All the way back in 2017, I played Persona 5. I picked it up on a whim the day after it released, because my friend loves the Persona series and recommended I get into it, and not too long after I was hooked. That same friend also gave me SMT4 around that same time and I didn't really get into at all. But it did get me more interested in Megaten as a whole. Fast forward to the Summer, I go to TooManyGames 2017. I remember seeing the Persona 5 collectors edition, man good times. Ah anyways, I also stumbled upon Persona 3 FES and Persona 4 inside a glass cabinet along with some other Megaten games. Naturally of them all, I was most interested in P3 and P4 seeing as I was a huge fan of 5. Knowing the price of the Raidou games, I wish I picked those up then since they were only $30 but in the end I bought both FES and P4. Oh, not at the convention btw. I bought them off eBay the day after cuz I realized you could get them for cheaper there. Anyways, to this day I still haven't touched vanilla P4 since I played Golden. But FES, I picked up and dropped several times over the years. I really don't know why it wasn't grabbing me but the furthest I ever until this most recent playthrough was the first full moon operation on the subway. Either way, I can say I've finally beaten Persona 3 FES and I'm happy to say I ended up enjoying it overall.
Let's start with the story. I think overall, it's good and has some really fantastic moments. The beginning scene where the MC awakens to his Persona, to the whole turning point in Junpei's arc near the end of the game (if you know you know) to the whole last hour or two. There's some super good moments throughout the game, I just wish the story's pacing was better. After the MC's awakening in the beginning, I found the story to be super slow up until the middle of the game where it starts picking up again. Then near the end before the grand finale I found it dragged a bit. Pacing-wise, I thought it was the worst of the nusona games but specific moment-wise it's some of the best in the series. I do think the whole theme of facing death head on and not being afraid of it and making the most of life is super strong though, especially in the end-game. They really hammer that theme into you by the end but it works really well.
The main cast is solid overall but it can be a mixed bag. I really liked Akihiko, Yukari, Junpei and Aigis by the end of the game. They all felt really fleshed out and I just liked them the most. Mitsuru is decent but I expected her to be better, idk why I found her somewhat bland. Fuuka and Ken are the definitely the weakest party members imo and a big part of that, besides just not caring about their characters as much, was their voice acting. This game has really solid voice acting (the 4 characters I listed at the beginning) and then it has some really awful voice acting (Fuuka, Ken, Shinjiro, the chairman). Fuuka especially man, she sounded more robotic than Aigis it's crazy. This no doubt took me out of the story a bit just cuz those 4 are so prominent. Oh and can't forget Koromaru, interesting that he's the only normal animal sidekick in which he doesnt actually speak but he's a good boy nonetheless.
Going into more of the game's characters, let's talk about the social links. They're a bit more hit or miss in this game compared to 4 and 5. Akinari may be the best social link in the entire series with how good it is. I was tearing up in literally every rank, no doubt due to the music that plays during it. Yukari, Maiko and Chihiro were probably my favorites then after Akinari. I didn't even think Gourmet King's was bad like some people say considering his whole backstory and everything making me sympathize with him. However, a lot of the others I just thought were decent, very meh or just straight up bad. The worst by far was Kenji's, one of the worst in the series imo and just such a nothing Social Link. Same with Bebe, just did absolutely nothing for me. I didn't love 4's social links either but I think overall they're better in that game, especially since there's no male party member SL in 3. Yeah that's a weird omission, along with being forced to romance all the school girl social links, just overall the weakest of the nusona social links imo. It's not a terrible first try at the social aspect tho, but it's clear it's the first game to try to tackle it. 5 definitely has the best social links I think even if there are a couple duds in that game as well.
Something I actually dissed on stupidly was the game's soundtrack. Idk what was wrong with me but I originally just thought it was out right bad (besides battle for everyone's souls) but have since realized it's actually a super great ost, liking it so much now I think I like it more than 4's soundtrack. 5 is still easily my favorite but never did I think I'd like 3's ost more than 4's. Some of my favorite songs were the aforementioned Battle For Everyone's Souls, Joy, Living With Determination, Memories of the City and many more. Honestly, absolutely insane how much my opinion on the OST changed but I'm super glad I can see now why people love it so much.
Just a couple of random things I liked before I get into the combat. I really like that in part with the theme of death, every single party member experiences the loss of a friend or relative throughout the story. It really makes the dorm's friendship more believable since they can all relate to each other. The 2nd awakenings are easily the best in the nusona games simply because they aren't tied to the social links and are apart of the main story. Really felt impactful, especially Junpei's goddamn man. Also really enjoyed the atmosphere, mostly in the Dark Hour and Tartarus. Seeing how each Tartarus block would look was fun.
Speaking of Tartarus, it's one of the most contentious aspects of the game (along with tactics of course). Some people really love it and some people despise it. Me? It's not terrible but it's definitely the worse of the Nusona dungeons imo (yes I like 4's more) and probably the worst of the PS2 megaten games in terms of its dungeons. Absolutely does not touch DDS1's dungeons for example, but I didn't hate it overall. At first, I was just not getting into it but after a while you get used to the flow of doing a bunch of floors, then social link stuff then Tartarus and repeat. Near the middle of the game is where I was sort of getting burnt out on it a bit, especially since you do have to grind in this game and around that point I feel like enemies weren't giving great exp. Maybe I was over leveled then, idk but near the end game I was getting loads more exp and my personas were actually good so I got over my burn out near the middle of the game. Either way, Tartarus is just meh imo. Thematically it works but gameplay wise it leaves a lot to be desired.
Funnily enough, I ended up thinking more positively on tactics this time around. I still definitely prefer controlling your party members, but tactics works really well for the most part. You just have to not be dumb and engage in the mechanic. If you simply set your party to act freely all the time, then yeah they're gonna do whatever and are more prone to do stupid shit. But if you set them accordingly then I don't see the issue at all really. In fact I found it fun the more tactics you got as you progressed. Though, one issue I personally had is when I want a group heal from Yukari. Someone is super low on health, while the others aren't as low but are still missing a chunk of their health. If only one party member has less than 50% of their health, then she'll single target them and that's it. In that case, I'd want to be able to control my party members but that was about it really. One more still doesn't touch press turn imo, and I'd take controllable party members over tactics I'd say but this game clearly is built around tactics and it works really well.
Honestly, super glad I ended up enjoying FES, even if it's my least favorite nusona and my least favorite PS2 Megaten game. I was expecting to actually dislike this one cuz that's how I felt the few times I tried to get into it. It has its faults but it also has its highs and yeah I recommend playing this even with Reload out now. It may fix some of this games issues idk, but this is still a good time I'd say. Going onto almost 7 years since I got into Persona and Megaten as a whole and I'm just happy to say I've beaten all the nusona games now!
Let's start with the story. I think overall, it's good and has some really fantastic moments. The beginning scene where the MC awakens to his Persona, to the whole turning point in Junpei's arc near the end of the game (if you know you know) to the whole last hour or two. There's some super good moments throughout the game, I just wish the story's pacing was better. After the MC's awakening in the beginning, I found the story to be super slow up until the middle of the game where it starts picking up again. Then near the end before the grand finale I found it dragged a bit. Pacing-wise, I thought it was the worst of the nusona games but specific moment-wise it's some of the best in the series. I do think the whole theme of facing death head on and not being afraid of it and making the most of life is super strong though, especially in the end-game. They really hammer that theme into you by the end but it works really well.
The main cast is solid overall but it can be a mixed bag. I really liked Akihiko, Yukari, Junpei and Aigis by the end of the game. They all felt really fleshed out and I just liked them the most. Mitsuru is decent but I expected her to be better, idk why I found her somewhat bland. Fuuka and Ken are the definitely the weakest party members imo and a big part of that, besides just not caring about their characters as much, was their voice acting. This game has really solid voice acting (the 4 characters I listed at the beginning) and then it has some really awful voice acting (Fuuka, Ken, Shinjiro, the chairman). Fuuka especially man, she sounded more robotic than Aigis it's crazy. This no doubt took me out of the story a bit just cuz those 4 are so prominent. Oh and can't forget Koromaru, interesting that he's the only normal animal sidekick in which he doesnt actually speak but he's a good boy nonetheless.
Going into more of the game's characters, let's talk about the social links. They're a bit more hit or miss in this game compared to 4 and 5. Akinari may be the best social link in the entire series with how good it is. I was tearing up in literally every rank, no doubt due to the music that plays during it. Yukari, Maiko and Chihiro were probably my favorites then after Akinari. I didn't even think Gourmet King's was bad like some people say considering his whole backstory and everything making me sympathize with him. However, a lot of the others I just thought were decent, very meh or just straight up bad. The worst by far was Kenji's, one of the worst in the series imo and just such a nothing Social Link. Same with Bebe, just did absolutely nothing for me. I didn't love 4's social links either but I think overall they're better in that game, especially since there's no male party member SL in 3. Yeah that's a weird omission, along with being forced to romance all the school girl social links, just overall the weakest of the nusona social links imo. It's not a terrible first try at the social aspect tho, but it's clear it's the first game to try to tackle it. 5 definitely has the best social links I think even if there are a couple duds in that game as well.
Something I actually dissed on stupidly was the game's soundtrack. Idk what was wrong with me but I originally just thought it was out right bad (besides battle for everyone's souls) but have since realized it's actually a super great ost, liking it so much now I think I like it more than 4's soundtrack. 5 is still easily my favorite but never did I think I'd like 3's ost more than 4's. Some of my favorite songs were the aforementioned Battle For Everyone's Souls, Joy, Living With Determination, Memories of the City and many more. Honestly, absolutely insane how much my opinion on the OST changed but I'm super glad I can see now why people love it so much.
Just a couple of random things I liked before I get into the combat. I really like that in part with the theme of death, every single party member experiences the loss of a friend or relative throughout the story. It really makes the dorm's friendship more believable since they can all relate to each other. The 2nd awakenings are easily the best in the nusona games simply because they aren't tied to the social links and are apart of the main story. Really felt impactful, especially Junpei's goddamn man. Also really enjoyed the atmosphere, mostly in the Dark Hour and Tartarus. Seeing how each Tartarus block would look was fun.
Speaking of Tartarus, it's one of the most contentious aspects of the game (along with tactics of course). Some people really love it and some people despise it. Me? It's not terrible but it's definitely the worse of the Nusona dungeons imo (yes I like 4's more) and probably the worst of the PS2 megaten games in terms of its dungeons. Absolutely does not touch DDS1's dungeons for example, but I didn't hate it overall. At first, I was just not getting into it but after a while you get used to the flow of doing a bunch of floors, then social link stuff then Tartarus and repeat. Near the middle of the game is where I was sort of getting burnt out on it a bit, especially since you do have to grind in this game and around that point I feel like enemies weren't giving great exp. Maybe I was over leveled then, idk but near the end game I was getting loads more exp and my personas were actually good so I got over my burn out near the middle of the game. Either way, Tartarus is just meh imo. Thematically it works but gameplay wise it leaves a lot to be desired.
Funnily enough, I ended up thinking more positively on tactics this time around. I still definitely prefer controlling your party members, but tactics works really well for the most part. You just have to not be dumb and engage in the mechanic. If you simply set your party to act freely all the time, then yeah they're gonna do whatever and are more prone to do stupid shit. But if you set them accordingly then I don't see the issue at all really. In fact I found it fun the more tactics you got as you progressed. Though, one issue I personally had is when I want a group heal from Yukari. Someone is super low on health, while the others aren't as low but are still missing a chunk of their health. If only one party member has less than 50% of their health, then she'll single target them and that's it. In that case, I'd want to be able to control my party members but that was about it really. One more still doesn't touch press turn imo, and I'd take controllable party members over tactics I'd say but this game clearly is built around tactics and it works really well.
Honestly, super glad I ended up enjoying FES, even if it's my least favorite nusona and my least favorite PS2 Megaten game. I was expecting to actually dislike this one cuz that's how I felt the few times I tried to get into it. It has its faults but it also has its highs and yeah I recommend playing this even with Reload out now. It may fix some of this games issues idk, but this is still a good time I'd say. Going onto almost 7 years since I got into Persona and Megaten as a whole and I'm just happy to say I've beaten all the nusona games now!
Is life worth it?
Persona 3 settles the player into an ultimately repetitive cycle. Do an activity during the day, do an activity during the evening, chop away at the ever-tedious Tartarus, and fight a boss at full moon. Repeat.
Oftentimes there are stretches where you can't do anything, nowhere is this more apparent than the vast amount of empty evenings you are tasked to repeat. Or December. I could not for the life of me find anything to do during December.
It then asks you at the very end: "Did you make the most of this?"
Did you make the most of this game? Were there characters you ultimately regret not bonding with? Did you regret any other decisions?
Did the characters make the most of their year?
Is it even worth living life through so many hardships?
They used a year of their youth for the future.
How often do you think about the future?
Persona 3 is about the little time you have. The most obvious use of this idea is the dark hour. Having an hour every day no one is conscious of, a dead hour ultimately everyone wastes is a straightforward but effective method to paint this central picture.
If there was one thing that had to grow on me, it would be the characters.
They are not badly written by any means, they're great. I'm especially fond of Akihiko. Initial impressions gave me the thought that a story grasping with mortality in the way Persona 3 does could have benefited from a more mature cast.
It is of course a coming of age story, like so many others. Most, if not all of these stories utilize their teen casts to grasp the future.
