'Persona 3 FES Fan Excited To Finish Persona 3 FES For The First Time'

(Contains spoilers for Persona 3 FES: The Journey)

The second the trailer for that hilariously overpriced DLC expansion pass for Persona 3 Reload dropped, I realized I had to be more than a stereotype. It was time for me to beat the Persona fan allegations of “knowing a story only because I watched the cutscenes on YouTube.” It was time for me to beat The Answer before it becomes cool…

Okay. That's all like. 30% of my actual motivation for doing this. I replayed the entirety of The Journey beforehand as a way to cement my feelings towards the original in the wake of Reload. And due to my various gripes with Reload’s presentation and also generally just preferring the original on most fronts, I didn’t think it’d be right if my first, proper experience with The Answer was through its remake. Though I’ve replayed Persona 3 FES many times before, this post-story gamemode was something I was never in the mood to finish after reaching the phenomenal conclusion of the original story. I never saw a continuation as necessary. And I think P3’s dungeon crawling loses much of its thematic meaning and intrigue when you divorce it from its other social sim half. Even now, after properly finishing The Answer, I’d say my initial concerns weren’t unfounded. But there definitely is still much worth in the experience.

Right off the bat, I adore the set up. Characterization is one of Persona 3’s strong suits, and it’s on full display here. You’re immediately stricken by its understated, yet somber tone. The rest of the story is quite solid in showcasing the various ways each member of SEES have either developed or regressed since the original story’s end, but the banter of the opening few scenes alone communicates these ideas in such a perfect fashion. SEES’ fallibility has always been one of my favorite aspects about them as a cast. They’re beloved for that sense of realness and humanity that permeates throughout each member, and their flaws being so highlighted is a key part as to why. They might dramatically “complete” their character arcs through Persona evolutions or strengthen their own convictions to the degree where they can clash with the embodiment of death itself. But none of that means the writers won’t continue to portray them as the messy little fucked up group of teens that they are. And this idea is what The Answer most strongly reinforces. As showcasing the self-destructive actions they make in reaction to facing such a devastating loss is the entire crux of the story.

The Answer shines the most with its character writing in three clear cases: Aigis, Metis, and Yukari. The former is a perfect lead for the protagonist to pass his torch to. Aigis’s arc up until this point already shared much in common with her emo husband, as they both primarily developed and gained a sense of identity through their collective experiences alongside their friends. So fully cementing her as a Wild Card just feels extremely right, especially after the bond the two form in the main story and this version's newly added Aeon social link (best social link in the series btw). Newcomer Metis exists primarily to strengthen Aigis’ character arc and she does a phenomenal job at that. It’s clear from the start that she’s meant to reflect Aigis in a symbolic sense and the parallels between them only grow stronger in terms of effectiveness as the story builds up their relationship. But despite playing a more function oriented role in the narrative, she is still incredibly entertaining. I clapped at every scene where Akihiko threatened her life and she responds by casually telling him to shut the fuck up. Then there’s Yukari. Do I even need to justify her role? I feel like that’s just a waste of breath. Shocking: a 17 year old girl gets a little bit mean when the boy she loves dies in the arms of another girl who’s neglecting to face the full reality of his death. Anyways, she’s great here. Though I definitely feel like her story could’ve been told with a better degree of nuance. Yukari’s always been one of the more empathetic cast members and seeing her act so abrasive towards everyone in general is a bit off putting at times. But I still respect the idea behind it all and it results in these beautiful emotionally charged scenes that’re on par with some of the best from the base game.

Though where this story really begins to lose me is its poor pacing and sloppy structure. It’s a case of stretching such a short narrative extremely thin. There’s just not enough here to justify going through seven different sequences of dungeon crawling. And while I’d compliment the characterization, I honestly feel the arcs of Aigis, Metis, and Yukari are the only things here that felt like they were written with complete confidence and intention. There’s this specific and formulaic way they go about exploring SEES as characters for the entire middle point of the story that feels so… random? They’re nice scenes to see, especially since I adore these characters, but I honestly can’t tell you how the looks into the past are supposed to add to the story’s statement in any substantial way. Also not a big fan of Metis’s info dumping or SEES’ guesswork, as a lot of it comes off as these awkward justifications for the story’s progression. It results in these genuinely intriguing mysteries and heartfelt conflicts that feel clunky in their resolutions.

I had negative expectations for the gameplay here. And that left me kinda shocked when I walked away enjoying most of the experience. The Answer is nothing but dungeon crawling, set on hardmode, with more complex boss design, and restricted access to certain quality of life features. On paper that all sounds fucking terrible. And some of it is. I, for the life of me, still question why they decided to remove warp stations before boss floors in favor of one way teleporters and a save point. To the point where I grabbed a mod that lets you fully heal at said save points (Sorry for being a filthy CHEATER, but I did not have the strength to deal with such a waste of time. I have a life 💔). But after getting over a lot of the annoyances that came from the simple concept of these changes, I came to realize that The Answer truly appeals to little freaks like me. Someone who genuinely likes Persona 3 FES’s flawed, yet bold battle system.

Battles can be infuriating on occasion due to the amped up resistances of most enemies and how that tends to bring out the worst of the AI party system, but I generally found them fun to fight. Though the one thing I’d like to acknowledge in particular are the nerfs to Fusion. That’s right. My The Answer hot take isn’t that weak shit like “it’s actually good” or “Yukari is reasonable.” It’s that the lack of arcana burst and compendium are valuable changes that add a different layer to the way you’re expected to engage with the dungeon crawling. Foresight is paramount and every fusion you make feels important. Between making sure I had each buff skill accounted for at any given moment or making the most of EXP share passives by transferring them to Personae with desirable skills, it feels like The Answer was able to bring out a niche appeal of the Fusion system the other mainline titles rarely nail. Due to my foresight and knowledge of the base game’s skill progression, I almost never had to stop and grind like I was expecting to. I was entirely prepared for 99% of the encounters I faced (fuck the penultimate Abyss of Time fight oh my god) and that felt extremely rewarding. I get that it’s harsh in design and not everyone’s experience is going to go as smoothly. But I found it was an interesting twist on a system that normally becomes less and less substantive to engage with as the game goes on.

