Shouta
Member
Thanks to Bebpo, I had the chance to play Persona 3 for the last two weeks. I just finished the game last night with 69 hours on the clock.
I must say, Im pretty impressed with the game overall. It does have issues though and that comes from not developing the two parts of the game far enough or an issue of things that couldve changed or tweaked to be more enjoyable.
For the uninitiated, Persona 3 is a one part dungeon crawler and one part school life simulation. During the day and a portion of the night, you live the life of the main character as he goes to school and makes friends since he is a new transfer student to the school. When the clocks hits midnight, the world enters Darkness or literally translated from the Japanese script, Shadow time. All normal humans are frozen in what looks like standing black coffins and only people with a special gift or ability can move freely within during this period. What appears during Darkness is Tartaros, a massive 250+ floor tower that acts as one-half of the gameplay in Persona 3.
Tartaros is where most of the games battling takes place. The tower is randomized every time you a new floor with the exception of boss floors. Boss floors, which occur about every 10 or so levels, also have Teleport Pads that allow you to teleport to the entrance and that level at will. Floors have loot based on where you should be in the game and have enemies appropriate to it. You cant climb the tower to the top level in at the start though as the tower itself is locked until certain portions of the story occur.
The tower is fun to climb the first time but it does lack punch for repeated climbs. It really needs more incentives for you to climb it again. There isnt any rare loot in the game or anything and while the randomized dungeons are nice, it gets grating when theres no reward to be found for exploring every floor again. Other than that, enemies are challenging enough on each floor and the boss battles are excellent for the most part.
The battle system is basically the same one as Persona 2 but with the addition of the One More element of the Press Turn battle system. If you hit an enemys weakness or land a critical attack while the monster is up, youre awarded another chance to attack. You do not get One more when hitting a weakness or landing a critical when the enemy is in the down status. If you manage to force all your enemies into a down status, youre given a free attack that all members in your party are allowed to participate (if they arent incapacitated or hit with a status effect) which is basically the damage of all your members attacks in one unblockable chunk. Its a good system and actually a bit better than the full Press Turn System IMO.
Your teammates are AI only and are generally quite smart. They can also be manipulated by telling them general orders to follow like Down Enemies or Support and Heal. They do a great job even with the commands which is a relief since a lot of games with AI controlled components are usually lacking. It is a turn-based game system however which would explain why the AI teammates fair much better.
Personas are of course the main stay of this series. They function just like they have in previous Persona games or like Demons in Nocturne for folks that havent played Persona before. I think the major difference with the Personas in this game is that I find them to be in balance this time around. In previous Persona games, Magic was much more powerful than physical attacks overall. Physical attacks ruled the roost in Nocturne and to a lesser extent, DDS. Its really nice to have them be balanced and most of the Personas being useful in one way or the other. My only major complaint is that most of the status effects are weak in this game. They dont usually have much effect on the battle and are kind of an afterthought beyond the kaja and nda lines.
The other half of the gameplay is the school life simulation. You basically play every day in the game barring special events that eat up time. You can do various things like raise your stats (Academics, Charm, and Courage) or spend time with the people in the city to form relationships that make up the community system. School days occur in 4 periods where you can raise either stats or communities. The first two are reserved for school and the last two are free for communities or stats. So you dont actually play a day in real time. The concept is pretty cool but its a little shallow since there isnt any sort of interactivity in the events you do beyond picking and choosing answers. Its not to say that its bad but a little more interaction beyond picking answers would be nice. However, I can understand why it isnt much beyond this though since it would be too much for the player to handle except the most hardcore with the Tartaros content to deal with as well.
Tartaros and the school life mix pretty well though and youre always constantly busy with something in the game. It flies by pretty quickly. It actually seems a little short at times despite being a 70 hour because of the stuff you may want to do. As an experience, its really good. Id probably rank it on the same level as Valkyrie Profile Silmeria or a little lower.
The story is solid but not fantastic. Its not as good as Persona 2: Sin or Punishment in premise but its told a bit better and clearer. I wish the story in Persona 3 had more to it though because it couldve been very interesting. Also, once a month story events can be a little slow going at times since there were times I wanted to see what happens next in the plot.
On the flipside, the story really works well for pushing the character development in the game. Its actually the better of the two. Each of the characters has distinct personalities and has their own problems to deal with in the game and that is ongoing throughout the game. Its a pretty natural progression and hardly feels forced which comes out very nice. There could be a bit more delving into some of the characters but I also didnt get to see some of the content related to the main cast.
What really surprised me is that the sub-characters in the game get development too due to quite a bit of them being the key members in the community system (they affect your Persona). Each character has their own story that builds up as you go up in community rank with them and deepen your relationship with that character. The stories usually have something to do with the Arcana they theyre related to either by situation, characters, or meaning. Its really nice since you get a deeper sense of the characters that inhabit the games world. Usually, NPCs are just there to push you along in the story but these NPCs actually have personalities and a history to them. Its definitely a jump a head of most other games.
