Players will need a bit of patience to start cracking open all the story’s greatness, though.  Persona 4’s introduction is very controlled and paced, taking about two to three hours to get humming due to all the setup the story requires.  From there, the player can get to living the bustling life of a teenager.  Persona 4’s main gameplay is broken into two elements: the daytime role-playing segment and the TV dungeon-crawling combat segment.  As far as the role-playing goes, each day is broken into several phases, with each phase offering the player one action. Attending school, joining clubs, and hanging out with friends will allow the player to enhance social links (which increase combat ability in the dungeons), raise personal stats (which open up more social links), and complete quests for NPCs (which offer items and money).

By meeting new people and forming relationships, the player creates “social links,” associated with both a tarot arcana and a character.  By spending more time with linked characters, the player will both expose the story involving that character and strengthen the link, which increases experience bonuses granted to all fused personas of the associated arcana. In combat, party members will absorb fatal blows or perform follow-up attacks depending on the strength of their relationship with the main character. Some social links require the player’s personal stats to be at a certain level before they can be formed.  These stats – Understanding, Courage, Expression, Knowledge, and Diligence – can be raised by numerous activities around the town or by taking on part time jobs.  Luckily, the game will always state which stat is deficient in forming or progressing a social link, so the player will know where to focus to move things ahead.  These stats not only influence which social links are available, but also which dialogue choices can be picked in certain situations.  During an argument, a player may lack the courage to say something more direct and instead have to pick a more passive response.  Spreading the effects of the personal stats out makes the system feel less video game-y and more life simulator-y.

Navigation around the town is much faster now thanks to a warp menu. Players can instantly travel to any connected area in a particular zone or skip out to the overhead map to travel to another.  Save points are sprinkled all around the areas as well, which will be definitely welcome for anyone that endured long cutscenes before reaching the evening save point in P3.

The game’s progression is now more interdependent between the town/roleplay and dungeon crawl modes as well. The player must investigate around town for clues involving the most recent victim in order to track down their location in the TV dungeon.  Talking to NPCs will lead the player from one clue to another, eventually leading the player to some sort of information that allows them access to the appropriate dungeon.  The investigations make the game much more cohesive and add to the story.  The characters do more than just whack away at demons with a variety of melee instruments.

This is not to say they won’t do their share of whacking.  Each victim who disappears into the TV world creates a multi-level dungeon, themed in accordance with their particular mental worriment.  Each dungeon has around ten to twenty floors, which is a shift from P3’s massive central dungeon.  These dungeons no longer have return points either, which means the party must blaze through them in one go, or come stocked with items that quickly return the party to the entrance.  The game doesn’t adequately warn of this, though.  As a result, most players will have to hike all the way out of the first dungeon.