I'm liking these small, sometimes subtle changes to the P3 formula that ultimately make the gameplay more interesting.
1. You can only do dungeon crawling, at least so far, in the afternoon. so this means choosing between doing an S link, raising stats, doing a job, or doing the dungeon.
2. Since the game is based around weather, there's more tension since weather is more random, as opposed to the moon cycle. So since there's more tension - there's not a whole month to plan out my activities like in P3 - I have to weigh in and deduce what I want to do every single day in P4 so far to make it count. I'm watching the weather like a hawk.
3. The dungeon crawling actually feels like dungeon crawling. Traps from chests, huge floor labyrinths that don't take 10 seconds to clear like in P3, chests seem to appear less and drop less important stuff like in P3. There's no easy access to the bottom floor any more either and when you do hit the bottom floor your hp/sp aren't refilled. If you're in the dungeon and forget to buy the item that lets you teleport out...good luck. I forgot to get one on my last adventure through the dungeon I'm in. I started to panic because I had zero sp, I was running low on items, so I ran downstairs until I reached the first floor. Because enemies are harder to avoid now this made things scary for me, honestly. Little did I know that later on you can find save points that act as Terminals that take you back to the ground floor, but my point still stands. Compared to P3's relatively easy beginning, it feels like day and night.
4. Things just feel more balanced in general. I mean, in P3 you'd be dead pressed to NOT get a player advantage every battle. It was that simple. But in P4 due to the size of the enemies, the extremely SMALL corridors, it's not only hard to avoid them but also get player advantages. I'm also loving the new Shuffle Time.
Due to the time constraints and limit, the fact items cost wayyyy more now (I'm not sure if I accidentally put it on expert mode or what yet), and the amount of stuff you can do in one day P4 is already starting to feel more tense than the laid back atmosphere in P3.
I'm really glad they brought back the things I love about SMT too, like the "there's something behind this door, go in?" or enemy reinforcements...which are always fun when you're low on supplies.
So far I'm pretty satisfied, but I still haven't died yet. Then again, I'm just about ready to fight this dungeon's boss so we'll see.
