Persona 3 may not be perfect... but it's everything to me. And considering that, please excuse the length of this review, as it’ll likely be one of the few times I’ll hold a game in this high regard, while having an outlet to speak on such fresh thoughts.
Because I'm weird and stupid, and broke enough to consider this, but not broke enough to buy the necessary bullshit, I burned this game to a DVD to be played on original hardware, and on a CRT. The log says January 2023, right? Yeah that sounds about right. That was not just fresh off a full playthrough of P5R, but also the start of my 2nd semester of college. I remember my impression was rough, but I was intrigued regardless. I hated the evasion penalties, and was baffled by a number of things, like the lack of party social links, the general "emptiness" of the town, the fact that I could fucking fail studying, I thought it'd be a brutal, unforgiving experience, so I more or less dropped it in favor of... preparing for TotK. Jesus Christ. I did end up picking it up occasionally, making it through the 1st boss, and I was actually starting to warm up to the game, just to stop again before Yukari said the funny line on 5/30. By the time I picked this game up again, I had gotten myself familiar with many other aspects of Megaten, and other assorted related things. dabbling a bit in Kyuuyaku, Soul Hackers, Etrian Odyssey, and fully beating games like SMT1 and P4G. With all this in place, plus not wanting to be surrounded in discussion of a game I haven't played yet, I thought now would be the best time to pick this game back up.
While some might consider P3 to be rough around the edges, or just plain "outdated", I think… despite the way I chose to play, it is some of the best RPG gameplay I’ve experienced solely due to how intentional, and how complete every aspect of it feels. Almost every mechanic is deliberately designed to provide the perfect amount of freedom, and pushback from the game. Before we continue though, I might as well say now that I actually used a cheat to enable party control, because according to me when I tossed my 1st disc: "not having controllable party members in a RPG is like not being able to control movement while jumping in a platformer." And... well honestly, I still mostly believe this, especially for a Megaten game, and party control is in all other versions of the game so it doesn't seem that core to the experience to me, I actually reconsidered my opinion when I got Aigis in my party, and I tried using Orgia mode, just to keep my full control when her turn came up. That one moment is enough for me to question my decision... not enough to burn another new disc now, but enough to plan on doing so for my next playthrough. But with all that said, the battle mechanics feels perfect in this game, making you consider every aspect from the usual strengths, weaknesses and 1 more, to needing to decide between single or multi-target attacks, to making ailments more prominent, or even to your equipment beyond what's the higher number. The only thing that really sticks out as odd are the fusion spells, which I'll talk more about my problems with them later, but regardless, I'd still say they're a fun unique addition I wish was utilized more. Tartarus, while not always visually or thematically interesting, feels like I'm exploring and dungeon crawling way more than whatever they were going for in 4. The blockier randomized segments are tight enough to never make a floor feel drawn out, but open enough for you to consider splitting up your party, which I thought would be a terrible feature, until I realized how integral it is to leveling up. And the risk of having your party members scattered and dying quicker is again an interesting option to take into account, since it means more exp is given to those individuals. And fatigue not only gets you to utilize and experiment with party build in the late game, but also directly affects aspects of the IRL stuff. Sure it boils down to not being able to go in every singular night, and just gets you a free courage point while risking a study failure, but it makes the social elements and the dungeon crawling feel more intertwined and balanced than either of the future titles. If anything, I wish fatigue was utilized MORE.
Now despite how I’ve always loved the dark, moody visuals of the dark hour, I still think I owe a formal apology to this game’s environmental presentation, because while I wasn’t a fan of the daytime locations, I absolutely love them now. I always thought the presentation was great, but the lack of NPCs populating any area had me worried. Of course, seeing the town repopulate with reawakened people after the 1st boss was defeated is what immediately triggered my change in opinion, but even without that I’ve grown to appreciate every explorable spot of Tatsumi Port Island, from the attention to detail on transferring between locations, to the various nooks and crannies that make the place feel more lived in than I ever game it credit for. AND THE MUSIC. OH MY GOD. I think P3 has already become one of my favorite OSTs. And my only complaint is that there isn’t more of it.
But regarding any complaints I still have, I think they should’ve gone all or nothing with persona skill inheritance. I heard you weren’t able to decide what skills fused personas get, but you can. It’s just decided every time you select a persona and get a result. Which means you can just keep deselecting and reselecting to reroll the skills until you get what you want. And since I’ve likely spent more than an hour in total across the game doing this, I wish the game either just let me choose skills manually, or have completely 100% set inheritable skills without my input. I mean, I went through SMT1 without the feature in any way, I could definitely do it again.