I thought 3's "retrospective on life" tone would clash with its youthful party, and could have been more impactful when tackled through the lens of people that have lived most of their lives already, but blending the two outlooks into one actually makes for an interesting back and forth between retro-, and prospect.
I'll admit I was in a slight rush when playing this game, because a game I was highly anticipating was right around the corner.
But I feel that in the grand scheme of things, this did not hamper my experience with Persona 3. Maybe it even strengthened it.
I see the irony in having a limited time to play a game all about this central idea.
Though maybe that was the reason I drew the conclusions I did out of Persona 3.
The answer is yes.
Persona 3 settles the player into an ultimately repetitive cycle. Do an activity during the day, do an activity during the evening, chop away at the ever-tedious Tartarus, and fight a boss at full moon. Repeat.
Oftentimes there are stretches where you can't do anything, nowhere is this more apparent than the vast amount of empty evenings you are tasked to repeat. Or December. I could not for the life of me find anything to do during December.
It then asks you at the very end: "Did you make the most of this?"
Did you make the most of this game? Were there characters you ultimately regret not bonding with? Did you regret any other decisions?
Did the characters make the most of their year?
Is it even worth living life through so many hardships?
They used a year of their youth for the future.
How often do you think about the future?
Persona 3 is about the little time you have. The most obvious use of this idea is the dark hour. Having an hour every day no one is conscious of, a dead hour ultimately everyone wastes is a straightforward but effective method to paint this central picture.
If there was one thing that had to grow on me, it would be the characters.
They are not badly written by any means, they're great. I'm especially fond of Akihiko. Initial impressions gave me the thought that a story grasping with mortality in the way Persona 3 does could have benefited from a more mature cast.
It is of course a coming of age story, like so many others. Most, if not all of these stories utilize their teen casts to grasp the future.
I thought 3's "retrospective on life" tone would clash with its youthful party, and could have been more impactful when tackled through the lens of people that have lived most of their lives already, but blending the two outlooks into one actually makes for an interesting back and forth between retro-, and prospect.
I'll admit I was in a slight rush when playing this game, because a game I was highly anticipating was right around the corner.
But I feel that in the grand scheme of things, this did not hamper my experience with Persona 3. Maybe it even strengthened it.
I see the irony in having a limited time to play a game all about this central idea.
Though maybe that was the reason I drew the conclusions I did out of Persona 3.
The answer is yes.
it's been weeks since i finished persona 3 fes, and yet i still find myself searching for the words to summarize how i feel about it.
this game is truly stunning in every way. the combat is layered, expertly weaving main plot theme and narrative with it's use of tactics and tartarus. the characters are independent of the mc, with the game being entirely unafraid to explore them in both flaw and strength, writing them in the most natural and real of any persona game. the protagonist is one of the strongest silent protagonists i've ever experienced, ending up as my favourite character for so many reasons, and the skill in which the writers round him out and make him a fully living being in this dark, scary world is unbelievable.
every single shred of persona 3 fes is dripping with its themes, every ending and variable in the game gives you such immense emotion and outlook, with the tone and the atmosphere never shying away.
p3's themes are treasured in my heart, and yet plays with ideas that keep me up at night with worry. it delivers on both with exceptional skill. my all time favourite persona, and a new favourite game of all time.
this game is truly stunning in every way. the combat is layered, expertly weaving main plot theme and narrative with it's use of tactics and tartarus. the characters are independent of the mc, with the game being entirely unafraid to explore them in both flaw and strength, writing them in the most natural and real of any persona game. the protagonist is one of the strongest silent protagonists i've ever experienced, ending up as my favourite character for so many reasons, and the skill in which the writers round him out and make him a fully living being in this dark, scary world is unbelievable.
every single shred of persona 3 fes is dripping with its themes, every ending and variable in the game gives you such immense emotion and outlook, with the tone and the atmosphere never shying away.
p3's themes are treasured in my heart, and yet plays with ideas that keep me up at night with worry. it delivers on both with exceptional skill. my all time favourite persona, and a new favourite game of all time.
"Why are you wasting your lives!?" "We’re just planning for the future. Right, Ken?"
Writing reviews for these huge games always seems like a daunting task, not even because I'm lazy but just because there is so much to talk about and it's hard to balance talking about everything, so I'll attempt to keep it condensed because this was an experience (in a positive light).
It took me around 6 times of playing this game's intro and dropping it because of various reasons to finally get hooked which I think is a testament to retrying games that don't initially click with you. This time though It really sunk its teeth into me and It kept me coming back despite sometimes the game doing everything in its power to discourage me. It may come as a surprise to those who were in VC with me as I fought some of those early Tartarus bosses but I have to say I think in many aspects I think this game is so well-designed to serve its story and themes that it actually made me revise why some of this stuff transferred over to p4 and p5.
The story of this game had me very interested once we hit a certain point and I can respect those first couple of months for being a bit more relaxed and letting you spend time with the characters but I will say it is the part I probably dread the most when I replay it for portable later this year but once it gets going I think it's really well-paced and keeps you invested with twists and turns and allowing enough time for characters to have mini-arcs with how the presence of death/Tartarus affects them and It's really enjoyable I loved Junpei and Yukari especially I loved them and how human they felt with Junpei apologizing and Yukari redirecting her anger of her father's death. This game tackles the subject matter in such an interesting way and It even had me consider how I live my life. The phrase "Memento Mori" has really stuck with me throughout. it permeated into my motivations and how I thought about playing the game I think. The weaving of the themes of the game into player choice and actually making it matter seeing the people you 10 ranked at the end is so cool, especially in this game.
I'll keep it brief about this game's combat but I am actually a fan of how it became a game of mitigating mistakes made by party members and coming up with solutions with the tactics to not get them to do dumb shit but the spikes in difficulty caused me so much frustration. I gotta say though it gives Tartarus this unique kind of character, it's unforgiving and adds to the oppressive atmosphere, it's funny though because in a call I was babying at intrepid knight but the rest of the game I feel like I had no huge problems with.
I already broke my promise about keeping it condensed but this game all in all is a smartly designed experience when it comes to injecting its themes and story into gameplay and player choice and it felt so good when the story was kicking, but between the slow couple of first months and some other issues with balancing it made me lose a bit of love throughout. I loved this game by the end but these are things I dread when replaying portable and maybe reload this year, I truly see why people say it is the best one I might even think that later on it is something I'll be thinking about.
Definitely glad I stuck through with this one that ending made me cry. I'm actually so tempted to start portable now.
Writing reviews for these huge games always seems like a daunting task, not even because I'm lazy but just because there is so much to talk about and it's hard to balance talking about everything, so I'll attempt to keep it condensed because this was an experience (in a positive light).
It took me around 6 times of playing this game's intro and dropping it because of various reasons to finally get hooked which I think is a testament to retrying games that don't initially click with you. This time though It really sunk its teeth into me and It kept me coming back despite sometimes the game doing everything in its power to discourage me. It may come as a surprise to those who were in VC with me as I fought some of those early Tartarus bosses but I have to say I think in many aspects I think this game is so well-designed to serve its story and themes that it actually made me revise why some of this stuff transferred over to p4 and p5.
The story of this game had me very interested once we hit a certain point and I can respect those first couple of months for being a bit more relaxed and letting you spend time with the characters but I will say it is the part I probably dread the most when I replay it for portable later this year but once it gets going I think it's really well-paced and keeps you invested with twists and turns and allowing enough time for characters to have mini-arcs with how the presence of death/Tartarus affects them and It's really enjoyable I loved Junpei and Yukari especially I loved them and how human they felt with Junpei apologizing and Yukari redirecting her anger of her father's death. This game tackles the subject matter in such an interesting way and It even had me consider how I live my life. The phrase "Memento Mori" has really stuck with me throughout. it permeated into my motivations and how I thought about playing the game I think. The weaving of the themes of the game into player choice and actually making it matter seeing the people you 10 ranked at the end is so cool, especially in this game.
I'll keep it brief about this game's combat but I am actually a fan of how it became a game of mitigating mistakes made by party members and coming up with solutions with the tactics to not get them to do dumb shit but the spikes in difficulty caused me so much frustration. I gotta say though it gives Tartarus this unique kind of character, it's unforgiving and adds to the oppressive atmosphere, it's funny though because in a call I was babying at intrepid knight but the rest of the game I feel like I had no huge problems with.
I already broke my promise about keeping it condensed but this game all in all is a smartly designed experience when it comes to injecting its themes and story into gameplay and player choice and it felt so good when the story was kicking, but between the slow couple of first months and some other issues with balancing it made me lose a bit of love throughout. I loved this game by the end but these are things I dread when replaying portable and maybe reload this year, I truly see why people say it is the best one I might even think that later on it is something I'll be thinking about.
Definitely glad I stuck through with this one that ending made me cry. I'm actually so tempted to start portable now.
This review contains spoilers
um, nurse? we have a category 6 meltdown over here. 😭
i have had a quite the history with Persona 3 and its scattered forms (multiple starts and stops for FES, a short lived attempt at Portable before wanting to avoid the VN presentation for my first go, and more) so it feels quite strange to have actually seen it through. i'm sure some of my distaste for the other Persona games i've played (much moreso for 4 than 5) wasn't helping anything with me getting around to this but i'm glad it finally happened. this exceeded my (admittedly low) expectations and then some.
this is a massive beast of a game size wise so i'm going to be a bit scattershot in talking about a few things that stuck out to me in a significant way and leave it be.
probably the strongest element of the whole thing was the presentation as a full package. visuals across the board are an absolute feast whether it's in the mundane of day to day life, the persona and shadow designs, or the FMVs themselves (have i already mentioned that i'm glad i played this for my first P3 experience? it can be said again.) beyond this, the music is an absolute stunner. the game snatching my ass with multiple daily life song swaps makes the prevalence of Your Affection and Beneath the Mask (i like the latter but P5 is a long ass game for just the one track) a massive drag in hindsight. the sound and vibe tackled across the soundtrack aligns the most with my general taste so it's probably my favorite of the modern Persona trilogy in that regard.
elsewhere i found myself particularly impressed with the cast (both SEES and elsewhere) and social links almost universally. i cannot stress enough how much of a difference it makes that your dormmates feel like actual people with their own lives/things going on without centering themselves on you/the mc. scenes developing the characters by themselves or with each other away from the mc were among the best moments in the game. things like that either would've been shifted to include the mc or have not happened at all as most party member development is stuffed into the s links in 4/5.
the social links had a surprisingly solid batting average as well. kenji is a dumbass so his social link was a slog and the Hermit was a Mess (a bit of a gag but still) yet everything else ranged from passable to great. the Sun and Hierophant in particular were wonderful and my favorites across the series, i think?
before wrapping this up i'll mention the sense of intent behind most of game's design. things like the fatigue system, SEES members having their own availability, uncontrollable party members (the tactics system is fine, please spend 5 seconds playing around with it 💀), and even Tartarus itself might seem irritating in a vacuum or other experience but as it is here it gives the game such a sense of cohesion and personality. i 100% believe that all of these elements worked in the service of the story that the game told and made it hit all that much harder in the end.
not sure what else to really say, i could ramble on more but this is already disorganized and i think i've communicated how special this was to me in a sufficient fashion. never in a million years would i have expected to like a modern Persona game this much but i'm glad that i did. Portable and Reload are potential someday things but not for a very long time, The Answer is probably a full on pass because the dungeon crawling seems to be extremely difficult and i don't think this needs following up on in that way. or at least not how The Answer seems to go about it.
i have had a quite the history with Persona 3 and its scattered forms (multiple starts and stops for FES, a short lived attempt at Portable before wanting to avoid the VN presentation for my first go, and more) so it feels quite strange to have actually seen it through. i'm sure some of my distaste for the other Persona games i've played (much moreso for 4 than 5) wasn't helping anything with me getting around to this but i'm glad it finally happened. this exceeded my (admittedly low) expectations and then some.
this is a massive beast of a game size wise so i'm going to be a bit scattershot in talking about a few things that stuck out to me in a significant way and leave it be.
probably the strongest element of the whole thing was the presentation as a full package. visuals across the board are an absolute feast whether it's in the mundane of day to day life, the persona and shadow designs, or the FMVs themselves (have i already mentioned that i'm glad i played this for my first P3 experience? it can be said again.) beyond this, the music is an absolute stunner. the game snatching my ass with multiple daily life song swaps makes the prevalence of Your Affection and Beneath the Mask (i like the latter but P5 is a long ass game for just the one track) a massive drag in hindsight. the sound and vibe tackled across the soundtrack aligns the most with my general taste so it's probably my favorite of the modern Persona trilogy in that regard.
elsewhere i found myself particularly impressed with the cast (both SEES and elsewhere) and social links almost universally. i cannot stress enough how much of a difference it makes that your dormmates feel like actual people with their own lives/things going on without centering themselves on you/the mc. scenes developing the characters by themselves or with each other away from the mc were among the best moments in the game. things like that either would've been shifted to include the mc or have not happened at all as most party member development is stuffed into the s links in 4/5.
the social links had a surprisingly solid batting average as well. kenji is a dumbass so his social link was a slog and the Hermit was a Mess (a bit of a gag but still) yet everything else ranged from passable to great. the Sun and Hierophant in particular were wonderful and my favorites across the series, i think?
before wrapping this up i'll mention the sense of intent behind most of game's design. things like the fatigue system, SEES members having their own availability, uncontrollable party members (the tactics system is fine, please spend 5 seconds playing around with it 💀), and even Tartarus itself might seem irritating in a vacuum or other experience but as it is here it gives the game such a sense of cohesion and personality. i 100% believe that all of these elements worked in the service of the story that the game told and made it hit all that much harder in the end.
not sure what else to really say, i could ramble on more but this is already disorganized and i think i've communicated how special this was to me in a sufficient fashion. never in a million years would i have expected to like a modern Persona game this much but i'm glad that i did. Portable and Reload are potential someday things but not for a very long time, The Answer is probably a full on pass because the dungeon crawling seems to be extremely difficult and i don't think this needs following up on in that way. or at least not how The Answer seems to go about it.
