VN - Ren'Py - Persona 4: Rise Gaiden [v0.31] [Golden Goose Games]

I'm about 40 minutes in now, but my GOD this is amazing.
The presentation is top fucking notch.

UI Animation and writing that rivals P4 itself, with pretty good character models and a lot of charm to it. If this keeps up, it might just become the greatest of its kind.

I mean, FFS, the only real complaint I have so far is that the text uses regular dashes instead of em dashes (- vs —). I have to get that petty to find a fault.

The game is excellent! Though, not a lot of content yet.

Everything really feels... right and nostalgic, with the music and soundbites, like Nanako calling you 'Big Bro'! Its like I'm playthrough of Persona 4 on the PS3. The character models and portraits, the background and cutscenes, captures that feeling.

For the H-scenes, the camera work is superb and does the game Justice! Sometimes it pans through a room, to the 'action' in third-person, very briefly, but when it goes first-person perspective and stays 'til the climax, 5 out of 5. Not many games have good first-person or at all.

The gameplay mechanic, such as the stats, is interesting. They can led to secret scenarios or small dialogues. Currently, there's locked options for Lust 3, 1 Courage 5, and 8 Expression. I personally like it and hope those stats influences some H-scenes, like corrupting love interests with Lust or having enough Courage to sneak into a room at night.

This creator LOVE the Persona games: The menus, sounds, background recreations, and even the Dance spin-off!!

Not a Koikatsu game but a VN and Social game, just like de original one. Also great work on character recreation.
Only drawbak is the Social earned poinst are not cleary showed (+2 instead of +1) and not yet impact on the initial release thus far. But it's yet too soon to asume.
Looking for future updates

Obviously a very early build so this may change in the future, but so far way better than other persona parody games.

Runs smoothly and the animations don't lag or bug anything out, models look so much nicer than the koikatsu ones so I'm really hopeful that the dev won't switch them out.

Only thing that's lacking is content, so I can't wait to see more (Especially Naoto)

Good luck Dev!