As some of you may remember, Persona 4 was one of my favorite games of all time. That said, I never actually played through Golden, so with the Steam Release I picked up of the game a while back I figured I'd check it out finally. While it's still a great game, it is Persona 4 after all, I find myself wishing they released the original on Steam instead of the remake.
Something to know about Persona (At least starting with three, I didn't make it through one and two), is these games are all very long. This update adds a fair bit of new content, and it drags the game out even longer than it already is. On one hand, it's fine if it's good content, but in the case of Persona 4 Golden nothing that was added in really enhances the experience. The Marine Social link also brings with it the ability to teach Persona new abilities with Skill Cards. Marine herself is insufferable, and easily the worst social link of not only the game but possibly the whole series. It alters parts of the story and adds more to the lore in a way that doesn't enhance the narrative at all, it just tries to make it more complicated for no real gain.
As for mechanics, the Skill Cards are pretty much pointless. It takes so long before you get access to Skill Cards you'd want to use, and by that point, you already have so many Personas with the abilities you want anyway. It's just something else you end up keeping track of and wasting time with before you realize how pointless it all is.
The thing that kills me the most though is the post-battle cards that were added into the game. Other than the original uses, you can now get cards that level up your persona's or upgrade their abilities. The issue here is with a little luck the game becomes almost immediately trivial to beat. Getting access so early to Null Physical or other Elemental abilities makes so many battles in this game entirely trivial. It's not even expanding options, it's just making everything you have already better for no real effort. While the base game offers a good challenge, the inclusion of this can drain that away almost entirely.
Throw in both another possible ending that is stupid and you can only get it by making blatantly idiotic choices, an Adachi Social Link that adds no additional depth to his character, and we can add furthermost of the additional scenes added to this version of the game, while nice, don't do much for the story. (Okay, Naoto comes in with the coldest line of the entire show during the Ski Trip which I did love).
This isn't to say that there is nothing of value-added. In this version, raising Social Links with your party also gives you the option to learn new skills, and gives a bit more ways to customize your characters. If you take time to do the rides with allies there are even more options of skills, and this does give you a lot of different ways to tweak the party you simply didn't have before. It's pretty much the best thing the game added in. Now, not all abilities were created equal. Kanji and Teddie get new unique abilities that are worthless, where as Yukiko and Naoto get a couple of the best abilities in the game, and frankly, Naoto's (So long as you give her a Chakra Ring) makes the games last boss entirely trivial.
If you don't have a choice and Golden is the only version you have access too, it's still a fantastic game. But there isn't getting around the additional content ends up being more harmful to the experience then it is beneficial. Definitely stick with the original PS2 version.