The other complaint is about Elizabeth's requests, which for the most part, are fine and inoffensive as a way to incentivize exploring the world, interacting with various systems and NPCs, and even getting through Tartarus to prepare you for every boss. But there's one line of quests that just makes no sense to me. As alluded to earlier, fusion skills are a cool addition that unfortunately rarely comes up. For some, you kinda have to be directly told which Personas you'll need to utilize them, unless you're some kind of lore master who knows every mythological and religious influence on Megaten. And thankfully there's a whole line of requests that tells you what you'll need for that fusion spell. Now this is all fine and good... but why the fuck is the Thunder Call skill the 5th quest??? Progression comes to a screeching halt for half the game because you won't be able to fuse for Thor for the next 30+ LEVELS! Because of this, for an entire half of the game, I completely forgot about fusion skills because I was never incentivized to seek them out. And once I finally get to fuse for Thor 50 hours later, I now just have to waste thousands of yen on extremely underleveled Personas I only need for fusion skills I COULD'VE learned about and properly utilized if I had known about through the fucking quest system, because after the Thunder Call quest, the proceeding quests just progress with Personas that are naturally just above the levels of the previous one. What I'm trying to say is Thor is the biggest asshole in Megaten, between this and dropping the ICBMs in SMT1. If there's a mod or something to just... move the quest order so Thunder Call comes later, I think that version of the game would be my #2 favorite game ever... oh well.
Also I get the idea behind giving some fusion skills for the ultimate personas, but that also just means you can't progress through these damn quests ever again if you just so happen to have missed one of the social links you have to max out. Man, I don't even know how you're supposed to unlock Fuuka's social link. And now during fucking October or whenever is when you're gonna tell me I needed her for this quest? While I'm already (potentially) juggling 3 other girls and preparing myself to be the perfect man for Mitsuru?? Thanks a lot game.
I guess that's a good segway into my problems with social links. Specifically datable ones, and the whole reversal system. I don’t exactly like the fact that you can’t say no to dating any of them, but I also get that it’s supposed to be like an actual dating sim, where you can hang out with multiple girls, and you have to manage your time with each one so they don’t bomb you/reverse the link. My complaint though, is this mechanic isn’t prominent enough.
I never scheduled sundays with multiple people because I’m not stupid, and went for one girl at a time, which seemed to be all I needed to never get a reversal once. What I’m saying is this supposedly punishing mechanic people complain about is overhyped. Oh well. I guess it’s great that I can tell Kenji he’s full of shit without much consequence
Now aside from him, I gotta say I loved every single social link I maxed out, those being Mitsuru, Hidetoshi, Yukari, Kazushi, Yuko, Mutatsu, Bunkichi, Maiko, Mamoru, Akinari (of course), and even motherfucking President Tanaka. Oh yeah, and Maya's sometimes good I guess. Not only do some of these characters tell such wonderful stories, but I feel each and every one offers a wholly unique story that isn’t comparable to any other in this game, or future entries. Like, as much as I think Kenji is an idiot, I’d never picture a future game having another character who spends their entire link trying to get groomed. Or for more positive examples, someone who gives up their dreams just to provide for their family. Or a shrewd businessman who doesn’t want to admit when he actually cares for his workers. Or even a dying man who tries to grasp the meaning of life… I never got to meet Scott the Woz though! Where tf was he??????
While I wasn’t a fan of the fact that most of your party members aren’t social links, I think it did wonders for how they develop over the main story, which while it starts off slow, it becomes incredibly captivating and beautiful. I do think the game’s setup could’ve been better, as things like the dark hour, apathy syndrome, joining SEES, and even how the protagonist plays into things aren’t given a lot of explaination. However, since there’s less going on, it means you get into the actual gameplay loop sooner, so that makes up for it. And once you get past that 1st boss, everything starts to fall into place better. Once people start actually asking questions and learning about what’s going on is where things become great, and the character relationships really start to shine. I probably foresaw around July or August that this was going to be my favorite Persona game. But as I kept playing, as I kept watching Akihiko, Mitsuru, Junpei, and especially Yukari persevere through everything, I just loved it more and more. And now, I sit here in front of my computer with tears in my eyes, for there are very few times I have ever felt this strongly about a game before. I… I think I needed this game.
I think despite its definite undeniable flaws, and whatever others might claim those flaws to be, Persona 3 is a beautiful, remarkable work of art, that did way more than just remind me why I love video games. It is a must play for everyone, no matter what… oh God I just realized I have 2 entirely different versions I now feel the need to play. And this is all without even touching the answer. I’m fucked.
