Persona 4 is possibly the best game made for the aging PS2.
[10/10]: Gameplay: P4's gameplay is somehow like a mixture of a sim dating and dungeon crawling game. You play as a silent male protagonist, named by you. This game is divided into days, all sum up to ~ 7 months (in game calendar). The game now has a "weather system", with rainy days, cloudy and sunny days. There is nothing wrong with cloudy and sunny days, but after a series of rain, an event will most likely happen. Because of this kind of event arranging, everything will be in the small Inaba city. You do NOT have the option to go outside, or explore new areas (some events will take you outside Inaba, but you can't control your char, since it's just an event). Despite the small area, the social link and combat of this game is what make the game loved by many.
>> Persona: Persona is like your other self. It comes from your mind. Personas (the game has about 200 personas) are divided into 22 "Arcana" (0 -> 21), each resemble one card of the main Tarot deck. Your party members are limited to only 2 (the base and the evovled one) Personas. But you, the MC, is totally different. You have the option to fuse Personas, carry (12 max) Personas and change Persona in battle. Personas act like your summon. You can summon it, then let it perform skills (cost either SP-spirit points or HP-health points). Different Personas have different weaknesses and resistance. The MC also have the power to re-summon dismissed/used-in-fusion Personas. Those dismissed/used-in-fusion Personas, before you dismiss/use it, you can record the exact same data as it is now in the "Persona Compendium", so when you want to summon it back, you can pay a "small" price.
>> Persona Fusing: When you mix (fuse) 2 different Persona of 2 different Arcana, you'll get a new one with a different Arcana (there's sometime the guy who fuses - his name is Igor - makes a mistake, this time the new Persona will be totally different, and this mistake doesn't follow any fusion rules). The new Persona will inherit 4 skills randomly (not total randomly, because many Persona have inheritance rules - rules that determine which skills they can inherit and which they can't. For example, a Persona well in Dark skills will less likely/unable to inherit Light skills). The inheritance rules is a quite complicated thing, and you only need to understand when you're an advanced player.
>> Skills: Persona have 11 type of skills: Fire, Wind, Ice, Electric, Light, Dark, Support, Physical, Ailment, Almighty, Passive. Skills are named after their Sanskrit meaning (I believe) inside the game. Fire (called Agi in the game), Wind (Garu), Ice (Bufu), Elec (Zio) are 4 magic spells, which cost SP to deal damage. As your personas get stronger, you can learn stronger spells. Light (Hama) and Dark (Mudo) are instant-death spells, which cost SP. When success, your enemy will vanish. Ailments are skills causing bad status, such as Confusion (party members dont know what they're doing, they attack everyone they see), Rage (damage x2, defense x1/2, cant control, only use weapons...). Supports are buffing, healing, ailment cure skills. Passive are...passive skills. Physical are spells which cost HP and deals physical damage. Almighty (Megido) are strong spells which no enemy can block it. Although it always deals damage, it cost way too much SP, so it's rarely used.
>> Resistance and Weaknesses: There are 4 types of resistance/weakness: Strong (takes lesser damage), Null (receives no damage), Reflect (the skill is reflected back to the enemy, Drain (you absorb the attack, recovers HP), and Weak (takes way more damage, cause knock-down).
>> Social Links: One of the unique aspects of Persona. "Social Links" is why many people call this game has a sim dating aspect. You have the option to go around and make friends, then level up your relationship with them. It is quite shallow, since all you have to do is answer correctly, then your relationship will be intensified. Choose the wrong choice will net you lesser points, or could even make your friend mad. Many social links require a specific rank of "Social Stat" (Knowledge/Dilligence/Understanding/Expression/Courage - these stats can be levelled by doing works, going to practice, eat at the restaurant,...) .Different people appears on different dates, so you have to think wise and plan who to "rank up". And, there are 21 (the 21st arcana is a special one) social links, each represents an Arcana (just like those Personas).
>> Effects of Social Links: As your relationship grows, your Persona will gain more EXP after fusing. Also, maxing a SLink allows you to fuse the ultimate persona of that arcana. Leveling a teammates' SLink grants teammates power to wake you up, take mortal blows for you, withstand attacks,...
