Yeah, that's why you try and flush them out on your turn. Know that that's what I did on my most recent playthrough. Meant that I only had the bosses to deal with and not their support thanks to Aya/Kusuha/Lune Map/Strike/Valor spam. Masaki was off somewhere else having gotten me that turn with a S/V Cyflash on the last group of grunts. If you don't care about the Skill Point, just let one scrub survive and kill it off with someone you don't care about too much. Granted, still needed to get lucky on a few evasions, but it also gave me time to spam Lefina's Trust and the Repair Module I gave her.
As for what I have been playing, updated my AG ISO and burned it, also modded my PS2 so that I can play PSX games (may also be theoretically possible to play PS2 games with the method I'm using, but haven't bothered to try yet. Maybe if I ever care about OGs) that do not exist here. Regardless, effectively finished with episode 6 which just needs some cleanup. Have gotten all of the Skill Points so far, though not looking forward to the next one, as I recall it previously needed me to pull out a crit to land it. And the PSX means no save states. It also means no slowdown so I can enjoy the flashiness and voices. Sadly, this is where I am likely to remain for a while as AG is not why I did all this. LFT is, and I'm going to be writing about those adventures elsewhere, for all that I have started a file which has, oddly enough, picked up a Suiko 1 theme after the first generic I recruited was named Viktor.
In non vaguely piracy related news, finished Persona 4. Definatly a good game, for all that I was sick and tired of seeing that final video by the time I had gotten the real ending. ie. got the Kinda mediocre ending, the good ending, and then the best one. Still only got about half the social links maxed, though I didn't even manage to find four of them to start them until mid-late October. Naturally, a bit late by then. Though, S Link growth does look a little bit less predictable for when they're available, so at least it's more of an art than P3, where it should be pretty easy to schedule, even if you do have more to get done in P3. (Well, 1 more, but there's more Sunday stuff and less night stuff so it really does balance).
Main plot? Definatly interesting, with the whole murder mystery aspect, and the motivations of the good ending are oddly refreshing and mildly understandable. Not that you're tempted to disagree with the party's reaction at all. Best ending... didn't feel tacked on. I'll give it that much. It just evoked a reaction of "Wait, what?" and "Why?" At least in 3 the final boss felt more like a sentient force of nature than anything I could understand, whereas this, did not.
Gameplay changes took some getting used to, especially the rejigged costs and the pruning down of physical elements. This led to a lot of physical skills honestly getting devalued and pruned quickly, since there's only so many ways to deal Medium Phys damage needed, while Bufula, Garula and Zionga all cohabitate very nicely with each other. They were still a good way to pump damage out with an easily replenished cost, just, you'd pick one, scrap the rest, and call it a day as opposed to actually wanting different options in P3. Especially since when weaknesses came up, there was no guarantee that I'd have somebody with that weapon type in the party, and I'm a) not going to equip a scrubby weapon of a type I can't reliably avoid ambush with on Minato, and b) too lazy to give up my progress just to stick an appropriate person into my party. Especially is it's Strike and I feel Akihiko was overlevelled. But, the fact that I could control my party members, along with pick and choose what skills they kept was wonderful. No more random status whoring burning through SP reserves. Random abilities picked up through S Link growth was also nice. It certainly made the enemies with no weaknesses a lot more tolerable thanks to the fact that there was now a decent chance of someone knocking them down for me. (Assuming Yosuke/Kanji didn't pipe up. Those two had the bad habit of not always going after the standing foes) Same with the higher level abilities. Hmm, suppose the last thing worth mentioning is Ma skills now giving advantage if they hit even one person with weakness which, meh. I liked the way they worked in 3 a fair bit. You got to save on SP, but you had the risk of missing. Or, even, you got to do damage to everything, but you gave up the One More if it was into mixed company. Also meant that you didn't get hosed for having someone with an elemental weakness. I know that I certainly kept a goto Persona with Null/Repel Ice on me at all times in the late game because with her access to the Media series, and insane SP pool Yukiko was almost always in my party (doesn't hurt that the only other PC with the Medias has forced S Link progression while you can have her maxed for Maru Q.
As for PCs themselves. Kanji was my favourite. Just a fun character, nicely expressive, and probably had the most growth over the course of the game. Yosuke is probably my second favourite, and it definatly helped that the two of them played off of each other constantly. Hell, their conversation after I picked Yosuke at the Group Date Cafe was the highlight of the School Festival. After that, probably Dojima, Rise, Chie, Yukiko and Naoto in that order, with Nanako coming in very far behind. Nanako... oddly enough not because I found her to be horribly annoying, she was, but nothing I couldn't shrug off, but because everyone else couldn't shut up about her. By mid-november I was thoroughly sick and tired of hearing Nanako-Chan repeated at least a dozen times each scene. As for Naoto, I think it's just my standard dislike of "smart" characters whose intelligence is never actually shown, but is a property given so that they can do plot exposition. Generally, this works better when your first response to their insights isn't "So why didn't you figure that out two months ago like I did?"
To finish all of this off, I kinda still want to compare it with P3 thanks to all the similar trappings, despite that fact that they go their own way with them. So, I'll just leave it at a vague I do prefer P3 more. But, P4 itself is probably an 8/10 worthy game, and one that will definatly get a replay. Maybe in 2011.
