Developers – Atlus
Publisher – Atlus USA (NA), Koei (EU)
Platforms – PS2
Persona 3 is one of the big-name JRPGs that I’ve been meaning to play for quite a while, as multiple people have recommended it to me. Despite a good story, production quality and a reasonably innovative and fun combat system, Persona 3 failed to impress me for a number of reasons. Imagine having a giant package delivered containing some of your favourite sweets/desserts/some other transient enjoyment and you may get some idea of how I feel about this game. Sure, it’s great whenever you manage to find one of the things you’re searching for, but you spend more time digging through all of the packing pellets than you do actually enjoying what you find, and once you’re finished all you’re left with are aching arms.
What if there were a Dark Hour, a twenty-fifth hour of the day? What if only a few people were conscious during it, and the rest of us turned into coffins for its duration? What if horrific shadowy creatures preyed upon those unfortunate enough to be conscious during that time? What if you could do something about it? That’s the situation Persona’s protagonist is presented with. The new dormitory he moves into is actually a secret base for SEES, the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, a group determined to hunt down the Shadows plaguing their city. Better yet, during the Dark Hour his new school transforms into Tartarus, a demonic tower marking the hub of Shadow activity. Balancing high school life, scaling the dark tower and learning to use his new-found power of summoning Personas, beings of great power, shouldn’t be too difficult, right?
That’s Persona in a nutshell. Half of the game will be spent during the day’s normal hours, developing relationships with others and upping your social stats, with the other half being spent in Tartarus during the Dark Hour, mindlessly fighting Shadows. I’m going to cover the former topic first because it will make the review a little easier to write. Your daytime exploits consist of developing things called Social Links. Each side character you can spend time with has their own Link and set of events you can experience with them. While the characters themselves aren’t badly done, I found their individual stories to be bland and uninteresting for the most part, with the majority of their scenes just repeating what you already know. For a feature that takes up hours of game time it just wasn’t entertaining and I did it more out of necessity that anything else (more on that later). The other normal-world feature is your stat levels of Charm, Courage and Academics which need to be levelled to specific milestones in order to access some of the Social Links. There’s a time limit associated with them as well, but the game won’t tell you when you need each stat leveled up by, or to what degree.
Each Link has 10 stages and there are 22 Links, with 5 of them representing possible romantic relationships. One of the reasons I wasn’t a fan of the Social Link system was because it meant that once you had hung out with a particular person 10 times (or more than 10 as not every encounter has unique dialogue) there was no more reason to interact with them because they didn’t say anything new. Imagine getting to the point where you’re best friends with someone and then never talking to them again. It’s just weird that the game would try to make you care about someone and then deny you any further access to them. The other thing I disliked was that no matter how far your relationship progressed with the “girlfriend” characters, it didn’t change how they reacted to you outside of their scenarios. I would spend a romantic few hours at the movies with someone, only to have them asking me what I had been up to that afternoon with no acknowledgement that they felt anything but indifferent towards me. There’s one exception to that, but it seems so out of place that it doesn’t do much to help the cause. Awesomecurry has suggested that this is because Japan has strong feelings about public displays of affection, which may well be the case, though I feel that it was more of a lack of effort on the developer’s part. In any other game these issues wouldn’t even matter, but because Persona has chosen to attempt to emulate high school life using relationships with peers the deficits become much more important.
The other half of the game involves scaling the many floors of Tartarus and fighting Shadows with your Personas, which are powerful beings you can summon during the Dark Hour. I have to give the developer’s credit for the variety of Personas available and even their design in general, with each being based on some sort of myth or legend. You get new ones either by picking them up after a battle or by fusing old ones into something better. The fusion system is well done and is nice enough to provide a way for you to buy back Personas you’ve already had in the past, but the number of times you have to repeatedly set up a fusion to get the stats and abilities you want can make putting your team together a little tedious. Though your Personas can level up on their own, you won’t get through the game without fusion. Speaking of levelling up, by increasing the ranks of the Social Links that I mentioned earlier you can net some free level-ups for Personas of that Link’s type, which is probably the only reason I bothered with most of them.