Somehow I didn’t log peak. Peak.
This review contains spoilers
You know when persona fans take the Hashino trilogy and say each one is the best in a certain category? The broken record of "3 has the best story, 4 has the best characters and setting, 5 has the best gameplay"? Well, throw that garbage out the window: Persona 3 is the best in everything except dungeons, and even there I'd make the case Tartarus is better than any Mind Palace, at least thematically. How P-studio managed to get so much stuff right on the first go and then fumble on subsequent releases is baffling.
I love this game and want to shower its story with praise, especially how it's not afraid to pull its punches from the start, the stakes and risks of your situation clearly established from the word ‘go’. It admittedly drags halfway through, I'd say the Summer section is probably the weakest part of the game, with the formula having fully set in and with it your complacency. Then October comes in like a truck, smacks you upside the head and yells: “you messed up, this shadow business is not a game, kid”. After that the story gets even better, each event that follows turning up the tension as you fight even harder and try to savour the last moments of your life, the calendar counting down to your eventual passing. Bit of a crap life, sure, but at least you’re not in it by yourself.
The characters of Persona 3 seem pretty shallow at first. Pretty much everyone plays their cards close to their chest, from the main cast to the social link options, with some coming off as especially unlikeable. Yet as you face hardships together and make an effort to better know your pals, as they experience the worst of what their situation has to offer, everyone grows and changes into stronger human beings, which is true even for the robot. Not really for the dog though, he just wants to help and is happy to be along. Good for him. In the case of the party, outside of the tragedy of Shinjiro’s death, and because of it, everyone finds a way to keep on living, striving for new goals with a clarity of purpose. In particular, the awakenings are amazing moments for each character, never feeling forced due to them going in lock-step with the plot, avoiding one of many missteps of future titles. Speaking of awakenings, let’s talk about Junpei.
Junpei starts out as the bro. Loud, jokey and obnoxious, always looking to prove his virility in a childish way. The eternal class clown. And much like a clown it’s an act, as he’s one of the most insecure members of the cast. Yet he never lowers his guard around others. It’s exactly because of his flaws he ends up in danger by the hands of Strega and it’s by facing his demons head on with Chidori that he starts to change. The jokey veneer never flakes off, yet as the months pile on, his core becomes ever more determined, driving him to stare directly into the jaws of death, literally, with a little help from his friends. This culminates with Chidori’s death, her spirit now alive within him, even passing her regenerative abilities onto him in battle, in one of the single best uses of a mechanic I’ve seen in any videogame. By the time March 5 2010 rolls around, Junpei is still the bro, yet he is much closer to really being “da man”.
Since I’ve mentioned battles, let’s settle the CPU party control debate to rest once and for all. In my objective opinion: it’s alright. It helps to further characterize each member other than your as their own person, warts and all. It’s a bit clunky, especially when the menu, as nice as it is, makes tactics switching feel like a bit of a chore. I know, I know, Mitsuru Marin Karin Mind Charge Ice Break, yeah we’ve all heard the joke. Thing is, it works. It’s a restraint which, coupled with the many design choices that are closer to Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne than they are to Persona 4, keeps you on your toes and thinking tactically.
I apologize to fans of Persona 4 and Persona 5 for badmouthing those games. I like them too, yet after playing Persona 3 it’s apparent how both misunderstand and/or misuse the groundwork laid by this title. I get it, 4 had to be made in two years alongside FES, it’s a miracle the game even shipped in the first place, while 5 probably wanted to stick to the plan because that’s the series’ identity after nearly ten years between instalments. Yet this leaves them feeling less complete, like they’re carrying vestigial elements which are there because they have to be or it won’t be a Persona game anymore. I hope this isn’t taken as an insult or as a slight against the series, but as an invitation to grow, to not be afraid of mixing it up and shed off the old skin, just like 3 did. I believe this makes for stronger experiences which, like the Kirijo Group claims, favour the harmony of two over the perfection of one. In this case, harmony of mechanics and story for maximum thematic power. Put that shit in Persona 6, Atlus employee who is definitively real and reading this review.
I love this game and want to shower its story with praise, especially how it's not afraid to pull its punches from the start, the stakes and risks of your situation clearly established from the word ‘go’. It admittedly drags halfway through, I'd say the Summer section is probably the weakest part of the game, with the formula having fully set in and with it your complacency. Then October comes in like a truck, smacks you upside the head and yells: “you messed up, this shadow business is not a game, kid”. After that the story gets even better, each event that follows turning up the tension as you fight even harder and try to savour the last moments of your life, the calendar counting down to your eventual passing. Bit of a crap life, sure, but at least you’re not in it by yourself.
The characters of Persona 3 seem pretty shallow at first. Pretty much everyone plays their cards close to their chest, from the main cast to the social link options, with some coming off as especially unlikeable. Yet as you face hardships together and make an effort to better know your pals, as they experience the worst of what their situation has to offer, everyone grows and changes into stronger human beings, which is true even for the robot. Not really for the dog though, he just wants to help and is happy to be along. Good for him. In the case of the party, outside of the tragedy of Shinjiro’s death, and because of it, everyone finds a way to keep on living, striving for new goals with a clarity of purpose. In particular, the awakenings are amazing moments for each character, never feeling forced due to them going in lock-step with the plot, avoiding one of many missteps of future titles. Speaking of awakenings, let’s talk about Junpei.
Junpei starts out as the bro. Loud, jokey and obnoxious, always looking to prove his virility in a childish way. The eternal class clown. And much like a clown it’s an act, as he’s one of the most insecure members of the cast. Yet he never lowers his guard around others. It’s exactly because of his flaws he ends up in danger by the hands of Strega and it’s by facing his demons head on with Chidori that he starts to change. The jokey veneer never flakes off, yet as the months pile on, his core becomes ever more determined, driving him to stare directly into the jaws of death, literally, with a little help from his friends. This culminates with Chidori’s death, her spirit now alive within him, even passing her regenerative abilities onto him in battle, in one of the single best uses of a mechanic I’ve seen in any videogame. By the time March 5 2010 rolls around, Junpei is still the bro, yet he is much closer to really being “da man”.
Since I’ve mentioned battles, let’s settle the CPU party control debate to rest once and for all. In my objective opinion: it’s alright. It helps to further characterize each member other than your as their own person, warts and all. It’s a bit clunky, especially when the menu, as nice as it is, makes tactics switching feel like a bit of a chore. I know, I know, Mitsuru Marin Karin Mind Charge Ice Break, yeah we’ve all heard the joke. Thing is, it works. It’s a restraint which, coupled with the many design choices that are closer to Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne than they are to Persona 4, keeps you on your toes and thinking tactically.
I apologize to fans of Persona 4 and Persona 5 for badmouthing those games. I like them too, yet after playing Persona 3 it’s apparent how both misunderstand and/or misuse the groundwork laid by this title. I get it, 4 had to be made in two years alongside FES, it’s a miracle the game even shipped in the first place, while 5 probably wanted to stick to the plan because that’s the series’ identity after nearly ten years between instalments. Yet this leaves them feeling less complete, like they’re carrying vestigial elements which are there because they have to be or it won’t be a Persona game anymore. I hope this isn’t taken as an insult or as a slight against the series, but as an invitation to grow, to not be afraid of mixing it up and shed off the old skin, just like 3 did. I believe this makes for stronger experiences which, like the Kirijo Group claims, favour the harmony of two over the perfection of one. In this case, harmony of mechanics and story for maximum thematic power. Put that shit in Persona 6, Atlus employee who is definitively real and reading this review.
Okay, let's get this one outta the way...
Persona 3 is kinda bad.
But not for the reason you may think; I actually didn't mind the party members being controlled by AI, I never had an issue with the idea and I actually kinda liked it as it made me think more for the combat... Also for the fact that this game is really not that hard, guys.
But, in terms of everything else? Oh yeah, it gets bad: for one, Tartarus is by far one of the worst RPG- no, video game dungeons in general; incredibly boring with no unique level design and a monotonous theme to boot. The combat is surface level, yet again, I don't really get much fun as everything can do down with a sneeze, the only fun I get out of it is the AI party members.
The music only has five good tracks which really sucks because, the few bangers this game has are really good, some of the best songs in the series! It just sucks that we have songs like Mass Destruction and Want to be Close taking up most of our playtime.
The story was also very weak, I actually laughed at the scenes that were meant to be taken with the upmost seriousness, the characters were very hit or miss with the only shining stars being Junpei and Shinjiro, in fact, the only few scenes I loved were with Shinjiro, who quickly became my favorite character in this game, and the entire series right next to Jun from Persona 2 and Adachi from Persona 4.
So, Persona 3 really isn't that good, to me. But, it's still got something in there that I believe people can and do definitely love, so I'd still recommend you play it and not just go off of this review, you might have a better time than I did!
aight now play portable instead of this one-
Persona 3 is kinda bad.
But not for the reason you may think; I actually didn't mind the party members being controlled by AI, I never had an issue with the idea and I actually kinda liked it as it made me think more for the combat... Also for the fact that this game is really not that hard, guys.
But, in terms of everything else? Oh yeah, it gets bad: for one, Tartarus is by far one of the worst RPG- no, video game dungeons in general; incredibly boring with no unique level design and a monotonous theme to boot. The combat is surface level, yet again, I don't really get much fun as everything can do down with a sneeze, the only fun I get out of it is the AI party members.
The music only has five good tracks which really sucks because, the few bangers this game has are really good, some of the best songs in the series! It just sucks that we have songs like Mass Destruction and Want to be Close taking up most of our playtime.
The story was also very weak, I actually laughed at the scenes that were meant to be taken with the upmost seriousness, the characters were very hit or miss with the only shining stars being Junpei and Shinjiro, in fact, the only few scenes I loved were with Shinjiro, who quickly became my favorite character in this game, and the entire series right next to Jun from Persona 2 and Adachi from Persona 4.
So, Persona 3 really isn't that good, to me. But, it's still got something in there that I believe people can and do definitely love, so I'd still recommend you play it and not just go off of this review, you might have a better time than I did!
aight now play portable instead of this one-
Now that Reload is out, I'll be real, I think that this game has aged just about as well as milk on a hot summer day (hyperbole probably)
Tactics were a great idea honestly, I know that's controversial but yeah. Second half is one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had, first half is still amazing but a few eh moments. I recommend this to any teen.
This game was overhyped for me. From what I read from everyone, I was expecting to get a depressive tale with lovable folks. Not just that, I heard this game was the best of persona. I... Didn't get that.
First let me start with the positives because they are short
Sun arcana is really emotional and I liked that.
Last month(last %10 of the game) is awesome with it's melancholic, majora's mask like dark vibes.
Lots of persona to fusion of course.
Best persona soundtrack
And the rest is...
Story is a giant timewaster that repetitive as heck. You learn about a person that have potential, kill the shadow boss that suddenly appeared, let that person join your group, repeat x6. Story only starts to go somewhere the moment bad guy group shows up(in the damn last quarter of this game).
People that say this game is depressive as heck just talks about intro of this game, persona calling animation that uses a gun to the head, 2 social links that is a bit depressive and last %10 of this game. But how a game can be named depressive if the %85 of the content is la la la upbeat colorful happy tones? I literally have any idea. Btw I don't have any problem with upbeat atmosphere but fans themselves create wrong expectations
Question is, can you like a story if only %10 of it just interesting? It's really good %10 I won't lie but what about the repetitive as heck rest? Sorry but I am not the "ending justifies the repetition" kind of person. Sorry.
Gameplay is... Repetitive as heck too. Level design is non-existent, one lazy person just flat out modelled 8 different room and colored it different 10 times with combining a randomizer and called it a day. What. The. Fu#k. Don't get me started on repeat enemies as well, if there is 20 enemy models, then don't worry they also have 10 different color variations that only difference of them is a slight stat difference. Only thing that refreshes the pace a little bit is, bosses are once in a while needs a different strategy rather than spam the same handful of elemental attacks and watching the same all out attack for the millionth time.
Social links
Other than Sun, lovers and hierophant social link...
Rest is meh at best and plain garbage at worst. Moon arcana(that damn fat kid), chariot(stubborn sports kid), hanged man(pedo... social link), priestess(i can't cook food fuuka soical link) etc. If your excuse is, in reality there are idiots or infuriating people in real life as well then why I am playing this game? This is a work of fiction. Give me something memorable. Unfortunately there is not much of that memorable feeling...
So yeah. For the %15 content sake, I don't give 1/5. But I can easily say, I can't see any of the praise other folks does. Sometimes I hate myself with joining the flow of hype and taking wrong decisions. I have not just persona 3 and 4. I also have 5 and it costed me. Probably I couldn't be able to gather enough motivation to start 5 so I really did a wasteful decision for myself.
First let me start with the positives because they are short
Sun arcana is really emotional and I liked that.
Last month(last %10 of the game) is awesome with it's melancholic, majora's mask like dark vibes.
Lots of persona to fusion of course.
