About Persona 4

Battle System

Battle System
The other option for the player during his days is to enter the channel and battle. However, since S. Links are important and since all dungeons in the game must be completed before a deadline, the player must be considerate of how they use their time.

In the Midnight Channel, accessed by the Junes Department Store, the player will be able to enter the Velvet Room as well. Here, they can both access their Compendium (which stores all Personas they've used before) and fuse Personas to make new ones.

One of the biggest changes to the game (from P3) is that the player can control their party members (this must be done by setting the command to "Direct" in the Tactics menu first).

In the dungeons, the player can take up to 3 of his allies with him. The players will use their Personas in battle to combat the Bosses and Shadows that populate the strange TV World. In a battle, every combatant has HP & SP; when a player loses all of their HP, that player is automatically knocked out of the battle, and if the protagonist is knocked out, the game ends (though in the easy difficulty setting, the player can use one of 10 special items to automatically fully revive the party when he is knocked down).

There is a total of 9 different attacks in the game; Physical, Wind, Fire, Electric, Ice, Light, Dark, Almighty and All-Out. All players have a standard Physical attack that costs no HP or SP to use. The player and his allies must use weapons bought from the Daidara Metalworks shop in the Shopping District to perform the basic attacks. Also, some Personas can use more high-powered Physical attacks; but these cost the player a percentage of their HP. Wind, Fire, Electric and Ice attacks can only be done by the Personas, and cost SP instead. Light and Dark attacks will instantly subtract all HP from the target if they are successful. Almighty attacks cost SP, though all players have a normal affinity to them (see below for why this is advantageous). When all opponents are knocked down, the player and his allies can perform a high-powered All-Out Attack to deal massive damage.

Several status aliments can be inflicted as well.
Virtually, if not every, Persona and Shadow in the game will hold at least one of the following affinities to a move type:
Weak - Takes extra damage from the attack knocking the player down, and when knocked down, grants the attacker another turn. Attacker can't get an extra turn if the target is already knocked down. If hit with a move weak to while knocked down, you become Dizzy.

Strong - Takes considerably less damage from that attack.

Null - Takes no damage from that attack.

Drain - Gains HP equal to the damage instead.

Repel - Redirects the attack to the attacker.

Another way to knock down the enemy with more damage and gain another attack is a Critical strike, which only happens randomly out of luck (though some moves, like Rebellion and Revolution, can boost the Critical rate).
The Tired aliment that limited the time the player could spend in the dungeon's in Persona 3, is removed, though this is balanced out by the fact that the player - unlike in Persona 3 - cannot do a Social Link and enter the dungeon in the same day.

While HP-recovering spells are common and come naturally through upgraded party members, and since HP-recovering items are common and purchasable at stores, SP-recovering spells are almost non-existent and SP-recovering items cannot be bought and must be found in the dungeon chests; since SP is very important in battle and is difficult to recover, this is what makes grinding in one day difficult. There is a fox the player will eventually recruit that gives him the power to recover both HP and SP, though the cost for doing this is unsurprisingly quite high. Additionally, unlike in P3, returning to the entrance of the dungeon hub will not recover SP (or HP).

After completing a battle, the player may be able to partake in Shuffle Time; this can be denied. If accepted, the player will select a card that can be one of three things; a new Persona he receives, a blank card (that does nothing), or a Penalty Card which nullifies all rewards (money and experience) from that battle. Afterward, he may get the opportunity to partake in Arcana Chance; this will first show him an Arcana card, then if he accepts, the card will rotate until it lands upright or up-side-down. The upright landing grants the player a positive effect while the up-side-down landing gives him a negative effect.

Persona 4 Arena
In the True Ending of the game, Yosuke asks the protagonist whether he has plans in May, hinting at the release of Persona 4 Arena which starts in May, more specifically during Golden Week, two months after the True Ending of Persona 4.