Introduction (why use this guide?)

Discover how this Persona 4 Golden guide helps you max Social Stats, achieve the Golden Ending, romance characters, and complete all sidequests on your first playthrough.

Hello. Before anything else, thank you for choosing this guide. I hope it makes your experience with this awesome game that much more enjoyable.

Now on to business. I suppose you're thinking "what's so different about this guide compared to the others?". Well, in one word, choices. Or rather, which choices you can make at any given moment. Persona 4 Golden, much like 3 (correction: Persona 3 doesn't have these at all) and 5, has certain dialogue options locked behind a Social stat "paywall", and those are generally the best options to pick. This guide was tailored to have access to every dialogue option you're given, effectivelly making it seem these "paywalls" don't exist. In other words, you can get a 2nd playthrough experience on your 1st playthrough (except for two choices at the start of the game, where it's fundamentally impossible to reach that threshold in a 1st playthrough, and the secret boss fight).

However, full disclosure, to be able to achieve this kind of experience, we'll rely heavily on save scumming. Persona 4 Golden (like Persona 3 and 5) has a lot of RNG dependent activities, and we need to always get the best results to reach specific thresholds in time. And since these are random by nature, your mileage may vary on the amount of times you need to load back to get them (personally, I had to spend more than an 1 hour, once). All the results stated are possible, but there may be times when it feels like they aren't, is what I'm saying. And the only way around it, is by pushing through.

But if you decide to follow this guide anyway, you'll max out your Social Stats and get you the Golden Ending (True Ending plus the epilogue scene). Which means you're free to do as you want in your New Game + playthrough, and have access to the secret Persona through 12-way fusion.

Additionally, the guide allows you max out every Social Link. And in the case of the girls, romance how many you want. Not much, but most guides I've seen had you date every girl. Here, having a harem is optional. And in the case of party members, it allows all but one of your party members to unlock their 2nd Persona by the 5th dungeon (so, you can do 5 dungeons with their evolved form). The odd one out is due to them joining after the 5th dungeon, so they unlock it by the 7th (so, it's 3 dungeons for them). Also related to this, you can invite anyone you want to every event(Summer Festival, Christmas, New Year's and Valentine's) party member or not.

It also allows you to make 5 scooter rides with 4 party members (your Navi + 3 members of your choosing), unlocking 15 different skills for them to use in battle (your Navi doesn't learn new skills, but increases the damage done by your All-Out Attack up to 5 times). This totals 15 skills + 5 upgrades to your All-Out Attack.

Also, it allows you, at least, 6 free days to do as you want. This number can reach 8 (without losing anything), or 12 (you lose 3 free level ups and a costume set). These days can be used to get skill cards, go fishing, level-up for free, or grind. I'll leave the choice to you. But, if you're willing to, you can reach 13 free days (where you don't unlock the method to get specific skill cards, alongside the 12 days' caveats).

Plus, you get 6 free nights (with potentialy 4 more), where you can gain up to 90,000 yen (or 150,000 yen, if you get all the extra nights).

For the completionists, it includes the time-sensitive optional achievements (i.e., those that are unlocked in Inaba, and not in battle - except for the battle voicelines one, since there's a caveat to it), and steps needed to complete every sidequest. It also accounts for all the costumes for every character, models, dolls and Pub weapons, and every exam is aced. The only thing missing is all the skill cards.

All of this can be achieved on a first playthrough.

And, if you're still up to it, there's also a New Game + guide to help you make the most of your newly acquired free time.

Should you find some mistake, or have any questions, feel free to message me. I can't directly respond to or ask for clarification about feedback given to the guide, so I'd prefer if you sent me a direct message. But, please, try to be precise (i.e. tell me where it is, what is wrong and what happened with you) so I can more easily correct it. Every bit helps.

Thank you for your time. Enjoy!