Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES Review by: legacyme3 - 8.8/10
Persona 3 FES: A Festival for Persona FansUp until recently, I had never played a Persona game. It's not that I haven't wanted to, but the games were always rather dated by the time I'd heard of the games, and with the PS3 unable to play PS2 games, I had no desire to buy a PS2 to play just one or two games.
This changed about a year ago, when Persona 3: FES was listed on PSN. It still cost too much for me to want to buy it, but the opportunity for a sale was there.
Then finally, 2 weeks ago, I noticed it was on sale for 5 dollars. It just so happened I had 5 dollars in my wallet. So I bit the bullet, and finally embarked on my first Persona adventure.
Even though I shouldn't have to note it, this is a review for the FES version of the game, which includes about 20-35 hours of new content that wasn't in the original Persona 3. Most of this comes in the form of a playable epilogue titled "The Answer". I will make it clear right now. I didn't play all of The Answer, and I'll delve into why later.
Graphics - 7
For a PS2 RPG, the game doesn't look that bad. It can take a little time to get used to, being such a dated style, but it reminds me of simpler times in RPGs, where graphics aren't what the team invests all of its budget into. As long as you can tell what something looks like, it's good. You don't need jaw-droppingly good graphics in an RPG.
The character design is unique and well done, and the spread out anime cutscenes are a nice touch, even if the style doesn't appeal to me personally. Also of note in this respect is the artwork of each individual Persona. While I haven't seen all of the Personas (it would take forever for me to collect them all, as there are 150+ Personas in the game) I can only assume the ones I haven't seen are made with the same care that the 100 or so I did see received.
One complaint I have with the graphics however, is that while memorable, the dungeon design could have used some work. Thankfully, compared to other RPGs, you won't spend much time in the "dungeon" of the game. Rather, you'll find most of your time is spent in either the Velvet Room (where you fuse Personas to make new ones) or out in about in the world, talking to people and building your social links. It doesn't excuse the dungeon design, of course. You have something like 7 dungeon layouts in Tartarus (the name of the dungeon) as well as a bonus layout in the Monad Depths (which you unlock near the end game if you can beat the Reaper, an optional side boss), but the true dungeons are well made, and fit well into the game. I'm speaking of course of the "boss" dungeons that you will face every full moon. While you won't find many enemies in these dungeons, and they could have just cut to a cutscene instead, they let you get a scope of the world you are fighting to protect.
All in all, the game looks very ok.
Sound - 10
Very few times do I find a game that has music I'll add to my personal music collection. It's not that I don't like video game music, I do. But the problem with it is, you can't really jam out to video game music in a car. People will think you are weird, and most of the time, it's because you are.
But with Persona 3, I found several tracks of which I added to my personal collection. Some of these are from the "Reincarnation" Album, which includes remixed songs like
this one, which is a personal favorite, despite the Engrishy singing. However, the original score in the game is also quite worth listening to. Such as the
FES OP and the
Gekkoukan Theme in the 2nd semester.
The point I'm trying to make is that this is the type of VGM that all games should aspire to have. Catchy, keeping in line with the game and its theme, and not being outright embarrassing for the average person to listen to. Essentially, something you could hear outside of a video game.
But moving on from the score, another thing to note is the fantastic voice acting. For an RPG made during the PS2 era of games, I wasn't expecting much in the way of voice acting. I was honestly expecting tons of reading (which there is, but that's besides the point) but got treated to more than my share of decent voice acting. Your character never speaks (keeping in line with the Silent Protagonist trope that Persona is known to keep with) but this is compensated by the rest. My personal favorite voices in this game belonged to Junpei Iori and Aigis, though, with few exceptions, the entire cast was pretty great. I say few exceptions because there are two voices in particular that grate me. These two voices belong to Fuuka Yamagishi and Ken Amada. Which is a shame, because Fuuka is one of the more interesting characters in the game. It's not as big a shame in Ken's case, as he's not really a big factor.
The sound effects are mediocre, however, but I'm going to stick with a score of 10, because everything else is just done so well.
Addictiveness - 7
I was going to give the game a higher score until I got to "The Answer", the playable epilogue I mentioned earlier.
