I'm so excited to play Persona 4.  I first played this during ComicCon, but it's really exciting to finally have it within my grasp soon enough.... I just have to wait for Amazon to ship it.

1. What do you like most about the game?
2. Do you feel the extras included are worth the price tag?
3. What are the most challenging features of the game for you?
4. How are the online features in the game?  I'm kind of confused with the multiplayer aspect of this game.
5. Can you keep your leveled up characters & items when beginning the game for a 2nd time?
6. Lasssttlly, how many logged in hours do you have while playing this?

Thanks!

1. The Characters, I cannot express that enough. They feel so life like in many ways. Having to show all of them a little attention and doing maintenance on relationships makes the game captivating to me. I would say that ties with my compellsion to collect every persona like its fucking pokemon all over again. I must always have my league of angels (Angel, ArchAngel, Principality, Raphael, Lucifer, Virtue, Throne, Samael,Metatron,Gabriel,etc).
2. I would have been satisfied with it being a simple HD port with trophies, all the extra goodies are icing on the cake. They just crammed so much awesome into this small package.
3. The Calendar Day progression is the biggest challenge in the game if you ask me. You always feel rushed as there truely isn't enough time in the day to do all you will want to. Feels like life haha.
4. They are nice little additions that in no way impede gameplay or are even necessary, just nice to have. The first you will notice is the ability to see what other players have done on any given date. This could be used as a hint on what you should be doing, or something you forgot, or maybe even something you didn't even know was possible. It is no surprise Atlus imlimented this as they saw how lucrative it was for Demon's Souls when they published that game. The other Online feature is the SOS system. While in dungeons you can send out a distress signal to other players, if they answer your call you will get a slight assiste at the beginning of battle. This is a life save, and allows for more grinding before you are forced to head in for the night.
5. I am not sure. The first game made everyone level 1 again. S.Links are reset as well. You keep all the Persona you have collected thus far and you retain your Personality Stats to make acing tests and starting S.Links a breeze 2nd time around. I cant remember exactly but I think you lose all items collected yet keep all the money, or maybe it was vice versa.
6. The first time I played this game I was at 100+ hrs before ever even getting to a NG+. Now I am a bit more familiar with the game so it comes a lot easier for me, I am currently clocked in at 67hrs and 3/4ths completed the story. Mind you, this version has trophies, which the pack-rat/OCD/Collectaholic in me will not allow me to NOT collect every single one before I can let the game rest. Also I will be trying to do a perfect game where I have every Persona, Max every SLink, Beat every secret boss, and get the Perfect Ending. If I am not completely Persona'd out by then, I am trying it all on the new hardest difficulty!!!!

Thanks for the feedback.  I really liked the music in this game, and I think grinding will actually be fun here.  I'm currently looking at walkthrough because I can be a completionist at times.... Looks like I know what I'm doing over winter break!

Do you know if the hardest difficulty has more monsters, or are they just given god-like stats?  I remember in Star Ocean 4 there was a hidden dungeon after the main storyline that seriously kicked my 68+ hour party.

I will let you know. I'm working on beating persona 3 and will be able to play persona 4 golden by next week. I can't wait. Also, I can't believe I've seen the anime beforehand -_-

Except for the voices, everything about this game is worth it.

I can understand where you are coming from, teen suicide via pistol has never been so entertaining lol. Yet P4's version of summoning is a force to be reckoned with as well. Where P3 uses the "Evokers" to force out their Persona, P4 has two very important elements. The Glasses, and the cards. The glasses tie in with a very important theme for the game, I won't go into it as not to spoil anything. The Cards are broken in unique ways which creates a very unique animation for each character. Yu crushes, Yousuke slashes, Chie does a back kick, Yukiko smacks it, etc. It really reminds me of this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5tYZA7T0Yo

...which was like the best thing since sliced bread for me. Probably why I get a tingling feeling everytime Yu yells out the Persona's name :D