Because I'm weird and stupid, and broke enough to consider this, but not broke enough to buy the necessary bullshit, I burned this game to a DVD to be played on original hardware, and on a CRT. The log says January 2023, right? Yeah that sounds about right. That was not just fresh off a full playthrough of P5R, but also the start of my 2nd semester of college. I remember my impression was rough, but I was intrigued regardless. I hated the evasion penalties, and was baffled by a number of things, like the lack of party social links, the general "emptiness" of the town, the fact that I could fucking fail studying, I thought it'd be a brutal, unforgiving experience, so I more or less dropped it in favor of... preparing for TotK. Jesus Christ. I did end up picking it up occasionally, making it through the 1st boss, and I was actually starting to warm up to the game, just to stop again before Yukari said the funny line on 5/30. By the time I picked this game up again, I had gotten myself familiar with many other aspects of Megaten, and other assorted related things. dabbling a bit in Kyuuyaku, Soul Hackers, Etrian Odyssey, and fully beating games like SMT1 and P4G. With all this in place, plus not wanting to be surrounded in discussion of a game I haven't played yet, I thought now would be the best time to pick this game back up.
While some might consider P3 to be rough around the edges, or just plain "outdated", I think… despite the way I chose to play, it is some of the best RPG gameplay I’ve experienced solely due to how intentional, and how complete every aspect of it feels. Almost every mechanic is deliberately designed to provide the perfect amount of freedom, and pushback from the game. Before we continue though, I might as well say now that I actually used a cheat to enable party control, because according to me when I tossed my 1st disc: "not having controllable party members in a RPG is like not being able to control movement while jumping in a platformer." And... well honestly, I still mostly believe this, especially for a Megaten game, and party control is in all other versions of the game so it doesn't seem that core to the experience to me, I actually reconsidered my opinion when I got Aigis in my party, and I tried using Orgia mode, just to keep my full control when her turn came up. That one moment is enough for me to question my decision... not enough to burn another new disc now, but enough to plan on doing so for my next playthrough. But with all that said, the battle mechanics feels perfect in this game, making you consider every aspect from the usual strengths, weaknesses and 1 more, to needing to decide between single or multi-target attacks, to making ailments more prominent, or even to your equipment beyond what's the higher number. The only thing that really sticks out as odd are the fusion spells, which I'll talk more about my problems with them later, but regardless, I'd still say they're a fun unique addition I wish was utilized more. Tartarus, while not always visually or thematically interesting, feels like I'm exploring and dungeon crawling way more than whatever they were going for in 4. The blockier randomized segments are tight enough to never make a floor feel drawn out, but open enough for you to consider splitting up your party, which I thought would be a terrible feature, until I realized how integral it is to leveling up. And the risk of having your party members scattered and dying quicker is again an interesting option to take into account, since it means more exp is given to those individuals. And fatigue not only gets you to utilize and experiment with party build in the late game, but also directly affects aspects of the IRL stuff. Sure it boils down to not being able to go in every singular night, and just gets you a free courage point while risking a study failure, but it makes the social elements and the dungeon crawling feel more intertwined and balanced than either of the future titles. If anything, I wish fatigue was utilized MORE.
Now despite how I’ve always loved the dark, moody visuals of the dark hour, I still think I owe a formal apology to this game’s environmental presentation, because while I wasn’t a fan of the daytime locations, I absolutely love them now. I always thought the presentation was great, but the lack of NPCs populating any area had me worried. Of course, seeing the town repopulate with reawakened people after the 1st boss was defeated is what immediately triggered my change in opinion, but even without that I’ve grown to appreciate every explorable spot of Tatsumi Port Island, from the attention to detail on transferring between locations, to the various nooks and crannies that make the place feel more lived in than I ever game it credit for. AND THE MUSIC. OH MY GOD. I think P3 has already become one of my favorite OSTs. And my only complaint is that there isn’t more of it.
But regarding any complaints I still have, I think they should’ve gone all or nothing with persona skill inheritance. I heard you weren’t able to decide what skills fused personas get, but you can. It’s just decided every time you select a persona and get a result. Which means you can just keep deselecting and reselecting to reroll the skills until you get what you want. And since I’ve likely spent more than an hour in total across the game doing this, I wish the game either just let me choose skills manually, or have completely 100% set inheritable skills without my input. I mean, I went through SMT1 without the feature in any way, I could definitely do it again.
