Where Persona 3 was a dark, moody story about not only the nature of life and death but what it means to be alive and have lived, Persona 4 chose to take a step back and embrace a lighter tone, atypical to both the Persona sub-series and the Shin Megami Tensei franchise from which it originally spun off of. This is arguably why Persona 4 was such a success. On a mechanical level, the game really is more of the same. The fundamental gameplay changes are the addition of party control and a more traditional level design. Persona 4 bolsters the core of Persona 3 while repackaging the experience into a more approachable RPG.