Let me explain something before I get into that though. RPGs have grinding as a core function of the gameplay. This is something we accept, because it's how one levels up. And leveling up through grinding makes total sense. This isn't a problem, and generally, grinding is one of my favorite things about RPGs, because some developers take my expectations and blow them away. Creative ways to force players to level up, that keep the gameplay interesting.
For the most part, Persona 3 does the level grinding thing well. You can essentially only level so high before boss fights because eventually, you become such a high level for the area you are in, that the enemies will no longer give any decent amount of EXP, and with no way to advance until the next full moon, you have no reason to grind any more than you already have. They take grinding out of the equation, for the most part, and keep you out of dungeons unless you want to be there.
However, "The Answer" took all the things I liked about the gameplay, and lack of grinding, and reversed it. In "The Answer", there are no social links, there is no exploring the city and finding fun things to do. There is only level grinding, and more level grinding with a small amount of story sprinkled in. If "The Answer" is a 30 hour experience, 28 hours of those 30 are hours you will spend grinding. And since they remove the Persona Compendium, it makes leveling Personas (which is what you want to level) more frustrating, as you have no idea how one will develop until it's all finished developing. And if it doesn't have a skill you are looking for, it means going back to square one, and redoing the experience.
Coupled in this is the often idiotic partner AI. There are several times in the game where if they used a certain attack they could kill the enemy. Instead, they choose to use Ice/Fire/Wind break to nullify a resistance that wouldn't matter if they would just attack. It can make leveling in "The Answer" a bore, which undoes all the great work the original game had going.
If you can advance far enough in "The Answer" to get to higher level enemies, you'll see this formula never changes. Level, hope you get a good Persona, find out you didn't, be disappointed, repeat. By the time I quit "The Answer" I found myself so bored of level grinding that I didn't even care about the story anymore.
This is a big flaw in the game. This is not to dissuade you from the main game (titled "The Journey") at all, as it is a wonderful piece of game.
Depth - 9
There's plenty to do in Persona 3. Whether you plan on maxing out all the social links, collecting all the Personas, or completing all the sidequests for Elizabeth in the Velvet Room, you will never find yourself saying "I want more" until the game has truly, and finally run its course.
The social links can be difficult to max out in your first playthrough, thanks to pre-requisites you will be unaware of from the get go, like maxing out your academics skill to go out with a certain member of SEES, or getting your courage up to talk to a depressed monk. But all of the Social Links add something more to the story, and are well worth pursuing when you can. In fact, it's one of the reasons I advise a second playthrough, as your Courage, Academics, and Charm ratings (among other things) carry over into New Game+. It is much easier to max all the social links on this second playthrough, and it is well worth the time invested.
Collecting all the Personas however, is not for the faint of heart, as it takes a lot of time, or in some cases, a lot of Yen, to compile a complete collection of Personas. In your first playthrough, you should hit something like 70-80% of all Personas. It's the ones you don't get through the main story that can be the most difficult to acquire. The easiest of these remaining ones, are the Personas you unlock for getting a maxed out Social Link. You still have to fuse them to unlock them in the compendium, but the items needed for the fusions also carry into New Game+, so there's no rush here.
The sidequests for Elizabeth can be easy as hell, or frustrating to accomplish, depending on how through one is during the game. Most of the time, she tells you directly what to do, and it's easy to figure out. But sometimes, the goal is to find a sword, which can only be found sometimes on a certain floor of Tartarus. She doesn't tell you the floor, only the block name. And sometimes, she doesn't even give you that. There are several requests she will ask you to do, and some have time limits. Should you accomplish them all, you will unlock the Super Boss of this game. And the Super Boss... is incredibly hard to beat. So much so, that The Reaper is a walk in the park compared to it. The Final Boss is a walk in the park compared to it.
There's plenty to do in Persona 3. Hundreds of hours of content.
Story - 9
For all intents and purposes, Persona 3 is a game that has a theme, and stays with it until the end. The theme of this game is "Death" essentially. Without spoiling anything, they really take this theme and make it their own. By the end of the game, I was left questioning myself in several respects (but not the way they probably meant, I'll get to that a little later).