It was really satisfying to see the credits draw to a close. I’ve been madly in love with Persona 3 FES for almost four years now and, though it’s funny to say, today is the day I finally finished it properly. While a lot of my initial assessments of The Answer came to be true, I’m glad I was still able to get something out of it in this playthrough. I’m still shocked by the amount of enjoyment I was able to find in its challenge run-esque design mentality. And best of all, it’s given me an excuse to brainrot over Persona 3 for a little while longer, thanks to the ways it expands on its cast. As flawed and half baked as it feels in so many regards, I’d say I overall enjoyed my time with it. Can’t wait to see how I feel about its remake, especially given the announcement that they’ll be adding in more story scenes. Now, someone come restrain me before I buy the $35 expansion pass for Persona 3 Reload. Hurry… There’s not much time. The microchip is beeping oh god o h no I. LOVE ATLUS GAAAAAAH!!!

Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.
An amazing game that works perfectly with Innocent Sin to achieve a phenomenal duology of games. The stories and ties between them are extremely interesting to see, both Main Character's stories across both games are incredible to watch. The casts of both games work well for their respective stories and MCs. For EP specifically I love Maya and Tatsuya of course, Katsuya and Ulala were great but Baofu is definitely my favorite of the new additions. Tatsuya's scenario was great too. Always love side stories like that.

Gameplay wise it's much better than P2IS in that I actually had to think for a majority of the time. Dungeons I felt were better here as well, especially love the last worlds in the final act. Actually having reason to mess around with Personas here unlike in P2IS made me appreciate how much I like this game's mechanics. Though Card grinding can be tedious if you need a certain Arcana, but overall it's some great gameplay. Rumors continue to be a very fun element I like a lot in these games as well, using them both in big story stuff and smaller gameplay aspects that benefit the player and reward talking around and exploring.

Love the world design of these games as well, when a big event happens you're able to feel its weight and see the effect it has on the world map around you physically.

There's also plenty of smaller charming bits, the game has great funny moments, I like the P1 cast being involved.

OST is excellent.

Love a lot of the demon designs and animations in this game.

Overall this was an amazing experience of, I guess all of P1, P2IS, and P2EP, though I'm not praising P1 much here it's good but I'm more-so praising its involvement in the P2 duology.

Tatsuya and Maya my beloveds.

This is a solid game, gameplay is more challenging than P2IS but also more annoying with the more archaic dungeon exploration and status being super annoying. Boss fights were fun though. Range is an interesting mechanic but I feel like it was annoying more often than not. Certain character's weapons were useless sometimes for many fights.

Story was overall good, slow at the beginning and the Kandori stuff idc about. But all the Maki stuff is really good. She's a great character I enjoy her dynamic with the MC who is pretty alright for a silent persona protag. Mark and Nanjo were good too, though they shined more in the late game. I chose Elly as my 5th member and I liked her a lot.

Some of the "dramatic decisions" to get the good ending were stupidly obvious, don't think they need to be there. Same feeling about the bad ending, it just seems, well bad. Don't get the Maki content and you just fight Kandori. Kinda lame.

Art, designs and animation were good, definitely nice for a remake. Voice acting was alright too.

Overall, good game with a lot of first in a series issues that get refined later on. Not bad though.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin is overall a really great game, most of the story is amazing and I love the main cast. Sadly the gameplay is just, barely gameplay. Dungeons were fine mostly, some annoying some good, and from my experience of watching my buddy David play other SMT games that's a miracle. Overworld and utility stuff was good, I found the way of contacting and summoning Personas via cards interesting. Unfortunately you don't really need to do any of that due to the combat never feeling like you need anything other than the plot Personas, so there's no rewarding feeling of experimenting with different Personas. Boss fights aren't anything of note, they're mostly just long more than difficult. Barring the penultimate boss. Their presentation is pretty good for the limited environments and visuals they had.

Rumor system was pretty cool, I liked the idea and the gameplay and story integrate well with it.

But enough about gameplay, the story was amazing. Mostly. I know why the Nazis and Alien stuff was in the story, it fits and is used pretty well. I just didn't find any of it engaging. I liked the boss fight with the aliens though, that was pretty cool. But the actual good story content, that being developing the stories of each main cast member was excellent. I loved learning more about them as they learned about themselves. I always feel putting both the player and character on the same side of the mystery, both discovering at the same time is a great way to go about it. I also absolutely love how this game ends.

The cast's interactions with each other are also fantastic. Ranging from great funny bits to great emotional beats. Maya is definitely my favorite character, her story is a big focus and her role feels unique among the cast, she's a fun character that attributes a lot of the funny scenes to her. But the rest of the characters I love as well, very closely below her. An almost imperceptible difference.

I am excited to see where the story goes in Eternal Punishment. Thanks to all my Persona Pals for helping me on my journey.

It's now socially acceptable to like this game nowadays, so I don't have to tell you that this is great without being watched when I sleep. I love this game to bits honestly, I think is over praised in some areas but when I look more into the game the more I respect how much dedication it was put into it. I wish my disc for this game wasn't scratched so that I could've truly 100% it and go more deeper into its ideas and design. So many fond memories of just messing around in the hub and finally S ranking the harder challenges...

Atlus certainly did not waste the rare opportunity to tell a character focused story where most of the main cast isn’t composed of snot nosed brats. No stupid kids here to spoil the fun of leading a party of nothing but sad, pathetic individuals going through their quarter-life crisis. FUCK you, Persona 5. Adults ROCK!

