Okay so, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 is a great game; I can't stress that enough. It is, however, a frustrating game. While P4 did improve on P3 in many important ways to streamline the experience, it is still a fact that P4 motivated me to hurl my controller on many occasions. I feel the primary source of my frustration lies in how common instant-kill moves are on frequently encountered enemies. There's nothing quite like stumbling into a Shadow and immediately being killed because you didn't have the initiative and the enemy was packing a Hama or Mudo spell. Granted, the developers did take pains to reduce the likelihood of this occurring; if you have close relationships with your party members, they will often push you, the protagonist aside just as you are about to suffer a fatal blow and bear the brunt of the attack. There is also an item called the Homonculus that will automatically sacrifice itself to prevent an instant-kill spell from going off. Despite all these safeguards, nothing can reduce my rage when I have to lose 5 floors of progress because I was attacked from behind and nailed with four instant-kill spells in a row. And they often cast a version that targets your entire party, which means there's no saving you.

How could they have alleviated this stress further? Don't issue a game over as soon as the protagonist goes down. Most RPGs do this, why not Persona? Granted, Persona does follow the mute protagonist model and you, as the gamer, are expected to fill his shoes; without your input, the game cannot continue. But come on, Yukiko has a resurrection spell! Why must she be limited to using it only on two of her party members? I feel like this is an artificial inflation of difficulty for an already satisfyingly challenging game. I guess I shouldn't complain. Persona 3 was worse, and it took me a good 20 hours longer to complete.