This is hands down my favorite Persona game by a mile, and also my first unsurprisingly. (Just a note I'll only be discussing the base game, as I haven't gotten around to The Answer. Been busy with other stuff.)

The RPG gameplay is great, sure Tartarus' layout is bland but it's pretty much the same as it is in Persona 4, and really a hub for me to get battles and find money is all I need even if I adore the complex, grand dungeons of Persona 5. The combat is addictive and fun as always, sure you can't directly control party members which is easily the biggest issue with the game, but tactics work just fine for me, especially when modern Persona gameplay is really just so great at its core. Also really liked some of the stuff exclusive to this game like splitting up party members on Tartarus floors and multiple attack types. Aside from controling party members, my only real big issue here is that some of the bosses are very annoying in the mid-to-late game. Not a ton of them, but some really got on my nerves (Sleeping Table).

As for the life simulator stuff, it's great here as well! It hasn't quite hit its peak with stuff to do, but it's fun to raise stats in the evening and to spend days talking with the homies. This is made wayy better because unlike P5 or especially P4, you go to Tartarus at night so you have way more time at day open that is rarely ever taken away by short, unecessary cutscenes. The social links themselves are kind of hit and miss, a few are bad, some are really solid, and a ton of them are just fantastic. Sun and Hermit are probably my favorite social links in the franchise, and they aren't the only great ones either.

The music is fantastic too, this is probably my least favorite modern Persona OST, partially because I hate having to listen to Mass Destruction the entire game, but it's just so good dude. Want To Be Close, the Tartarus themes, Battle Hymn of the Soul, and my favorite video game opening of all time, Burn My Dread.

I saved story and characters for last because my lord they did not need to go so HARD for this game. This story is one of my favorite in video games, period. Great twists, wonderful story arcs, amazing character development, high stakes, rich atmosphere, fantastic writing, heavy themes, and one of the best endings I've ever seen in my life. It's just amazing from beginning-to-end. And these characters? I get why people prefer the Persona 4 cast, but I think these guys just slightly edge out for me, mainly due to their great development. And "the gang" dude, Junpei, Yukari, Akihiko. They're all amazing, they all have such good interactions and development, especially Junpei who is one of my favorite characters ever. I'd like a little more goof off time with them but really what we have was already fantastic so I don't care. Not all the party members get as developed as others, but they're still solid enough so I don't mind.

What really hits me about Persona 3 is how immersive it is though. I don't know if it's the music or the fact I played it first, but while Persona 4 did definitely recapture a good chunk of this for me, I just could not put the game down. When I first sat down and played this game, blind as a bat thinking you fought demons, I sat and played it for six hours straight. Then after that aside from when my PS2 and game were screwing up for a bit, I had multiple days where all I did was play Persona 3. We're talking multiple days where I would just wake up and then play Persona 3 for 70-80% of the day, completely ignoring doing Driver's Ed. I especially remember when I got to the last month of the game, I woke up at like 10 or 11 A.M. and decided i was gonna beat the game that day. I went to bed at like I think 2 or 3 A.M. and I was just laying in bed thinking about how powerful this game was, how much fun I had in Tartarus, how moving the story was, how much I genuinely loved and cared about the characters and where they were going, and that absolutely perfect ending. What a special game this is. Persona 3 isn't just a game, it's an experience.

The first game without the creator on board and a huge step down.

The first thing any Katamari fan will notice are the controls, which are different since the PSP obviously does not have two analog sticks. Thankfully, this can be ammended with the Vita version or an emulator, which makes it feel better even if it's obviously not as smooth as real dual analog. What's more annoying is that the new quick turn is really hard to get use to using and the dash lacks the fluidity of We Love Katamari's since it's used by spamming up on digital inputs. That being said though, it is playable, and I will defend the game on that.

That's not the big issue here though. It's the level design. This game has four unique main levels. Three for the super large stages are unique and the final stage's last part is also unique. The game mostly consists of different versions of these four maps with different objects, similar to Katamari Damacy, however just like that game it is pretty repetitive. Even more so this time though in my experience. By the end of the game, even for the specific versions of each stage I had played some of these over five times. It doesn't help that some of these levels have you play one level of each size except the final one too, so it just overall makes for an extremely repetitive game. The level design for the smaller stages is at least alright, but on the larger ones it honestly feels almost braindead since you start so large with no real threats to you. Especially the stages where you start at 10 meters.

This game is for fans only, otherwise, skip it.

I hate to say it but Megamix disappointed me a little bit. After hearing so much about how great it was, the actual game ended up letting me down a little bit.