Joking aside. Within the context of the Persona franchise, Eternal Punishment is definitely among one of the more distinct entries. As opposed to the other games, major character moments don’t consistently act as these scenes of clarity that overtly define a character’s progress as a person. In fact, it’s not uncommon that these moments will raise more questions than they answer, rarely ever making it immediately clear how a scene reflects on someone’s journey in the moment. And it’s through this handling where I think P2EP’s cast shines. At the start of the story, these characters feel genuinely detached from each other. They really struggle to open up, sometimes even lashing out over the simple idea of emotionally connecting. But they don’t strictly develop through opening up about their insecurities and immediately growing past them. It’s more so through their amazing chemistry and challenging each other through their unique perspectives on life that you feel a real bond begin to form. It’s a perfect balance between focusing on the cast members as individuals while also highlighting their importance in how they work as a collective.

I find one of the more under-appreciated aspects of Eternal Punishment are the major, fundamental changes it makes to Persona 2’s core to accommodate for the new, jaded perspective of its characters. The tone is far more subdued. Gone is the goofy, lighthearted bickering between Ginko and Eikichi; replaced now by moral conflicts of ideals between Katsuya and Baofu. The importance of individuality is put into question by the recurring motif of ‘Fate’. Asking what purpose is there to finding one’s self if one’s self can crumble under the power of nihilism, fortune, and higher powers? Its apparent emphasis on challenging gameplay, not only finally forces the player to fully engage with the duology’s battle mechanics, but reinforces the brutality the characters endure throughout the story. The game isn’t some cynical tale that spits in the face of its prequel. Nor is its prequel worse off because of its more outlandish and comedic nature. FAR from all of that. These aspects just allow for Eternal Punishment to act as a wonderful contrast to Innocent Sin, establishing a tone that compliments and builds off the heavy nature of the prequel’s final act.

Where Innocent Sin is remarkable for its effective balancing act of heartfelt character work and the most insane set pieces you could possibly imagine, Eternal Punishment looks to take a bit of a different approach with its priorities. The constantly escalating tension and shocking revelations remain, but the downtime between these moments become just as integral. It’s the short conversations mixed with powerful silence and contemplative penitence that’ll leave just as big of an impact as most of the overarching drama. It’s no surprise one of the lead writer’s favorite scenes is a short, one minute exchange revolving around the nature of adulthood where most of the dialogue boxes are filled with nothing but pauses.

As I further age into early adulthood, it’s easy to get lost in the confusion spurred forth by taxing shit like sin, identity, and especially responsibility. I’m not usually one to see myself reflected somewhere within a story’s world, but I find it’s so easy to attach myself to a cast so… human in their writing and presentation. Whether it be Ulala’s longing for comfort. Katsuya and Baofu’s ever-present battle with their regret. Tatsuya struggling to introspect on his strange, confusing life while dealing with consequence. Or the way everyone is able to find some sort of value in their relationships and provide for each other in their own ways. There’s a resonant aspect to find in every character that hits twice as hard thanks to the narrative’s mature handling of its personal beats.

It’s good, for my sake, that Eternal Punishment is here to affirm that there truly are some good things about being an adult… Just a few.

One of the nicest and most visually impressive games I've ever played; A game that, despite its flaws, has an unique charm and soul.

The characters and story are solid, telling some of my favorite fables of all fiction. The way the characters react to tragedy and to love is simply too real. The fashion the tales are developed is nothing short of compelling and engaging; I get genuinely interested and anxious for what's to come next after a certain event. And even though this is truer for "character tales", even the casual side-quests I happen to activate by pure accident are phenomenal. The feeling I get from idly roaming across the island fetching some collectables and, out of nowhere, cross by a down-to-earth and heartfelt story is indescribable. And honestly, for as good as the main story is, I think the game's true identity lies within its side content. The tales bring just that much more weight and meaning to the island of Tsushima.

The game has, however, one major issue: the massive amount of collectibles dissuate me from pretty much everything I've just described. I had to mentally separate the already started tales from actually exploring in two sections of the game, otherwise one would drag the other down. Matter of fact, I left the exploration content and completion aspects for last, and of course I gave up halfway across. I really enjoyed activities such as pillars of honor, hot springs and specially writing haiku, but the others are just too overwhelming. Inari shrines are a concept I do not disapprove; it's a cool idea, but they throw it out of the window when there are fourty fucking nine of them. It just gets... boring after some time... And that's a theme with the others as well. Bamboo striking has a cool mechanic and I can't give too much crap to the shinto shrines, but all of them together just pile up to a dull, repetitive and tiring chore (and those are the ones the game gives me the courtesy of showing on the map, ugh...). Were it up to me, the game could have half of those removed and focus on bringing more artefacts/records instead... Y'know, things that are actually different from one another and encourage exploration.

But now, no matter what I'm doing, whether it being chasing the billionth fox or climbing a mountain, I will be doing that amidst an absolutely stunning scenario. The setting in this game is so well done it's worthy playing for this reason alone. Some of my most intimate moments with Ghost of Tsushima were about me just... looking at the horizon, with Jin's cape against the wind... and me slowly... moving my analog to get the most of the view... Gosh, I don't even wanna count how much time I spent doing just that smh. It's just... that this is one of the few games that make me feel - truly feel - as if I am but a nomad embarking on an important quest, wandering a cruel yet beautiful world.

And although it's not the best thing ever written, I liked the story a lot too. I wouldn't complain if the cast members were to have more dialog and interactions outside their own campaign, but they already cause enough an impact from the participation they do have within the main story. And I adore the conceit of "disenchanting principle"; a practical example of how at times man-made concepts and ideals are just that - not worth more than actual human lives. A theme that though clearly leans towards fitting on the 13th century's setting, was also brilliantly done in a way it is also relevant for today's dilemmas.