Best persona soundtrack
And the rest is...
Story is a giant timewaster that repetitive as heck. You learn about a person that have potential, kill the shadow boss that suddenly appeared, let that person join your group, repeat x6. Story only starts to go somewhere the moment bad guy group shows up(in the damn last quarter of this game).
People that say this game is depressive as heck just talks about intro of this game, persona calling animation that uses a gun to the head, 2 social links that is a bit depressive and last %10 of this game. But how a game can be named depressive if the %85 of the content is la la la upbeat colorful happy tones? I literally have any idea. Btw I don't have any problem with upbeat atmosphere but fans themselves create wrong expectations
Question is, can you like a story if only %10 of it just interesting? It's really good %10 I won't lie but what about the repetitive as heck rest? Sorry but I am not the "ending justifies the repetition" kind of person. Sorry.
Gameplay is... Repetitive as heck too. Level design is non-existent, one lazy person just flat out modelled 8 different room and colored it different 10 times with combining a randomizer and called it a day. What. The. Fu#k. Don't get me started on repeat enemies as well, if there is 20 enemy models, then don't worry they also have 10 different color variations that only difference of them is a slight stat difference. Only thing that refreshes the pace a little bit is, bosses are once in a while needs a different strategy rather than spam the same handful of elemental attacks and watching the same all out attack for the millionth time.
Social links
Other than Sun, lovers and hierophant social link...
Rest is meh at best and plain garbage at worst. Moon arcana(that damn fat kid), chariot(stubborn sports kid), hanged man(pedo... social link), priestess(i can't cook food fuuka soical link) etc. If your excuse is, in reality there are idiots or infuriating people in real life as well then why I am playing this game? This is a work of fiction. Give me something memorable. Unfortunately there is not much of that memorable feeling...
So yeah. For the %15 content sake, I don't give 1/5. But I can easily say, I can't see any of the praise other folks does. Sometimes I hate myself with joining the flow of hype and taking wrong decisions. I have not just persona 3 and 4. I also have 5 and it costed me. Probably I couldn't be able to gather enough motivation to start 5 so I really did a wasteful decision for myself.
will do a real review one day but this changed my life
I think the story still has its issues but out of the 3 modern persona games this is easily the best written. gameplay is kinda ehhh though and it's put me off replaying it
Good game, but i don't think it is the best Persona or even top 10 Megami Tensei, the story is really good and the themes are very well done, some of the characters like Aigis and Mitsuru are also pretty good, but it doesn't offer much more, dungeons are virtually non existent and tartarus is boring, combat isn't as bad as people say because if you set the tactics right the AI is not bad, but it is boring not having party control, social links are shit, there are less than 5 actually good and because of the fucking dumbest choice Atlus ever made male party members aren't social links, which makes them have way less character development, oh and did i mention EVERY SINGLE GIRL falls in love with you in a super cringe and unnatural way if you max the social link (i will say though that reverse SL is a cool mechanic and i would like to see it back), soundtrack imo is the weakest of the series but that's just personal taste, oh and the villains are garbage.
But after all that i still give it a 3, it has a lot of merit for bringing the series where it is now and not being afraid to change.
But after all that i still give it a 3, it has a lot of merit for bringing the series where it is now and not being afraid to change.
...
I had always loved JRPGs growing up. I was obsessed with Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy - the classics that defined the genre. Persona wasn't nearly as popular and it had slipped under my radar for years. When I finally caught wind of what these games were, it was honestly the perfect time - I was the same age and in the same year of school as the characters in the game.
It sounds corny, but I had never really connected with a game like this before, or realized that JRPGs could be so versatile. It was the first game I played that tackled the most mundane aspect of growing up - school - but made something fun out of it, and tied it into a frankly touching narrative about living life to its fullest.
Looking back, sure, this game has its flaws. But that first experience was honestly pure magic for me - the soundtrack, the suicidal imagery, the characters - I had never seen a game try anything like it, and it opened up an entire world of related titles for me to get into.
It sounds corny, but I had never really connected with a game like this before, or realized that JRPGs could be so versatile. It was the first game I played that tackled the most mundane aspect of growing up - school - but made something fun out of it, and tied it into a frankly touching narrative about living life to its fullest.
Looking back, sure, this game has its flaws. But that first experience was honestly pure magic for me - the soundtrack, the suicidal imagery, the characters - I had never seen a game try anything like it, and it opened up an entire world of related titles for me to get into.
please change the fucking cover art im gonna go crazy
sometimes in the past i had played persona 3 fes and it was definitely the highlight of my life till that moment if i gotta be honest and im really happy to see that nothing really changed from that time i still love every single part of this game i love every single character and i cant really say anything bad for this experience that is as tight and incredible as everybody says and i genuinely cannot believe how breathtaking it can be after so many years from the original release of the game
its been a while since i actually explored this entry in the persona franchise and even though this is definitely a step down from p4 and p5 this can still sit rightfully at the top of the trilogy to this day this is still my favorite entry in the spin off series and while i also love p1 and p2 for what they have to offer i definitely still have a sweet spot for this game above the others in the series
im pretty sure everybody knows what this game is about as of nowadays but i just gonna talk about it anyway like people actually asked me to elaborate on my love for this game so i will definitely do that
persona 3 stars a guy transferring to a new school and for some different reasons he ends up in a squad of different people trying to fight off enemies called shadows in a structure called tartarus during an hidden hour after midnight called the dark hour (theres a lot of different terminology alright) where people get some into some weird ??? coffins ??? and actually escalates into something called the apathy syndrome where people become weirdly lobotomised or something of the like and to do that they have to use the power of personas
now personas are basically demons from shin megami tensei recontextualised to actually be used in this series as “another you” and usually just take the form of mythological creatures or deities or shit like that now you know im a big fan of shin megami tensei and its general sense of design so of course i was gonna love this iteration
thats the general incipit of the whole game and while this is definitely the main story theres a lot lying below the surface that needs to be explored
persona 3 fes is famously divided like every other game in the franchise (apart from 1 and 2 skull face) in 2 different sections where you either have some slice of life story high school events and turns into a jrpg in the night segments where you have to fight off the different shadows and ascend tartarus in the hope of a better tomorrow
basically what happens is that you gotta finish the game in a single year (omg atelier ???) and what happens is that during the day you can do social links with different characters that are basically segments where you hang out with people and this is gonna make the arcana social link go up and each single level will actually make the personae of the same arcana way more powerful when you fuse them so theres basically a lot of nuance to this but more on this later
persona still borrows a lot from shin megami tensei and this is actually seen in the fact that the main mechanic of the game is recruiting and fusing demons which is a fucking blast every time even though you cant choose the skills the demon is going to inherit and that makes me actually suicidal ngl like you want me to create the best persona ever and make me inherit marin karin are you actually out of your mind what the fuck honestly this is something that makes me go buck wild in older smt games like why would you make me redo and redo the same persona combinations until i can get some good inherited skills do you just want to purposefully make me angry cmon atlus dont fuck with me rn
while i definitely have some gripes with the gameplay elements i still have a lot of love for it the jrpg elements are super tight fusing personas is fun as hell the combat that still has the basic smt principle of exploiting weaknesses actually makes the game even juicier with the 1 more mechanic + the all out attack its just so fucking good its incredible and since youre gonna do this for like 80+ hours at least this needs to be some degree of fun its just a simple and quick way to finish battles off and this still have some of the classic smt flair in the fact that if youre pretty unlucky and the rng wants to fuck you up you can get demons actually doing mahamaon and killing every single party member or like crit and crit and crit until you bite the dust funnily enough
lets address the elephant in the room though while i still think p3fes is actually the safest choice i have a huge fucking problem with it: you cant control party members which fucking sucks because im adhd and need to use my controller at all times or else i get fidgety and THATS WHY i ended up using the controllable characters patch (and also the undub patch dont @ me i hate english VA i dont know in how many more reviews i got to say this) and while i definitely think this is the way to go i had a lot of game breaking bugs during battles because of course it was gonna get buggy because you know they basically recoded shit or something i have no idea how this works so yeah i mean i had to do a lot of save states and even when i actually made some save states i was dumb enough to actually save in critical moments so i had to wipe like 3 hours of progress sometimes that to say that TO ME it was actually a god sent addition but it is to be said that these are the conditions of the patch i dont really think the original AI party is actually that bad but i cannot deal with not controlling every and each character in a turn based combat game so theres that
i do also recommend the undub which is done really well they also added some subtitles to the cutscenes they put work in that so yeah just try it out maybe it is for you
anyhow the other elephant in the room is tartarus now we need to make a detour for a moment i do think tartarus is actually the oddest dungeon out of the 3 different personas the ones in persona 4 are actually pretty interesting because theyre character specific and (for what ive seen) persona 5 also has some character specific dungeons that look absolutely fucking gorgeous but as much as ive seen mementos or whatever its name is works the same as tartarus
now do i think tartarus is bad ? no . i probably had less fun in it than in p4 and p5 dungeons but that doesnt mean its bad the first blocks arent that interesting but the more you actually ascend into it the more the floors start getting interesting like the psychedelic one is such an highlight i had so much fun in it it makes absolutely no sense and the final block is real thematically consistent to the rest of the game
while i definitely do understand where the most of the people here are coming from i also believe that theres definitely a huge chance that they are people who only played persona 5 because yknow its the most popular game in the smt franchise ever and of course tartarus was gonna get this kind of treatment since yeah its rudimentary its monotonous and its tedious BUT i still love it to hell and back slowly ascending the entire tower is such a joy that i cannot honestly think about this game without actually thinking about tartarus farming over and over and over again
now still talking about gameplay as a whole this is still the first persona to actually include the SoL/RPG elements which means its yes very simple but not because of that less effective doing the social links honing your 3 skills exploring the town buying stuff discovering new events doing side quests and shit actually makes for a really interesting gameplay loop that feels rewarding in the long run im not gonna lie that this still feels like stone age persona loop but again they had to start somewhere for the love of christ
in general i think the gameplay is such a blast and people who dont agree are dipshits and dont deserve shinjiros huge fat fucking cock thats honestly such a shame for as much as i want to criticise these decisions i actually have 100 contrasting reasons to actually say the opposite which means that every single hater of this game can suck my balls kissessssssssssss
a real shocker here will be the fact that yes persona 3 also has some super slick art direction now we all know and love the art direction in p5 even though at this point it feels like thats the only game that has an art direction but i digress (it is some of the best art direction ive ever seen though,,,,,,,, ngl) and i definitely can see a lot of care being put into this one the artworks of the characters are some of my favorites in the entire scope of videogames the models of the city are great every single persona is detailed as shit and the vibes of the entire game are absolutely unmatched and when you also add a bomb UI and art style you have the winning formula of the century and to not even talk about the entire ost department which is honestly as thick as it can get now im not gonna put 100 songs in the hyperlink because im trying to be more humble and lose less time in my life time is precious everybody
that to say that im gonna put just one song and my favorite in the entire playlist is changing seasons(https://youtu.be/ONsRqzQUeoo?si=6uDeTBnNrZiLwlkS) its such a sick track what the hell but as youll already know theres not really a single tracks that goes off the mark every single song is infused with a lot of hip hop vibes and enhance the entire experience to another level entirely
while i definitely feel that these are absolute strong points for the game i still do think that a lot of the best elements sit right into the story department and in particular the characters and interactions
the story definitely takes a real slowdown real soon in the game but as soon as like half a year passes youre gonna get plot twist after plot twist after plot twist boom boom boom one after the other im not gonna lie and this would probably fall flat if it werent for the gorgeous cast of characters
theres some that i like more and some that i like less i genuinely think shinjiro and akihiko are my lifelong companions im literally so in love with them i feel like im gonna pass out in particular shinjiro every time i think about him something in my pants swells i dont know guys im 10 and inexperienced should i take the gay test on trustworthy gay test sites online what do we think
so that to say that shinji and aki are my husbands i love how they both interact with each other and i love their archetypes so im definitely biased in the fact that i love boys i love boxer boys who can fuck my face up and fuck my ass up and i also like gloomy boys who dont want none to do with the outside world and social interactions shinjiro this game is literally based on social interactions stop being afuckinng cunt
i love them dearly
mind you even though those 2 are the loml i definitely have a lot of affection for my sweet little troubled yukari who feigns confidence through sass and a lot of ass mitsuru is literally the dominatrix of my dreams her persona has a whip and if that isnt a real indicator of her sexual tendencies idk what is junpei is my sweet little sunshine and while he can be a dickhead sometimes theres definitely a lot to his character than it meets the eye aigis is my baby i gave birth to her and im not gonna let anybody get near her ever in my entire life i love koromaru with the deepest parts of my heart and theres nothing that will change the fact that hes the bestest boy ever and ken is a good kid !!! i think and fuuka is still such a mystery to me but i definitely love her a damn lot maybe i dont know as much about her as i want to since i forgot to complete her social link teehee dont @ me mitsuru had the priority yall
as much as i love all of them im still pretty sad that in the original game you can only do social links with the girls in the party like who THE FUCK thought that was a good idea can i PLEASE suck shinjiros dick or do i need to pay a nsfw cosplayer on twitter to do that im not joking im gonna do that so thats sort of a let down and anyway the social links that are present here cant really compensate the absence of the main party to the whole meal like the school mates are fun like theres the gerontophile into milfs, walmart ryuji with a broken leg + his team manager whose social link i didnt finish so i have no pun, an immigrant that really feels kind of japanesephobic somehow, a timid girl whos scared of boys but also cant wait to suck dick, a son of a doctor who wants to be an artist but actually changes idea after a sitcom type of chain of events, a girl whose parents really need a fucking divorce, an athlete (thats his whole personality), a guy that i really hate so i fucking ignored aka the emperor, an online friend who actually is the most random character of the entire game and also a good excuse to put some persona 2 cameos, a guy with bulimia im not actually making fun of this one its actually pretty serious /gen, a monk who decided to follow buddha instead of pussy but then changes directions again because yknow pussy juice, a conniving businessman who wants to actually make you his apprentice, a couple with a a ,,,,, a d ea d umh a dead son umh wait i thought social links were supposed to be fun wait wait what and UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH WE DONT TALK ABOUT THE SUN ARCANA PLEASE
so as i was saying social links are some of the most inspired parts of the entire game and its such a shame that most of the time you wont see each and every one of them because yknow time management and shit but thats also the cool thing about persona you can do whatever the fuck you want and actually pursuit the stuff you actually want to see finished like i made my life work around the mitsuru social link and i studied my fucking ass off just to have a glimpse of her ginormous puthey thats what humans actually do so why the fuck not
so i guess im gonna get into spoiler territory now so SPOILER ALERT DONT READ ETC ETC
i genuinely love the fact that this game is surrounded by death everywhere its themes are some of the thickest and more real arguments to ever talk about and every single character conveys this kind of story to hell and back everyone in SEES actually had to face the pain of losing a beloved one mitsuru and yukari have to deal with the loss of a father ken misses his mother everyday akihiko is still grieving for the death of his little sister junpei is still traumatised by losing his loved one in a second and all of them are still trying to make sense of the departure of shinjiro DONT GET ME STARTED ON SHINJIRO DYING BECAUSE UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH LORD
death is a thing that permeates all life and it takes BALLS to actually make a game that is surrounded by death everywhere story beats remind you that the world is dying every character is actually trying to make sense to the world around them and even the social links have a lot to say about life as a whole
theres some other games that tackle these themes im not gonna pretend persona 3 is the only game which has memento mori as its main theme but i cannot overstate enough how beautifully composed every single story line and emotional breakdown to actually drive home this series of events that have a lot to say about our world and how we live in it
