tl;dr amazing story, decent mechanically, bad remaster and some dated elements
I'd like to preface this with saying I would Love to give this game 5 stars, but Persona 3 and this port in particular have some glaring issues. Before I go over that, let me quickly explain what Persona is for those not familiar. Basically, these games are JRPGs where you control a party of high schoolers who fight with these things called a Persona. Along the way you fight through dungeons, experience a life simulator with a high school focus, make bonds in the form of social links, and also experience a main narrative along the way. So, what are the problems you'll need to be wary of before I gush about the game?
-The game is a bad remaster. Most of the remastered stuff are AI generated or even worse demasters of the original game, like the compressed audio files used from the PSP release of P3P rather than the audio from the PS2 releases of Persona 3. The character sprites are good though.
-This game has a pretty flawed social link system, though if I'm being honest, they're flaws with the male route, which is the route the game will recommend you do on a first run. The issues you'll run into are all the female social links force you into romances, these romances make it harder to finish other female links, and you can't social link with your male party members. These are all really baffling choices that are corrected in female route, though do be warned that...
-The female protagonist can groom a child in a social link. Yes you can obviously avoid this social link, but it's still a huge problem and makes me wonder why they'd even write something like that at all.
-There's a scene that's not aged very well and comes off as transphobic. I would say that I can look past it cause it's an old game, but if anything this director's worst with LGBTQ topics only gets worse in his later games. It's not a huge deal breaker in isolation as it's just one scene, but it's there (in the male route).
-Tartarus, the game's dungeon crawling location, does overstay it's welcome a little at the last month of the game.
Okay, despite all these problems, I can still wholly recommend this game for those that want a time concussing RPG, which is good in all these other ways.
-Presentation:
The game uses a visual novel style as opposed to the use of more 3-D elements in the original game. I don't think this approach is better or worse, save for the game's lack of anime cutscenes (there are mods that can fix this and other issues with this game). As for what is there, the sprites all work pretty well and the game has a very strong sense of art direction. There's this sort of drearyness that manifests everywhere in contrast to the bright day to day elements from the school that really complements the games themes on death and inevitability. Along with the strong visuals, the game has a downright fantastic OST, with unique tracks in both the male and female route for your free time. There isn't much I can say about the OST is that it's some of the best I've heard and has been good enough for Atlus to milk the series via dancing games.
-Gameplay:
The game has a loop in the average day that goes like this: you wake up, some dialogue happens, you go to school, you got free time in your day you'll be using on social links 99% of the time, and then free time in the night mostly relegated to leveling up social skills like charm and confidence, though some days will be spent all on story. There are other stuff you can do at night though, such as a small number of social links only accessed at night or going to tartarus. I briefly touched on it earlier, but basically tartarus is where you get to your JRPG dungeon crawling. Basically, you climb up some number of floors, fight a few mini bosses, then stop when you reach the maximum highest floor at the time of the game you're in. While it is tedious at times, this system mostly works thanks to the persona fusing and leveling up, giving you goals on each visit. And while it is rarely forced on the player, you really should get to the highest possible floor in each month, otherwise you will probably be under leveled for main story bosses. As for the actual combat itself, it's fine. It ain't the most innovative thing, but it is satisfying when you find a strong party set up.
-Story/Writing
This will be hard to describe without major spoilers, but I'll do my best. To start, the game has a pretty robust cast. Some characters might be less interesting than others, but there are some really good ones. From the main cast, Yukari Takeba is one of the most human and realistic teenage girls I've seen out of an anime game like this. She's flawed, she can go overboard with her teasing, she can get emotional, but she still does her best to be a sweet person and comes off as very endearing. I won't go into detail on the sun social link, but it deserves high praise for getting me to tears when the game ended. Shinjiro's social link in the female route also deserves a shout out for being so damn adorable and having a pretty incredible romance. It's really a shame this is the last Persona game as of now where you can romance male cast members.
So, as far as the writing of the main scenario, I would say it's mostly strong with some blemishes here and there, mostly around the month right before the end of the game as I felt the game's exposition dump wasn't handled the best. Felt like the information needed to be spread out better. I won't go into details either but there is a pretty catastrophic revelation in both routes given a certain condition that undermines one of the game's major themes. As for said major themes, right from the get go this game makes it clear that it's going to have a focus on death and inevitability. Without spoiling anything, I would say the game takes an approach of it's better to take risks and always approach the inevitable instead of living in denial. Basically face your problems and the inevitable head on.
As for how all these themes in the narrative are written, by the time the game was over, I was put to tears and an emotional wreck. I can't say you will or will not be ready, but even if you've been spoiled on why you might end up like this, trust me it does not soften the blow by much. If anything it makes it worse. Of course this is a good bad thing and and a good bad thing the entire game builds up to, and ultimately makes this game one of my favorites. Basically what I am trying to say is the game has pretty strong writing despite the imperfections.
So, should you or should you not buy P3P? If you like RPGs that you can throw a ton of hours into, want a high school sim, and/or just want an interesting interpretation of the concepts of death and inevitability, then go ahead. Do mod the game too to correct some of the issues in the remaster if you can.
