Persona 4

• 1. Introduction

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  Persona 4 is a 2008 role-playing game from the Japanese developer Atlus, and it opens on a puzzle that sounds like a ghost story. In a small rural town, bodies are found dangling from television antennas, and no one can say what killed them. Around the same time, a rumor spreads. If you stare at a switched-off television on a rainy midnight, the story goes, you will see your soulmate.

  The player steps in as a teenage boy sent to this town for exactly one year. The game arrived on the PlayStation 2 in Japan in July 2008, as one of the last major exclusives for that console. Who is behind the deaths? Why would a game about summoning the hidden sides of a person's psyche borrow from detective fiction? And what did its creators gain by setting everything in a place that was meant to feel ordinary?

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• 2. Days and Bonds

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  Persona 4 slices its year into days, and the two slots that come up most often are called "After School/Daytime" and "Evening". Apart from scripted story events, the player decides how to spend each one. The options include joining school clubs, taking part-time jobs, reading books, or heading into the dungeons of the TV World for experience and items. Most activities push the clock forward, so every choice costs something.

  The calendar pushes back in several ways. Some activities depend on the time of day, the day of the week, or the weather, and most evening activities vanish if the player spent that day in the TV World. Others depend on five attributes: Understanding, Diligence, Courage, Knowledge, and Expression. Each can be raised by doing the right kind of activity. Dialogue choices can be locked behind them too.

  Then there is the deadline. After several consecutive days of rain, fog settles over the town. If a person trapped in the TV World has not been rescued by then, the shadows kill that person and the game ends. The player must return to a week earlier or load an older save.

  What the player builds along the way are friendships called Social Links, each tied to one of the Major Arcana. As a link gains Rank, it pays off when new Personas are created in the Velvet Room. Strengthening links with main party members also gives them extra abilities, such as a follow-up attack. Persona 4 Golden later added bike trips as a daytime activity, one with each party member, which teach that member a skill they could not otherwise learn.

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• 3. Personas and Battles

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  Each Persona can carry no more than eight skills at a time, so learning a ninth means forgetting an older one. A Persona is an avatar projected from a person's inner self. It resembles a mythological figure and stands for the façades people wear to face life's hardships. Personas gain experience in battle and learn offensive abilities, support abilities, and passive skills. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

  The protagonist is special. He has the "Wild Card" ability to wield several Personas and switch between them mid-battle. His companions each have one unique Persona, which grows into a stronger form once their Social Link is maxed out. New Personas come from a mini-game called Shuffle Time, or from the Velvet Room, where two or more monsters are fused into a new one that inherits some of their skills. The level of what can be created depends on the protagonist's current level. A built-up Social Link for a given Arcana gives a bonus to any Persona of that Arcana created afterward.

  Inside the TV World, the player leads a party of the protagonist and up to three others through randomly generated dungeons. Each dungeon is tailored around a kidnapped victim. Players find stairs on every floor, collect treasure chests, and eventually meet a boss. Battle begins on contact with a roaming Shadow, and striking from behind earns an advantage. Being struck from behind hands that advantage to the enemy.

  Fighting is turn-based, in the manner of the Press Turn system used elsewhere in the Megami Tensei franchise. Attacks carry attributes: Physical, Fire, Ice, Wind, Electricity, Light, Dark, and Almighty. Hitting a weakness or landing a critical blow knocks an enemy down and earns an extra move. If every enemy is down, the party can launch an "All-Out Attack". Companions can follow direct orders or be given "Tactics" that change their battle AI. A fallen party member can be revived, but if the protagonist runs out of HP, the battle ends.

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• 4. The Investigation Team

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  Yu Narukami, the name given to the protagonist in later media, arrives in Inaba on the 11th of April 2011. His parents are working abroad, so he stays for a year with his uncle Ryotaro Dojima and his cousin Nanako. Soon after he arrives, the TV announcer Mayumi Yamano is found dead. Saki Konishi, the high school student who discovered the body, is then found hanged upside-down from a telephone pole.

  At school, Yu quickly befriends three classmates. Yosuke Hanamura is the somewhat clumsy son of the manager of the local Junes Department Store. Chie Satonaka is an energetic girl with a strong interest in martial arts. Yukiko Amagi is calm and refined, and she helps at her family's inn. Following the Midnight Channel rumor leads Yu, Yosuke, and Chie into the fog-shrouded TV World, where they meet Teddie, a friendly creature who looks like a hollow bear costume.