In combat you control only one character of a party of 4, meaning that you have to rely on the AI for three quarters of your actions. Unfortunately the AI is absolutely rubbish and relying on them would be a terrible idea (not that you have a choice). There are tactics that you can set to guide your allies’ actions but when the designated healer decides that she would rather use a 100hp healing item instead of fully healing my entire party that is currently at death’s door, you know something’s wrong. The actual combat is turn-based and mostly consists of trying to determine your enemy’s weakness so you can swap to the appropriate Persona to knock them down and either have another turn or, if all enemies are knocked down, perform a full-party attack for massive damage. It works reasonably well but it means that enemies have to be tough to stay competitive; one missed or resisted attack can spell the end for you when your enemy can also take advantages of weaknesses (and have whole-party-targeting spells). Oh, and if your main character dies you lose, even if every other party member is on full health. Did I mention that a decent number of enemies have insta-kill spells? Have fun with that.
Persona’s levelling system is not well balanced. Experience gains decrease as you level up and have a weird distribution in general, with incredibly easy bosses rewarding you with many times more EXP than other much harder ones. You’ll also find that even if you’ve done some moderate grinding it won’t be enough at times, requiring extended visits to Tartarus that really aren’t fun at all. Due to the whole game-over-when-your-main-character-dies thing that I mentioned earlier it’s very easy to lose hours of grinding progress as well, though I was careful and it only happened a few times in my case. There are 3 main types of bosses in Persona 3, though I’ll start with the two non-human ones before covering the other type later on. The bosses you fight in Tartarus have no story associated with them, though they must be defeated in order to progress. Generally more powerful versions of normal enemies, they work as more of a level-check than any real challenge as the question is more one of “can I actually survive their strongest attack?” than anything actually regarding strategy. The story-related Shadow bosses are fought outside Tartarus and tend to involve longer fights rather than hard ones. The last boss is especially bad, with the fight potentially lasting over an hour and only becoming challenging in the last 10 minutes – meaning that 85% of the fight is completely redundant and if you die you have to sit though nearly an hour of content you have already completed.
Persona’s main concept and story are interesting and well done, giving a classic example of a self-insert protagonist without letting that choice impact negatively on story delivery; the problem lies in how the game is set out. Every time there’s a full moon a new and powerful Shadow appears and you participate in a special scenario that has an accompanying slice of plot. The problem with things being done this way was that it meant you were only experiencing a decent chunk of the main story (read: 30 minutes) every full moon, and thanks to the game’s other filler-like features (Social Links, required grinding) those full moons were multiple hours apart. When you have that kind of gap in between main content it doesn’t matter how good the characters, plot or actual writing are; you just don’t see enough of them to become engaged with the story. The other thing that gets me is the human enemies in the game: a group called Strega. Despite being talked up to be incredibly powerful and a major threat, and you being rewarded with huge amounts of experience after defeating them, they actually prove to be the easiest boss fights of the game. Because of this and despite Persona’s overall serious nature, they come across as more of a bumbling Team Rocket-esque ensemble than anything more threatening.
Interestingly enough, I really enjoyed the ending and epilogue of the game, which lets you run around town like normal, except this time seeing what has become of all the characters you interacted with over the course of the story. The ending itself was a bit of a cliff-hanger, presumably because there’s a second story available after completion of the first, but I would have been happy for everything to end there because the events were open to interpretation (and my interpretation was a hell of a lot better than the canon story). The second part of the game (called The Answer, with the first being called The Journey) was only added in the later-released Persona: FES. From what I saw of the story it looked to be quite interesting, despite shattering my conception of what had happened at the end of the first part. Unfortunately that entire portion of the game is on hard mode by default and choc-full of grinding, without the ability to buy back Personas you’ve used in fusion. Given the difficulty (I died on the second fight) and the amount of time that was going to be required to play it, I decided to drop The Answer because no amount of story was going to make me relive my memories of Tartarus.
