Learning Game Design with Arcade Berg

Persona 4 – Brilliant!

*Phew*!

I meant to do so some blogging a couple of days ago but it got postponed. I then meant to do it yesterday, but yet again, I didn't have the time.

But I have a really good reason. I was crunching Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4!

I bought Batman: Arkham Asylum last friday but I decided not to play it untill I was done with Persona, as I felt I was closing in on the end after about 60h of play-time. Man... Was I wrong? For yet another 30h I felt like I was so close to the ending I could smell it. I was wrong.

91 hours and 51 minutes is what it took me to finish that beast of a game! And to be honst, the last 20h or so felt a tad annoying as I was longing for Batman.

Enough about me and more about the game. If you don't know the fundamentals I recommend doing a google about it. Rating over 9/10 on Metacritic and being the best JRPG I've played in many, many years it's something every designer with a huge amount of time to spend should look into.

How can 92h fit on one disc?

I've never spent this much time with a Single Player Game before, and I don't see if happening again anytime soon. But what is the magic that holds the player for so long? Why can't you just say enough is enough and never look at the game again.

I think there are two main reasons for this:

1. The constant passing of time making the player's progress in the game automatic.
2. The continuing feeling of things progressing thanks to constant leveling and introduction of skills and Personas.

In short. Stuff always happens!

Just a little disclaimber-thingy. The game also has an exciting story, fun combat and fantastic characters. Of course just the two above mentioned reasons will not make for a great game by themself, but are indeed parts of a whole.

1.

Persona 4 is played by making choices of what to do each day. There's the daytime, after school and evening. This may vary depending on special circumstances.

Anyway, you then get to do one thing each part of the day. Some things doesn't affect time, like shopping. But stuff like increasing stats, progressing the story and increasing your Social Links (part of the stat-system in Persona) will use up one "time slot".

Once the evening is over, the game progresses into the next day on the calendar. Special events related to the game's story happens on specific dates so it's impossible to stand still in the game, just increasing stats or whatever. The game will progress, wether you want it to or not.

This is brilliant! Because of this I know that for each and every choice I make, even if it's something as simple as to eat at a restaurant I get closer and closer to the end. It's impossible to get stuck in the game, similar to a movie if you wish.

2.

In Persona you use magical powers with the help of "Personas". Think of them like Pokémons, because really, they're quite alike. You collect them by defeating enemies and by fusing together the ones you have. Each and everyone has different skills and looks. They each have their own level as well, just like your character.

The personas gain XP when used.

So when walking in a dungeon with four characters, three of which has one persona each and you, the main character with more than 10 personas. That's 8 enteties gaining XP per battle (4+4).

This means that there are not many fights apart when someone of them levels up, increasing stats and perhaps gaining a new ability.

In one hour, there's probably 5-10 level ups. This is a bit different from many games where you level up once every few hour. It makes you feel that you're constantly getting stronger in one way or another, increasing your chances in combat.

This along with the time that progress by itself, it's a race for you to "keep up", making a very interesting balance.

Fin.

There's a million other things the developers have made very wise decisions about as well, especially when it comes to context. But I'll leave that for another post perhaps. Right now, after beating it, I don't want anything more to do with it for a while.

Persona 4 is one of the most cleverly designed games I've played, ever.