The slow realization that this game would not be about a stoic and typical samurai that's untouchable, but about a flawed, confused man giving his all in order to protect his friends and people would already be excellent, but Ghost of Tsushima tells about it through its gameplay, a touch I find simply genial.

Ghost of Tsushima is not a perfect game, didn't even join my all time favorites nor anything, but it is a game I admire and respect deeply. I didn't 100%'d it because I believe it would lose part of the charm of blindly exploring the island as I progress through the story. I've opened 100% of the map already. I don't think it would be the same... but if I ever replay it, ya better BET I will!

Ok wow, I didn’t expect to warm up to Forces nearly as much as I did on this replay. I’ve had the idea of giving Forces another honest shot for quite a while. This is both because some discussion of the game I’ve seen on twitter made me start to see the game from a perspective that I previously hadn’t really considered before, and the fact that it no longer has the awkward stigma of being the “big new Sonic title” now that Frontiers is on the horizon. I had a pretty deep hatred for this game because of how it represented the current state of the franchise, where the series had a pretty grim future if this is the best that they could do with the IP. However, the time where it was the current state of the franchise appears to be well behind us. Having that grandiose viewpoint of Forces was a bit silly in retrospect, and I feel like thanks to it not having to be in the spotlight as the most recent big flagship title, it’s much easier to look at the game on its own terms. But beyond that, I mentioned a perspective that I hadn’t considered with the game before, and I’m honestly a bit embarrassed how I didn’t think of it; speedrunning.

With this playthrough I decided to take the route of attempting to speedrun the game’s levels, learn them inside and out and master them as I would any other Sonic game that I’m fond of. Taking this approach was incredibly rewarding in the case of modern Sonic and the avatar, and it helped me appreciate what makes Forces unique to the other boost games. Biggest thing that stood out to me was the way Sonic’s boost functions. It’s a far cry from any of the previous boosts mechanically with how it can influence aerial movement, whether it’s timing it just right with a jump or using the new aerial boost to fly through the sky. The latter is definitely my favorite inclusion to Sonic’s kit, it opens up options for shortcuts quite considerably, allowing for some insanely cool skips throughout levels. I wouldn’t mind seeing this form of the boost more often in games moving forward. Speedrunning levels in this game in general gives a much heavier emphasis on sequence breaking than I’ve experienced in other entries. More often than not, if there’s a scripted cinematic element to a stage, live an automated rail loop, there’s a way you can skip past it. Noticed this especially with my attempts on Metropolitan Highway, my favorite stage in the game. There’s a good amount of automated parts like the rail spirals at the beginning that you can go right past with skillful maneuvering. It’s kind of ironic how the biggest problem I had with the game mechanically was its heavy automation, while what made me love the game so much more on this playthrough was being able to blow right past it. I don’t prefer this approach to the level design of Unleashed or especially Generations, definitely not, but it was really enjoyable. This also applies to a smaller extent to the Avatar stages, with how Wispons can change the way you approach level design and your loadouts. This also made me appreciate how the Wisps are much more seamlessly integrated into gameplay than their previous appearances. Though it is slightly dampened by the Drill Wispon just being the best one for tearing through levels, but even then there’s some fun to be had by ripping stages to shreds with a Giga Drill Break ripped right out from Gurren Lagann.

The biggest problem that Forces has as a game is that it does not make for a good casual playthrough. If you’re just planning on going through the whole story and nothing more, then I can’t say that Forces will be worth your time in that regard. However, if you are willing to approach it with the philosophy I have with most Sonic games, that repeated attempts at mastery and getting faster can transform the experience of them like no other, then you might be in for a surprisingly fun experience.

Tldr: It's a perfectly fine game that's really fun to sink your teeth into, but came out at a time when it really wasn't what the series needed

Side Note: Classic Sonic is still garbage, has no place in this game and I better not see him in 3D ever again.

Despite missing from its title, Soul Hackers 2 is a solid addition to the Devil Summoner series. A series not known for pushing the boundaries of the gameplay or storytelling within Megami Tensei, but rather for holding a unique sense of style and charm that you’d be hard pressed to find replicated within another entry in this wide franchise. As with its predecessor, you can expect an aesthetic akin to cyberpunk anime to ooze through every aspect of the game, but this time through the lens of the current year as opposed to the 1990s. The game makes the most of its apparent low budget through its vibrant and striking art direction, accentuating the many enjoyable character stories held within the game’s world. But as much as I’d love to sit and gush about the concept of a MegaTen subseries entry that comes from neither Mainline or Persona releasing in 2022, this experimental title still comes with a couple major issues.

Much like its predecessor, Soul Hackers 2 has a very basic combat system; retaining the baseline weakness/resistances aspect, but not adding much more in terms of core mechanics. But unlike its predecessor, Soul Hackers 2 doesn’t have the leeway of building upon and perfecting the simple row system of Classic Mainline. The new Sabbath mechanic can’t help but feel like a more dumbed down take on the other weakness exploit systems with how little it adds in terms of the tactical decision making process. Essentially, every time a party member hits an enemy’s weakness, the party begins to build a stack. At the end of the turn, Ringo deals AoE damage to every enemy, with the strength of the attack dependent on the number of stacks. Party members can gain personal skills to increase the number of stacks added per specific weakness exploit, but it comes with the downside of feeling as if party members are being funneled into specific builds. It’s unfortunately a pretty large drawback for a game with otherwise very strong and flexible character customization, as the sheer usefulness of the increased damage dealt with a high stack count is hard to ignore.

Physical skills aren’t as useful when it comes to dealing damage, as without a skill unlocked in the endgame, critical hits don’t count towards a stack for whatever reason. And they still use MP instead of HP, AKA the worst change ever made in the history of MegaTen. But I do love how they’re more utility based as a way to balance them out. They often come with secondary effects, such as single target debuffs, ailments, or some other quirky that keeps them valuable in spite of their rare use in contributing to Sabbaths.