the final stretch of the game with the near apocalypse is probably my favorite part due to the fact that every single character is using their grief as a mean to move on theyre trying to use all their suffering as a way to become powerful against a common threat that threatens life itself and while i think the nyx boss fight can be a bit of a pain to go through it has to be said that is so thematically rich that i cannot hate it for any reason in the world ever
and to this day the ending makes me bawl my eyes OUT you know what this game has not the most heartbreaking ending in the world in a shocking sense the slow and steady demise of the main character can be seen even from a few days before but when its all done youre left with you yourself aigis crying for you your friends grieving and all the memories you made together till now seeping through the cracks of you consciousness
while i do agree this is the most 2000s emo tumblr storyline ive ever witnessed it is told so beautifully that it honestly touched my heart theres not really a lot that i can say about this game apart from please play it and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make it through the ending of the sun arcana you will be left with no regrets and a lots of tears youre advised listen to me it is definitely such an emotional social link and possibly the best social link of the entire franchise im not gonna lie here wow
the ending of the game is as heart wrenching as it can get and really encapsulates the entire experience in a like 3 days theres a lot of weird things that i can say about this game maybe the fact that there arent controllable characters is weird or the fact that it is as melodramatic as it can get the gameflow is pretty slow you can go an entire month without any story beat whatsoever and i wish shinjiro was still in the party but thats something that i will experience when i will play p3p
as much as this is not a perfect game i can attest to the fact that this is a perfect game in my eyes every single element of it comes together to create such an unforgettable experience that i didnt find anywhere else in the media p4 and p5 still have the flair and drama of this one but its definitely toned down for some other elements of psychological matter but to this day the way the theme of death is treated in this one
please please please please please check this one out and if possible play the original FES release not that portable isnt good but i think this is the way this game should be experienced (for the first time at least) and with all its gripes i still think this is as good as it gets
cant fucking wait for the FUCKING REMAKE LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORD
i still have to play the answer tho
sometimes in the past i had played persona 3 fes and it was definitely the highlight of my life till that moment if i gotta be honest and im really happy to see that nothing really changed from that time i still love every single part of this game i love every single character and i cant really say anything bad for this experience that is as tight and incredible as everybody says and i genuinely cannot believe how breathtaking it can be after so many years from the original release of the game
its been a while since i actually explored this entry in the persona franchise and even though this is definitely a step down from p4 and p5 this can still sit rightfully at the top of the trilogy to this day this is still my favorite entry in the spin off series and while i also love p1 and p2 for what they have to offer i definitely still have a sweet spot for this game above the others in the series
im pretty sure everybody knows what this game is about as of nowadays but i just gonna talk about it anyway like people actually asked me to elaborate on my love for this game so i will definitely do that
persona 3 stars a guy transferring to a new school and for some different reasons he ends up in a squad of different people trying to fight off enemies called shadows in a structure called tartarus during an hidden hour after midnight called the dark hour (theres a lot of different terminology alright) where people get some into some weird ??? coffins ??? and actually escalates into something called the apathy syndrome where people become weirdly lobotomised or something of the like and to do that they have to use the power of personas
now personas are basically demons from shin megami tensei recontextualised to actually be used in this series as “another you” and usually just take the form of mythological creatures or deities or shit like that now you know im a big fan of shin megami tensei and its general sense of design so of course i was gonna love this iteration
thats the general incipit of the whole game and while this is definitely the main story theres a lot lying below the surface that needs to be explored
persona 3 fes is famously divided like every other game in the franchise (apart from 1 and 2 skull face) in 2 different sections where you either have some slice of life story high school events and turns into a jrpg in the night segments where you have to fight off the different shadows and ascend tartarus in the hope of a better tomorrow
basically what happens is that you gotta finish the game in a single year (omg atelier ???) and what happens is that during the day you can do social links with different characters that are basically segments where you hang out with people and this is gonna make the arcana social link go up and each single level will actually make the personae of the same arcana way more powerful when you fuse them so theres basically a lot of nuance to this but more on this later
persona still borrows a lot from shin megami tensei and this is actually seen in the fact that the main mechanic of the game is recruiting and fusing demons which is a fucking blast every time even though you cant choose the skills the demon is going to inherit and that makes me actually suicidal ngl like you want me to create the best persona ever and make me inherit marin karin are you actually out of your mind what the fuck honestly this is something that makes me go buck wild in older smt games like why would you make me redo and redo the same persona combinations until i can get some good inherited skills do you just want to purposefully make me angry cmon atlus dont fuck with me rn
while i definitely have some gripes with the gameplay elements i still have a lot of love for it the jrpg elements are super tight fusing personas is fun as hell the combat that still has the basic smt principle of exploiting weaknesses actually makes the game even juicier with the 1 more mechanic + the all out attack its just so fucking good its incredible and since youre gonna do this for like 80+ hours at least this needs to be some degree of fun its just a simple and quick way to finish battles off and this still have some of the classic smt flair in the fact that if youre pretty unlucky and the rng wants to fuck you up you can get demons actually doing mahamaon and killing every single party member or like crit and crit and crit until you bite the dust funnily enough
lets address the elephant in the room though while i still think p3fes is actually the safest choice i have a huge fucking problem with it: you cant control party members which fucking sucks because im adhd and need to use my controller at all times or else i get fidgety and THATS WHY i ended up using the controllable characters patch (and also the undub patch dont @ me i hate english VA i dont know in how many more reviews i got to say this) and while i definitely think this is the way to go i had a lot of game breaking bugs during battles because of course it was gonna get buggy because you know they basically recoded shit or something i have no idea how this works so yeah i mean i had to do a lot of save states and even when i actually made some save states i was dumb enough to actually save in critical moments so i had to wipe like 3 hours of progress sometimes that to say that TO ME it was actually a god sent addition but it is to be said that these are the conditions of the patch i dont really think the original AI party is actually that bad but i cannot deal with not controlling every and each character in a turn based combat game so theres that
i do also recommend the undub which is done really well they also added some subtitles to the cutscenes they put work in that so yeah just try it out maybe it is for you
anyhow the other elephant in the room is tartarus now we need to make a detour for a moment i do think tartarus is actually the oddest dungeon out of the 3 different personas the ones in persona 4 are actually pretty interesting because theyre character specific and (for what ive seen) persona 5 also has some character specific dungeons that look absolutely fucking gorgeous but as much as ive seen mementos or whatever its name is works the same as tartarus
now do i think tartarus is bad ? no . i probably had less fun in it than in p4 and p5 dungeons but that doesnt mean its bad the first blocks arent that interesting but the more you actually ascend into it the more the floors start getting interesting like the psychedelic one is such an highlight i had so much fun in it it makes absolutely no sense and the final block is real thematically consistent to the rest of the game
while i definitely do understand where the most of the people here are coming from i also believe that theres definitely a huge chance that they are people who only played persona 5 because yknow its the most popular game in the smt franchise ever and of course tartarus was gonna get this kind of treatment since yeah its rudimentary its monotonous and its tedious BUT i still love it to hell and back slowly ascending the entire tower is such a joy that i cannot honestly think about this game without actually thinking about tartarus farming over and over and over again
now still talking about gameplay as a whole this is still the first persona to actually include the SoL/RPG elements which means its yes very simple but not because of that less effective doing the social links honing your 3 skills exploring the town buying stuff discovering new events doing side quests and shit actually makes for a really interesting gameplay loop that feels rewarding in the long run im not gonna lie that this still feels like stone age persona loop but again they had to start somewhere for the love of christ
in general i think the gameplay is such a blast and people who dont agree are dipshits and dont deserve shinjiros huge fat fucking cock thats honestly such a shame for as much as i want to criticise these decisions i actually have 100 contrasting reasons to actually say the opposite which means that every single hater of this game can suck my balls kissessssssssssss
a real shocker here will be the fact that yes persona 3 also has some super slick art direction now we all know and love the art direction in p5 even though at this point it feels like thats the only game that has an art direction but i digress (it is some of the best art direction ive ever seen though,,,,,,,, ngl) and i definitely can see a lot of care being put into this one the artworks of the characters are some of my favorites in the entire scope of videogames the models of the city are great every single persona is detailed as shit and the vibes of the entire game are absolutely unmatched and when you also add a bomb UI and art style you have the winning formula of the century and to not even talk about the entire ost department which is honestly as thick as it can get now im not gonna put 100 songs in the hyperlink because im trying to be more humble and lose less time in my life time is precious everybody
that to say that im gonna put just one song and my favorite in the entire playlist is changing seasons(https://youtu.be/ONsRqzQUeoo?si=6uDeTBnNrZiLwlkS) its such a sick track what the hell but as youll already know theres not really a single tracks that goes off the mark every single song is infused with a lot of hip hop vibes and enhance the entire experience to another level entirely
while i definitely feel that these are absolute strong points for the game i still do think that a lot of the best elements sit right into the story department and in particular the characters and interactions
the story definitely takes a real slowdown real soon in the game but as soon as like half a year passes youre gonna get plot twist after plot twist after plot twist boom boom boom one after the other im not gonna lie and this would probably fall flat if it werent for the gorgeous cast of characters
theres some that i like more and some that i like less i genuinely think shinjiro and akihiko are my lifelong companions im literally so in love with them i feel like im gonna pass out in particular shinjiro every time i think about him something in my pants swells i dont know guys im 10 and inexperienced should i take the gay test on trustworthy gay test sites online what do we think
so that to say that shinji and aki are my husbands i love how they both interact with each other and i love their archetypes so im definitely biased in the fact that i love boys i love boxer boys who can fuck my face up and fuck my ass up and i also like gloomy boys who dont want none to do with the outside world and social interactions shinjiro this game is literally based on social interactions stop being afuckinng cunt
i love them dearly
mind you even though those 2 are the loml i definitely have a lot of affection for my sweet little troubled yukari who feigns confidence through sass and a lot of ass mitsuru is literally the dominatrix of my dreams her persona has a whip and if that isnt a real indicator of her sexual tendencies idk what is junpei is my sweet little sunshine and while he can be a dickhead sometimes theres definitely a lot to his character than it meets the eye aigis is my baby i gave birth to her and im not gonna let anybody get near her ever in my entire life i love koromaru with the deepest parts of my heart and theres nothing that will change the fact that hes the bestest boy ever and ken is a good kid !!! i think and fuuka is still such a mystery to me but i definitely love her a damn lot maybe i dont know as much about her as i want to since i forgot to complete her social link teehee dont @ me mitsuru had the priority yall
as much as i love all of them im still pretty sad that in the original game you can only do social links with the girls in the party like who THE FUCK thought that was a good idea can i PLEASE suck shinjiros dick or do i need to pay a nsfw cosplayer on twitter to do that im not joking im gonna do that so thats sort of a let down and anyway the social links that are present here cant really compensate the absence of the main party to the whole meal like the school mates are fun like theres the gerontophile into milfs, walmart ryuji with a broken leg + his team manager whose social link i didnt finish so i have no pun, an immigrant that really feels kind of japanesephobic somehow, a timid girl whos scared of boys but also cant wait to suck dick, a son of a doctor who wants to be an artist but actually changes idea after a sitcom type of chain of events, a girl whose parents really need a fucking divorce, an athlete (thats his whole personality), a guy that i really hate so i fucking ignored aka the emperor, an online friend who actually is the most random character of the entire game and also a good excuse to put some persona 2 cameos, a guy with bulimia im not actually making fun of this one its actually pretty serious /gen, a monk who decided to follow buddha instead of pussy but then changes directions again because yknow pussy juice, a conniving businessman who wants to actually make you his apprentice, a couple with a a ,,,,, a d ea d umh a dead son umh wait i thought social links were supposed to be fun wait wait what and UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH WE DONT TALK ABOUT THE SUN ARCANA PLEASE
so as i was saying social links are some of the most inspired parts of the entire game and its such a shame that most of the time you wont see each and every one of them because yknow time management and shit but thats also the cool thing about persona you can do whatever the fuck you want and actually pursuit the stuff you actually want to see finished like i made my life work around the mitsuru social link and i studied my fucking ass off just to have a glimpse of her ginormous puthey thats what humans actually do so why the fuck not
so i guess im gonna get into spoiler territory now so SPOILER ALERT DONT READ ETC ETC
i genuinely love the fact that this game is surrounded by death everywhere its themes are some of the thickest and more real arguments to ever talk about and every single character conveys this kind of story to hell and back everyone in SEES actually had to face the pain of losing a beloved one mitsuru and yukari have to deal with the loss of a father ken misses his mother everyday akihiko is still grieving for the death of his little sister junpei is still traumatised by losing his loved one in a second and all of them are still trying to make sense of the departure of shinjiro DONT GET ME STARTED ON SHINJIRO DYING BECAUSE UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH LORD
death is a thing that permeates all life and it takes BALLS to actually make a game that is surrounded by death everywhere story beats remind you that the world is dying every character is actually trying to make sense to the world around them and even the social links have a lot to say about life as a whole
theres some other games that tackle these themes im not gonna pretend persona 3 is the only game which has memento mori as its main theme but i cannot overstate enough how beautifully composed every single story line and emotional breakdown to actually drive home this series of events that have a lot to say about our world and how we live in it
the final stretch of the game with the near apocalypse is probably my favorite part due to the fact that every single character is using their grief as a mean to move on theyre trying to use all their suffering as a way to become powerful against a common threat that threatens life itself and while i think the nyx boss fight can be a bit of a pain to go through it has to be said that is so thematically rich that i cannot hate it for any reason in the world ever
and to this day the ending makes me bawl my eyes OUT you know what this game has not the most heartbreaking ending in the world in a shocking sense the slow and steady demise of the main character can be seen even from a few days before but when its all done youre left with you yourself aigis crying for you your friends grieving and all the memories you made together till now seeping through the cracks of you consciousness
while i do agree this is the most 2000s emo tumblr storyline ive ever witnessed it is told so beautifully that it honestly touched my heart theres not really a lot that i can say about this game apart from please play it and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make it through the ending of the sun arcana you will be left with no regrets and a lots of tears youre advised listen to me it is definitely such an emotional social link and possibly the best social link of the entire franchise im not gonna lie here wow
the ending of the game is as heart wrenching as it can get and really encapsulates the entire experience in a like 3 days theres a lot of weird things that i can say about this game maybe the fact that there arent controllable characters is weird or the fact that it is as melodramatic as it can get the gameflow is pretty slow you can go an entire month without any story beat whatsoever and i wish shinjiro was still in the party but thats something that i will experience when i will play p3p
as much as this is not a perfect game i can attest to the fact that this is a perfect game in my eyes every single element of it comes together to create such an unforgettable experience that i didnt find anywhere else in the media p4 and p5 still have the flair and drama of this one but its definitely toned down for some other elements of psychological matter but to this day the way the theme of death is treated in this one
please please please please please check this one out and if possible play the original FES release not that portable isnt good but i think this is the way this game should be experienced (for the first time at least) and with all its gripes i still think this is as good as it gets
cant fucking wait for the FUCKING REMAKE LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORD
i still have to play the answer tho
Totally did not have my save wiped randomly after putting 70 hours into this and watch a playthrough for the rest of the game. Definitely did not happen at all...
