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Persona 4 Golden runs on a calendar, and that one fact shapes everything else about it. There is a fixed number of days between April and March, almost every system in the game wants one of them, and several of the things you most want are only available on a single date.
So all six parts of our coverage are organised around scarcity rather than around lists. Bonds are sorted by the date they open against the deadline they share. Dungeons are sorted by the check each one runs on your party. Items are sorted by how easily you lose them. Systems are sorted by what one afternoon buys. And the story is sorted by the date each decision becomes irreversible.
Three things worth knowing on day one
Your ending is decided in April. Marie's Social Link, which is the only route to the Golden ending and to the bonus dungeon behind it, has to be opened manually in the Velvet Room after 18 April and maxed by 22 December. Nothing prompts you to start it.
Bank Courage and Knowledge from the beginning. Those two stats gate Chie's bond in May and both halves of Naoto's in October, and Naoto opens roughly five weeks before all of the Investigation Team bonds shut on 27 November. If the stats are not there by then, she is unreachable.
And buy Hyperspeed Reading the day it appears in August. It costs four evenings and halves the price of every book you read for the rest of the year, with about thirty still unread at that point.
The six parts of our coverage
Party members puts every Investigation Team bond in the order it opens, from Yosuke on 4/16 to Naoto on 10/21, against the 27 November deadline they all share. It has the days and places each one is available, which four are blocked by rain, the stat gates that stall a bond mid-way, and the combat ability ladder every team link pays out on.
Social links outside your party covers the five optional bonds on the same calendar logic, including the club choice in April that permanently closes one of them and the three separate conditions that make Nanako look bugged when she is not. It also makes the case for Fox, whose payoff is not a Persona at all but a permanent discount on the thing you spend most of your money on.
Dungeons sorts all eight by the check each one runs on you: the calendar, the element, the wall, attrition, or the rule change. It has the rescue windows and what replaces each story boss when you miss one, a lookup for every boss that covers its own weakness, and the resource maths behind the long climbs.
Systems ranks the game's mechanics by what one slot of time actually pays, which puts part-time jobs at the top because a single shift pays yen, a social stat and often a bond. It also covers what raises each of the five social stats, the systems that cost no calendar at all like fusion and Golden Hand hunting, and how difficulty quietly changes every one of those rates.
Items is ordered by how easily you lose something, from the six items that exist on one calendar day each, through the three books locked behind a specific Social Link rank on a specific date, down to the gear where yen is the only obstacle.
The story is the murder mystery, sorted by the date each decision becomes irreversible. Four dates decide all six endings, including the one question on 3 December that can end your playthrough on the spot, and the investigation that makes naming the culprit obvious rather than a guess.
The pages that stand on their own
If you are just starting, our beginners tips cover the habits worth building in the first few weeks, and our best Personas guide is the shortlist worth fusing towards once you understand the system.
Our romance options guide covers who you can date and what that commits you to, which matters more than it sounds because two Christmas items depend on it. And Shadow Yosuke is the game's first real fight, taken alone before anyone else has a Persona, and it is what gives Yosuke Jiraiya and makes him a party member.
Where to start
First week: read the beginners tips, then open Marie's link in the Velvet Room, and take a part-time job as soon as one is available, because it is the best use of a slot in the game.
Through the spring and summer: clear each dungeon early in its window rather than late, because every extra day inside is a day not spent on a bond, and both have deadlines. Keep Courage and Knowledge climbing in the background.
From October: treat Naoto as the priority over every other bond, since she has five weeks and everyone else has had months. And from December, our story guide is the one to have open, because that is where the calendar stops being about efficiency and starts deciding which ending you get.