For a game so intent on telling you that you should live your short life to its fullest this REALLY likes to waste your time.
I'd argue that up until like October(?) most of this story feels like white noise. Nothing particularly interesting happens and I couldn't find myself caring about it up until that point. Even once you get to October where things finally start to happen it almost feels as if you're being drip fed content to further pad out the game. This of course wouldn't be a problem if the time with little actual story progression was used for characterization and buildup with plentiful slice of life segments to enforce that (something Persona 4 actually did super well), but there's practically none of that? It's very odd and makes most of this game feel incredibly uneventful. I also fully believe this to be one of the worst implementations of a silent protagonist I've seen in a game. I do not like characters constantly praising the self-insert main character, this game is full of that. Everyone thinks the MC the coolest guy ever when he honestly comes off as a pessimistic asshole, especially given some of the dialogue choices. This sucks and leads to dynamics with the main character falling incredibly flat, when the alternative could have been extremely interesting.
I also think most of social links in this game range from terrible to w/e. This becomes much more of an issue when all of the choices that help you progress social links consist solely of being a yes man. Why am I helping my friend get groomed by his teacher? Why am I telling my friend to hide his leg injury and participate in track practice despite that? Idk Persona 3 but I don't think giving bad advice should be how you further friendships but what makes number go up makes number go up. Shoutout to food kid's social link for being comedically terrible. There are of course some good ones in there with Maiko's and Akinari's being fantastic, but for the most part social links felt like a tedium. Though I will say appreciate that reload gives mini social links to the male characters who appearantly just had nothing originally? All of these are fantastic and it's so weird to imagine them being basically exclusive to FEMC content.
I should also mention the gameplay, I don't like it. I think encounters last way longer than they have any right to and that's mostly due to animations feeling like they're longer than they should be, this game would benefit heavily from a fast foward button or just a way to skip animations (something I'm fairly certain SMTV has). Some enemies also just have too much health with no weaknesses, which leads to some particularly boring encounters that last for way too long (this becomes less of a problem later on when you can make personas that easily wipe encounters). In general there's nothing much that makes the gameplay standout from other Megaten titles. That being said, all of this would be much less of an issue if Tartarus wasn't what it is. Tartarus is terrible. I don't know who thought it would be a good idea for the only dungeon to be 250+ floors of randomly generated goodness. Tartarus turns gameplay that could have been something passable into something that can be miserable at points, I should not dread having to actually play the game.
With this all being said I still think Persona 3 can be incredible when it wants to. Everything relating to Shinji, Junpei & Chidori, and the first half of December in general was phenomenal and deserves praise. Everything concerning this game thematically? Fantastic. I also love the cast and honestly consider them to be among Atlus' best characters. This game is so frustrating with how good it can be at times. Like where was all of this the rest of the game? Why can you pop off so hard for one cutscene and then have the next 5 hours of game be nothing remotely interesting. I just wish all of this phenomenal stuff was in a game that didn't suck ass and drag its feet for the grand majority of its runtime.
I'd argue that up until like October(?) most of this story feels like white noise. Nothing particularly interesting happens and I couldn't find myself caring about it up until that point. Even once you get to October where things finally start to happen it almost feels as if you're being drip fed content to further pad out the game. This of course wouldn't be a problem if the time with little actual story progression was used for characterization and buildup with plentiful slice of life segments to enforce that (something Persona 4 actually did super well), but there's practically none of that? It's very odd and makes most of this game feel incredibly uneventful. I also fully believe this to be one of the worst implementations of a silent protagonist I've seen in a game. I do not like characters constantly praising the self-insert main character, this game is full of that. Everyone thinks the MC the coolest guy ever when he honestly comes off as a pessimistic asshole, especially given some of the dialogue choices. This sucks and leads to dynamics with the main character falling incredibly flat, when the alternative could have been extremely interesting.
I also think most of social links in this game range from terrible to w/e. This becomes much more of an issue when all of the choices that help you progress social links consist solely of being a yes man. Why am I helping my friend get groomed by his teacher? Why am I telling my friend to hide his leg injury and participate in track practice despite that? Idk Persona 3 but I don't think giving bad advice should be how you further friendships but what makes number go up makes number go up. Shoutout to food kid's social link for being comedically terrible. There are of course some good ones in there with Maiko's and Akinari's being fantastic, but for the most part social links felt like a tedium. Though I will say appreciate that reload gives mini social links to the male characters who appearantly just had nothing originally? All of these are fantastic and it's so weird to imagine them being basically exclusive to FEMC content.
I should also mention the gameplay, I don't like it. I think encounters last way longer than they have any right to and that's mostly due to animations feeling like they're longer than they should be, this game would benefit heavily from a fast foward button or just a way to skip animations (something I'm fairly certain SMTV has). Some enemies also just have too much health with no weaknesses, which leads to some particularly boring encounters that last for way too long (this becomes less of a problem later on when you can make personas that easily wipe encounters). In general there's nothing much that makes the gameplay standout from other Megaten titles. That being said, all of this would be much less of an issue if Tartarus wasn't what it is. Tartarus is terrible. I don't know who thought it would be a good idea for the only dungeon to be 250+ floors of randomly generated goodness. Tartarus turns gameplay that could have been something passable into something that can be miserable at points, I should not dread having to actually play the game.
With this all being said I still think Persona 3 can be incredible when it wants to. Everything relating to Shinji, Junpei & Chidori, and the first half of December in general was phenomenal and deserves praise. Everything concerning this game thematically? Fantastic. I also love the cast and honestly consider them to be among Atlus' best characters. This game is so frustrating with how good it can be at times. Like where was all of this the rest of the game? Why can you pop off so hard for one cutscene and then have the next 5 hours of game be nothing remotely interesting. I just wish all of this phenomenal stuff was in a game that didn't suck ass and drag its feet for the grand majority of its runtime.