Which Version of Persona 4 Should You Play? - All Versions Reviewed & Compared

In this video we'll be taking a look at Persona 4 and every port of it from the PS2 version to the PlayStation Vita version, Persona 4 Golden, to the remaster of Persona 4 Golden on PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One & Xbox Series. We'll be going over content, gameplay, story, visuals, and audio changes between all these versions.

ALL footage in this video was recorded on real hardware. PS2 footage is upscaled & calibrated via the Retrotink 5x Pro and Vita footage was recording at 1080i.

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Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:09 - PS2 (Localization)
2:44 - Persona 4 Golden
13:31 - Chie Voice & Audio Quality Comparison
15:00 - P4G (2020 release/2023 Console Releases)
18:15 - Final Thoughts

[player-lightwater]

There is a difference in Margaret's pre-battle and after battle between the vanilla and Golden of the English dub. Not sure if this is the same for Japanese version (except for the last part).

In vanilla, Margaret directly mentioned Elizabeth's name before and after her fight. In Golden, Margaret did not mentioned her name but refer to her as "my predecessor". In addition to Golden, some of Margaret's lines were rerecord by Karen Strassman instead of Michelle Ann Dunphey due to Michelle was already on late stage pregnancy at that time which she was unable to rerecord her lines. The lines were combination of Karen rerecording some of the lines and archived audio of Michelle's lines.

[manidavis]

To me the most funniest thing about persona 4 is basically if you work under the hood that is mostly just a persona 3 mod.

[azurekerimek]

Odd choice to do the voice comparison while another character snores at the volume of a plane taking off! Great comparison. I always wondered how different P4 was over P4G.

[JaredScott]

Huh that missing fog affect makes quite a difference.

[lucymorrison]

The P5 vs P5R video will be colossal if it ever happens lol.

[bubbletea_]

persona 4 on ps2 has a really good visual aesthetic even on emulator. it looks fantastic at 3x native res or higher. but i enjoy the additions to golden too much to go back. shout outs to brawler for doing god's work restoring the fog.

[TheMetakev]

My man has doomed himself to have to update the video when Atlus inevitably announces the P4 remake.

[THEREALVITO]

The fog bit is interesting. I think there was a good amount of intentionality to removing it, as you mentioned with the change to a handheld OLED screen, where there was a lot of opportunity to make the colors pop. I think we also just associate Persona 4 as being the poppy, colorful, positive game in the series. "Golden" being the subtitle also might suggest that the bright colors were a deliberate choice, and fog would get in the way of that.

I think its valid to prefer either or, though. Persona is a generally moody series.

[harryshuman]

Persona 4 Golden with all the QOL improvements and extra content. It's much easier to mod it to have the missing fog in some scenes, than mod P4 on PS2 that was kind of abandoned by the community.

[notsorandomuser]

Long time coming on this one. Good to see P4 being covered on this.
Love the PS2 version of this game, just wish the visual identity of it carried over to PSVita/PC.
Thanks for your work.

[taco]

Just gonna throw this out there. There is no wrong way to play this game it's that good. But play the steam, switch or Xbox versions the golden version definitely is the definitive way to play.

[WednesdayMan]

there's one very specific difference between the Vita and the PC/Switch/PS4/XboxOne release is that the game is slightly cropped as the Vita's aspect ratio is slightly thinner than the standard 16:9. on 16:54 you can spot this difference by looking at the bottom right of the text box.

[retrofan]

Would it be a bad thing to say that I prefer all the later versions of Persona 4, mainly because of the changes in in voice actors? Because I absolutely adore Erin Fitzgerald as Chie, and Sam Riegel as Teddie.

[danielposey]

The fog change reminds me of the cool orange hue removed from GTA San Andreas ports that the og ps2 version had, it completely changed the look & atmosphere of the game.

[Powerpunk]

i always appreciate the depth of your work. you're the one i think about every time i see a new remaster

[batmabel]

Always glad to see an upload from you. Can't wait for P5!

[DaveVoyles]

I put 94 hours into golden on the Vita and have no regrets.

[manimanistatue]

this is way more in depth than I thought it’d be, great video

[TheColdOne]

I never got around to playing 4 on the PS2 (still have it in the shrink-wrap), so my first experience was Golden on Vita. I never noticed the discrepancy with the phys attack output vs the descriptions (which wasn't fixed in the remaster?).

My physical copy of Golden for Switch comes in the mail today! I look forward to replaying this game for the first time since the Vita release.

[LoafGatr]

I'm glad to have helped! :D (Now I wanna play P4 and P4G...)