crimson2877
BACKER
one false move and i'll genetically modify your crops
5: yesyesyes
4.5: yes
4: yes
3.5: yes
3: maybe
2.5: no
2: no
1.5: no
1: no
.5: nonono
Badges
GOTY '23
Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event
Early Access
Submitted feedback for a beta feature
Pinged
Mentioned by another user
2 Years of Service
Being part of the Backloggd community for 2 years
Treasured
Gained 750+ total review likes
GOTY '22
Participated in the 2022 Game of the Year Event
Busy Day
Journaled 5+ games in a single day
Elite Gamer
Played 500+ games
Shreked
Found the secret ogre page
Full-Time
Journaled games once a day for a month straight
Trend Setter
Gained 50+ followers
Gone Gold
Received 5+ likes on a review while featured on the front page
Well Written
Gained 10+ likes on a single review
On Schedule
Journaled games once a day for a week straight
Adored
Gained 300+ total review likes
Popular
Gained 15+ followers
Donor
Liked 50+ reviews / lists
Gamer
Played 250+ games
Loved
Gained 100+ total review likes
Liked
Gained 10+ total review likes
N00b
Played 100+ games
Listed
Created 10+ public lists
Organized
Created a list folder with 5+ lists
Best Friends
Become mutual friends with at least 3 others
Noticed
Gained 3+ followers
Favorite Games
598
Total Games Played
004
Played in 2024
306
Games Backloggd
Recently Played See More
Recently Reviewed See More
Well, for one I'd want the game to be just a bit faster. But also slower. Faster between "encounters", as moving from your mothership to enemies takes the majority of the playtime, and faster when building (i swear half the game is just waiting for things to happen). But slower in combat, where if you look away for a second (likely when you take out your phone to kill the time as your fleet moves to engage the enemies halfway across the.. space?) you're likely to lose half your ships, or when wanting to change orders, if you misclick, you might again lose half your ships.
I guess this is all par for the course for many old games, but really none of this felt like an issue until the last few missions, which spike the difficulty in such a way that really shows the game's flaws upfront. The pre-penultimate mission is set up in a way that almost expects you to grind, with tens of enemy ships and almost no resources (which can be automatically harvested). I didn't finish the last mission, because if I wanted to push through I'd need to spend hours and hours on that mission.
Still, I respect the game. It's well written and technically an insane achievement. I just wish it wasn't annoying in a time sensitive way.
That being said there's some things that I feel got lost in translation. For one, a couple of the original's animated cutscenes are now in engine, and every time that happened they were just much blander, which was disappointing. That's my one concrete criticism.
Beyond that, I don't like new tartarus as much as old tartarus. It feels like there's too much going on, like the game is pulling away from its dungeon crawler roots, and it just makes it a little tough to completely chill out while exploring like I did in the original. Plus your teammates talk a LOT more, which went from endearing to annoying after about 30 hours of it.
The other criticism I have is just about the general feeling of the game. Persona 3 is now a modern game, one that bends over backwards to make things nice and convenient for you. Social Links seem more stable, it's harder to get locked into things, etc. And that's not a bad thing, but I think there's a little lost when you move a game that used to be somewhat hostile to players into a more welcoming direction, especially a game with themes and tone like Persona 3. It feels like the balance between social sim and wish fulfillment sim has been tipped even further towards the latter. I appreciate that they seem to have made it impossible to 100% the game in one run though, you have to actually choose which relationships to foster.
Again, it's a good remake, one with the original atmosphere fully intact (once you bring the default brightness down 3 or 4 pips), and it's one that to 90% of people I would recommend over the original. But even if this had all of the content that'd ever been released for persona 3, I don't think I'd call this the definitive best version.
The rest of the review (just for mass effect 1) is here