The game that changed the Persona series completely, and despite liking the earlier games, I love the ones since this change even more.
Persona is no longer just an RPG, but also a life simulator. You have a pre-determined amount of days to play through, during which you must go to school, hang out with your friends, and once or twice a month go risk your life in a dungeon killing a bunch of things.
There are a couple dozen social links, wherein you hang out with a character and usually end up helping them come to terms with some trauma or tragedy in their lives. I did all of them and they're all pretty nice stories but some definitely stand out more than others, like Kamiki and Maya.
Aside from the optional side stories, the main story is also very strong. I don't think it's quite as good as 4 or 5's, but your SEES compatriots are well-written and constantly encourage you forward. The theme of Death is also very strong, and it leads to a beautiful ending.
The combat is pretty good, using the same pseudo-Press Turn system that Persona 4 and 5 do. Only the protagonist can change Personas, which simplifies the party building much more compared to Persona 1 and 2. The other party members have a single Persona with a pre-set progression of moves and stats as they level up, but you can still choose which equipment they use and which skills to keep, making them still somewhat customizable. You'll end up building your protagonist's Personas around filling in the gaps left by your other party members, at least until the endgame, where you'll probably just be making Personas who are very very strong at one particular thing. After winning a battle, you'll go into "shuffle time" which will give you a choice of cards, and you can get either a Persona or some other advantage like extra money or xp.
Both in the original and in the remake, Tartarus tower does start to get repetitive. That being said, I felt like Reload did a lot more to make the separate areas feel unique which did help that fatigue. Still, going through a few hundred randomly generated floors of the same dungeon starts to get old.
Persona is no longer just an RPG, but also a life simulator. You have a pre-determined amount of days to play through, during which you must go to school, hang out with your friends, and once or twice a month go risk your life in a dungeon killing a bunch of things.
There are a couple dozen social links, wherein you hang out with a character and usually end up helping them come to terms with some trauma or tragedy in their lives. I did all of them and they're all pretty nice stories but some definitely stand out more than others, like Kamiki and Maya.
Aside from the optional side stories, the main story is also very strong. I don't think it's quite as good as 4 or 5's, but your SEES compatriots are well-written and constantly encourage you forward. The theme of Death is also very strong, and it leads to a beautiful ending.
The combat is pretty good, using the same pseudo-Press Turn system that Persona 4 and 5 do. Only the protagonist can change Personas, which simplifies the party building much more compared to Persona 1 and 2. The other party members have a single Persona with a pre-set progression of moves and stats as they level up, but you can still choose which equipment they use and which skills to keep, making them still somewhat customizable. You'll end up building your protagonist's Personas around filling in the gaps left by your other party members, at least until the endgame, where you'll probably just be making Personas who are very very strong at one particular thing. After winning a battle, you'll go into "shuffle time" which will give you a choice of cards, and you can get either a Persona or some other advantage like extra money or xp.
Both in the original and in the remake, Tartarus tower does start to get repetitive. That being said, I felt like Reload did a lot more to make the separate areas feel unique which did help that fatigue. Still, going through a few hundred randomly generated floors of the same dungeon starts to get old.