For this entry on Persona 4 I’m going to talk about the combat system. Even though in P4 you will be spending your time talking to people, eventually it will be time to take up your sword and go dungeon crawling. Each dungeon is based on a different theme which is determined by who you need to rescue which comes with its own music. Enemies appear on the map as goo like creatures that can be avoided. Attacking on the field from behind may give you a first strike advantage; however they can get the same advantage by running into you first.
Combat in P4 is based on weaknesses and defenses which affect what skills and personas you should have fighting for you. Skills are the SMT equivalent of spells and run the gambit of elemental attacks, to debuff skills and even instant kill skills. Besides the skill type of “almighty” which has no defense against, every persona and shadow will have different defense ratings for the various types of skills. During combat if you can hit a shadow with it’s weakness it will knock it down granting you an extra attack. Knocking down all enemies during combat sets them up for an all out attack which is a strong physical attack against the group. On the other hand if you hit a downed opponent again with it’s weakness you will make it dizzy forcing it to lose a turn. Some enemies are highly resistant to physical attacks and it might be easier to just force them to lose a turn. Your teammates are stuck with their respective weaknesses until later in the game however you have the nifty ability to switch out your persona with those in some kind of magical stock once per turn in combat, but don’t think your friends are helpless as you have one other thing on your side.
When it comes to most JRPGS we have been beaten over the head with the fact that support skills other then healing are useless, will never work on boss fights and the only time they help are for minor enemies that we could just punch to death. The SMT series has thrown out that ideal years ago and P4 is no exception, the variety of support skills is staggering. One such skill is a “get out of elemental damage free” card enabling you to protect characters that are weak to a skill coming their way. Strengthening or weakening the stats of friends and foes respectively is so effing vital it’s not funny, as removing them requires a skill that most bosses don’t have and the benefit will make life easier. Regular aliments such as confusion and poison while are rare to stick on bosses can be useful against regular enemies which can have huge affects on them. Poison for instance not only does damage each turn but also halves the inflicted attack power by half. Of course these skills will come into play once you reach the bosses, which is another SMT staple.
When it comes to boss fights in RPGS there are two factors I’ve noticed, one that most bosses require an inordinate amount of grinding to just survive their basic attack, and two they have a variety of cheap tricks that reduce your strategy down to just wailing on it until you or it is dead. Boss battles in the SMT series are always a high point, first is the art design behind them as I bet you won’t see anything else like them. Also bosses in the SMT universe are more puzzle based and require overall less grinding to fight. In P4 each boss has its own little quirk that makes the fight more then a stat battle, one fight requires you to deal with two partners for example. Bosses of course have their own unique skills to fling at you but instead of being a cheap trick it adds another layer of strategy to the fight. For example (minor spoiler), one boss will use a skill that reduces the strength of all elemental attacks except for one that will be boosted. Having the right defenses and skills is a bigger factor in winning then just spending 10 hours grinding up levels, in fact during my time spent with P4 I only had to grind twice and that was just to get an important skill to use for the boss.
Fighting is an important mechanic in any RPG and without a decent system; most players won’t be able to stomach it to get through the story. P4’s fights are more diverse and with the variety of personas to use will not get boring as quickly as other rpgs. I was planning on doing the fusion system of P4 with the combat system, however with this entry as long as it and there is a lot to talk about with the fusion system. So instead the fusion system will be covered in my next entry.
Josh