If I had to compare it to some of the other games Ive played recently, Id rank it higher than VPS in overall experience although VPS does do quite a number of things better than Persona 3.
I must say, Im pretty impressed with the game overall. It does have issues though and that comes from not developing the two parts of the game far enough or an issue of things that couldve changed or tweaked to be more enjoyable.
For the uninitiated, Persona 3 is a one part dungeon crawler and one part school life simulation. During the day and a portion of the night, you live the life of the main character as he goes to school and makes friends since he is a new transfer student to the school. When the clocks hits midnight, the world enters Darkness or literally translated from the Japanese script, Shadow time. All normal humans are frozen in what looks like standing black coffins and only people with a special gift or ability can move freely within during this period. What appears during Darkness is Tartaros, a massive 250+ floor tower that acts as one-half of the gameplay in Persona 3.
Tartaros is where most of the games battling takes place. The tower is randomized every time you a new floor with the exception of boss floors. Boss floors, which occur about every 10 or so levels, also have Teleport Pads that allow you to teleport to the entrance and that level at will. Floors have loot based on where you should be in the game and have enemies appropriate to it. You cant climb the tower to the top level in at the start though as the tower itself is locked until certain portions of the story occur.
The tower is fun to climb the first time but it does lack punch for repeated climbs. It really needs more incentives for you to climb it again. There isnt any rare loot in the game or anything and while the randomized dungeons are nice, it gets grating when theres no reward to be found for exploring every floor again. Other than that, enemies are challenging enough on each floor and the boss battles are excellent for the most part.
The battle system is basically the same one as Persona 2 but with the addition of the One More element of the Press Turn battle system. If you hit an enemys weakness or land a critical attack while the monster is up, youre awarded another chance to attack. You do not get One more when hitting a weakness or landing a critical when the enemy is in the down status. If you manage to force all your enemies into a down status, youre given a free attack that all members in your party are allowed to participate (if they arent incapacitated or hit with a status effect) which is basically the damage of all your members attacks in one unblockable chunk. Its a good system and actually a bit better than the full Press Turn System IMO.
Your teammates are AI only and are generally quite smart. They can also be manipulated by telling them general orders to follow like Down Enemies or Support and Heal. They do a great job even with the commands which is a relief since a lot of games with AI controlled components are usually lacking. It is a turn-based game system however which would explain why the AI teammates fair much better.
Personas are of course the main stay of this series. They function just like they have in previous Persona games or like Demons in Nocturne for folks that havent played Persona before. I think the major difference with the Personas in this game is that I find them to be in balance this time around. In previous Persona games, Magic was much more powerful than physical attacks overall. Physical attacks ruled the roost in Nocturne and to a lesser extent, DDS. Its really nice to have them be balanced and most of the Personas being useful in one way or the other. My only major complaint is that most of the status effects are weak in this game. They dont usually have much effect on the battle and are kind of an afterthought beyond the kaja and nda lines.
The other half of the gameplay is the school life simulation. You basically play every day in the game barring special events that eat up time. You can do various things like raise your stats (Academics, Charm, and Courage) or spend time with the people in the city to form relationships that make up the community system. School days occur in 4 periods where you can raise either stats or communities. The first two are reserved for school and the last two are free for communities or stats. So you dont actually play a day in real time. The concept is pretty cool but its a little shallow since there isnt any sort of interactivity in the events you do beyond picking and choosing answers. Its not to say that its bad but a little more interaction beyond picking answers would be nice. However, I can understand why it isnt much beyond this though since it would be too much for the player to handle except the most hardcore with the Tartaros content to deal with as well.
Tartaros and the school life mix pretty well though and youre always constantly busy with something in the game. It flies by pretty quickly. It actually seems a little short at times despite being a 70 hour because of the stuff you may want to do. As an experience, its really good. Id probably rank it on the same level as Valkyrie Profile Silmeria or a little lower.
The story is solid but not fantastic. Its not as good as Persona 2: Sin or Punishment in premise but its told a bit better and clearer. I wish the story in Persona 3 had more to it though because it couldve been very interesting. Also, once a month story events can be a little slow going at times since there were times I wanted to see what happens next in the plot.
On the flipside, the story really works well for pushing the character development in the game. Its actually the better of the two. Each of the characters has distinct personalities and has their own problems to deal with in the game and that is ongoing throughout the game. Its a pretty natural progression and hardly feels forced which comes out very nice. There could be a bit more delving into some of the characters but I also didnt get to see some of the content related to the main cast.
What really surprised me is that the sub-characters in the game get development too due to quite a bit of them being the key members in the community system (they affect your Persona). Each character has their own story that builds up as you go up in community rank with them and deepen your relationship with that character. The stories usually have something to do with the Arcana they theyre related to either by situation, characters, or meaning. Its really nice since you get a deeper sense of the characters that inhabit the games world. Usually, NPCs are just there to push you along in the story but these NPCs actually have personalities and a history to them. Its definitely a jump a head of most other games.
If I had to compare it to some of the other games Ive played recently, Id rank it higher than VPS in overall experience although VPS does do quite a number of things better than Persona 3.