Anyways, Persona 3 is a classic and many people have already written in length on the greatness of this title and its impact for the series going forward. The cast is amazing, the battle system still feels good to this day, the music is peak 2000s J-pop and Hip Hop edge, and atmosphere and central narrative is brilliantly dense and oppressive, and stands as the strongest in the entire series for me personally. Hyped to experience this world and Tartarus again in Reload in a few months.
Anyways, Persona 3 is a classic and many people have already written in length on the greatness of this title and its impact for the series going forward. The cast is amazing, the battle system still feels good to this day, the music is peak 2000s J-pop and Hip Hop edge, and atmosphere and central narrative is brilliantly dense and oppressive, and stands as the strongest in the entire series for me personally. Hyped to experience this world and Tartarus again in Reload in a few months.
unfortunately mogs all other personas by having the evoker method being the most kinomatic shit of all time
I can only really compare it to 4 at this point but it's so much more focused and handles its theming much better. some social links are pretty cringekino but another one made me cry . you win some you lose some
ultimately it's just a cool ass game - i wish tartaros was about 70% shorter but nevermind that, ill forgive you.
i then found out that "the answer" that everyone is talking about is approximately 70% more tartaros - i think this was a stupid decision made by an idiot. in fact it might have been the stupidest decision made in japan for all of the early 2000s. i put in about 2 hours before i decided its best played through on a youtube playlist. if i had decided to play it my rating likely would have dropped by at least a full star . thats okay . just dont play it unless youre really really dumb
I can only really compare it to 4 at this point but it's so much more focused and handles its theming much better. some social links are pretty cringekino but another one made me cry . you win some you lose some
ultimately it's just a cool ass game - i wish tartaros was about 70% shorter but nevermind that, ill forgive you.
i then found out that "the answer" that everyone is talking about is approximately 70% more tartaros - i think this was a stupid decision made by an idiot. in fact it might have been the stupidest decision made in japan for all of the early 2000s. i put in about 2 hours before i decided its best played through on a youtube playlist. if i had decided to play it my rating likely would have dropped by at least a full star . thats okay . just dont play it unless youre really really dumb
Absolute favorite game of all time, beautifully made, the atmosphere, characters, and plot is incredible, and the gameplay is also fun with the feel of tartarus.
I first played P3-5 in 2019, and since then I played 4 and 5 a few more times, but never 3 which I always had ranked below them. After finally securing a European copy of FES (very expensive) I decided to finally revisit it that way on my CRT. Man... I GET Persona 3 now. I finally understand why people love it so much. After playing other SMT games and growing accustomed to the difficulty and quirks, it was now a walk in the park and a lot of the criticisms I had don't matter to me anymore. I enjoy grinding Tartarus, the boss fights, really enjoy the higher difficulty than 4 and 5, and I even grew to like the weird stuff - ordering AIs with tactics, tiredness, reverse social links. I guess it made it feel more realistic and made me approach it differently to other RPGs. I tore through the story and didn't find any of the pacing issues I remembered and wow, this is a super consistent story with probably my favorite finale in the series. I don't love all of the cast but they are generally well written. It's undoubtedly the most flawed of the modern Personas and it's not gonna be for everyone, but I love it now. I've been thinking about it so much. 9/10 for the experience
This review contains spoilers
After rating Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal a perfect score, Persona 3 FES had some big shoes to fill. And it didn't.
...At first. With an all too familiar slow start, Persona 3 sets up everything you need to know to have a basic understanding of its systems in place. Only now, retroactively, do I understand the significance of the slow start of this game. I was confused why I would only get lore every full moon, feeling like it would be more engaging and purposeful to get more early on. And while it was a struggle to find the time to play at first, I truly appreciate it for what it is now.
The slow dripfeeding of the narrative, characterization and establishing bonds is meaningful in the specific themes of Persona 3. SEES exists out of necessity, to get rid of the Dark Hour and its shadows. Our main crew didn't join SEES because they were friends with each other, their purpose was to fulfill their goal. Having the main characters of Persona 3 only be vaguely acquainted with one another through school, barely being able to call each other friends and even being suspicious of one another makes the bonding and gradual build-up in their overall dynamic that much more meaningful. Take Yukari and Mitsuru, a girl that doesn't know her purpose in the grand scheme of things and the leader of SEES. There was an inherent distance between the two, but over the course of Persona 3, their bond becomes something special and a unique dynamic exists between the two which can be said about a lot of its members.
In a sense, this works on a meta level too. The more time you spend with these characters, the more you wanna see them, talk to them and form a unique bond with them. It feels authentic.
Among the things that this game does badly and does well, the development and meaning of the group dynamic of SEES and its ties into the message of Persona 3 stands out on top as its strongest component. Finding purpose and comfort in uncertainty through the bonds you create and the people you love is incredibly meaningful. As someone who struggles with finding a purpose in life, I feel like this game tells me that that's okay. And that I should be okay with that too.
Forever grateful for the friends that watched me, pushed me, encouraged me and supported me throughout this playthrough.
...At first. With an all too familiar slow start, Persona 3 sets up everything you need to know to have a basic understanding of its systems in place. Only now, retroactively, do I understand the significance of the slow start of this game. I was confused why I would only get lore every full moon, feeling like it would be more engaging and purposeful to get more early on. And while it was a struggle to find the time to play at first, I truly appreciate it for what it is now.
The slow dripfeeding of the narrative, characterization and establishing bonds is meaningful in the specific themes of Persona 3. SEES exists out of necessity, to get rid of the Dark Hour and its shadows. Our main crew didn't join SEES because they were friends with each other, their purpose was to fulfill their goal. Having the main characters of Persona 3 only be vaguely acquainted with one another through school, barely being able to call each other friends and even being suspicious of one another makes the bonding and gradual build-up in their overall dynamic that much more meaningful. Take Yukari and Mitsuru, a girl that doesn't know her purpose in the grand scheme of things and the leader of SEES. There was an inherent distance between the two, but over the course of Persona 3, their bond becomes something special and a unique dynamic exists between the two which can be said about a lot of its members.
In a sense, this works on a meta level too. The more time you spend with these characters, the more you wanna see them, talk to them and form a unique bond with them. It feels authentic.
Among the things that this game does badly and does well, the development and meaning of the group dynamic of SEES and its ties into the message of Persona 3 stands out on top as its strongest component. Finding purpose and comfort in uncertainty through the bonds you create and the people you love is incredibly meaningful. As someone who struggles with finding a purpose in life, I feel like this game tells me that that's okay. And that I should be okay with that too.
Forever grateful for the friends that watched me, pushed me, encouraged me and supported me throughout this playthrough.
A emotional story and compelling characters, layed the groundwork of what Persona 4, and 5 would go on to accomplish. The lack of party control may be a turn off for many, but the atmosphere and story are some of the finest I believe ive ever had the joy of experiencing.
For many years I’ve held Persona 3 in high regard as one of my favorite JRPGs of all time. With the upcoming release of Persona 3 Reload on the horizon, I wanted to give this game one more run before the remake comes out and play it with a fresh perspective after having not played it in about eight years. Coming back to this game after so long, there’s still a lot about it that I really love and respect, and finishing it still left me in an emotional mess. Despite that, however, this playthrough reminded me of many aspects of the game that don’t really sit well with me today, things that I hope Reload is able to improve upon.
Persona 3’s biggest draw to me has always been its story. The game has one of my favorite casts out of any JRPG I’ve ever played. I love how all of the characters grow and develop throughout the entire game. They all have emotional and generally very well-handled character arcs. Though some characters like Akihiko and Ken finish their character arcs a lot sooner and end up being flat for a good chunk of the story, I still think that the game overall does an excellent job with all of its characters, especially in comparison to the Persona games that come after it. One of my biggest problems with Persona 4 and 5 is their general story structure, and how each character goes through their arc before becoming flat for the rest of the game after completing their corresponding dungeon, only getting minor additional character development through their Social Links. Persona 3 isn’t like that at all. Up until the very end of the game, the cast is met with very personal challenges that they are able to overcome and learn from, which is what makes this cast and story resonate with me so much. Then there’s the game’s ending, which to date has made this one of the only games where I’ve actually cried while playing. It’s beautiful, tragic, and wraps up everything extremely neatly.
Aside from the story, another aspect about the game that I admire is how all of its unique systems are linked with one another. The combat system, Persona system, and Social Link system are all intertwined with one another in a way that’s extremely cohesive. Social Links affect the strength and progression speed of your Personas, which affects how efficiently you’re able to perform in combat. It’s very difficult to talk about one system without talking about another, and while that makes writing this review a bit more challenging, I think it makes for a very satisfying gameplay loop, as it constantly feels like you’re improving upon something in some fashion with every action you take on an in-game day to day basis.
The combat system is pretty standard for most JRPGs, though I really like Persona’s spin on it as it leads to more interesting decision-making. While you’re typically trying to find out the enemy’s weakness and exploit it, doing so allows you to knock your opponent down, causing them to lose their turn as well as take another turn for yourself. Knocking down all enemies on screen allows you to do an All-Out Attack with your party, which deals massive damage to every enemy on screen. However, this aspect of the combat also applies to yourself and your party members as well (though enemies can’t perform an All-Out Attack), which is why you need to make sure that you have the right Persona and party members when fighting enemies and especially bosses.
While aiming to get an All-Out Attack and wipe out the enemy as fast as possible is the general strategy, that strategy doesn’t always work nor is it always applicable at all times. There may be times where the spell you cast to knock the enemy down with misses, which gives the enemy a chance to retaliate. You might just not have a Persona or party member on hand who can exploit the enemy’s weakness, or the enemy might not have any weaknesses at all (which is the case for most bosses). Instead, you’ll have to form a strategy around what physical/elemental attacks your Personas and party members are strong and weak against and engage in more of a back and forth turn-based confrontation.
