Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES
by Atlus
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List Price: Category: Video Games See more product details |
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Video Game Reviews of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES
Customer Review: A unique mix of visual novel and dungeon trawler
Summary: 5 Stars
This game is incredibly addicting, as it is really two games seamlessly melded into one. There is the visual novel aspect of the game, through which you can go through your school life and visit areas to raise friendship points and other personality stats. However, there is also a randomized dungeon system that keeps itself from becoming dull by providing you with an ever-changing arsenal of fighting tactics and increasingly difficult monsters to try them out on.
One can choose to focus on one aspect of the game or the other, but to enjoy the game to its fullest one should delve into both sides. Each side has a significant impact on the other. The storyline can not continue unless you have trained in the dungeon enough to at least face the event bosses. However, if you have built up friendship points with others, you are bestowed stronger weapons than your level merits, which is always a rewarding feeling.
That is not to mention its queer plotline and style. It also incorporates a range of mythic creatures from a variety of cultures and religions.
This is definitely not a game to be missed and sure to provide gamers who haved enjoyed other games games of its two aspects (of visual novel and RPG) hours of enjoyment.
Customer Review: Five-Star Game With Lesser Extras
Summary: 5 Stars
The original Persona 3 was an absolute unqualified masterpiece of a game. FES is the entirety of P3 with several added new features, the biggest of which is an entire additional dungeon and scenario that takes place following the end of the prior game.
That makes FES really, really difficult to rate. Because while the game itself is excellent, the extras cover quite a range. One of the biggest-touted features of the FES edition is the inclusion of new costumes for the characters... about four per character, specifically, and each of them as a piece of armor preventing you from using any better pieces. (This would be less of an issue except for the fact that some of them are obsoleted very quickly from when you get them.) There are a large number of additional quests, which are as unclear as ever and frequently exist just to facilitate the costumes. They reduced the grinding needed for Social Links, a positive thing but depriving of some of the inticacies in the game.
And then there's the big difference, the addition of The Answer, with the main game now subtitled The Journey. That's the most exciting part of the game, for most, and with good reason - except that The Answer is kind of a weak addition. No, let's not mince words - The Answer is everything that a good follow-up shouldn't be. Characters are mis-written, the story premise is thin, and the only aspect of gameplay left is tedious, endless grinding in dungeons that are designed to be far more frustrating than those of the main game. What it adds to the experience is massively unsatisfying.
So why is the game still five stars? Because if you don't own Persona 3, it is an easy five-star game, and a few optional additions and enhancements of varying worth doesn't drag down excellence. You have no reason not to own the game, and FES is the most complete version you can own. However, if you already own P3 and are wondering if you should buy FES in addition, that rating loses a lot of points. I'd recommend keeping the original if you have it, but snap this up if you don't.
Customer Review: Good fun
Summary: 4 Stars
Well here's a new one on me...RPG meets The Sims.
Well not quite but it does mix RPG mechanics with a very heavy element of keeping up your social networking. The story of Persona 3 sees you as a young male student, new in town and joining a new school. You find out early on that something very odd happens to this school every night at midnight: a tower called Tartarus which is filled with monsters appears, and you (along with a few school chums) have been assigned to explore it and climb to the very top. As you go higher and higher in the tower, the monsters get tougher and there's a boss fight every few floors. You find items along the way and gain experience.
Now this is all pretty standard RPG stuff. Fighting is turn based, and you have a arsenal of spells and physical attacks at your disposal. As in other Shin Megami Tensei games, all the enemies have certain weaknesses that you can exploit to get extra attack turns (and in the same way, so can they). Spells all have similar names as in the other games of the series (Agi, Mamudo, Rakunda, etc), and the usual status ailments still apply. This is all good fun and makes for battles that you usually have to think about rather then run in blindly every time. Monsters are visible in the tower so you can choose whether to attack or run past - whack them from behind to ensure your turn comes first! And if they catch you first they get the first turn in battle which can sometimes be lethal. In fact towards the end of the game, any time the enemy goes first can spell Game Over. Another thing to understand is that you can have a team of up to four people but apart from your own character, everyone else acts on AI. So you have to issue "general" orders to your team mates (ie Heal Only, Full on Attack, Save Magic points, etc) and let them decide how to interpret these. The good news is that the computer AI for the team mates is fantastic. Even when I left everyone on "Act freely", they always did really sensible things. And if you use the "analyse enemy" support function, they remember the enemy weaknesses in all future encounters and only use effective attacks. Very clever. I found this one of the best computer controlled team-mate games I have ever played.
