Gravity Circuit if it was good
music is bad even though i do remember every single second of the track lol
the levels do so much interesting in my opinion but the run & gun sections feel very bad through
story has much to run home about, basically couldn't figure it out until the second last second because it was so complex
still better than Gravity Circuit :p

honestly this game is so inconsistent with quality to the point where i really just can't decide if i think the game is good or not. Because on one hand, this game knocks it out of the park with its character dynamics (by atlus standards at least) and its well-written cast, even if i think their backstories aren't that good - and on the other hand, you have the clusterfuck of a story that is explained through either the most boring expedition dumps or through terribly paced and badly voiced cutscenes that feel dripfed to you throughout the whole experience.

i'll say this now because im sure most of my issues in this game stem from it, i absolutely hate the calendar system. what sounds like a unique way to play through a high school life on paper is executed terribly when you find out that you spend a LOT of time waiting for something interesting to even happen in the story - The game does try to combat this with small character development cutscenes of the others, but (apart from junpei i think? my memory's hazy) it feels really awkward and lazy when it's just them spouting their backstory to someone that already knows about it..... Sure, you're meant to do other stuff while waiting, like social links, raising stats, and tartarus, but that doesn't really help when they get monotonous fast.

i'll talk about gameplay for a bit because i don't think it's a very good use of time either. by that i mean the dungeon crawling aspect, because the tactics system is alright - blah blah something you're the leader and it's fitting, people have said it before and i agree with them - even if i don't enjoy it all that much it's still a respectable move from atlus that are always trying to make something unique. HOWEVER, i absolutely hate the fact that the game ends when you, the main character, die. i don't care what excuses are made to defend this, it's absolutely horrid when you have instakill moves, enemies that can wipe out your entire party in one hit, and people who can revive you in game like hello????? "oh but they only listen to you so if you're dead you can't control them" they're not robots??? hell the whole tactics system makes your party feel like real people, and if healers revive dead people, they can revive you too - if anything, their first move should be to revive you as early as they can. just a stupid decision tbh
i'm also not a big fan of the one more system. while its use is rewarding in the early game, it makes battles become extremely easy and one-sided later on when all you need to do is look up their weakness and all out attack them! it's even more useless when you find out the majority of bosses don't even have weaknesses, so what you're left with during those bosses is basic turn-based combat. considering how this is a modified version of the press turn system, i really would have preferred to see that here. i do enjoy fusion spells though.
while kaneko's demon designs are still thankfully present as personas, i really have to wonder who designed the shadows in this game. although i prefer fusion in these games onwards as opposed to grinding cards in 2, the shadows here are so bland, forgettable and annoying - outside of the final boss i really can't think of any enemy in this game that looked interesting in the slightest outside of the final boss, which is ass considering how you have to play the entire game just to see a coherently designed enemy. the same goes for tartarus - i can't understand anyone who even enjoys being in that place, with the single music track that gets one layer added every 50 floors, along with the uninspired and tired looking scenery all the way until harabah, the second last block, and you just have yourself a recipe for disaster.

i know i'm very negative about p3 but i'll say some good things here, because when this game does something right, it does it with excellence. like i said before, the main cast is some of the best in a megaten game - without going into too much depth (since i haven't touched this game in a while), they're all very human, with trauma-driven or selfish ideals that drive them to join sees. initially they're all very cold towards one another due to their own grudges or whatever (especially junpei) but they start to connect once they realise that they all share similar goals. while this is a big factor as to why the game is paced like molasses, it makes them feel more involved with your character than the other modern games do. in addition to this, the final hours of this game feel like bliss and by that i mean halfway through december to january. tatsumi port island isn't very interesting, if anything it's pretty bland for the majority of the game - but once january hits, the atmosphere kicks in well, with best track in the game feeling so cold and distant as well as warm and hopeful, along with everyone's strong determination to beat the final boss, it's a great way to end off the game - feels like the light at the end of an egregiously long tunnel. and even though the ending didn't affect me much because i didn't really care about anything presented up until that point, it was still good. nuff said.

i guess there are more things i could have said - social links are the worst in the series since they revolve around dating instead of actual character stuff (that or just unfunny stuff like kenji/maya), the villains in this story are really lackluster and don't have any lasting impact on you at all, but i'm mostly writing this to see how my feelings for this game compare to when I play reload. i'm not too hopeful since a lot of my issues with it are story related, but i've wanted to get back into this series for a while now - if reload isn't that good, i'm sure persona 1 will be a good enough replacement 😁