One of the most criticized aspects of the game is how it handles party members in combat. You don’t directly control what your party members do. Instead, your party members are controlled by AI. You are able to issue them general orders via the Tactics menu, however. You can assign party members specific enemies to target, tell them to focus on exploiting the enemy’s weakness and knocking them down, have them concentrate on healing/supporting the party with buffs or debuffs, etc, but you can’t select a specific ability of theirs during their turn. Personally speaking, this doesn’t bother me very much. For the vast majority of my play time, party members generally behaved as one would expect them to and did the most logical action during their turn. There were a few key instances where I found the AI consistently making decisions that aggravated me, though.
The first and more minor instance is that whenever you’re fighting a boss and you haven’t had the chance to analyze its weakness yet, Ken and Koromaru will almost always waste a turn trying to cast an instant-kill Hama or Mudo skill that will never ever work because bosses are always immune to them. There are also times where characters that don’t have a dedicated healing spell will give someone low on health a healing item. On paper, this isn’t a big deal, but in practice, wasting a turn to give someone an item that only heals a small amount of HP can be very frustrating, especially if they could’ve spent that turn knocking an enemy down, or you or someone else in the party is capable of healing people for more HP the very next turn. The biggest outlier however is one character in particular: Mitsuru. When Mitsuru is in your party, you need to be especially vigilant when it comes to assigning tactics to her, otherwise she will almost always waste a turn and magic casting either Marin Karin (a charm spell) that doesn’t work 90% of the time, or later in the game, she’ll cast Mind Charge instead, which can be more helpful since it boosts the damage of magic attacks, but isn’t really necessary since it’s generally more efficient to just knock the enemy down and do an All-Out Attack as fast as possible.
Still, despite the occasional frustration, I do think that a lot of people’s criticisms towards not being able to directly control your party members is fairly overblown. I actually like this system a lot, it makes the characters feel a bit more real. I understand that it’s not super popular, since the ability to directly control your party members was re-introduced in subsequent Persona games. Even though AI party members is still an option in those titles, the security of being able to directly pick which skill of my party members to use in any given situation is just too tempting to pass up on, and I fully admit that I likely wouldn’t ever use AI party members unless it was the only option I had.
The Persona system is both simultaneously easy to understand as well as very esoteric. If you’re just trying to play through the game normally, and you’re not trying to create a specific Persona, it’s fairly simple to just test and see what the results are of specific combinations of Personas. As long as it makes a Persona with a specific skill you’re looking for and is of an Arcana whose corresponding Social Link you’ve made a lot of progress in, then you’re generally good to go. However, if you’re trying to create a specific Persona for something like Elizabeth’s Requests or if you’re looking for one to help with a particularly difficult sub-boss in Tartarus, I do not see how you are supposed to reasonably be able to do so without some sort of guide. There are just far too many combinations and no real in-game way to tell what makes what. As long as you’re just sticking to the main game and not doing anything optional, you don’t really need a specific Persona for anything though. You’re generally able to make do with what you have as long as you’re consistently fusing Personas that are near your current in-game level.
The Social Link system is very conflicting, for a multitude of reasons. While the system itself I think is great and is an excellent way to tie-in gameplay elements with the thematic elements of the narrative, coming back to this game I initially thought that the narrative quality of the Social Links was generally very poor. In order to progress certain Social Links in the fastest and most efficient way possible, you’ll be required to constantly reinforce the beliefs and choices of the character whose Social Link you’re currently working on, even if they’re very poor, like Kenji or Hidetoshi. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that was kind of the point. As opposed to my original playthrough I decided to use a guide to see how best to progress through the Social Links, and I found the dialogue choices that would progress them the fastest are the ones where you have to kiss up to them at all times. This resulted in some Social Links being incredibly boring, with little to no conflict to them. I think this is the game’s way of saying that no friendship or relationship is ever perfect, most relationships have conflicts to them, and what’s most important is being able to overcome those conflicts and emerge from them with a stronger bond. Now, that could just be me reading too deep into the Social Links on a thematic level, admittedly. However, the Social Links do still have serious problems, some of which have already been addressed in future Persona titles, and some that I hope the remake rectifies.
The most obvious problem with them is that you can’t fully complete a female character’s Social Link without dating them. You have no option to just be friends with them. Thankfully, this was something that has already been handled in future Persona games, and I have no doubt that will carry over to the remake as well, but this was a very baffling oversight that wasn’t even addressed here in FES, the second version of Persona 3. An even bigger issue is that there are various Social Links that either involve or allude to romances with extremely uncomfortable age gaps. Kenji is a sixteen-year-old high school student whose entire Social Link is about his oblivious pursuit of his completely one-sided romance with his teacher. Maiko is a nine-year-old girl dealing with parents who are going through a divorce, and at the end of her Social Link, she falls in love with the high school age Protagonist, and you don’t have the option to directly say “no” to the idea of the two of you becoming “a mom and dad together”. One of the most problematic ones is “Maya”, the MMO player who is revealed to be an adult in the Protagonist's life with a crush on him. I really do hope that the remake rewrites these, “Maya”’s especially, because these are just not acceptable, especially in this day and age.
Tartarus is where that previously mentioned intertwining of systems is on full display. It’s a single 264 floor dungeon that you spend the entire game climbing. It’s here where you build up you and your party’s levels so that you’re strong enough to face the boss that appears at the end of each in-game month. Tartarus has always had a very mixed reception, and my most recent playthrough really opened my eyes to its problems. I think it’s biggest issue is that it’s not clear how much time you should be spending in Tartarus before you face the boss at the end of the month. The game does suggest you try and make it to the top of a block of floors before each fight, specifically via Elizabeth’s Requests, but even if you do make it to the top of a block, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you fought enough enemies and that you’re strong enough to fight the end-of-the-month boss. Persona 4 and 5 solved this problem by letting you fight the monthly bosses at any point within a certain period of time, giving you a deadline to defeat the boss as opposed to only allowing you to challenge and defeat a boss on one specific day. Given the narrative concept of Persona 3, you can’t really do that here, but hopefully Reload will give you some idea of what level you should be at to face those end-of-the-month bosses.
In addition to that, the sheer length of Tartarus and the unchanging layouts of its floors can grow rather tiresome and repetitive over the course of the game. The longer you play, the more of a grind it is, as more party members get added, which means you need to level more party members up, which means you need to spend more and more time in Tartarus. I do like the decision making that Tartarus forces, as you have to consider whether or not it’s worth challenging every Shadow on a floor, or if it’s better to try and continue the climb so that you make it to the next checkpoint without having to redo a section of floors again. It can be fun and an interesting challenge, but by the time you reach the end of the game and you make it to the top, you’re likely sick to death of it.
After all of that has been said and done, at the end of the day, I still greatly admire and appreciate Persona 3 despite its flaws. It doesn’t excel in every single regard, but if you stick with it, I think that it’s a game that can ultimately feel very rewarding, with a story that remains deeply impactful to me. There’s a lot this game does right, and even a bit it does better than the games that come after it. I hope that Persona 3 Reload is able to patch up the areas where it’s lacking, because I think that with a modern touch, Persona 3 could end up being not just the best game in the series on a thematic and narrative level, but on a gameplay one as well.
Persona 3’s biggest draw to me has always been its story. The game has one of my favorite casts out of any JRPG I’ve ever played. I love how all of the characters grow and develop throughout the entire game. They all have emotional and generally very well-handled character arcs. Though some characters like Akihiko and Ken finish their character arcs a lot sooner and end up being flat for a good chunk of the story, I still think that the game overall does an excellent job with all of its characters, especially in comparison to the Persona games that come after it. One of my biggest problems with Persona 4 and 5 is their general story structure, and how each character goes through their arc before becoming flat for the rest of the game after completing their corresponding dungeon, only getting minor additional character development through their Social Links. Persona 3 isn’t like that at all. Up until the very end of the game, the cast is met with very personal challenges that they are able to overcome and learn from, which is what makes this cast and story resonate with me so much. Then there’s the game’s ending, which to date has made this one of the only games where I’ve actually cried while playing. It’s beautiful, tragic, and wraps up everything extremely neatly.
Aside from the story, another aspect about the game that I admire is how all of its unique systems are linked with one another. The combat system, Persona system, and Social Link system are all intertwined with one another in a way that’s extremely cohesive. Social Links affect the strength and progression speed of your Personas, which affects how efficiently you’re able to perform in combat. It’s very difficult to talk about one system without talking about another, and while that makes writing this review a bit more challenging, I think it makes for a very satisfying gameplay loop, as it constantly feels like you’re improving upon something in some fashion with every action you take on an in-game day to day basis.
The combat system is pretty standard for most JRPGs, though I really like Persona’s spin on it as it leads to more interesting decision-making. While you’re typically trying to find out the enemy’s weakness and exploit it, doing so allows you to knock your opponent down, causing them to lose their turn as well as take another turn for yourself. Knocking down all enemies on screen allows you to do an All-Out Attack with your party, which deals massive damage to every enemy on screen. However, this aspect of the combat also applies to yourself and your party members as well (though enemies can’t perform an All-Out Attack), which is why you need to make sure that you have the right Persona and party members when fighting enemies and especially bosses.
While aiming to get an All-Out Attack and wipe out the enemy as fast as possible is the general strategy, that strategy doesn’t always work nor is it always applicable at all times. There may be times where the spell you cast to knock the enemy down with misses, which gives the enemy a chance to retaliate. You might just not have a Persona or party member on hand who can exploit the enemy’s weakness, or the enemy might not have any weaknesses at all (which is the case for most bosses). Instead, you’ll have to form a strategy around what physical/elemental attacks your Personas and party members are strong and weak against and engage in more of a back and forth turn-based confrontation.
One of the most criticized aspects of the game is how it handles party members in combat. You don’t directly control what your party members do. Instead, your party members are controlled by AI. You are able to issue them general orders via the Tactics menu, however. You can assign party members specific enemies to target, tell them to focus on exploiting the enemy’s weakness and knocking them down, have them concentrate on healing/supporting the party with buffs or debuffs, etc, but you can’t select a specific ability of theirs during their turn. Personally speaking, this doesn’t bother me very much. For the vast majority of my play time, party members generally behaved as one would expect them to and did the most logical action during their turn. There were a few key instances where I found the AI consistently making decisions that aggravated me, though.
The first and more minor instance is that whenever you’re fighting a boss and you haven’t had the chance to analyze its weakness yet, Ken and Koromaru will almost always waste a turn trying to cast an instant-kill Hama or Mudo skill that will never ever work because bosses are always immune to them. There are also times where characters that don’t have a dedicated healing spell will give someone low on health a healing item. On paper, this isn’t a big deal, but in practice, wasting a turn to give someone an item that only heals a small amount of HP can be very frustrating, especially if they could’ve spent that turn knocking an enemy down, or you or someone else in the party is capable of healing people for more HP the very next turn. The biggest outlier however is one character in particular: Mitsuru. When Mitsuru is in your party, you need to be especially vigilant when it comes to assigning tactics to her, otherwise she will almost always waste a turn and magic casting either Marin Karin (a charm spell) that doesn’t work 90% of the time, or later in the game, she’ll cast Mind Charge instead, which can be more helpful since it boosts the damage of magic attacks, but isn’t really necessary since it’s generally more efficient to just knock the enemy down and do an All-Out Attack as fast as possible.
Still, despite the occasional frustration, I do think that a lot of people’s criticisms towards not being able to directly control your party members is fairly overblown. I actually like this system a lot, it makes the characters feel a bit more real. I understand that it’s not super popular, since the ability to directly control your party members was re-introduced in subsequent Persona games. Even though AI party members is still an option in those titles, the security of being able to directly pick which skill of my party members to use in any given situation is just too tempting to pass up on, and I fully admit that I likely wouldn’t ever use AI party members unless it was the only option I had.
The Persona system is both simultaneously easy to understand as well as very esoteric. If you’re just trying to play through the game normally, and you’re not trying to create a specific Persona, it’s fairly simple to just test and see what the results are of specific combinations of Personas. As long as it makes a Persona with a specific skill you’re looking for and is of an Arcana whose corresponding Social Link you’ve made a lot of progress in, then you’re generally good to go. However, if you’re trying to create a specific Persona for something like Elizabeth’s Requests or if you’re looking for one to help with a particularly difficult sub-boss in Tartarus, I do not see how you are supposed to reasonably be able to do so without some sort of guide. There are just far too many combinations and no real in-game way to tell what makes what. As long as you’re just sticking to the main game and not doing anything optional, you don’t really need a specific Persona for anything though. You’re generally able to make do with what you have as long as you’re consistently fusing Personas that are near your current in-game level.
The Social Link system is very conflicting, for a multitude of reasons. While the system itself I think is great and is an excellent way to tie-in gameplay elements with the thematic elements of the narrative, coming back to this game I initially thought that the narrative quality of the Social Links was generally very poor. In order to progress certain Social Links in the fastest and most efficient way possible, you’ll be required to constantly reinforce the beliefs and choices of the character whose Social Link you’re currently working on, even if they’re very poor, like Kenji or Hidetoshi. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that was kind of the point. As opposed to my original playthrough I decided to use a guide to see how best to progress through the Social Links, and I found the dialogue choices that would progress them the fastest are the ones where you have to kiss up to them at all times. This resulted in some Social Links being incredibly boring, with little to no conflict to them. I think this is the game’s way of saying that no friendship or relationship is ever perfect, most relationships have conflicts to them, and what’s most important is being able to overcome those conflicts and emerge from them with a stronger bond. Now, that could just be me reading too deep into the Social Links on a thematic level, admittedly. However, the Social Links do still have serious problems, some of which have already been addressed in future Persona titles, and some that I hope the remake rectifies.