Apart from this, it's pretty similar to other Shin Megami games, especially in the annoying habit of enemies using far too many instant death spells which is cheap and REALLY annoying!
The series also retains the process of monster fusing. As in previous games you keep a team of monsters (called Personas in this game), and as your collection grows you can fuse them together to make better ones. The slight difference is that they are not captured in battle any more (all the monsters you fight are different to the Personas), but have to be "won" as random rewards at the end of battles. These will be familiar to fans of the series, as Pixie, Ganesha, Sati, Angel and all the rest are back to entertain you again, plus a few more. You can keep a stable of monsters with you at any time and try them all out! In contrast your team mates only have one permanent Persona each, but they all have interesting abilities and weaknesses, so you'll be choosing carefully who you take with you into boss fights.
So now, here are the differences. And they are mainly in what happens when you are not fighting your way through the tower. Well, when you are not fighting monsters, you spend game time leading a pretty normal life as a teenager in modern day Japan (game-world Japan, of course!). The game has a very big emphasis on time and dates. Unlike most RPGs where time is just kind of generally moving forwards, here it is divided into days on a calendar, and each day has it's own morning, daytime, evening and night-time sections. You'll soon find out that the times of the day dictate what is available for you to do, for example, every week daytime you are at school (boo!), and in the evening the shops are closed. On Sundays and school holidays you are free to do whatever you like, but during exam weeks, you can't do anything. And in the evenings you can go out, chat to people, or explore Tartarus. What will take up most of your attention during the days, though, is trying to establish lots of social links. This means making friends with lots of people, and making clever choices in conversations so that they start liking you more. It sounds a bit lame but this is actually a requirement of the game, as the monster fusing is more effective depending on how strong your personal relations are. So get on with everybody and you'll find you get stronger monsters! In a rather mean twist, the hero can have unlimited male friends, but be careful with the girls because as relationships grow, you'll find that they get jealous of each other so you can only ever have ONE strong female relationship at a time. Kind of limiting as there are about 6 girls in the game you can potentially create social links with. I guess there's no such thing as "just friends" with girls in the Persona universe.
The game is fun and very addictive, but to my disappointment, it did verge on being repetitive at times. Each day that rolls past is pretty similar to the one before it. And climbing the Tartarus tower can start to lose it's novelty too, because the floors all follow a single standard design (it changes every 20 floors or so but still!), and some of the bosses can be tough, so you really do have to explore the same floors multiple times just to level up (the characters even call it call it "training"), which can really get tiresome. However the growth of personas is always a great lure to keep edging those levels up (what will be the next skill they learn??), and the battles are generally good fun, so I didn't mind too much. The story is also pretty good. Even the after-battle item rewards are fun: you get shown a choice of tarot-style cards with rewards on them , which are then shuffled before your eyes face down, and you have to watch carefully and then try and pick the one with the best reward on it! As basic as that sounds I found this NEVER got old! Oh yes, and one very odd part of the game overall is that in battle, the way to summon a persona is to shoot yourself in the head with a special gun! Let's hope no impressionable kids try to copy that one eh?
Customer Review: This is an unbelivable game!
Summary: 5 Stars
The replay value is great on this game. It is a rock solid RPG with all the bells and whistles that you would expect from a SMT game. I have over 100 hours into this game so far and I am about 50% though my first playthough, thats by design. Any RPG'er with be happy to hear it has NewGame+ one I my favortie aspects of RPGs. I look foreward to employing it on my second playthrough.Customer Review: Great rpg, but repetitive
Summary: 4 Stars
I must say that for the price, you are essentially getting 2 great games for the price of one. The original Persona 3, and a sequel called the Answer. Also, a few things have been added to the original to mix it up a bit for those who played it already.
The game is very well done. The story is slightly above average, the music is solid, and the battles are quite enjoyable, and challenging. The only complaint about the battles is that you only control your main character. The AI controls the others, and that can be a problem during boss battles.
The reason I give the game 4 stars instead of 5 is because frankly most of the fighting takes place in a dungeon like world called Tartarus. The look on this area rarely changes, and since you will spend hours there it will be a test of your patience.
Overall I highly suggest this game to those who love a good challenging rpg. I am currently playing persona 4 and will have a review up when finished.