What the Ferret said-it's a game that came out very late in the PS2's life cycle, but managed to find a significant following regardless. It's a member of the Shin Megami Tensei series, famous for their impressive levels of difficulty, random dungeons, and the importance of status effects and buffs in combat. There are monsters visible as random encounters on the map-and you can either take them unawares, or be ambushed by them.

But that's only half the game-maybe less. Because most of Persona 4 is a visual novel, happens in the real world, and consists of meeting, befriending, and helping people who correspond to the Major Arcana of the tarot, so that you can summon more and more powerful creatures from the collective unconsciousness to fight for you. The dedicated may wind up with such notables as Lucifer, Amaterasu, Avalokiteśvara in her incarnation as Kanzeon, and the most famous of Ainu deities-the Bear. Fear the bear! But the game shouldn't have to bribe you with mystical power to pursue these people's stories. They are not Death, Justice and the Lovers-they are Hisano, Nanako, and Rise.

There is also a minor sequel, Persona 4 Arena, which again combines the Visual Novel with another game type-a fighting game. That expands on the Persona meta-plot and brings in a number of popular characters from the preceding game Persona 3. It also bring back Margret and her total bullshit abilities-seriously, 9999 damage in a game that only has 999 as the maximum health?

Anyways, that's a bit of a long winded digression on what the game is, when the real question here is 'what kind of support exists for people in these situations in UF?' Is there a hotline? An IPO team that might be conceivably sent to investigate the mysterious murders?

“Navigare Necesse Est”-'Get me out of here!'