The most obvious problem with them is that you can’t fully complete a female character’s Social Link without dating them. You have no option to just be friends with them. Thankfully, this was something that has already been handled in future Persona games, and I have no doubt that will carry over to the remake as well, but this was a very baffling oversight that wasn’t even addressed here in FES, the second version of Persona 3. An even bigger issue is that there are various Social Links that either involve or allude to romances with extremely uncomfortable age gaps. Kenji is a sixteen-year-old high school student whose entire Social Link is about his oblivious pursuit of his completely one-sided romance with his teacher. Maiko is a nine-year-old girl dealing with parents who are going through a divorce, and at the end of her Social Link, she falls in love with the high school age Protagonist, and you don’t have the option to directly say “no” to the idea of the two of you becoming “a mom and dad together”. One of the most problematic ones is “Maya”, the MMO player who is revealed to be an adult in the Protagonist's life with a crush on him. I really do hope that the remake rewrites these, “Maya”’s especially, because these are just not acceptable, especially in this day and age.
Tartarus is where that previously mentioned intertwining of systems is on full display. It’s a single 264 floor dungeon that you spend the entire game climbing. It’s here where you build up you and your party’s levels so that you’re strong enough to face the boss that appears at the end of each in-game month. Tartarus has always had a very mixed reception, and my most recent playthrough really opened my eyes to its problems. I think it’s biggest issue is that it’s not clear how much time you should be spending in Tartarus before you face the boss at the end of the month. The game does suggest you try and make it to the top of a block of floors before each fight, specifically via Elizabeth’s Requests, but even if you do make it to the top of a block, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you fought enough enemies and that you’re strong enough to fight the end-of-the-month boss. Persona 4 and 5 solved this problem by letting you fight the monthly bosses at any point within a certain period of time, giving you a deadline to defeat the boss as opposed to only allowing you to challenge and defeat a boss on one specific day. Given the narrative concept of Persona 3, you can’t really do that here, but hopefully Reload will give you some idea of what level you should be at to face those end-of-the-month bosses.
In addition to that, the sheer length of Tartarus and the unchanging layouts of its floors can grow rather tiresome and repetitive over the course of the game. The longer you play, the more of a grind it is, as more party members get added, which means you need to level more party members up, which means you need to spend more and more time in Tartarus. I do like the decision making that Tartarus forces, as you have to consider whether or not it’s worth challenging every Shadow on a floor, or if it’s better to try and continue the climb so that you make it to the next checkpoint without having to redo a section of floors again. It can be fun and an interesting challenge, but by the time you reach the end of the game and you make it to the top, you’re likely sick to death of it.
After all of that has been said and done, at the end of the day, I still greatly admire and appreciate Persona 3 despite its flaws. It doesn’t excel in every single regard, but if you stick with it, I think that it’s a game that can ultimately feel very rewarding, with a story that remains deeply impactful to me. There’s a lot this game does right, and even a bit it does better than the games that come after it. I hope that Persona 3 Reload is able to patch up the areas where it’s lacking, because I think that with a modern touch, Persona 3 could end up being not just the best game in the series on a thematic and narrative level, but on a gameplay one as well.
Persona 3 is a game I hold near and dear to my heart. When I replayed this game last summer I was a total loser, I hated my life and just wanted to give up. The story of Persona 3 is about fighting that feeling, the feeling of just wanting to give in to despair, to fight giving up and staying in bed due to having a lack of motivation to live. Near the end of the game the cast of Persona 3 is thrown into a situation where they have to fight the very embodiment of death and despair. The characters all have a reason to continue to live, to fight against the sometimes overbearing feeling of despair. Akihiko continues onward in order to gain the strength to protect his loved ones, Yukari simply wanted to learn why her father had to die, Ken lived to get revenge on the man who killed his mother. Junpei doesn’t even really know why he fights, he isn’t particularly good at anything and the protagonist is way better than him at the one thing that he is good at. Sometimes it’s okay to not know why you continue onward in life, because just like how Junpei eventually finds a reason to fight so will you. Then there’s Shinji Aragaki, someone who had made a horrible mistake in his past and has lived in guilt ever since, he had given into his despair and decided to stop fighting. He simply just wanted to forget what he did and move on. Of course running away from your mistakes doesn’t solve anything, the only thing that will lead you to is down a path of self hatred. It isn’t until Akihiko convinces Shinji to rejoin SEES that he’s able to continue fighting against his guilt, despair and finally take accountability for his actions that allows him to find peace. The main character lives to spend time with people. Time is limited, you might not be able to spend time with certain people in the future, you might not be as close to certain people as you are now in the future. So don’t waste your time living in self hatred or living as a shut in. Walk away from your soundless room, spend time with the people you care about, and go do things you always wanted to do. Sometimes it might be tedious, sometimes you may want to give up, but refusing to give up and finding the strength to carry forward will make life a lot more fulfilling.
Full Disclosure; I used an EXP x4000 gain cheat before the final day due to reasons I will explain later, also this review is specifically for The Journey, I will be reviewing The Answer separately once I play it.
Coming hot off the heels of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment I was really, REALLY looking forward to playing the first real Persona game, Persona 3 FES, which is why I'm so disappointed in how let down I am in this game.
Persona 3 FES has an incredibly bare-bones story, with shockingly weak antagonists and a refusal to allow any development of them. At a certain point in the game there seem to literally be no antagonists whatsoever, and the pointlessness of it all would stick more as an intentional meta-narrative story device if I didn't feel like there wasn't an antagonist for the entire rest of the game as well. Also the Yakushima Beach scene has an incredibly, horribly poorly aged transphobic joke which left a sour taste in my mouth for some time.
The social sim half of this game certainly does a lot for differentiating it from its numerous Megaten siblings but it's quite underbaked in FES. Romance of most female characters is forced, which is not the based Ethical Non-Monogamy win it could have been, but then again these characters are teenagers so go play Hades for your polyamoury kick. Eventually I ran out of social sim activities to do at night, which is way more boring than it sounds, and what Social Links I did have available to me I quit halfway through most of the time due to either, A; the aforementioned forced romance, or B; shit like Kenji wanting a date a teacher and Maya being a teacher wanting to date a student. However first attempts are rarely home runs so I'll cut the game some slack for that.
The battle system revamp coming from Eternal Punishment kinda sucks, actually? Knockdowns don't really feel great to use because the enemy can recover from a knockdown and attack in the same turn but your party must waste a turn recovering from that same knockdown, there should be equality here in my opinion. All Out Attacks aren't the most satisfying either once the novelty wears off (fast). Party AI is actually interesting to play around, it's a worthwhile addition to a somewhat uncompelling battle system, and anyone who refuses to play this game without a party control cheat have been lied to about Mitsuru spamming charm, the Tactics menu was invented here for a reason, use it. Shuffle Time as a mechanic is incredibly underwhelming when compared to Eternal Punishment's purely perfected Demon Contact system (despite that system's flaws in Persona Cards), Shuffle Time especially disappoints when 9/10 times the best choice is EXP card, that or money.
The difficulty curve is also just straight fucked. Tartarus guardians will sometimes outlevel the corresponding Full Moon boss for no good reason and spam Maragidyne in your face until you realise you can cheese it with Magic Mirrors or Narcissus Charm Boosted Sexy Dance. By the end of the game I was staring down a final boss rush at level 70 being told I would need to be about level 80 to beat it, which doesn't sound like that bad of a grind but the EXP even at the top of Tartarus is pitiful, and the only way I could defeat the Reaper and access the Monad Depths is Thunder's Reign cheese, but after unlocking the Monad Depths I came to a horrifying realisation, every single enemy would party wipe me with Megidoloan, so I just used an EXP cheat to max out the protagonist, my party, and personas. It was either that or quitting and watching the ending on Youtube. Sorry for ruining the ludonarrative weight of the final boss I guess.
And yet, after this scathing take down of Persona 3 FES, I still have to give it 3 stars, because damn, the characters and certain isolated story beats are just incredible. I love Akihiko, I love Shinjrio, I love Junpei. Anyone who's played this game would be able to rifle off impactful moments of character development, Akihiko's ultimate persona awakening, Junpei's and Mitsuru's too, practically any time Akihiko and Shinjiro are on screen together its guaranteed to hit hard.
All in all, I kinda just wished I could see what everyone else does in this game.
Coming hot off the heels of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment I was really, REALLY looking forward to playing the first real Persona game, Persona 3 FES, which is why I'm so disappointed in how let down I am in this game.
Persona 3 FES has an incredibly bare-bones story, with shockingly weak antagonists and a refusal to allow any development of them. At a certain point in the game there seem to literally be no antagonists whatsoever, and the pointlessness of it all would stick more as an intentional meta-narrative story device if I didn't feel like there wasn't an antagonist for the entire rest of the game as well. Also the Yakushima Beach scene has an incredibly, horribly poorly aged transphobic joke which left a sour taste in my mouth for some time.
The social sim half of this game certainly does a lot for differentiating it from its numerous Megaten siblings but it's quite underbaked in FES. Romance of most female characters is forced, which is not the based Ethical Non-Monogamy win it could have been, but then again these characters are teenagers so go play Hades for your polyamoury kick. Eventually I ran out of social sim activities to do at night, which is way more boring than it sounds, and what Social Links I did have available to me I quit halfway through most of the time due to either, A; the aforementioned forced romance, or B; shit like Kenji wanting a date a teacher and Maya being a teacher wanting to date a student. However first attempts are rarely home runs so I'll cut the game some slack for that.
The battle system revamp coming from Eternal Punishment kinda sucks, actually? Knockdowns don't really feel great to use because the enemy can recover from a knockdown and attack in the same turn but your party must waste a turn recovering from that same knockdown, there should be equality here in my opinion. All Out Attacks aren't the most satisfying either once the novelty wears off (fast). Party AI is actually interesting to play around, it's a worthwhile addition to a somewhat uncompelling battle system, and anyone who refuses to play this game without a party control cheat have been lied to about Mitsuru spamming charm, the Tactics menu was invented here for a reason, use it. Shuffle Time as a mechanic is incredibly underwhelming when compared to Eternal Punishment's purely perfected Demon Contact system (despite that system's flaws in Persona Cards), Shuffle Time especially disappoints when 9/10 times the best choice is EXP card, that or money.
The difficulty curve is also just straight fucked. Tartarus guardians will sometimes outlevel the corresponding Full Moon boss for no good reason and spam Maragidyne in your face until you realise you can cheese it with Magic Mirrors or Narcissus Charm Boosted Sexy Dance. By the end of the game I was staring down a final boss rush at level 70 being told I would need to be about level 80 to beat it, which doesn't sound like that bad of a grind but the EXP even at the top of Tartarus is pitiful, and the only way I could defeat the Reaper and access the Monad Depths is Thunder's Reign cheese, but after unlocking the Monad Depths I came to a horrifying realisation, every single enemy would party wipe me with Megidoloan, so I just used an EXP cheat to max out the protagonist, my party, and personas. It was either that or quitting and watching the ending on Youtube. Sorry for ruining the ludonarrative weight of the final boss I guess.
And yet, after this scathing take down of Persona 3 FES, I still have to give it 3 stars, because damn, the characters and certain isolated story beats are just incredible. I love Akihiko, I love Shinjrio, I love Junpei. Anyone who's played this game would be able to rifle off impactful moments of character development, Akihiko's ultimate persona awakening, Junpei's and Mitsuru's too, practically any time Akihiko and Shinjiro are on screen together its guaranteed to hit hard.
All in all, I kinda just wished I could see what everyone else does in this game.
4 and 5 are consistently better and more enjoyable, but the final stretch of P3 blows both of those games out of the water. P5 third semester comes somewhat close, but it felt anticlimactic after the final boss. I'm also a huge fan of the moody and edgy atmosphere
Persona 3 sits in the funny transition between that classic moody SMT vibe and the modern Persona approach, and in this space I think it ends up feeling a tad more sincere and nuanced in the storytelling. It also means some aspects of the gameplay are dry as shit.
I love the vibes of this game honestly. I love the dynamics of the cast and just how lowkey it feels compared to other Persona titles. Just wish I had more time to grind for Tartarus.
I did not talk about the music in my Persona 3 review that is why I am doing it here. I really love the soundtrack of this game. Really embodies the urban feeling and is also really charming. The sound mixing is not the most ideal but I would say in some cases the bad mixing also enhances some songs for example the loud drums in Master of Tartarus. It gives the song a punchy feel that sounds like a beat down or something like that. Oh I forgot to mention my favorite songs in the game:
1.Changing Seasons
2. Memories of the City/School
3. Living in Determination Iwatodai Dorm Mix
4. Deep Mentality
5. Darkness from The Answer
Also be writing a review for Persona 3 portable where I shortly go over about my experience with the female protagonist route.
1.Changing Seasons
2. Memories of the City/School
3. Living in Determination Iwatodai Dorm Mix
4. Deep Mentality
5. Darkness from The Answer
Also be writing a review for Persona 3 portable where I shortly go over about my experience with the female protagonist route.