Persona 3 is my personal favorite JRPG.
While I can understand having harsh feelings towards Tartarus, I find Tartarus really fun to climb and manage. Some people say that it's grind heavy, but it's not really. You're still exploring a dungeon, just a massive one throughout the entirety of the game. Your party members can get tired, meaning that trying to grind Tartarus will only lead to risky and diminishing returns, since if your party members get tired they're way more likely to miss their attacks and take more damage. Furthermore, there are no random encounters, you can pick and choose when to engage enemies if you're sharp and stay on your toes. It's a great way to pace Tartarus' exploration.
The social link and arcana system is fun to manage once you get used to it. It might seem stressful at first, but you're not meant to experience the entirety of every single social link right from the start. It's kind of like life, you can't really get to know everyone you meet even if you want to. My only complaint is that you can't max out a social link with a female character without dating them, that's really stupid.
Many people complain about not being able to control individual party members, but it's never an issue for me. You're able to issue general commands to your party members and they respond accordingly based on the situation. It also really helps with the immersion, you really feel like you're leading your friends and growing stronger together.
It has one of the best, most touching narratives I've ever experienced in video games. Your party members are consistently developing as characters all throughout the narrative. It's one of the only games that's ever made me cry. Ending got to me so hard.
I will say that its additional campaign, The Answer, I've never really given a shot, and from what I heard it's not really worth your time. But overall, I really, really love this game.
While I can understand having harsh feelings towards Tartarus, I find Tartarus really fun to climb and manage. Some people say that it's grind heavy, but it's not really. You're still exploring a dungeon, just a massive one throughout the entirety of the game. Your party members can get tired, meaning that trying to grind Tartarus will only lead to risky and diminishing returns, since if your party members get tired they're way more likely to miss their attacks and take more damage. Furthermore, there are no random encounters, you can pick and choose when to engage enemies if you're sharp and stay on your toes. It's a great way to pace Tartarus' exploration.
The social link and arcana system is fun to manage once you get used to it. It might seem stressful at first, but you're not meant to experience the entirety of every single social link right from the start. It's kind of like life, you can't really get to know everyone you meet even if you want to. My only complaint is that you can't max out a social link with a female character without dating them, that's really stupid.
Many people complain about not being able to control individual party members, but it's never an issue for me. You're able to issue general commands to your party members and they respond accordingly based on the situation. It also really helps with the immersion, you really feel like you're leading your friends and growing stronger together.
It has one of the best, most touching narratives I've ever experienced in video games. Your party members are consistently developing as characters all throughout the narrative. It's one of the only games that's ever made me cry. Ending got to me so hard.
I will say that its additional campaign, The Answer, I've never really given a shot, and from what I heard it's not really worth your time. But overall, I really, really love this game.