away with it, Dojima lumbers toward his room, his intentions unknown, but stopped before he could even get a chance, just left to shout at Namatame’s door in a sad rage, unable to cope with the loss of his daughter. And just when you think it couldn’t get worse, that’s when you hear a noise from Namatame’s room. And you see him trying to escape the room. And here, you are left with nothing but your own suspicions and the words of the party. And of course, it’s midnight and there’s a TV in the room. A large one, big enough for anyone to fit into. With the knowledge that Namatame would get away with this, and with your suspicions of him being the killer, you have a choice. You can throw him into the TV and leave him to his fate, or you can let the others do what they want to him, or you can leave him behind and find the real culprit. And…. Okay, it would be nice if there was more to it than just the obvious good answer, but I mean, this is still a strong scene, I won’t lie. There’s an obvious consequence of going down the route of killing a man not responsible for the murders, being a bad and abrupt ending, but that’s a pretty quick one. But hey, it works fine by me, because we get to the climax of the game. The real killer. The one who was responsible for it, for real this time.

V: Tohru Adachi



Okay, so let’s rewind this to the start of the game. The killing starts because anyone who is seen on TV is killed shortly after, as shown when a reporter was killed and the witness soon after. It was believed to be young women that were victims, helped when Yukiko got thrown in. But once Kanji got thrown in, and then Rise, before it was proven that those thrown into the TV were the ones responsible. After that, Mr. Morooka is killed by some dork who plays video games who was just doing a copy cat murder to take the credit, and then Namatame came along because he believed that the Shadow World was a safe haven for those that would be killed. He genuinely believed that it was a safe place and only later realized the danger he was putting them in, which he would regret later on. So with all these things, trying to find a motive to pinpoint the killer started to become a convoluted mess. And to be honest, I already knew who the killer was from the start thanks to spoilers. But I didn’t have a motive. And the more I played, the more I started to get worried. It’s so easy to fuck this up in any murder mystery story. A motive could be ruined simply because the person did it for someone else, or they were just doing it to save them, which would make me puke. But then, when you find Adachi out, being the sneaky little shit that was always there to give away police info and hang around at every scene somehow, you corner him in the Shadow World to get his motives. And his motive? He has none. He just does it because why the hell not. Sure, he could’ve just not been a psycho, use his powers to help people, and become a good guy in his own way, but why do that? He didn’t have a reason to care about a world that didn’t care about him. He was thrown into a nowhere town because he made one mistake, works at the bottom of the totem pole in a job with a boss who gets drunk and overworks himself, can barely afford to eat anything but cabbages, and only took the job he has so he could legally carry a gun in the country of Japan. And when he is rejected by a woman that he thought was more respectful than cheating on her husband, he was so sickened that he just snapped and pushed her, and just so happened to push her into the TV. And from there, his own game was set into motion, pushing people into the TV, sending them into the other world and seeing what happened, but had to stop once Namatame got involved, and just watched from the side, having fun. A lot of people say that this is a lazy motive, but I can’t think of a better one, honestly. The world is a fucked up place. Serial killers and mass shooters justifying their reasons as, “Because I could”. People always tell you that you “can’t” take a human life. But these people, they decide that you can. They are more than capable of ending a person's life. It’s not that you “can’t” end a person's life, but more that you “shouldn’t” end a person's life. That is what keeps a person from losing their value of humanity. And that’s what Adachi is. A person who has given up on humanity, the humanity of others and of his own. All for the chance to play some sick game, a game that resulted in the death of three people, the conviction of a sick person, the attempted murder of a group of high school kids and a little girl and the near destruction of the world. Even if Adachi was just a pawn in a bigger game set by beings out of humanities control, his own game that he set up was one of a truly sick individual, and is what made him a truly despicable yet captivating villain. A character that shows the darker side of anyone. A person without bonds. A person without friendships of any kind. A person that Yu could've been capable of becoming. Adachi has given up on the world and forming connections with people. People are just faceless creatures to him. People don’t really care about anyone but themselves, he says. People will hurt you and will leave you. That’s all Adachi says. And yet, despite that, Yu never gave up. Despite being alone most of his life with moving from school to school and his parents always on business around the world, never being able to be there for him, he was still able to form bonds with those around him and was able to gather a group of friends that stuck by him to the very end, and were always there for him, and would be in every single last spin off game. Much like a reversed Tarot Card, Yu is the reverse of Adachi. A person who grew up in a world that didn’t seem to care about him. Only, instead of giving up on the world and using everyone like tools, Yu continued to try and in the end, he achieved the companionship he desired.
I wanted to end on this segment of the villain because I think it’s what clicked with me and why I cherish Persona 4 so much. It was a game that I played right in my final year of high school. It was the game that I had put the most hours into at the time and fell in love with, for many reasons. Because I was a high schooler playing a game in a high school setting. Because I grew up in small towns with a small town setting. But also because it wasn’t until high school that I met some of my closest friends. I didn’t really have a lot of friends growing up. I was socially awkward, had a bad habit of saying things I shouldn’t say and just came off as a generally weird guy that drove people away from me. Even when I worked it out and was able to change, it was already too late. I had already set an image for myself, whether I liked it or not, and people didn’t want that. Once I moved to a new school system, I told myself I wasn’t going to try. I didn’t want friends. I didn’t want to make connections. I wanted to be left alone and just get through life. If it hurt to try and make bonds, I didn’t want them. But then I met these two great friends of mine who, stubborn as all hell, would just keep talking, and I eventually opened up to them. And from there, I grew to appreciate their company and their friendship. And from there, I made more friends and it grew from there. And these weren’t just temporary. I am still friends with these people to this day, even years after we all graduated and went on to do things that were vastly different from all of us. We haven’t lost our connection and are still close. And as I think back to that ending of Persona 4, with Yu waving to his friends from the train leaving Inaba, I think back to my own high school experience with this game, my first time playing it and how I doubt I’ll experience a game like this again. Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne is the better game, hands down. But Persona 4 is my favorite in the series for this reason. It’s personal, and I will cherish this game, even with all the Social Links and bland dungeon design and annoying anime trope moments and Teddie’s bad puns. I will always cherish this game, because, to me, personally, Persona 4 is a timeless classic