The basic background of the story is that you play as an orphaned child who is moving to the city and transferring to Gekkoukan High School. The game starts with you entering the dorm, and finding a strange boy who has you sign a contract. This is how they handle name choice at the beginning of this game.
Once the game gets underway, the simple roots are forgotten, and you find yourself swept into fighting things called shadows alongside members of a club that dedicate their time to fighting the shadows. The catch is, you can only fight the shadows during a special hour that exists between midnight and the next day... the Dark Hour.
Normal humans are turned into coffins during the Dark Hour. Electronics fail to operate. And when the Dark Hour ends, everyone goes about their day like nothing ever happened. But what about your club? They aren't exactly normal. You, as well as they, have the potential. The potential to summon avatars known as Personas. It is with these Personas you fight the shadows.
But why do you fight? Most of the time, the shadows can't attack humans.
But when they do, disastrous consequences arise. More and more people are coming down with Apathy Syndrome. Which basically turns them into zombies, without thought or life.
With your mind made up, and your resolve unbroken, you agree to help out this club, which as of your joining, only has 4 other members. As time goes on though, your numbers grow, until you have a full club of 11 (including yourself). You will fight and defeat shadows by night, but live life like a normal high schooler by day.
Throughout the adventure, you will grow to love and accept the characters as friends of your own. You will face loss and death, and celebrate great victories.
I don't want to spoil any of the magnificent story though, so you'll have to take my word for it, when I say that this story is wonderful. The only complaint I have with the game is the ending. But that's a story for another day and time.
Difficulty - 6
The day has finally come, where I can rate an RPG higher than 2 or 3. Most RPGs are easy as hell to beat. And in fairness, that's because of the nature of the genre. It's simple. Press X to win in most cases.
But Persona 3 does not allow such a mindset. You constantly have to be aware of weaknesses, strengths, skills of yourself and your party (the party of which, you don't control, mind you), and be adjusting from the beginning of the game to end. Unless you are playing on Easy mode. But if you play on Easy mode, of course it will be easy.
In this game, one botched turn can screw you over. That is no understatement. I once accidentally cured a boss to max, because I missed one small detail. Then I had to fight an uphill battle that I eventually lost. No other RPG makes you feel awful about your mistakes like Persona 3 does. And on hard mode, it is closer to a 9 than a 6. It is so unforgiving.
The good news for people scared of a challenge, is that by the end game, when you are level 88, you have access to a combo that is virtually unbeatable (except against the Super Boss). Should you choose to abuse this, the game becomes a cake walk. But at that point, you are also level 88, and unlikely to be challenged by anything anyway.
Grading Time!
Graphics - 10% (10% of 7 is .7)
Sound - 10% (10% of 10 is 1)
Addictiveness - 35% (35% of 7 is 2.45)
Depth - 20% (20% of 9 is 1.8)
Story - 25% (25% of 9 is 2.25)
Difficulty - 0% (0% of 6 is 0)
Total - 8.2. However, I'm choosing to give bonus points to the game for a few things. First, for an original concept that isn't really touched on in this era of gaming. Second, for being bug-free. If there are any bugs, I didn't find them. Third, for the soundtrack because holy crap, it's awesome.
Overall - 8.8
So there we have it. Persona 3 is one of those games that everyone should play at least once. Don't let the fact the game is 70+ hours long (minimum) dissuade you from giving this game (and series) a try. I came in, not expecting a ton, but came out of it thinking that I want to play Persona 4 (maybe when it's on sale).
There are a few hiccups in this otherwise great game, but it's nothing to nitpick over. My complaint over the ending notwithstanding, the game is truly a wonderful journey from start to finish, that should have most questioning what it means to live, to fight, and what's really worth protecting.
This stands as one of the best RPGs on the PS2, and one of the better RPGs of all time, possibly. Anyone who fancies themselves an RPG fan needs to play this game. And with how it was on sale on PSN recently (not sure if it still is) for 5 dollars, there is absolutely no reason not to get in on what is a classic experience.
Graphics
7 Sound
10 Addictive
7 Depth
9 Story
9 Difficulty
6
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