The new games are generally really good. I love Sumo Brothers, Pajama Party, Blue Bear, and Second Contact so much. The remixes are a bit more of a mixed bag though, while ones like Citrus and Machine are fantastic and can attempt to stand up against Fever's, there's also really bland ones like Donut and Barbershop. I think the choice to do 3 medleys wasn't the best either, Final Remix is really the only memorable one. The ported minigames are done well a5 least and I think they got most of the important ones that weren't held back by control issues. Most. All I can really say is that some DS minigames feel wrong without flicking, but that issue was inevitable. Really the issue here is just that I don't care that much for playing old content and the new content is so sparce, even if it's good.

What mainly drags me down on this game is the story and prequel games. The pacing for this game is genuinely dreadful. The dialog is charming, but I fail to find it funny or interesting at all and I was just trying to get through it as fast as possible most of the time. It just slows everything down. The prequel games make easier versions of existing games, often some of the already easiest in the series, for padding purposes and with usually pretty bad music. Not all of them are equally terrible but none of them have a right to exist. Both of those combined make the beginning of this game drag out awfully and made it really unfun to go through.

Thankfully, after all that is done with it's still comfy to just go through and play some rhythm games. The amount of content and unlockables in this game is staggering, and I love additions like the expanded cafe and rhythm items (even if the perfect rewards were way better). The Challenge Train is a little bit too screwed up and evil for my tastes but it's definitely not a bad addition. Rhythm Heaven is so fun that I can't be too upset about this game as a whole, especially when it gave us some real bangers. Still though if we get a 5th game I hope they lean away from some of what this one did.

This game basically works in a way where the first world is a demo and you have to pay to get the rest of the game. It's sorta overpriced but it goes on sale a decent amount. Really fun game too, it's fun to perfect each level in Toad Rally and get all the collectables in the main game. Really no clue where the hate comes from for this being a "microtransactionfest" when it's pay once to get the actual game and that's it. I'm pretty sure all that misdirected hate is the reason Nintendo keeps making gacha crap now, so lol.

This is the only game I didn't play as a kid that I have over 500 hours in. It's not even a constant, sometimes I just boot up the game and can't stop playing it for multiple weeks. This game is just a dopamine rush of constant action and insanity, on top of being an infinitely replayable arcadey roguelike. Can't recommend it enough, just make sure you play it on PC. Mainly for better controls (and that it's really easy to run), but also because I highly recommend trying out Nuclear Throne Together, a mod that allows for easy online co-op and genuinely some of the best mod support I've ever seen for a game.

This game is really lopsided. The combat is absolutely fantastic, easily some of the best in the series. It's fast, flashy, challenging, a good cast of playable characters, and still takes thought to string together good combos. The dungeons and skill system are mostly decent too, so that's nice.

On the otherhand though, the story and characters are pretty lame here. On the characters end, the cast definitely has its highlights, but a few of them I honestly thought were either boring or pretty underdeveloped. Story-wise... Eh. It has its moments but its mostly really boring and the story's pacing in the second act is honestly pretty bad. A lot of the time I was just wanting to get back to the gameplay, but I wouldn't say it's bad either.

That being said though, the fact I gave the game such a high score really just shows how fun the core gameplay is. The game's worth playing for that alone, especially when compared to the PSX version.

Hot DANG! I still got extra stuff to do in this game as of now but wow that was a surprise. I expected a small fun little rhythm game, but no man. This game is not only fun, but bursting with tons of charm. The style is great, the little stories are adorable, the soundtrack GOES HARD, it's just fantastic! I had fun, I laughed, I even almost cried. I just had a smile on my face the whole game, when I wasn't get my balls kicked on by the tough songs at least. Defintiely worth checking it out if you can play it proper!

This review is for the PSX version, since that's the only one in English... At least for now. This game needs seperate pages, man.

It's okay I guess. I think it's better than Phantasia in that there's way less spells being casted and the spells themselves have much faster animations, which helps a great chunk for the absolute biggest flaw of the original game. The story this time was kind of mediocre, especially in the 2nd half where nothing really happens, and the AI is awful, but the improved gameplay really helped me pull through. I think there's a certain charm to the pre-Phantasia PSX combat, where you just get one attack with multiple types instead of a standard combo. The cast this time isn't amazing either, but it's decent and I think they can have some funny interactions sometimes. Having to recruit optional party members is a big annoyance and the villains in this game are hilariously underdeveloped, but I guess overall I enjoyed it.