The other complaint is about Elizabeth's requests, which for the most part, are fine and inoffensive as a way to incentivize exploring the world, interacting with various systems and NPCs, and even getting through Tartarus to prepare you for every boss. But there's one line of quests that just makes no sense to me. As alluded to earlier, fusion skills are a cool addition that unfortunately rarely comes up. For some, you kinda have to be directly told which Personas you'll need to utilize them, unless you're some kind of lore master who knows every mythological and religious influence on Megaten. And thankfully there's a whole line of requests that tells you what you'll need for that fusion spell. Now this is all fine and good... but why the fuck is the Thunder Call skill the 5th quest??? Progression comes to a screeching halt for half the game because you won't be able to fuse for Thor for the next 30+ LEVELS! Because of this, for an entire half of the game, I completely forgot about fusion skills because I was never incentivized to seek them out. And once I finally get to fuse for Thor 50 hours later, I now just have to waste thousands of yen on extremely underleveled Personas I only need for fusion skills I COULD'VE learned about and properly utilized if I had known about through the fucking quest system, because after the Thunder Call quest, the proceeding quests just progress with Personas that are naturally just above the levels of the previous one. What I'm trying to say is Thor is the biggest asshole in Megaten, between this and dropping the ICBMs in SMT1. If there's a mod or something to just... move the quest order so Thunder Call comes later, I think that version of the game would be my #2 favorite game ever... oh well.
Also I get the idea behind giving some fusion skills for the ultimate personas, but that also just means you can't progress through these damn quests ever again if you just so happen to have missed one of the social links you have to max out. Man, I don't even know how you're supposed to unlock Fuuka's social link. And now during fucking October or whenever is when you're gonna tell me I needed her for this quest? While I'm already (potentially) juggling 3 other girls and preparing myself to be the perfect man for Mitsuru?? Thanks a lot game.
I guess that's a good segway into my problems with social links. Specifically datable ones, and the whole reversal system. I don’t exactly like the fact that you can’t say no to dating any of them, but I also get that it’s supposed to be like an actual dating sim, where you can hang out with multiple girls, and you have to manage your time with each one so they don’t bomb you/reverse the link. My complaint though, is this mechanic isn’t prominent enough.
I never scheduled sundays with multiple people because I’m not stupid, and went for one girl at a time, which seemed to be all I needed to never get a reversal once. What I’m saying is this supposedly punishing mechanic people complain about is overhyped. Oh well. I guess it’s great that I can tell Kenji he’s full of shit without much consequence
Now aside from him, I gotta say I loved every single social link I maxed out, those being Mitsuru, Hidetoshi, Yukari, Kazushi, Yuko, Mutatsu, Bunkichi, Maiko, Mamoru, Akinari (of course), and even motherfucking President Tanaka. Oh yeah, and Maya's sometimes good I guess. Not only do some of these characters tell such wonderful stories, but I feel each and every one offers a wholly unique story that isn’t comparable to any other in this game, or future entries. Like, as much as I think Kenji is an idiot, I’d never picture a future game having another character who spends their entire link trying to get groomed. Or for more positive examples, someone who gives up their dreams just to provide for their family. Or a shrewd businessman who doesn’t want to admit when he actually cares for his workers. Or even a dying man who tries to grasp the meaning of life… I never got to meet Scott the Woz though! Where tf was he??????
While I wasn’t a fan of the fact that most of your party members aren’t social links, I think it did wonders for how they develop over the main story, which while it starts off slow, it becomes incredibly captivating and beautiful. I do think the game’s setup could’ve been better, as things like the dark hour, apathy syndrome, joining SEES, and even how the protagonist plays into things aren’t given a lot of explaination. However, since there’s less going on, it means you get into the actual gameplay loop sooner, so that makes up for it. And once you get past that 1st boss, everything starts to fall into place better. Once people start actually asking questions and learning about what’s going on is where things become great, and the character relationships really start to shine. I probably foresaw around July or August that this was going to be my favorite Persona game. But as I kept playing, as I kept watching Akihiko, Mitsuru, Junpei, and especially Yukari persevere through everything, I just loved it more and more. And now, I sit here in front of my computer with tears in my eyes, for there are very few times I have ever felt this strongly about a game before. I… I think I needed this game.
I think despite its definite undeniable flaws, and whatever others might claim those flaws to be, Persona 3 is a beautiful, remarkable work of art, that did way more than just remind me why I love video games. It is a must play for everyone, no matter what… oh God I just realized I have 2 entirely different versions I now feel the need to play. And this is all without even touching the answer. I’m fucked.