>> Dungeon exploring: You can go inside the TV World and explore dungeons. Dungeons are awfully simple, with only 5 things inside: Your team, Shadows (the monsters which you're supposed to defeat), Treasure Chest (2 types: rare and normal. Rare TCs require a chest key to open), Bosses/Mini boss and Save point (at the highest floor you can save before entering Boss' room). You can exit the dungeon using a specific skill/item or go all the way to the exit at the lowest floor or use the save at the highest floor. When you exit the dungeon, it'll be randomly generated again (except for specific boss room), so you won't know the way. As you explore, you'll encounter those slimy creatures on the ground/in the air, they are Shadows. You have to hit them with your weapon, then the battle begins.
>> Combat: The battle is your typical turn-based combat. In one turn, you could do one of the following: Attack (using your weapon), Guard (takes 1/2 damage, no knockdown, no evade), Skills (summon persona and do skills), Persona (change persona - only available to the MC), Tactics (change AI teammates' tactic, though you could directly command them if you wish to), Escape (find an opening and escape the battle), Item (use item). You can also analyze the enemy (see their weakness/resistances, you can only see it when you've tried the type of skill on the enemy, if you haven't tried that type of skill, it will appear as an "?"). Hitting an enemy's/the enemies' weakness grant you a bonus turn and knock your enemy/enemies down, if you hit their weakness when they're knockdown, they'll be dizzy and lose a turn, but you wont be able to gain another bonus turn. Knocking down all the enemies grant you an option to All-Out-Attack. AOA is when all party members charge and slam their weapons at the enemies face. This type of attack is considered "Almighty" so no enemies can null your AOA.
P4 has such an interesting gameplay that would make you hug your TV for hours.
[8/10]: Graphics: A fair PS2 graphic. Character moves smoothly, no slowdown. The downside is Personas/enemies only do pose, then the skills just pop up and BOOM! damage received. Cutscenes are anime clips. I seriously don't like anime cutscenes (my opinion okay?), characters in cutscene doesn't move smoothly, actions are repeated, scenes are gorgeous (Final Fantasy..uhhh...). And there's too little cutscene. They seriously should change some event into nice cutscenes.
[8/10]: Sound: The music's cool, with a mixture of electronic/piano/JPop. Boss music are totally awesome, so is dungeon music. Voice acting could be better. Some characters' voice are too weak (Chie...when she does the all-out-attack), some doesn't match their expressions (Dojima when angry..he just speak like he's normal), others are okay I believe. Another thing, they should really stop this whole "Ooh MC is silent" thing. I mean, in social links events he HAVE TO talk, but all he does is doing body language and a text says "You spoke ....". Really, it would be much better if MC's pallette appeared and he speaks. But well, it's Personas' unique thing, so never mind.
[8/10]: Story: The story's okay in my opinion. It does move on slowly (with no real clues found until 70% of the game), but with the interesting gameplay, it's okay. There's one thing that annoys me: The way they repeat everything said earlier. It's like, every event they have to recap what's going on...uhhh... it's a pain holding triangle (skip sentences). They should just make a cutscene, then we can press Start to skip the whole babbling thing. Another thing is the "No, stop!", "Don't say it!". It happens everytime before a boss battle, when the host doesn't accept his/her shadow self. They should've act more serious, like pushing the host, or cover their mouth (uhh...), not just standing their, body language, and whisper (sometimes their voice aren't raised enough). No matter what, we have to fight them, there's no point of saying those. They should remove those kind of lines, to make the story not boring to people. There's also this "I'm da master of bosses" thingy. There's always this "stronger enemy" (I mean, if you read Dragon Ball, you'll know how enemies appear, there will always be a "stronger enemy than you" no matter how the last enemies said "I'm the strongest"). So there's this thing like "I'm the boss here" then "No, I'm the one who tricked him" then "Everything is because of ME" then "Oh noes, I'm the real deal here".... duh. So uninteresting. The quality of the story dropped significantly (my opinion okay?) compared to P3's. The true ending's also unsatisfying (I'm not spoiling anything here, just play, then you know it). It kinda feel empty, it's like "Okay... that happened, so...?". It's still a great game, though, despite those flaws.
[9/10]: Value: This game will keep you in front of the TV for a long while. Though equips and items don't carry over, the Persona Compendium will, which makes it really great. You can use the 2nd playthrough to fuse low-level personas with uber skills. It really satisfy me when I fuses uber personas.
----- OVERALL: 9.0 ------
Persona 4 is, despite it's noticeable flaws, is a really great JRPG game and should be get by everyone who has an interest.