I was gonna write up a whole blog post about this, but upon reflection I don't have a whole lot to say. It's a good remake, one that updates the source material so it feels like it hasn't aged a day, but keeps the core of the original intact. For ex, cutting out transphobic jokes, and adding more opportunities to bond with your team, are both much appreciated changes.
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.
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.