  The TV World is native to beings called Shadows, which are formed from repressed emotions. The friends learn that the murders stem from Shadow attacks. Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko, and later Kanji, Rise, and Teddie each face a giant Shadow, the very part of themselves they have rejected. Accepting it lets each wield a Persona. Kanji Tatsumi is a delinquent with a talent for feminine hobbies. Rise Kujikawa is a former teen idol trying to find her identity, who has transferred to the school.

  A student from another school named Mitsuo Kubo claims credit for the killings after the death of Kinshiro Morooka, Yu's foul-mouthed homeroom teacher. In fact, Kubo killed only Morooka, and he did it just to be credited with the rest. The last recruit is Naoto Shirogane, a nationally renowned "Detective Prince". Naoto is investigating alongside the local police, and the group learns that "he" is a girl who took on a male identity to avoid the police's sexism.

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• 5. The Real Culprit

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  Ryotaro Dojima realizes Yu is involved when he sees Yu reading a threatening letter from the killer. During the interrogation that follows, Nanako is kidnapped. Ryotaro chases the kidnapper by vehicle until both crash. The kidnapper escapes with Nanako through a television set inside his truck, and the gravely injured Ryotaro entrusts her rescue to Yu's group.

  The culprit seems to be Taro Namatame, who is possessed by nearby Shadows and becomes a monster named Kunino-Sagiri. The group defeats him, and both he and Nanako are taken to Inaba hospital. Then Nanako appears to die. The fog persists past its deadline, and panic grows in town. In fury, the group confronts Namatame, and a pseudo-Shadow Namatame on the Midnight Channel goads the devastated team into throwing him in. As Yu, the player must steer the others toward the truth by pointing out unanswered questions and the lack of a motive.

  Namatame explains that his kidnappings were meant to protect people who appeared on the Midnight Channel. He did not know the TV World was dangerous. He also denies sending the warning letters. Failing to deduce the real killer, or killing Namatame, leads to a bad ending in which the fog sets in permanently and humanity dies out. Killing Namatame also leaves Nanako dead. Otherwise Teddie miraculously revives her, after a journey of self-discovery in which he realizes and then accepts that he is a Shadow.

  The evidence points to Tohru Adachi, Ryotaro's assistant, who confirms the suspicion when confronted and flees into the TV World. Adachi says he acted out of boredom and a belief that humanity is better off believing what it wants. He admits he tricked Namatame into throwing people in, watched the rescues for amusement, and threw Mitsuo in himself so the "game" would not end early. The party dismisses this as the rantings of a madman. Controlled by Ameno-sagiri, Adachi is beaten. Ameno-sagiri warns that the fog will eventually push humanity into permanent ignorance and turn people into Shadows, then agrees to lift it. Adachi is arrested.

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• 6. True Ending and Golden

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  On the day before Yu must travel home, the game offers a fork. If the player returns to the Dojima residence, the "normal" ending plays and the party sees Yu off. If the player instead goes to the group's usual reunion spot, the friends decide to investigate where the Midnight Channel really came from. Yu confronts a gas station attendant he met at the start of the game. She reveals herself as Izanami-no-Okami, the "conductor" behind the events.

  The fog, she says, was an attempt to merge the TV World with the human world and create an illusion, all for humanity's "sake". The group cannot beat her at first. Yu is given strength by the bonds he has forged, and he awakens a new Persona named Izanagi-no-Okami. With it he defeats her, the fog lifts in both worlds, and the TV World returns to its original form. The game closes on a post-credits scene of the group promising to stay friends while Yu looks at a group photo.

  Persona 4 Golden adds two Social Links, one for Adachi and one for Marie, a mysterious girl who assists in the Velvet Room and wants to recover her lost memories. If the Adachi link rises high enough, the player may hide his identity from the team, which produces the "accomplice" ending. On the final day, Yu may even destroy a key piece of evidence. Adachi then blackmails him. After the credits, Yu passes Adachi at a level crossing, phone clutched in hand, as a smirk forms on Adachi's face.

  Marie's story begins when she vanishes after Ameno-sagiri falls. The team's skiing trip leads to a cabin with a TV that opens onto the collapsing Hollow Forest. If they fail to reach her in time, Marie fades from their memories. Otherwise she reveals that she is Kusumi-no-Okami, made as a spy for Ameno-sagiri, and that she plans to die so the fog cannot spread again. The team refuses and frees her. With both Marie rescued and Izanami-no-Okami beaten, the "Golden" ending shows that Marie is Izanami-no-Mikoto, the goddess whose wishes splintered as people stopped wishing for truth.

  The epilogue is set in late August, five months after Yu left. Namatame is running for mayor to atone, Adachi has become a model prisoner, and Marie has a new life as a TV weather anchor. Nanako suggests a formal but joyful welcome "home", Kanji is chided for saying something different, and the game ends on a brand new group picture.