Hama and Mudo skills have been wiped from the game completely. Kind of a shame, since I think SMTV perfected them by greatly restricting their ability to blindside the player. But in their place, Ailment inflicting skills have now taken on a similar role. They now deal damage on top of having a chance of inflicting an ailment. I’m fine with the change as I think it finally gives good incentive for the player to actually utilize them now. And there’s enough counterplay to keep enemies who use them from feeling too obnoxious, like armor that negates their passive effects.

Buffs and debuffs go back to being universally partywide instead of single target. But instead of being stackable, they keep the three turn limit first implemented in Persona. They also got a bit more creative in terms of upgrades. In the later half of the game, you gain access to skills that can buff/debuff two different stats at a time. And to keep those from quickly becoming irrelevant, Debilitate has been downgraded to being single target. All things considered, this game creates my favorite buff system in all of MegaTen. Each change makes sure they’re not too over centralized (especially since physical skills with debuff side effects exist), but still retain their incredible utility from the very start of the game.

I feel where this game shines the most in gameplay is in its boss battles because bosses can finally strategize again! Battles with Devil Summoners force you to overcome some sort of gimmick with their demon party, as their synergy can typically leave you with very little opportunities to attack. They’re also where my favorite addition to combat comes the most into play: Ringo’s Commander Skills. They allow Ringo to perform an action without consuming a turn, which aids the party with some sort of extra effect or action. All of them are useful and can completely change the way you approach an encounter, but the most integral one, in my opinion, is the ability to swap out any party member’s demon. If you ever wondered what Modern Persona would play like if the Wildcard wasn’t restricted to just the protagonist, this is the game. With this, bosses can become fun juggling matches where you’re constantly swapping out party members’ demons for the sake of reducing damage taken through resistances or optimizing damage dealt through skillset changes. They also encourage you not to only focus on building one strong demon for a respective party member, but to have an entire repertoire of demons that can be used at any time.

The most recurring complaint this game receives is its dungeon design and yeah, the shit is BLAND. I’m a psychopath who’s played Persona 3 like five times in a year and I’ve generally played MegaTen games with WAY worse dungeon design, so I got through it just fine. But if you’re normal and actually like your brain to be stimulated, dungeons will be rough. Aside from the couple basic puzzles sprinkled throughout in the second half, you’ll typically be roaming around empty hallways for 30 minutes to an hour until you get to the boss. This kind of design would lend well to the old 2D dungeon crawler gameplay of Classic Mainline and other such entries, but really have no place in a game with 3D traversal.

A prevalent focus in Devil Summoner games is their emphasis on demon personalities within gameplay and their connection to the Protagonist. Instead of implementing a friendship system, Soul Hackers 2 highlights this with benefits for maxing out a demon’s skillset and, more importantly, Demon Recon. At the start of each dungeon, Ringo will send out demons to scout the area. While exploring, you can interact with them, to which they’ll provide a different benefit indicated by an icon. It’s a fine system. Even though it tries, I don’t think it does much to make your demons feel like natural extensions of your party. But their dialogue can be fun and seeing them call Ringo nicknames like Rin-Rin is cute. My only big issue with the system is that dungeons can be far too reliant on it. Oftentimes the solution to a “””puzzle””” amounts to simply talking to one of your demons to collect an item necessary for progression. I’ve seen other people complain about how sidequest items and demon recruitment are tied to this system and I don’t get it personally. I never had to spend more than a couple minutes running in circles looking for what I needed, as playing the game naturally will most likely net whatever’s necessary. Also prefer this way of collecting demons, as Demon Negotiation is a dated system rendered mostly redundant by fusion in almost every game and serves no further purpose than an annoying RNG based way to gather fodder

The story is nice. It’s missing the batshit insanity that’s become a staple of Devil Summoner narratives and definitely does tend to play things safe. But its more down to earth focus on its cast is refreshing, especially since they’re not the most conventional group. The strength of the cast lies in their small talk. These guys are capable of striking up conversation over anything, whether it be after learning a new personal skill, completing some random side quest, finding a miscellaneous item in a dungeon, or eating a new dish. You’ll be constantly learning new things about not only them, but the dystopia they live in and the people they’ve connected with, all through an endless amount of fun banter. What makes it especially fun is Ringo herself. She’s an amazing protagonist that breaks new ground for MegaTen. Not only in the fact that she can speak, but her bright personality is able to bring the best out of each party member. She contrasts very well with their underlying melancholy and the occasional unrest within the group. I often found myself being disappointed by the fact that I had to choose from one of her usual three dialogue choices because I wanted to hear them all. I love when MegaTen effectively uses silent protagonists to enhance a game’s narrative and theming and whatnot, but I definitely think this game proved the franchise could stand to use more speaking protagonists like Ringo.

The game doesn’t tread many themes foreign to Megami Tensei. Government corruption, the strength of human connection, cultivating hope through despair, etc; you’ve likely seen it all already, if not in MegaTen then in some other JRPG. Not unsurprising, seeing as the original Soul Hackers was similar in this regard (granted, it was a story that took itself considerably less seriously). But I do find the way the game explores the importance of a second chance to be a great extension of the original’s messages and its motif regarding regret. It’s a good way to tie the games together thematically, considering there’s not much direct relation in general beyond that.

Soul Hackers 2 leaves me with caution filled hope. Hope that this game is a sign that Atlus is willing to adopt the sense of inspiration and experimentation that defined their days in the 2000s. It’s the era that birthed some of their most influential titles, like P3 and Nocturne, alongside beloved fan favorites, like DDS and Raidou. Each subseries acts as a reminder to me that Megami Tensei is FAR too broad of a franchise to be restricted to just Persona and the occasional Mainline entry and I would genuinely love to see more titles like Soul Hackers 2, just with a bit more polish. I just gotta hope this game’s inevitable mediocre sales don’t deter them from broadening their horizons indefinitely.

