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Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 is a Role Playing Game where the player is cast in the role of a regular Japanese High School
Student transferred into a new school and unwittingly dropped into the world of shadows and magic. The story of the game
is told through anime cutscenes, 2D dialogue sequences, and in game story cutscenes. The story was certainly reminiscent
of many major anime movies that have been released in the past and any fan of manga or anime will probably recognize the story
and style if they play the game long enough. Anyone who reads manga or watches anime will definitely love Persona 3.
The gameplay in Persona is a very traditional, initiative turn based role playing game. The game allows the player to have
Personas that can effect many areas of combat. This combat is done through a kind of interactive environment system in random
dungeons that exist in the Tower which is the Gekkoukan High School that the main character and others attend during the day.
In the Dark Hour, an extra hour between Midnight and 1 AM. The characters have weapons like: swords, sledge hammers, guns,
spears, and gauntlets; but the real power in the game are the Personas. Spirits that the character's summon from within themselves
to fight for them. These can be unlocked as the player moves through the game and also can be fused in a special area of
the game. You can also get these Personas through the loot you get at the end of some of the battles.
This is a great system and it is very fun to play. The boss battles however, which there are a lot of; 13 major and probably
around 25+ minor ones. Get very hectic and not having control over the other members of your party; even using the tactics
feature which can give a general order; can get annoying sometimes. Personally, it was never so much a problem that I lost
the battle or got frustrated but I did find it cheap sometimes that a character would attack only a single enemy with a spell
when I knew they had an area of effect spell that would attack all the enemies and allow the party to do an All Out Attack
and get an easy win. These All Out Attacks are the key to the game. Once the party or character knocks an enemy down; the
whole party can then attack those enemy or enemies. This generally results in an instant win. Probably the only thing that
the game has working against it in all most every instance is the game's length. Somethings can be forgiven in 20 hours or
even 25 but when hour 41 begins to roll around the familiarity of everything draws attention to the slightest flaws.
The other half of the game takes place during and after the main character's school day. The idea is to form social links
that allow the player to make new, more powerful Personas. Normally the game forces you down a path; at least for the first
third of the game. As the main character's level and stats increase new options will become available. But many times events
are too summarized or seem pointless. More events and dialogue could have been added to give the school day interactions
a little more flavor and give even more back story than they all ready have or give more atmosphere to role of the Japanese
student. The social interactions themselves are great in the first half of the game; but most dialogue trees and story elements
have trouble riding their way through the 50+ hours of gameplay that Persona 3 encapsulates. The other issue farther along
in the game is the implausibility of these high school students still going to school in the circumstances in the game. This
is a kind of suspension of disbelief issue; but this may be a little too much.
The number of things that can be done each day are severely limited based on this system where once you leave one major area(High
School, Player's Room, Dorm); the time of day changes and the player is confronted with a different set of options than the
player had just moments ago. This is a fine system but it severely slows the pace of the player through the game. The attributes
the main character needs to max out to progress through all the social links in the game; become a grinding experience rather
than an enjoyable one or logical in the story of the game. Also, some attributes need to be maxed out in order to make some
social links. This is also difficult to do in the limited time available. Especially considering unless the player keeps
track of all of their friends schedules it's pretty difficult to take advantage of every opportunity.
Most players will probably find one or two social links and three or four Personas and try to level them up as much as
possible. This is fine, considering all the options to level up Personas it isn't a problem to be a little narrow sighted.
But players will find it easier to upgrade Personas as much as possible and max out as many social links as possible. It
will be easier as the player moves up through Tartarus, if they do this. Otherwise they may find themselves fighting against
enemies that are too strong for their few Personas.
There certainly is plenty of depth and substance here in the areas of teaching American and European players about Japanese
culture and certainly very immersive for Japanese students. In this case Atlus didn't localize too much and the game really
shined due to it. Some of the problems I had with the game in some of the later social interaction areas are probably due
to my American sensibilities. I did a fair amount of reloading saved games. That would be my advice to ANYONE playing this
title; SAVE OFTEN! They use a checkpoint system which in this title it actually works very well. Just as long as the player
uses the save points, all of them.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 is a work of art. The game begins with some incredible anime sequences and continues with
them. These sequences are as good as anything in any major anime production and the team should be praised for their good
taste and artistic ability. The rest of the art in the game is very stylized and in general isn't very impressive. Certainly
the Personas themselves are very well done and I did like the magical effects in the game. But considering the power of the
PS2(God of War, Tomb Raider Anniversary, Final Fantasy X,Final Fantasy XII); it was disappointing that the developers couldn't
have upscaled some of the character models in the actual gameplay sequences. The anime scenes and dialogue 2D images are
great. The battle sequence art and the areas of interaction art are lacking. After a while I got used to this, but it would
have been an even better game had they been improved. Certainly this could have been due to the Japanese people's love for
cute characters and some of the sequences in the game seem to highlight the humor as well as the drama of the story. This
was fine, but as used to it. Considering how long the game is; it gets worse as time goes on.
The audio in the game is great. I normally play a game like this with headphones on listening to something else. But
I often found myself listening to the in game music and dialogue because it was just so fun to listen to. The Japanese pop
music is great, and translated audio is just as good as if it were the original Japanese. No one sounds repeated or too stoic.
My only problem is that the main character does have dialogue in the game. I wish they would have had an actor voice him.
Mostly because it jars the player out of the game ever so slightly and considering how much dialogue there is in the game.
This ends up being VERY jarring. I know that this is a video game tradition not having the main character speak especially
when you name them. But considering the amount of dialogue in the game I would have liked to see a more Final Fantasy or
Blue Dragon take on the game; making it a more third person perspective where all the characters speak and the player is in
more of a god role.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 is an excellent Role Playing Game. The traditional elements in the game somewhat hold it back
from being an excellent game. This game even has two endings and some options to play again with new options, what can be
cooler... The art style could probably use an update and the limited daily options also hurt the overall experience. The
pros outweigh the cons though. The cool combat system and the compelling story keep the player interested even into the 50th
hour. The player will certainly get their money's worth out of this PS2 game. Again the PS2 has proven that given enough
time and effort a developer can make AAA titles even on old hardware. I can't wait for Person 4, you hear me ATLUS? PERSONA
4!
9/10
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