168: Persona 4 Golden (with Flora Merigold)

Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson Persona games are a tough sell for a guy who does a weekly podcast like this, so thank you to my wonderful patrons for voting Persona 4 Golden onto the show. While it has all of the pacing issues that you would expect an 80 hour game to have, I thought this is, in some ways, the best of the Persona 4/5/Metaphor trio that I've played in the last five years. Tune in to the episode to find out why. Guest Info: Flora Merigold Find her writing at Epilogue Gaming https://epiloguegaming.com/flora-merigold/ Hear her on Left Behind Game Club https://leftbehindgame.club/ Follow her on BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/floramerigold.bsky.social TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Title Card 0:22 Intros 4:40 Personal Histories with Persona and Persona 4 8:07 Opening Thoughts about Persona 4 Golden 16:05 Murder Mystery Story Setup 21:55 Characters and Problematic Representation(?) 37:13 Story Themes and PSA for New Players 49:03 Visuals 57:12 Music 1:05:42 Dungeon Crawling and Combat 1:28:03 Life-Sim Gameplay 1:44:52 Closing Thoughts/Recommendations/Plugs 1:55:14 SPOILER WALL/Patron Thank-Yous 1:56:49 Spoilers- Kanji, Naoto and Representation 2:37:34 Spoilers- Teddie and Rise and More Music used in the episode is credited to Shoji Meguro. Tracks used: Glimpse of a Memory, Signs of Love, Like a Dream Come True, Heartbreak, Heartbeat, Reach Out to the Truth (First Battle), Sauna, Studio Backlot, Junes Theme, Your Affection, Results Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi! Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server! Social Media: BlueSky Instagram Cover art by Jack Allen- find him at https://www.instagram.com/jackallencaricatures/ and his other pages