I'd like to preface this with saying I would Love to give this game 5 stars, but Persona 3 and this port in particular have some glaring issues. Before I go over that, let me quickly explain what Persona is for those not familiar. Basically, these games are JRPGs where you control a party of high schoolers who fight with these things called a Persona. Along the way you fight through dungeons, experience a life simulator with a high school focus, make bonds in the form of social links, and also experience a main narrative along the way. So, what are the problems you'll need to be wary of before I gush about the game?
-The game is a bad remaster. Most of the remastered stuff are AI generated or even worse demasters of the original game, like the compressed audio files used from the PSP release of P3P rather than the audio from the PS2 releases of Persona 3. The character sprites are good though.
-This game has a pretty flawed social link system, though if I'm being honest, they're flaws with the male route, which is the route the game will recommend you do on a first run. The issues you'll run into are all the female social links force you into romances, these romances make it harder to finish other female links, and you can't social link with your male party members. These are all really baffling choices that are corrected in female route, though do be warned that...
-The female protagonist can groom a child in a social link. Yes you can obviously avoid this social link, but it's still a huge problem and makes me wonder why they'd even write something like that at all.
-There's a scene that's not aged very well and comes off as transphobic. I would say that I can look past it cause it's an old game, but if anything this director's worst with LGBTQ topics only gets worse in his later games. It's not a huge deal breaker in isolation as it's just one scene, but it's there (in the male route).
-Tartarus, the game's dungeon crawling location, does overstay it's welcome a little at the last month of the game.
Okay, despite all these problems, I can still wholly recommend this game for those that want a time concussing RPG, which is good in all these other ways.
-Presentation:
The game uses a visual novel style as opposed to the use of more 3-D elements in the original game. I don't think this approach is better or worse, save for the game's lack of anime cutscenes (there are mods that can fix this and other issues with this game). As for what is there, the sprites all work pretty well and the game has a very strong sense of art direction. There's this sort of drearyness that manifests everywhere in contrast to the bright day to day elements from the school that really complements the games themes on death and inevitability. Along with the strong visuals, the game has a downright fantastic OST, with unique tracks in both the male and female route for your free time. There isn't much I can say about the OST is that it's some of the best I've heard and has been good enough for Atlus to milk the series via dancing games.
-Gameplay:
The game has a loop in the average day that goes like this: you wake up, some dialogue happens, you go to school, you got free time in your day you'll be using on social links 99% of the time, and then free time in the night mostly relegated to leveling up social skills like charm and confidence, though some days will be spent all on story. There are other stuff you can do at night though, such as a small number of social links only accessed at night or going to tartarus. I briefly touched on it earlier, but basically tartarus is where you get to your JRPG dungeon crawling. Basically, you climb up some number of floors, fight a few mini bosses, then stop when you reach the maximum highest floor at the time of the game you're in. While it is tedious at times, this system mostly works thanks to the persona fusing and leveling up, giving you goals on each visit. And while it is rarely forced on the player, you really should get to the highest possible floor in each month, otherwise you will probably be under leveled for main story bosses. As for the actual combat itself, it's fine. It ain't the most innovative thing, but it is satisfying when you find a strong party set up.
-Story/Writing
This will be hard to describe without major spoilers, but I'll do my best. To start, the game has a pretty robust cast. Some characters might be less interesting than others, but there are some really good ones. From the main cast, Yukari Takeba is one of the most human and realistic teenage girls I've seen out of an anime game like this. She's flawed, she can go overboard with her teasing, she can get emotional, but she still does her best to be a sweet person and comes off as very endearing. I won't go into detail on the sun social link, but it deserves high praise for getting me to tears when the game ended. Shinjiro's social link in the female route also deserves a shout out for being so damn adorable and having a pretty incredible romance. It's really a shame this is the last Persona game as of now where you can romance male cast members.
So, as far as the writing of the main scenario, I would say it's mostly strong with some blemishes here and there, mostly around the month right before the end of the game as I felt the game's exposition dump wasn't handled the best. Felt like the information needed to be spread out better. I won't go into details either but there is a pretty catastrophic revelation in both routes given a certain condition that undermines one of the game's major themes. As for said major themes, right from the get go this game makes it clear that it's going to have a focus on death and inevitability. Without spoiling anything, I would say the game takes an approach of it's better to take risks and always approach the inevitable instead of living in denial. Basically face your problems and the inevitable head on.
As for how all these themes in the narrative are written, by the time the game was over, I was put to tears and an emotional wreck. I can't say you will or will not be ready, but even if you've been spoiled on why you might end up like this, trust me it does not soften the blow by much. If anything it makes it worse. Of course this is a good bad thing and and a good bad thing the entire game builds up to, and ultimately makes this game one of my favorites. Basically what I am trying to say is the game has pretty strong writing despite the imperfections.
So, should you or should you not buy P3P? If you like RPGs that you can throw a ton of hours into, want a high school sim, and/or just want an interesting interpretation of the concepts of death and inevitability, then go ahead. Do mod the game too to correct some of the issues in the remaster if you can.