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 (https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson)! Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server! (https://discord.gg/bptGyEWbk7) Social Media: BlueSky (https://bsky.app/profile/tftblpod.bsky.social) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/talesfromthebacklog/) Cover art by Jack Allen- find him at https://www.instagram.com/jackallencaricatures/ and his other pages (https://linktr.ee/JackAllenCaricatures)