It was nice to see Shuffle Time back in play after every Shadow fight, with some added improvements. Unlike in Persona 3, the combat kept me glued to the action, focusing on the boss’ weaknesses and taking control of the team’s skills. Some dungeons, like the strip club and Heaven, are easier to navigate and slightly more enjoyable due to their aesthetic nature, but others like Yukiko’s Castle and the bathhouse were kind a slog to get through mainly due to being "tricky." However, once I got past the dungeon, it was on. Throughout my exploration of each dungeon's 8-11 floors, there were several moments when I wasn’t allowed to progress through a certain door or point on the map until I had found the right key, or fought a particular Shadow, but that key/Shadow/missing element could be on a lower floor I’d already come from, which meant that I had to double back multiple times while getting tripped up by Shadows I’d escaped from previously. Gun to head, pretty much my only critique of the game is once again aimed at the dungeons, but not due to their monotony this time. The dungeon takes on a personification of her desire to escape with a prince and transforms into a winding fortress full of Shadows and chests full of goodies. For example, fellow classmate/fellow warrior Yukiko Amagi is a shy, apprehensive girl who’s had to take over her family’s local inn, but in TV world, she’s an unhinged boy-crazy wild-child. Instead of a massive maze-like tower, the dungeons are completely original and reflective of the individuals involved. Previously, I’d almost fallen asleep in Persona 3 Portable’s winding and never-ending Tartarus, but P4G's kept me riveted. Let’s dive into those dungeons for a minute, which constitute 50% of the game. But before you get into that juicy turn-based gameplay, you have to navigate through various dungeons that specifically correspond to the trials and inner turmoils of those who were taken. A local killer is knocking off Inaba’s citizens, and shoving others (mainly insecure students) into a magical TV surreal world where the unstable parts of their personalities manifest into Persona bosses. The plot thickens like a classic noir novel (but, y'know, with Personas instead of Colt Revolvers). RELATED: Hisano's Side Story In Persona 4 Golden Still Hits Hardest Soon after, you discover the Midnight Channel, a TV show that comes on at rainy evenings at midnight, seemingly sucking Inaba locals out of reality and into its strange surreal TV world. You’re staying in the upstairs bedroom in the house of your hard-boiled detective Uncle Ryotaro and his daughter Nanako. Like Persona 3, you play as a high-school transfer student, but that’s where the plot similarities end. The game opens in the little rural town of Inaba, Japan, where there is more going on than first meets the eye (speaking of 'eye,' the graphics are as vivid as a new technicolor TV set, while the cut scenes and anime sequences still retain their luster).
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