I'm really not someone who plays a lot of Japanese RPGs, as I've
written about in the past. But based on the constant praise and
discussion of Persona 3 I saw on my favorite message board, I decided
to give its special edition FES a try, and 82 hours later have finally
finished what is easily my most enjoyable experience with the genre
ever. It's an interesting take on some of the conventions. Instead of
new areas and plot points becoming available as you go to different
places, everything advances through the passage of time. The game takes
place over the course of the school year, as the main characters have
to balance studying for tests and making friends with their secret
quest to prevent the city from strange monsters called shadows that
appear during a part of the day only they are aware of. They fight by
summoning Personas, special reflections of their inner selves with
unique powers. Overwrought stories are a staple of these kinds of
games, but although there are some moments of maybe too much talking
made worse when you're seeing something for the second time and can't
just completely skip it, the plot in Persona 3 is one of the most
intriguing and fulfilling I've seen in a game, and because of the
immense length is more like a good TV series than a movie. The most
important scenes are fully animated anime-style, and while the
character designs don't completely mesh with the normal portraits and
models in the game it still helps convey things well. Everything up to
the end works, and the end itself was pretty brilliant and brought all
the big parts of the game together. FES includes a new chapter that
more fully explains what happens afterwards, although it doesn't seem
necessary to appreciating it.
Besides special events every full moon, most of the normal RPG gameplay
occurs in a gigantic tower with hundreds of randomly generated floors,
and to be honest, after a while going back there over and over becomes
pretty tiring. Fortunately, a few things save it. As you play, you
start to realize you don't really have to go there that often, and can
spend almost your entire month outside before having to return, and at
least the combat system itself is enjoyable and satisfying. Instead of
revolving around building up your stats through fighting repeatedly,
the key to success is exploiting each enemy's weakness and finding
especially useful Personas through fusing ones you find. There were a
few times where I felt I had no choice but to get a little more health
before being able to really take on a tough boss, but finding a
strategy that eliminates their strengths and defeats them without
having to level up is a great feeling. The player's inability to
directly control the actions of other party members can make things
more frustrating, although it's rare for it to become a true problem.
There are a few other small annoyances, including the frustration where
one slip can get your party killed and waste all the time spent since
the last save, but in the end I found the combat really fun and
rewarding.
Even more than the fighting though, I liked the social interaction
aspect of the game. The main thrust of that part are the Social Links,
connections you make with various students and other people around town
that improve your ability to create certain Personas. Each person with
a link represents a certain Arcana, and as you get closer to them any
Personas you fuse in that Arcana get stronger, eventually unlocking the
ultimate one. The execution wasn't perfect, as I soon learned that
telling someone what they wanted to hear was usually a better option
than what I really wanted to say, but it's an interesting idea that
merges the two halves of the game. The normal schedule in the game is
going to school Monday through Saturday with the afternoons and
evenings off to shop for equipment, improve social stats, work on links
or whatever, although there are special events frequently throughout
the year that change it up and allow for some interesting and often
quite funny interactions among the castmembers. The game spends a lot
of time developing his characters, and it makes the rest of the game
stronger when you just appreciate and like spending time with the
different people you meet and often go into battle with. The voice
acting and localization is fairly solid too, with only a few people
totally failing. In general the audio is pretty decent. Although some
of the music is kind of weird and you end up hearing it too much when
the game takes so long to finish. In the end though, it is one of the
better games I've played in a long time, and I already have the sequel
waiting for me to dive into it.
