P4G has aired on Vita!!! Will you be tunning in?

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cusman said:

Not having played any past game in series and having very low tolerance for annoying JRPG tropes like annoying characters that yell everything they say and overly complicated or boring grind systems of useless crap to upgrade.

Would you recommend this game to me based on Japanese games that I do like?

Fire Emblem
Valkyria Chronicles
Legend of Zelda
Catherine

Aside from the above, I would say I generally stick with Western RPG games like Skyrim and Fallout.

Well I am not completely sure if it suits your tastes, but I will run through a gauntlet of key points that might relate to you.

For one, Catherine is based loosely out of the Persona Series's "vibe". It has no relation to the characters or story per-say, but Atlus(who makes both) used Catherine as a test subject for the Persona Series. P4 probably had the biggest influence on Catherine due to its strong personal themes of inner reflection. Gameplay is assuredly nothing alike.

I would relate Valkyria Chronicles(one of my Fovorite games of all time) to Persona's Social link Mechanics. You know how in VC each character embodies their own personality and has strong likes and dislikes? Or each of them perform better in certain instants? Well Persona's Social links have similar effect, they concentrate mostly on bettering relationships without adverse effects. As you level up each charcter's Social Link it will boost your strength in the connecting Arcana and for Party members unlock new vital skills for battle.

Vibe is pretty whimsical in P4G with a dark twist. Think Scooby Doo or an episode of Buffy. The characters are all distinctly different and have charm. The characters never go annoying for me (except maybe Teddy who plays the Scooby/Xander role). Keep in mind, you are dealing with Teenagers in high school tho. It always feels authentic and genuine within a character's personality.

Not sure how it could possibly relate to Zelda or Fire Emblem, but it is a JRPG at heart, with a strong story/character development element. Most of your time will probably be spent hanging with friends in order to boost their SL. Its almost like a Life Sim game. You will constantly have to balance your day to day life with School/Friends/After School Activities/and Demon Crime Fighting.

Combat is fun once you get the hang of the terminology and mechanics. The hardest thing for me to learn was remembering the names of spells and what they do. The game throws you into it's own mythos without much warning. Where you would have normally saw "Fire Spell", instead you will see "Agi". And instead of increasing the power by putting a 2 or 3 after, or the FF approach "Fira-Firaga" it will go Agi/Agilo/Agidyne. And "Ma-" is put before anything that has AoE(Area of Effect). Luckily you can read discriptions of the moves before using them(something P3 lacked).

Now Grinding might be a minus for you, a certain level of it will inevitably be required as in all JRPGs. Still, you will probably spend much more time trying to plan out the perfect schedule to fit in all you want to do within a certain time frame. The game progresses day by day to coincide with the school year. You will have to budget what is most important to do within weekly blocks before getting to a boss point in order to succeed. This probably sounds a lot more confusing than it is lol.

Just watch a few videos of the game and see what you think of it....