Before I finish there is one aspect of Persona 3 that deserves some praise. The game’s soundtrack is phenomenally catchy and pleasant to listen to even though you’ll be hearing the same tunes for hours on end. I think I even started hearing it in my sleep at some point. The music even evolves as you get further in the game, keeping things relatively fresh without doing away with the tracks you’ve come to love. The normal graphical quality is fine for an older game, though some of the anime scenes that show up sporadically look horrific – there was definitely much better animation available when Persona was released. Apart from that, as mentioned earlier, the Persona designs are really quite well done.
Summary – Persona 3 is a lot like one of those huge 200+ episode anime. It goes on forever, and when it gets around to progressing with the story it’s really entertaining, but the content in between those bits can only be described as filler. The characters are good and the combat is reasonably fun but neither of those aspects make up for a lack of anything happening (and endless repetition when it comes to the combat). While the game itself isn’t bad, if I had the opportunity to go back in time and stop myself from playing it I probably would because, of the 90 hours I spent playing, I probably only actually enjoyed 20 or 30 of them.
Overall Score – 5.5/10 – Average
Without Grinding/Filler – 8/10 – Good
The Geek Clinic 
I will Burn My Bread!
I P3P’d. It was fun, especially because there are a lot more social links that actually matter in the plot? Namely Ken, Koromaru, Shinjiro, Ryoji, and Junpei… Minako gets closer with her team than her male counterpart does, obviously. I liked learning about all the characters, though, and the Social Link system was actually my favourite part of the game… a surprising amount of the characters are just dorks so yeah. You also get to control everyone in your party rather than just the MC. It’s kind of surprising all the different mythologies they pulled Personae out of. I was surprised more than once in my Greek myths course, going “wait a minute, wasn’t that a persona?!”… and I figured out why Orpheus Telos is called Orpheus Telos. I also had a positive opinion on the ending, while the friend whose game I borrowed didn’t like it one bit. Well, Momento Mori.
I’m guessing you’re not planning on P4-ing, then?
I have a hard time deciding exactly where I stand on the social links, but it sounds like they may have done a slightly better job in P3P judging by your description. While I like the idea behind it – interacting with different classmates and learning their stories – I guess I didn’t enjoy the way it was implemented enough that I didn’t feel the time spent doing it was worthwhile. At the same time I was already frustrated because of how long it took to get to each new main story segment, which didn’t help. As for the stories themselves, I felt that they were relatively shallow despite some of their themes; you just didn’t spend long enough with each character to feel a connection with them in my opinion. However, I do acknowledge that a lot of people enjoyed the social link aspect.
On one hand I really enjoy the diversity of the personas (had to double-check that this was a legitimate pluralization >.<), whereas on the other i've noticed that the same ones get used in pretty much every shin megami tensei game. I'm not sure whether I should praise Atlus or condemn them for that =P
The jury's out on that one at the moment, though i'm not rushing to get to it in any case. I've heard conflicting stories about how similar it is to P3. Given my opinion on the third game, would you suggest that I give P4 a go?
Yeah, one key social link actual had an impact on the story there, too. P3P was great. But I get what you mean. If you don’t like seeing a tough guy cooking for everyone and acting like team mom, or a popular guy being incredibly awkward and constantly talking workouts, or you don’t like hearing about someone’s failing family relationship, that’s pretty much 10 conversations gone… and if you did enjoy that, it might be worse! While I felt like 10 conversations was enough because I could just move on to the next one, I have to admit it means a lot didn’t weigh very heavily in my experience. Only a few seriously did… all from the dateable guys + Junpei, actually. Will think on what that means about my character later.
C’mon, like you’re disappointed to see Jack Frost multiple times. Hee ho!
Hm… I actually think that while your complaint with being able to control your allies is solved, the Social Link complaint is pretty constant. Here, this is what I think is different about P4:
– A less ‘aimless’ story. Compared to “let’s climb up a building!” it’s “let’s find and stop a killer!”, which has bigger stakes, as well.
– If you don’t know who the killer is, it’s probably a bigger twist than most of the stuff in P3… I think. (Unfortunately I didn’t get the True Culprit experience as my friend shouted that she hated them when they appeared on screen for the first time – they’re a pretty interesting character, I think). It might be possible to solve, too…?
