Look, before you say it, I know. Persona 4 Golden is held up by some as one of the best and most important RPGs ever. After all, it was the series’ Final Fantasy 7 moment, where many of the mechanical and thematic threads of the earlier games finally knitted together and became something greater than their parts. You step into the shoes of Yu Narukami, a Japanese transfer student freshly arrived in Inaba. There, you use your limited time to make friends, study for your exams, and dive into a metaphysical dimension to turn-based battle the literal manifestations of your friends and rivals’ twisted perceptions of themselves. Its story and characters particularly celebrated for their honest and painful looks inward at the parts of ourselves best left unseen. I’m a fraud for not having played it yet, with that sin only compounded by having had it in my Steam family sharing library for years. I have no excuse. I’ll face the shame-filled shadow version of myself, eventually.
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Okay, glad we got that out of the way early because at Gamescom I played a little of its remake Persona 4 Revival, alongside interviewing series producer Kazuhisa Wada (via interpreter) to glean some new information and perspective on remaking a game like Persona 4. When I mention this is my first time playing Persona 4 to Wada, I receive a humoured eyebrow raise and the assurance that “We wanted this to be an excellent entry point for those who want their first taste of the game, but in order to do that, we need to get to the essence of what made Persona 4 great, and for that we need to grab the hearts of existing fans and make this game something they would remember.”
Image credit: SEGA / Atlus
My limited time with Revival let me play a little of the main story, early in the game. As transfer student Yu Narukami, partied up alongside awkward classmate Yosuke, we fight a few mooks before encountering Yosuke’s Shadow form. In the real world, Yosuke, also a recent transfer student, has struggled to make friends. In the metaphysical realm, his shadow form manifests as a representation of his desperate hiding behind a class clown mask to cover his fear of loneliness. His shadow, his repressed inner self, is only defeated by Yosuke accepting his inner and outer self together.
In a separate section, we delve into a realm created by the subconscious of Yu’s friend Yukiko – and take on the Shadow of Chie, another classmate of Yu. Enveloped by her envy of the conventionally beautiful Yukiko, the dominatrix-themed shadow form claims the girls’ friendship is a lie, and purely for Chie’s gain.
With there being quite a bit of time spent on combat in this demo, I can happily say that it feels fantastic, and my god, does it look beautiful. Persona 4, for the strength of its artstyle, is ultimately a PS2/PS Vita game, so it is stellar seeing that incredible art direction granted the modern touch of models and effects at the same fidelity as those of Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Royal. I’m around twenty years late on saying Persona 4 has excellent turn-based combat, I know, but the rhythm of finding weaknesses and playing around patterns keeps me engaged and even led me, as a newcomer, to a touch of struggle against Shadow Chie. Small intricacies like choosing between spending mana or health on spells kept me on my toes, especially with such limited options so early in the game. In their approach to the remake’s combat, Wada lets me know that “as the original system is quite old now, especially compared to the modern standards of Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Royal, there’s elements in there that will feel a little frustrating. We did our best to remove those stressful moments of the battle systems and update it to modern expectations.” To their credit, I find that the system does feel fair — minus one moment in which Shadow Yosuke obliterates me with two critical hits in a row thanks to the ‘One More’ system allowing for an extra turn on critical or weakness hit. Still, I guess that’s just turn-based RPG luck. So it goes.
Image credit: SEGA / Atlus
Between battles, I have the joy of experiencing Persona 4’s writing and story for the first time. Due to the cultural osmosis inherent to being a girl who’s grown up on the internet, I have a decent awareness of Persona 4’s deal, its general themes of accepting the true self or slowly breaking down, its arcing narrative and its characters; still, actually being able to sit down and take it in via a preview of its remake is something special. The central conflict across the cast of the inner and outer self pulls me in instantly, and I’m impressed by how uncompromising the writing is about how much denying and pushing down your inner self will destroy you from the inside. Yosuke gently admitting “When you get down to it, all of this is me” and Chie yelling out “Don’t look at me!” while their Shadows took over are brilliant, efficient insights into their different approaches to their true selves and both touched my heart.
Image credit: SEGA / Atlus
On a lighter note, after the battle sections, I also got to take the mysterious Marie on a date in the sleepy town of Inaba. Witnessing Yu’s attempt to make his date with Marie exciting in their quiet town during her social link was as touching as it was painfully funny; I’ve been Yu in that situation! It’s an uphill battle! Social links, a bond-making mechanic that not only builds up relationships between Yu and his party members/friends but also makes party members more effective in battle, are core to Persona 4 and apparently won’t be changing much. The story and social links themselves will remain just about the same in Revival, according to Wada, with some minor differences: “Our approach was to not touch the elements that made the game really special, so the characters and story are exactly as they were. That said, there are things that, when we looked at the script, seemed unclear or didn’t have as much information as we wanted to, so we tweaked things a little for additional nuance. The social links are, you know, the core elements of the characters you befriend in the game, so we didn’t really change anything.”
Wada’s note that the story and social links will be untouched other than tweaking a few things for nuance interests me, as I was curious if he’d specify what might be worth taking a second look at. Previously, he’s touched on Yosuke’s characterisation being “a little bit insensitive” (thanks Oisin!), which I take as a gentle way of saying ‘a homophobic asshole’, so a few changes wouldn’t be unwelcome. On the note of changes, Revival has also seen a full recast of its voice actors; from what I heard of the new performances in Revival, they’re great, but it’s difficult to ignore the knowledge that several members of the original cast openly stated that they asked to return. Or in the case of original Yosuke actor Yuri Lowenthal specifically, ‘begged’ — so much for a second chance. As such, I’m similarly conflicted knowing that Wada stated in an interview with GamesRadar that “there were quite a few people we weren’t able to get.” In our conversation, Wada shed no more light on that disconnect, but revealed that the auditions for Revival weren’t labelled as such for the actors auditioning, but the team were “listening to the auditions and trying to pick people who matched the vibe of the characters, but at the same time giving them room to take them in their own direction.”
Image credit: SEGA / Atlus
To close out the interview, I ask Wada a question I don’t feel is considered enough in the current zeitgeist of remasters and remakes being the reliable moneymaker for studios: why remake Persona 4 at all? “When we originally conceived the idea of Persona 3 Reload, we knew we wanted to do P4R as well; we had to put it on the backburner, but it was something we thought of at the same time. For me, I think a remaster or remake is some kind of cultural preservation. As a creator, it’s your duty to take the things you’ve done and make sure they’re not lost, and are still around in the modern day. From that same perspective, Persona 1 and 2 are something we’ll probably eventually do too.”
I can’t tell you I was expecting a soft confirmation of remakes of the first two games to come out of this interview, but I’m not about to complain. I appreciate Wada’s answer of cultural preservation being the driving force behind remaking their older work for his genuine acknowledgement that remakes do need a reason to exist other than just ‘money.’ I’m grateful for my time with Revival and Wada, and I think this experience is what has finally convinced me to give Persona 4 Golden a shot. I promise, I’m installing it as I write this!
Travel and accommodation to Gamescom were provided by Hooded Horse.