Completion Criteria: Platinum Trophy
Let's start this out by suggesting this. This version is still very good and if it's the easiest version to play, it's still the option I would pick over Portable.
Back on the PS2 I played through FES twice up to the final boss. I really love the game but I had trouble finishing games as a teen so I never did finish that final boss.
I've been seeing a good amount of people coming back and suggested it's dated but I'm not sure I totally agree. P3 is not the same as P4 and P5 because it wasn't designed to be as rounded, just as Demon's Souls shouldn't have it's World Design directly compared to Dark Souls.
The issue is that the remake tries to round it out and it doesn't fully work. This is mainly in regards to time. Persona 3 is all about Time, and making the most of it before it ends. As much as we wanted to, you weren't intended to do everything in the original 2 games. Social Links varied quite widely on how you were expected to answer them. Social Links would degrade if you left them untouched. Social Links would sour or even lock if you didn't approach them correctly, and sometimes they would just sour if you had bad timing. Without these complexities, it shouldn't be surprising that the links feel a bit more dull. When you see reverse's in such a few situations, it becomes awkward. Even worse if you get through the Moon Social Link without having known about them. Every romanceable girl in the game automatically loves you because it was a way to create conflict for these mechanics, but without them, you have weird situations where it shows the conflict anyway with no consequence or events that should have some mention hold none at all. So on top of this management, you have tartarus which for all intents and purposes is optional until the final day. You are told to explore it but I believe there are very few instances (tutorials that I don't believe are mandatory in the original) you are forced to be there. By removing these complexities everything feels more mandatory and it's no removing systems makes the game feel more shallow then it's predecessors.
While I do appreciate the Theurgy systems, I would have liked to see a bit of fine tuning. The end of the game in particular seemed to just be nuking strong monsters with saved up Thuergy.
I'm not sure if this is really a review but a brain dump of why I prefer FES still, even if it may feel dated to others.
Let's start this out by suggesting this. This version is still very good and if it's the easiest version to play, it's still the option I would pick over Portable.
Back on the PS2 I played through FES twice up to the final boss. I really love the game but I had trouble finishing games as a teen so I never did finish that final boss.
I've been seeing a good amount of people coming back and suggested it's dated but I'm not sure I totally agree. P3 is not the same as P4 and P5 because it wasn't designed to be as rounded, just as Demon's Souls shouldn't have it's World Design directly compared to Dark Souls.
The issue is that the remake tries to round it out and it doesn't fully work. This is mainly in regards to time. Persona 3 is all about Time, and making the most of it before it ends. As much as we wanted to, you weren't intended to do everything in the original 2 games. Social Links varied quite widely on how you were expected to answer them. Social Links would degrade if you left them untouched. Social Links would sour or even lock if you didn't approach them correctly, and sometimes they would just sour if you had bad timing. Without these complexities, it shouldn't be surprising that the links feel a bit more dull. When you see reverse's in such a few situations, it becomes awkward. Even worse if you get through the Moon Social Link without having known about them. Every romanceable girl in the game automatically loves you because it was a way to create conflict for these mechanics, but without them, you have weird situations where it shows the conflict anyway with no consequence or events that should have some mention hold none at all. So on top of this management, you have tartarus which for all intents and purposes is optional until the final day. You are told to explore it but I believe there are very few instances (tutorials that I don't believe are mandatory in the original) you are forced to be there. By removing these complexities everything feels more mandatory and it's no removing systems makes the game feel more shallow then it's predecessors.
While I do appreciate the Theurgy systems, I would have liked to see a bit of fine tuning. The end of the game in particular seemed to just be nuking strong monsters with saved up Thuergy.
I'm not sure if this is really a review but a brain dump of why I prefer FES still, even if it may feel dated to others.