-Social Links for every single one of your possible party members, including a fox and a Teddy
– Social Link progress actually affects in-dungeon play (like instead of achieving the evolved persona through story progression, they get it by being Rank 10 with MC)
– Exploration of party members through the dungeons and the dungeon clearing
– A character named Teddy that makes constant bear puns
– A little girl starts saying “welcome home, Big Bro!” part of the way through the game
– MC’s best friend is super gay for him this time… wait, that’s not important to you. Actually, I can’t make a judgement on whether the characters are better either way or anything because that seems pretty subjective. Yeah.
The story-telling style of social links don’t change, though, dating characters still doesn’t really affect anything (but why date anyone when Yosuke’s right there for you, partner?), and the plot still boils down to a few things each in-game month, I think. Despite everything, I prefer P3P, but I think it’s sort of subjective?
Those social links seem pretty decent when you summarize them like that XD This problem was that they didn’t mean much to me (as you say, they didn’t weigh heavily on you). I think part of it is that the conversations don’t really last long enough to leave an impact – neither you nor your character go home and ruminate over those experiences once they’re done – and that they’re not all that relevant to everything else going on (other than so the developers could include the power of friendship and all that). However, i’ve talked to people that enjoyed them so I can’t bag on them too much, I suppose.
Interestingly enough I didn’t have a problem with P3’s main story. I have a thing for progress, whether that’s slowly rising up the ranks in a competition or scaling a massive demon tower. The encounters with the monthly shadows were pretty well done, too, despite being huge amounts of play time apart.
Most people do seem to say that they like P3 better. I can only hope that what makes P4 worse for them makes it better for me =P
P3P solves a lot of issues, which I’m currently playing now.
AKA you can actually issue direct commands to your allies. HUZZAH.
Tactics -> Direct Commands (to all) -> ??? -> Profit!
P3P also has a female protagonist that has an apparently better storyline? I’d imagine it’s because you can actually hang out with Akihiko-senpai (Akihiko-senpai plz notice me). As the male MC rn, though, I’ll have to just be content with Yukari (Yukari best girl :P) In other words, the social links are random people you don’t know, but actual characters from what I hear.
I haven’t played Persona 4, but from what I’ve heard, the character relationships are much better in P4 than P3. Where in P3, your squad are more co-workers than actual friends, in P4, they’re friends first, teammates second.
To begin with: Motion Passed – Yukari is Best Girl (though Fuuka isn’t far behind!).
What you say about P3P’s improvements seems to be in agreement with everything else i’ve heard. However, while being able to form social links with more of your team mates and issue direct commands may improve things somewhat, i’m still not sure whether I would have enjoyed the game overall. I’m glad to see that other people like it though, since that means they don’t have to feel my pain XD
P4 is certainly still on my list (I own it after all)…it’s just not a priority at the moment.
Nah, you both need to check your taste: Mitsuru best girl, Ryoji best guy. I thought this was obvious! ….Although I’ll give you all the guys are pretty good.
No, no, no. Aigis is Best Girl. Mitsuru comes in a close second though.
I didn’t mind the social link problems that you mentioned, although I do admit they are pretty bland. P4’s social links are a lot more fun to watch though, they also have the advantage of having a better cast of characters imo.
The worst part in grinding with P3 is that your MC can actually get sick/tired, and with no choice but to leave Tartarus, it really makes your grinding limited. P4 fixes this though, in fact, P4 fixes a lot of issues apparent in P3, lol. And if you don’t mind the visual novel-like storytelling (meaning, sprites with dialogue at the bottom), P3P, with gameplay mechanics more similar to P4, is by far a better adaption (indeed, direct commands ftw). There’s a better variety too, since you can actually select as a female protagonist. I would rate P3P higher actually, if I can create a yuri relationships with my female protagonist and some other heroines in the game. Despite my attempts though, they only stayed in the “friend zone”.. D:
Damn Kai, i’ve just finished deciding I wasn’t too keen on P4 and now you tell me it’s worth playing? =P I never had a problem with the sickness/tiredness thing actually, since I was always more than happy to leave Tartarus as soon as possible. I do kind of wish i’d played P3P as it sounds like the better game but now that I already know just about everything that happens i’m not sure I can brings myself to give it a go.
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