(this whole ass paragraph was just a slightly more composed way of me asking where the FUCK is the next Raidou Kuzunoha game, you FRAUDULENT company)

Persona 3 FES is one of my favorite games of all time. When I finished it midway through last year, I fell in love with a story that touched my heart and left me completely fulfilled in a way that few pieces of art have in a long time. More interesting to point out than my love for the plot and characters, though, would be my entire lack of desire to replay the game anytime soon or AT ALL, even. Despite how much I had grown to respect, admire, and even adore this game, that love came with its own set of caveats and conditions. The most notable of those being the sheer length of the game in conjunction with my indifference towards the gameplay. Y’see, my first playthrough took me around 80 hours to finish which, on its own, is already a massive time sink, but then you also take into consideration that the gameplay, while honestly not terrible, did not leave me particularly thrilled to give it another go in second playthrough.

To put it simply, when those credits rolled for the first time at the end of my journey, I was ready to move on from Persona 3 entirely. That’s not to say that I was burnt out by any means, I just saw it as a one and done thing, and there’s no problem with that.

ENTER PERSONA 3 PORTABLE

Even long before I actually started Persona 3 FES, I knew about Portable. I’ve seen plenty of discourse regarding people debating which version of the game is the superior experience, but to me, FES always seemed like the no-brainer. Sure, having a controllable party, the most notable combat feature absent from FES, did give it one solid point of appeal on a surface level. However, from what I could gather, there was just so much that seemed lacking when compared to FES at a glance that I felt (and still do feel) that Portable would be an inferior game to experience first, at the very least.

Looking past just an initial playthrough, though, I generally had no interest in Persona 3 Portable in its own right for some time. The cutscenes being restricted to just the character sprites and background graphics seemed to me as though it would severely undercut many of the more hard-hitting scenes in the game, and that did not do it any favors as far as appeal is concerned. So you take that in conjunction with my overall indifference towards the game’s addition of a female protagonist, and it’s not a stretch to say that I had a rather notably negative view on this version of the game. Surprisingly though, after much convincing from my good pal HiTheHello, I decided on a whim, half a year after completing FES in fact, that I’d look past these preconceived grievances I had with the game, and just see firsthand if it was worth it or not.

And you know what? It fucking blew me away.

I now realize that Persona 3 Portable should NOT be seen as an attempt at a replacement or upgrade from base P3 or FES, but instead as a sort of lighter, more easily digestible way for fans of those first two games to experience them again but with a fresh, new lens. Looking at Portable in this new way made so much of what seemed to be baffling in design on paper make SO much more sense. Because that’s all it was, baffling on paper. In execution, Portable works beautifully as a companion piece to the original games. This is for a myriad of reasons of course, but the two most important of these are, funnily enough, the exact issues that I ignorantly looked down on the game for: the changes to the presentation and the inclusion of the FEMC route.

Now, there’s an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed here. If you compare scenes from P3P to FES on a one-to-one basis, then yes, FES wins that comparison in every example. But looking at it now, Portable’s commitment to sacrificing a bit of that impact in its story presentation for shorter, more concise cutscenes has an unexpected, but surprisingly strong benefit. That benefit being a more streamlined and fast-paced experience that lent itself magnificently to a more casual, relaxed playthrough of the game. The exact kind of playthrough that I, with my good friends in voice chat, could enjoy to the fullest. It’s by trimming the fat that Portable is able to keep me going for six hour sittings at a time, when, prior to starting, the mere thought of replaying tired me out.

This is why this game works so well as a better way to re-experience P3, and, after having played through the original already, I can more easily immerse myself into this world again BECAUSE of how fast things are coming at me. To a new player, this might come off as a story failed by its cutscenes and presentation, but I’m able to simply sit back and have a laugh with my friends while essentially lite versions of my favorite cutscenes in gaming are playing. And it can’t be overstated just how much snappier this game is in its pacing. When all was said and done and I finally finished this version of the game, I ended up with around 60 hours of total playtime. Still definitely a meaty game, but that’s a whole TWENTY hours less than my initial playthrough, and I can guarantee it wasn’t at all because I got better at the game since my initialy playthrough and was just faster at doing the same shit because I essentially FORGOT a good chunk of the game in the past 6 months from FES to Portable that wasn’t story or character-related. The game was, by nature, much more digestible than if I had opted to merely replay FES, and that’s something I don’t see Portable getting enough praise for. That it was able to successfully (albeit a bit clumsily at times) reintroduce me in a way that felt inviting and fresh, not draining and cumbersome.

There’s just this noticeable effort to make the game in general feel less tiresome with Portable’s many mechanical changes, too. Of course you’ve got the aforementioned addition of controllable party, which is obviously a very welcome change and goes a long way in making fights more manageable. But there are also a lot of smaller, quality of life changes that do loads to make this game generally more approachable for a replay than FES which, again, I believe is the intent and how Portable should be viewed as a whole. A lot of smart things are brought in from Persona 4 as well. You can now guard in battle, which is a lot nicer than simply waiting and wasting a character’s turn in battle, allowing you to remain engaged with a fight even while taking more defensive maneuvers. Multi-target spells are also now capable of triggering One Mores, which honestly feels like fixing an oversight from the original game, and also feels really great. And speaking of which, downing enemies or allies in Portable no longer requires a full turn to recover from, which comes with its own set of benefits and drawbacks. On one hand, it’s more in line with the rest of the series and keeps fights as a back and forth where neither side can COMPLETELY stop the other from doing anything to fight back, just because a weakness was hit. But on the other hand, I LOVE STUN LOCKING ENEMIES INTO OBLIVION. This is overall a good change for sure though, and the stun lock capabilities have been relegated to the dizzy status effect, albeit in a less absurdly broken state than in FES. There were also plenty of other changes made outside of combat, such as the introduction of fast travel from anywhere, certain items removing fatigue, and even part-time jobs you can easily take on in order to kill time, make a quick buck, and get some social stat increases, adding some welcome variation to the more monotonous parts of the game where you’re waiting for the Full Moon to arrive.

