Can You Beat Persona 4 WITHOUT the Protagonist?
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Published 2023-05-03
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One of the most defining features of Persona 3’s combat system was its ai controlled party members. It was a somewhat unique idea for the series and helped give Persona 3 a distinct identity compared to the other games. Though this feature was met with a pretty mixed reception so much so that by the time Persona 4 came around, the devs over at P-studio sort of backpedalled on the idea and included an option for direct control. You know it’s bad when this feature is advertised on the back of the box. While this is a good feature to have, you know what? Old habits die hard. Persona 4 still offers the option to use the tactic system in a similar fashion to persona 3. And since I already proved how useful it was in that game, I figured I should tackle the same challenge here. So in today’s video, we’re going to find out whether or not you can beat Persona 4 without the protagonist.
The rules of this run are pretty simple. Rule number 1: the direct command tactic is completely off-limits and I have to stick with ai controlled party members. Rule number 2: the protagonist cannot perform any actions in battle other than changing party tactics, accept all out attacks, and guarding. This means that no items during a battle but I’ll allow their use outside of combat. Rule number 3: is that I’m allowed to use save states for the sake of saving time. Obviously I’m not going to use savestates in the middle of fights, but I’ll plop one down at the start of boss fights so I don’t have to rewatch the cutscenes. Rule number 4 is no new game plus for obvious reasons. And finally, rule number 5 is that this run is going to be attempted with the vanilla ps2 release of persona 4. While Persona 4 golden is the most accessible version of the game, the quality of life additions ultimately make the game significantly easier. Rise’s social bonuses and the reworked shuffle time mechanics completely trivialize that version of the game so for the sake of keeping things interesting, I’m going with the ps2 version. Plus everyone always uses golden for challenge runs so playing vanilla will be a good shake up.
Can You Beat Persona 4 WITHOUT the Protagonist? Welcome to my Persona 4 challenge run video. in this Persona 4 challenge run, Nam's Compendium will be asking the question can you beat Persona 4 without the protagonist. This Persona 4 challenge run video is not a Persona 4 review or Persona 4 Analysis but it does serve as a Persona 4 in 2023 video. This Persona 4 challenge run was uploaded in commemoration of the somewhat recent Persona 4 Portable PC port which is a great way to experience the game. Nam's Compendium has a Persona 4 analysis and Persona 4 review in the past, but can you beat Persona 4 without the protagonist is very different. If this video does well, expect more Persona challenge run videos and Shin Megami Tensei challenge run videos in the future.
All Comments (21)
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I want to do more challenge runs in the future. If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments below! Also, subscribe if you're feeling generous!
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Yukiko deciding to troll the team and not do anything until the last second just for laughs is surprisingly in-character
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The reason why Yukiko just refuses to attack normally is due to the Naoto boss resisting fire. The game believes that Yukiko using an attack on an enemy that resists it will be a waste of SP, so it won't allow her to do it. No idea why she won't heal tho. The ai's just broken like that I guess.
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I just imagine Izanagi being pissed off the whole game and calling Yu a bitch
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Nam: Im doing vanilla P4 with P3 rules. Me: Huh, ok, nice to see OG P4 and this was doable in P5, though barely. The P4 AI doesnt use buffs Me: YOU FUCKING WHAT.
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It's no wonder when MC falls in battle the whole rest of the party just pull down their pants and surrender. They're hopeless.
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I feel like at a point cheats dont take away from the run when the only option is grinding. whether you cheat or do it legit, your stats would end up the same. Theres an argument about the spirit of the challenge, but it would be terrible if it took a month to grind only to learn even at max level the challenge was unwinnable.
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There's something uniquely hilarious about Yu not doing anything for the whole game, and when he finally does he obliterates God from existence with a single move
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i find that hilarious that yukiko remembered she had a persona lmao
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Glad to see the OG P4 getting some love!
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"Yukiko thinking she's hot shit" and she's correct! ✅️✅️✅️
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My guess is Yukiko doesn't use fire attack spells since Shadow Naoto resists fire and would prioritize using an element they don't resist, in this case physical. I assume there's some priority when you have multiple healers on team so that one will be dedicated to attack and the other to healing, with Teddie having higher priority in this fight for some reason. So therefore, Yukiko only heals when Teddie is unable to heal at all, in this case when he runs out of SP. I'm just spitballing, so it could be wrong, but either way the AI in this game is stupid.
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As someone who basically always runs Teddie on his team its really surprising how little he gets used considering everything he provides.
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Bro, there's a bug in Adachi's dungeon where if you have nul physic attacks and you encounter a certain enemy, the battle can last a lot due to the enemy summoning allies and only attacking you with physical attacks (his minions also only have physical attacks), those battles can last a lot of hours and when you end then, the amount of exp that you earn es huge, making it more viable if you wanted to grind to level 99 with the whole party.
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So Yu Narukami is pulling a Luigi by doing absolutely nothing.
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Final boss looking at Yu: He's just standing there! Menacingly!
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As someone that's only played the PS2 version, it's delightful to see it getting some love!
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Just a guess, but I wonder if buffs aren't usable in p4's AI because the game doesn't know how to check for them? In p3, party skills were set, but in p4 you have a lot more control over what skills your party members learn (and even moreso in golden). Its possible that because the p3 AI knew exactly what levels it knew what buffs at, it was able to use them in P3, but that this returned errors in p4 depending on party builds, and so they just entirely took it out. that being said, its really disappointing to see that not much effort was put into the system, as the creator's supposedly really liked the idea of AI controlled parties, and only added party control due to fan request.
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about Yukiko doing basic attacks during the Shadow Naoto fight she does it only because her Ai relies on Teddie as healer, which is why she started healing when he ran out of sp. I can confirm this since Yukiko’s Ai still does this in Golden as I’m doing a challenge run where I only use Izanagi as my main Persona and am not allowed to control the party, Yukiko did this while I fought Shadow Mitsuo with Teddie & Yosuke in the meanwhile relying on Teddie as a healer regardless the tactic she’s set on besides Direct Commands.
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A CHALLENGE RUN ACTUALLY DONE IN THE PS2 VERSION OF PERSONA 4 WHAT IS THIS