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• 7. Building Inaba

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  Director Katsura Hashino said that development of Persona 4 did not truly begin until after Persona 3 was released. Atlus wanted to avoid anything that looked like a "retread". Hashino said the murder mystery gave players a definite goal and a sense of purpose. He credited mystery novelists Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Seishi Yokomizo as major inspirations. Famitsu unveiled the game in March 2008, and the North American date was announced at the 2008 Anime Expo in Los Angeles. Players received full control of party members in battle, because Persona 3 fans had complained about AI-controlled teammates.

  The team feared the school life, relationships, and spoken dialogue would not fit on a single disc. Studio Hibari produced the anime cutscenes. Atlus also chose not to make an add-on disc like Persona 3 FES.

  Inaba was modeled on a town on the outskirts of Mount Fuji. The whole staff went "location hunting" because each member pictured a different rural town. Hashino wanted a "'nowhere' place" and called it, "for better or for worse... a run-of-the-mill town". Keeping the action mostly in one town cut costs and let Atlus expand other parts of the game. A set number of in-game events was planned so the setting would not go stale.

  The setting also changed the Personas. Instead of Graeco-Roman deities, the game uses Japanese mythical figures, whose appearances are traditionally unspecified. That gave the design team creative freedom, and each Persona's look was based on its owner's personality. Hashino created the Shadows largely on his own, with help from female staff for the female characters' Shadow selves. Art director Shigenori Soejima used hairstyles to mark who came from the city, and gave Yosuke headphones and a bicycle.

  Localization was handled by Yu Namba and Nich Maragos of Atlus USA, with four translators and two further editors. Kuma became Teddie, Rise's stage name became "Risette", and "Community" became "Social Link". The item "Kae Rail" became the "Goho-M" because it returns the player to the entrance, as in "go home". References to Kosuke Kindaichi were removed. Honorifics from the Japanese track stayed in the English dub, and Yuri Lowenthal's Yosuke has 1000 more lines than other major characters. Swearing increased over Persona 3, and Kanji received a great deal of it because of his volatile nature.

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• 8. Music and Legacy

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  Shoji Meguro composed, arranged, and produced most of the score, with vocals by Shihoko Hirata and lyrics by Reiko Tanaka. Meguro worked on the music alongside the story and spoken dialogue, starting with the overall shape of each song. He wrote "Pursuing My True Self", the opening theme, and "Reach Out to the Truth", used in battle, to reflect the characters' inner conflicts. Atsushi Kitajoh contributed four themes. Ryota Kozuka wrote the "Theme of Junes". Aniplex released the two-disc soundtrack in Japan on the 23rd of July 2008. A later album, Never More, reached the top of both the Oricon Weekly Album Charts and Billboard Japan's Top Albums chart, selling nearly 27,000 copies.

  Critics were warm. Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb called it "one of the best times I've had with video games". IGN described it as an "instant classic" while noting that "the pacing can be somewhat off". In Japan, the game sold 193,000 copies in its first week, and the PlayStation 2 version eventually reached 358,899 there. Famitsu readers gave it the "PlayStation 2 Game Prize" in 2008, and it won an Award for Excellence at the 2009 Japan Game Awards. In 2013, GamesRadar ranked it fifth among the best videogame stories ever.

  The story has also drawn discussion of Kanji, regarded as one of the first characters in a mainstream video game to struggle with his sexual orientation. Atlus USA left his preferences ambiguous. Persona 4 Golden reached the PlayStation Vita in 2012, and Windows in 2020, when it sold over 500,000 units on Steam in less than a month. The 1 million mark came on the 30th of June 2021, bringing Golden to 2.5 million copies across Vita and PC. Ports for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox consoles followed on the 19th of January 2023.

  The cast went on to many other formats. Persona 4 Arena, a 2012 fighting game from Arc System Works, was followed by Arena Ultimax in 2013. A rhythm game, Persona 4: Dancing All Night, arrived in 2015. The 3DS dungeon crawlers Persona Q and Persona Q2 added crossovers with other casts. The 25-episode anime from AIC A.S.T.A., directed by Seiji Kishi, aired on MBS from the 6th of October 2011 to the 29th of March 2012. Igor's lines were taken from the game because his actor, Isamu Tanonaka, died in January 2010. Costumes based on the Yasogami High uniforms are sold as DLC in Persona 5, Persona 3 Reload, and Metaphor: ReFantazio. A full remake, Persona 4 Revival, was announced in June 2025.

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