- System: Playstation 2
- Year: 2008
- Region: North America
- Developer: Atlus
- Publisher: Atlus
Today we’re going to take a look at one of my favorite RPGs of all-time, Persona 3. The one I played is actually called Persona 3: FES, which is sort of a Game Of The Year edition. This version added several new things, the biggest of which is a 30-hour bonus quest called The Answer. We will deal with that portion of the game in a future post. For now, we will be focusing on The Journey.
The game begins with the silent protagonist arriving in Iwatodai Station. Shortly after getting off the train, something strange happens. All the power in the city seems to be shut down, and all electronic devices stop working. On top of that, all of the people have disappeared and been replaced with coffins. Things go back to normal shortly after he arrives at his dorm.
He soon learns that there is actually an extra hour every day. Most people are oblivious to this Dark Hour, but you and everyone else in your dorm are different. Not only can you perceive this 25th hour, but you also notice monsters called shadows that occasionally roam the town. An upper classmen gets chased back to the dorm by one of these shadows, and it is at this moment that you discover that you are able to summon something called a Persona, which is a manifestation of your psyche. With this newfound power, you are able to defeat the shadow at your dorm. These shadows seem to appear about once a month, and the group believes that they are linked to both the Dark Hour, and a mysterious illness called Apathy Syndrome that affects anyone that hasn’t transmogrified into a coffin during this time.
Persona 3’s story is definitely interesting. It can be very dark and tragic sometimes, but there is also a lot of humor sprinkled throughout. What makes the plot even more enjoyable is the excellent cast of characters. Every single member of your team is extremely likeable and each one has a nice backstory. Many have had very troubling pasts which seem to tie in closely with the strange events that have been happening lately.
Not only are the playable characters well-written, but also some of the non-playable characters that you will interact with via something called social links. You will make bonds with certain characters throughout the game, and by spending time with them, you will increase that Social Link’s rank. Each of these is tied to an Arcana, and leveling it up will increase the bonus experience given when fusing a Persona of the same Arcana. This lets you get access to some Personas that are 1 to 5 levels higher than you, which you would normally be unable to fuse. Not only is this useful in terms of stats, but it will also add some very useful spells and skills to your repertoire.
This marriage of Personas and Social Links also works the other way. If you possess a Persona of a certain Arcana and decide to spend time with someone of the same Arcana, it will greatly increase the chances of that link leveling up. It’s really cool how these seemingly separate aspects of the game are tied together, and it works surprisingly well.
One thing I didn’t care for was how the game trolls you by presenting you with social links that you cannot actually begin until after you’ve spent a month or two levelling up your traits. A good example of this is the Star Arcana social link. The character says, “We should hang out sometime, you can find me at the mall.” So you go to the mall the next opportunity you have, only to find out that the game won’t let you begin the link until your courage is at level 4. And it takes a long time to level up these traits. I guess it gives you a goal to work towards, but I would have preferred it if they got rid of the trait requirements, and just let you begin the Social Links whenever they become available.
The game has 2 main facets to it; there’s the high school sim portion, and dungeon exploration in a huge tower called Tartarus. This dungeon appears where your school would normally be every night during the Dark Hour. Exploring the tower is very important, as it will allow you to level up in between the monthly encounters with the Shadows that appear in the city.
The combat in Persona 3 is a lot of fun. The game uses something called the Press-Turn system, which is a turn-based system that requires you to exploit enemy weaknesses, break their defenses, and knock them down. This isn’t like the convoluted break system found in Xenosaga 2 though. You don’t have to spend 1100 turns building up Stock, only to have your chain get interrupted because you attacked with the wrong gender, and yes, that is actually a thing in Xenosaga 2. Atlus keeps it simple by having you knock an enemy down when you attack their weakness, which will grant that party member an extra turn. Many times you can chain 4 or 5 attacks together until all the enemies are knocked down. When this happens, your party will be able to execute an All-Out Attack, which will usually kill every enemy.
I’ve heard many people complain about the uncontrollable AI party members in battle. This was a little bit worrysome for me when I started the adventure, but I soon realized that as long as you are smart about what tactics to assign each character, it really isn’t a problem most of the time. That’s not to say it is perfect though, one issue I did run into several times was being unable to heal because my main character and healer were both knocked down. In any other RPG, I would just have one of the other members use an item to heal, but I can’t do it here because you are unable to change tactics for party members when the main character is knocked down.
There is one part of the battle system that is complete garbage though, and that is the game ending when the main character gets knocked out. This was also in Tengai Makyou on the Saturn, although I can look past it in that game since it’s really rare for the party leader to get KO’ed. In this game though, it can be incredibly frustrating, since you can do everything right and still fall victim to a unlucky critical hit from a monster or one of the instant death spells. This isn’t such a huge deal on the lower difficulty settings, but if you play on hard or even moreso during The Answer, this can be a frequent occurrence.
Equipping party members is a pain. You can’t do it from the main menu, but instead you have to talk to each member individually to bring up their status screen. Thankfully this was fixed in the PSP port and also the later games in the series. It is nice that you can talk to party members to heal though.
The graphics of Persona 3 may not be the sharpest or most detailed, but the game has a great art style to it. I really love the character portraits that show up during conversations. Is it just me, or does Junpei kind of look like the kind of dude that thinks Metallica’s Load is the greatest metal album ever? Anyways, I really enjoyed the character models and loved the bizarre monster and Persona designs. The randomly generated dungeons look decent, although they do get to be a bit repetitive.
The music in Persona 3, which can be divisive in the RPG community, really threw me for a loop the first time I heard it. Before then, I was used to hearing typical RPG tunes like Final Fantasy or Lunar, and was not expecting to hear J-pop and hip hop during my adventure. After playing a few hours though, I realized just how perfectly this style of music fits in with the modern-day Japanese high school setting. One of my favorites has to be the music that plays in your dorm, which me and my family jokingly call the demon rap.
The game also has a ton of voice acting in it, and it’s all done rather well. There may be one or two dull performances, but every other voice actor did a fantastic job with their characters.
And that’s a wrap on The Journey portion of Persona 3: FES. Aside from a few minor gripes, it is a fantastic RPG. I’ll hold off on giving a final score until I post the second half of the review, which will focus on The Answer. Spoiler Alert – That review will not be so positive.
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