"Persona 4 Golden" : Mechanics & Gimmicks Quiz

Answer: Walk away from the closest door

The pattern behind these teleportations is that they always leave the player right in front of a door off to the side. If the player tries to approach this door, they will simply be teleported away. The room itself loops around, so the player will end up being teleported in a way where they can "backtrack" and enter the doors behind them that way.

This will eventually allow them to face the floor's mini boss, and defeating this enemy will deactivate the teleportation gimmick.

Answer: Loss of all progress towards the next level

Ai Ebihara and Naoto Shirogane can enter Reverse Socials with the player. For the former, calling out her behavior in rejecting a boy as being "cruel" will cause her social to enter a Reverse Social status. For the latter, when she requests the player's assistance with an investigation case, telling Naoto that she's on her own instead of choosing to support her will prompt a Reverse Social.

Answer: Hands reward the player much more upon defeat

Hands will yield massive amounts of money, experience points and items on defeat. It is highly recommended that the player fight them whenever possible. It should be noted, however, that they Drain and Repel all non-physical attacks with the exception of Almighty, and they have the High Counter passive skill, giving them a 20% chance to deflect a physical attack back at the attacker.

As such, the player will want to be packing Almighty, or at least Physical, to take the Hands down.

Answer: No

Unfortunately, unlike "Persona 5" which became quite popular for giving players the possibility to still do things after a dungeon crawl, "Persona 4" will always force the player to end their day, and there is no way to prevent this.

Answer: The lights turn off

With the lights off, the player will only be able to see directly in front of them. This not only makes it harder to ambush enemies, but it makes it harder for the player to avoid getting ambushed themselves.

Answer: Fourth

Predictably, a mini boss guards the Orb of Darkness. Because dungeons in this game are procedurally generated, it is possible to receive a layout in which the player cannot even go to the next floor without beating this mini boss, meaning they'd have to take the Orb of Darkness anyway. Because of this, the gimmick has a tendency to fall flat on its face.

Answer: Almighty

Despite the cutscene for All-Out Attacks showing the team closing in on and beating the stuffing out of their target, they do not deal Physical damage. This makes All-Out Attacks impossible to nullify and it makes them very narrowly resisted across the game, often making them a good idea to activate when the game asks the player if they want to do so. Furthermore, if the player ends a fight with an All-Out Attack, with the exception of main boss fights, they will be guaranteed a Shuffle Time after the fight.

Answer: Nothing

This was intended to be flavor, showing off Naoto Shirogane's mental state rather than actually providing an in-game mechanic. With Naoto's gender identity being such a focal point, the imagery basically suggests that Naoto pretending to be a man has been an unsuccessful means of 'defending' her ambitions of becoming a detective for the local police department. Given that the department is very male-dominant, Naoto's efforts to attain respect fail on both herself and the department itself, and this is how the game chooses to portray this.

Answer: Jump through a hole

In the middle of a larger than average room lies a big, spacious hole. Once the player activates dialogue from Adachi at the end of the floor, they can interact with this hole and choose to jump through it. This will force them to leave the dungeon entirely.

Answer: The team's SP is halved

At the end of each fight, the game will take the current SP of all active party members and cut it right in half. If the player is using a Persona with the Victory Cry passive ability, this ability will be applied before SP is halved, meaning they will always end combat encounters with exactly half their maximum SP. A similar line of thought applies to the Cool Breeze passive ability.

Answer: Almighty

There are a small amount of enemies who bizarrely resist Almighty, but none who are immune. The player themselves cannot even become resistant to Almighty. The idea behind Almighty was to become a jack of all trades type element, one which is impossible to resist but also one which nothing is weak to. Enemies in this game break the rules of the former, though they thankfully do not in future "Persona" games.

Given that Almighty is classed as a "non-element" by the very game itself, it logically should be impossible to resist or be weak to.

Answer: Nobody takes any damage

For the sake of not having this attack be endlessly Repelled back and forth until the end of time, the offender in this context will have their attack Repelled, but they will not Repel it back, and will simply take no damage from the Repel. The turn will then end and combat will proceed.

Answer: 90%

Alice is a Persona with an exclusive spell 'Die for Me!' This instakill attack has a 60% chance on each enemy in combat to instakill them with a Darkness attack. If Alice is equipped with the Mudo Boost passive ability, this 60% chance is increased to a 90% chance, which is obviously quite powerful. Of course, this chance does drop to 0% against bosses and mini bosses, but it makes Alice unmatched at her efficiency to deal with lesser enemies along the way to these boss fights.

Answer: Instant game over

Unlike their teammates, when the MC dies, whoever the navigator is will cry out in despair as the main character falls to the ground and dies. This immediately ends the combat encounter and forces the player into a Game Over screen. Depending on what difficulty setting the player chose, they can either be given the chance to try that combat encounter again, to respawn at the beginning of the floor they were on, they can get time traveled back by one week or, at its harshest, their playthrough can simply be over then and there.

Answer: 25

After the 25th turn, Margaret will begin a never-ending cycle of spamming Mind Charged Megidolaons. This deals a scripted 9,999 damage, which cannot be mitigated in anyway and is guaranteed to one-shot all of the player's characters by a mile. Margaret will also do this if the main character is using a Persona which has Null or better against her other spells. Funny enough, this means the player must make themselves vulnerable to her hard hitting attacks, lest they wish to be blown away by her hard-est hitting attack.