So yeah, Portable is a cleaner and less tedious in its gameplay, and it has a plethora of things it does well or even better than FES, which add to its status in my eyes as the perfect casual Persona game. And it’s something that honestly works better if you’re already familiar with the story because, as I said before, that makes the downgrade in presentation actually work to its benefit. However, these changes, while solid improvements on their own, needed one more HUGE addition to justify Portable’s existence. And they got that justification with the existence of the female protagonist.

FEMC adds SO much to this game, I can’t give her enough praise for just how fresh her existence made Persona 3 feel again. You get new tracks that shift the entire mood and fit her character like a glass slipper. Songs that replace the softer, melancholic, atmospheric tracks from the male MC’s route with more exciting, upbeat bangers that brilliantly reflect the new perspective of this entirely different protagonist. A Way of Life and Time are fantastic overworld themes that I’m rarely able not to bop my head to, with the former song especially filling me with a dense feeling of nostalgia and wonder even after just a couple of listens, it’s seriously magic. After School is a great addition to the already existing social link themes that does wonders in maintaining that high energy vibe unique to FEMC, while Tender Feeling accentuates emotional beats with a wholesome, warm sincerity seldom found in other social link themes of this type. And if I’m keeping it real, Wiping All Out and Danger Zone are, without a doubt in my mind, THE BEST normal and sub-boss battle themes in the series that translate the high energy, upbeat vibe of the overworld and SL songs into hard-hitting, bombastic fight themes.

So yeah, with the additions to FEMC brings to the table in Portable’s soundtrack, it’s no stretch to say that P3P’s soundtrack is a straight up upgrade from FES. And you wanna know something else that FEMC excels in where even the normal route kinda flops? Social Link CONSISTENCY.

Y’see, Persona 3 FES has one some of the absolutely highest highs and lowest lows as far as Social Links are concerned. With it containing absolute favorites of mine like Akinari, Aigis, and Mutatsu, as well as horrific mediocrity/atrocity like Kenji and Nozomi, this selection of social links was handily the most hit or miss in the series. But with the FEMC, there’s a MASSIVE overhaul in that selection, replacing many of the aforementioned stinkers with new, BETTER SLs to choose from.

First of all, unlike in the male route, every male party member INCLUDING KOROMARU now has a Social Link, and they are all a delight to behold. I can’t speak for Ken’s (since I refused to interact with the little shit), but every other member was given a storyline that complimented their preexisting arcs in the main story in a way that felt natural and organic, enhancing what was already there, when they could so easily have been forced retreadings of superior stories. My favorite of these was Shinjiro’s who, while avoiding spoilers, managed to elevate him from an already strong character who the story used extremely well to knock down the first domino that led to the game’s immaculate final act, to one of my absolute favorites in the series, that I resonated with on a personal, fundamental level. It’s all because of how absolutely sky high the quality of writing for these SLs now is. They keep all the ones that made the game great, and replace the bad ones (Kenji, Nozomi, etc.) with ones that make it EVEN BETTER. And this led to an experience where maxing out every arcana felt meaningful and fulfilling, because no matter who I talked to, I wasn’t just getting an exp bonus for fusions, but I was also inviting myself to experience some of the best side stories this series had to offer.

So yeah, FEMC route is kind of a slam dunk already. Music? Banging. Social Links? Cracked. And to end off this overly long thesis about why this route is totally worthwhile, let’s dive into the star of the show herself: FEMC/Kotone Shiomi/Minako Arisato.

To me, FEMC is where the character of Persona 3’s protagonists finally really clicked for me (yes, BOTH of them). Initially, I just kinda thought that Makoto, the original protagonist, was a cool embodiment of the game’s themes without really thinking much of him as an individual character. In contrast, and despite being a “silent protag”, FEMC’s personality felt incredibly well-articulated to me with every new addition or change in dialogue and music doing so much in conveying her as this bubbly, energetic, positive force in the lives of her peers. She is so fundamentally opposed to the original protagonist in characterization, bringing so much new life to what was originally such a grimy, dreary, and unwelcoming world. This was exactly what I needed to keep the slow burn nature of Persona 3’s story from ever feeling monotonous this second time around: something new. And funnily enough, FEMC doesn’t fit the themes of this story quite as perfectly as Makoto did and, in fact, she feels rather static in terms of progression compared to her predecessor, but this is something that wraps around to working in Portable’s favor. Because we already experienced the story of someone at their lowest point trying to find meaning and purpose through the bonds they forged with those around them. FEMC couldn’t just retread that, because it’d be fucking boring. Instead, she largely seems to have retained her understanding of the value of life early on despite finding herself in the same tragic circumstances that Makoto did. And it’s in keeping her positive mental state that she’s able to be the rock that she is in so many of her relationships. It’s through her determination and vigor that she can face all the tragedy and loss that the story throws her way and still remain the chipper ray of light that her friends need her to be.

Retroactively, she was able to make me appreciate Makoto’s more dynamic character progression in a way I hadn’t really considered before, as well. And this is the power of a game like Persona 3 Portable. Sure it’s not always perfect in how it presents itself and, yes, despite all of this crazy praise I’m giving it, you should still absolutely play through FES first. But god dammit, I appreciate it so much when I’m given the opportunity to look at something I love in a new way, from a new angle, with a new perspective, and come out adoring the new and old experiences I had more than I ever would’ve if I had only picked one.

So, from the bottom of my heart,
Thank you, Persona 3 Portable.

This game is impressive in how it is one of the most soulless, industry plant-type creations I have ever bared witness to, but it is depressingly getting exactly what it wants in the longterm:
-Massive, influential YouTubers and content creators covering the game and giving it publicity it doesn't deserve
-Dronelike theorizing about nothing lore, with TWO videos by MatPat (where even he subtly decries the shady, scummy business practices of some of the people behind this game) regarding the same played-out bullshit story you can imagine
-And massive financial success from greedy, moneygrubbing marketing and merchandising.

The concept of this game being anything resembling "indie" has been entirely erased at this point.

This game is now the Warner Bros. of indie games. And it's genuinely depressing that a game like Five Nights at Freddy's that (while undeniably flawed) was a piece with so much genuine heart, passion, and drive to its creation ended up inspiring such a bland, but unfortunately successful DISASTER of a video game that ends up being just another "children's toys but with a dark twist" product to add to that homogenous glob of indie horror, all while reaping rewards it very much does not deserve.
Fuck this game.

“As we go about our lives, we touch people, we see people, and interact with them; and in doing so we feel many things. Sometimes we make others happy, sometimes we hurt them, we sympathize, and we disagree. In the midst of this, we learn that people’s thoughts and feelings are not a one-way street.” - Kazuki Takahashi, creator of Yu-Gi-Oh!

I’ll be upfront, writing a review for this game is one of the hardest things I’ve ever attempted to do as a writer. Writing about this game has left me stuck in a place where I don’t know how well I can properly express it. Originally, I was planning on doing a massive overview of every aspect that the game had to offer. I wanted to go over its art direction, the character designs, the fantastic soundtrack, its unique and innovative gameplay systems, and its masterful storytelling and character work. In fact, I have multiple google docs of my attempt to do that, and I’m still really proud of what I wrote there. The point of the matter is that I wanted to do something that could do my favorite game of all time justice, something that would put everything else I’ve written on this site to shame. But once the time came to get down everything I could about the story, words… failed me. This isn’t the first time I’ve run into this issue, I’ve tried to write a massive review of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, another game I hold incredibly close to my heart, and the sheer scope of that was something that collapsed on me. But this felt different, what I was trying to write just felt off about it. It’s only now that it feels like I realized what was truly going wrong with my writing for this game. It didn’t feel like I was writing to express my passion for the game like I wanted to, it felt like I was writing to prove myself. To prove that I can keep up with friends around me that were able to write longform pieces just as well as, if not better than me. To prove that the game had so many masterful elements to it, and that people around me who were tearing it down or underwhelmed more than I expected were missing what made it truly special. That line of thinking sort of put me in a rut of writing in general, which just piled on a number of things going on in my life that were putting me in a really rough spot emotionally. After seeing a couple of conversations of people having similar struggles writing about their favorite games, it helped me realize that I wasn’t really seeing what I should’ve been doing, just writing about what the game really means to me.

In a way, exploring this game set me on my own emotional journey, sort of like everyone else running through those weeks in Shibuya, enduring things that would encourage them to close themselves off, doubt themselves, do what comes naturally. In that sense, more than anything else I could write about in some 10+ page paper, the most important thing I can say about my relationship with TWEWY is that I can see a piece of myself in all of the main characters. In Shiki, I can see my struggles with constantly comparing myself to my peers and a lack of faith in who I really am. In Beat, I can see some of my own self-destructive tendencies and my own failure of being someone those closest to me can look up to. Even in Joshua, I can see how I allow myself to justify and feed into some intrusive thoughts and flawed outlooks I have in life. Trying to analyze everyone in this is like staring into shards of a mirror with a reflection that stares more deeply back at me as I put the pieces together. And at the center of it, the piece that shows the clearest reflection of me… is Neku.

On the surface, Neku is… a total dick. He’s pretty rude, closes himself off from everyone, and looks down upon the very idea of opening up. I think a lot of people interpret this at the surface level, as him being an asshole who goes through an arc of not being an asshole. However, that’s not the Neku I really see, and especially not the part I see in myself. Beyond his intense snark and attitude, I don’t see someone who’s disgusted by the idea of becoming friends and getting close to people, I see someone who’s scared of opening up to others and the risks that entails. Putting yourself out there is a pretty scary prospect, it makes you more vulnerable to people who don’t have that kind of respect for you, who want to use you for their own gain, or potentially leaving you empty if they’re gone. What he says to Shiki after the climax of day 4 doesn’t feel like him trying to make a “gotcha!” moment out of a tragic situation, he’s letting out a good chunk of his insecurities in the only way he really knows how. I wouldn’t say I’ve struggled with that quite to the degree that Neku seems to, but it’s an aspect I pretty deeply resonate with.

From the way I’ve been writing about this so far, you might think that the main piece that makes it connect with me is that they go through a lot of the same struggles that I do. While that’s definitely a part of it, what I think makes it truly special is seeing the light that enters their lives as they do take the chance to open up and put themselves out there. When Neku notices that something’s up with Shiki and allows her to open up about everything she’s been holding in, it really hits him. It gives him the revelation that all of this fear and anxiety he keeps bottled up, it’s something that all sorts of people go through. Experiencing that kind of realization for himself is the big thing that really sets him on this path of growth, that makes him really learn to care about everyone around him, despite a prevalent week 2 character’s efforts to drive him back into his old mindset. Seeing him break out of his hardened shell and connect with others, most notably with how he applies what he learned when talking to Beat, it’s… beautiful. It’s beautiful to see how much he’s grown through his interactions with others, especially with how human everyone in this game feels. Even games I’ve played before and after that try similar things don’t strike that chord with me quite as much because of how real TWEWY’s interactions feel.

I frequently wonder if I would ever really be in the same place that I am now without the people closest to me, especially those I’ve met online that have made me really come to understand some of my values and introduced me to wonderful experiences that I’ll treasure forever. I feel like the brightest parts of my current life come from how I was able to put myself out there and form connections and couldn’t have otherwise. If seeing those pieces of myself running around in that city for those few weeks showed me anything, it’s that people aren’t as simple as what you see on the surface, and the way to look beyond that is to expand your world.