Persona 3 Review

Some games have it easy. They come out, and everyone will buy them immediately based solely on the name. Final Fantasy comes to mind, but there are other offenders in the RPG market. The Legend of Zelda is perhaps even more widespread, Dragon Quest (known until recently as Dragon Warrior in the States) has had a big following, and of course the Pokémon series. What’s really exciting is when games come out to immensely greater acclaim than previous titles in the series. I’m going to be reviewing one such game today. Persona 3 came out, and took critics by storm. Persona 2, on the Playstation, had garnered some praise, building on the slightly creepy, stylish world of the original Persona, also one the Playstation. However, Persona 3 brought the series to a whole new level of popularity. No longer was it just cult series, it now stood out as one of the best RPGs for the PS2. It’s also one of my favorite games. Now let’s go on to the review. I’ve been waiting for this.

Well, Persona 3 starts out with the protagonist walking around town. Then you see a girl with a gun, which she eventually aims at her own head. !! However, when the protagonist get off the train, it starts getting weird, as all the electronics stop working, everything turns green, and where all the people were, there’s just a bunch of coffins. !?! So, yeah, you find out that, at midnight, there’s an extra hour in the day that only some people can experience, and that there’s these creepy things called “Shadows” that attack people who aren’t inside a coffin. Your new school turns into a freaky tower, and you don’t know why. The main drive of the plot is figuring out what’s going on with the dark hour, and how to put a stop to it, with a backdrop of people becoming living zombies as a result of shadow attacks. Naturally, you eventually find yourself on a quest to save the world, but it’s not quite so simple. Saying anything more would be spoiling this game’s really quite adequate plot.

The characters in this game are great. The main character is basically a self-insert avatar for the player, so he’s pretty bland. Emo, but bland. Headphones, one lock of hair covering an eye, skinny like a stick, yep, he’s emo. But Junpei, in addition to being a loud obnoxious guy, also has his own major issues that he tries to deal with, like his own mediocrity. Mitsuru’s not just a hot, mature ojousama, she’s also got a major chip on her shoulder. And so on. There’s some really traumatic events that happen during the course of the game, e.g., a couple people die. These events really bring out some realistic and sympathetic reactions from the main characters, which just serves to increase the realism of the game. Even a lot of the NPC’s are pretty cool, due in no small part to the Social Links system. I’ll get to that in a minute, but the dating sim aspect this adds to the game seriously benefits the quality of the NPCs as far as personality and interest go. Since there’s conversations with each of the Social Link NPCs at each of the ten levels of the relationship, they all develop in one way or another as you interact with them. Plus, you can go on outings with the guys or dates with the girls. Yes, of course you can date the girls. Unfortunately, you can’t date the guys, unless you’re playing the Playstation Portable version, but even then, only if you play a female protagonist.

Personas are this game’s classes, basically. Each one has a certain set of ability scores, elemental weaknesses/resistances, and certain spells or special attacks or abilities. The main character’s protagonist power is that he can decide what abilities to keep on his Personas, create new Personas, and switch Personas mid-battle. Each Persona can only have 8 abilities, including spells, special attacks, and special abilities. When you have too many abilities, you can choose which ones to forget, either old ones to make room for new ones, or the new ones if you like the skills you have already. You create Personas by fusing two (or more) Personas together, making a new Persona based on the ones you used. That Persona will inherit some of the skills, spells, or special attacks of the “parent.” Finally, once per turn in battles, you can switch your Persona to any one you have in your possession at that time. This means you can get out a Persona that is strong against enemy attacks, or has an attack that is super-effective versus those enemies.

Wow, your main character is awesome! Too bad you can’t directly control you party members. Wait what? Yep, that’s right. Despite being a fully turn based battle system, you can’t input commands for your party members. You can set AI tasks, like heal/support or full offensive, but you can’t make them use a certain spell at a certain time. This is usually alright, but during some of the boss fights, it can be a problem. Apart from storyline bosses, there are “minibosses” located at specific floors of the main dungeon. Many of these minibosses are actually much more difficult to defeat than the bosses in the story. This is in no small part because the A.I. of your teammates is frequently incredibly stupid. Faced with the main character at low health, and another teammate poisoned, a character with healing spells will frequently cure the poison. Did I mention that if your main character dies, it’s game over? Yeah. There’s also instant death spells that are commonly possessed by enemies. Yay.

Now that I’ve covered the battle system, it sees like a good time to examine the Social Link system. So, what is a Social Link? Basically, you can form social relationships with specific individuals. Each of these social links is represented by one of the major arcana of tarot. For example, Fushimi Chihiro, the student council treasurer, is Justice, whereas Hiragi Keisuke is [The Wheel of] Fortune. The higher the level of your social link, the more bonus experience it gains when you make it via the persona creation system. It really does matter who you hang out with, and how much. Also, with the girls you can date (Yuko, Chihiro, Mitsuru, Yukari, Fuuka, and Aigis) there’s a certain point where your relationship becomes intimate, meaning they’ll get mad at you if you are intimate with another girl, or ignore them too long. Just like in real life! Whenever you hang out with any character, they get closer to you. If they’ve reached a certain level of intimacy, you have a conversation with them where you can choose one of three dialogue options at various points in the conversation. Some answers increase the number of brownie points with a character, some do nothing, and some will make the character really mad at you. It’s handled pretty well, so that it’s fairly difficult in most cases to get someone to hate you without trying to do so. The only issue with the social link system is if you want to be a completion whore about it. It requires a meticulous schedule to get all of the social links maxed out in one playthrough, which gives you less time to enjoy the other aspects of the game.

Fortunately, news is good on the replay end of things. There is a new game+ feature, which has your stats, items, and Persona library (but not Persona inventory) carried over into a new game. This is especially important for your social stats, academics, courage, and charm. The necessity to increase these stats through various time consuming activities is the main reason why it is hard to get all of the social links in one playthrough, because some social links require you to have a certain level of each one. Unfortunately for replay value, with all of your old gear, and the ability to get back some of your old powerhouse Personas, the game’s not terribly hard. I’d give this one “play twice; once for the story, and the second time to take your time and get everything you missed out on.”

Well, I have to say, this is one of the best RPGs for the Playstation 2. It’s got great characterization, is moderately challenging, has decent replay value, and has a somewhat unusual setting. Not many RPGs are ostensibly set in the real world. Plus, it’s got some elements reminiscent of Dating Sims and Monster Catching games, so it’s not entirely standard RPG fare. So the rating? 9.5. It’s really good, but it’s easy to see how things could be improved. Especially, the dungeon crawling can get tedious, going through hundreds of floors of randomly generated hallways.

Quick Tips: You can leave the dorm in the evening to go to the mall. You should do this at every opportunity, even if you’re sick, but not if you need to go to Tartarus. Also, go to the bathroom. Seriously.

How I Broke Game: Well, there is how I got Junpei (weak to wind) an accessory that makes him immune to wind. However, I made Laevateinn about halfway through the game, which allowed me to beat Chidori in two turns when I fought her.

If you liked this game, you should look at playing one of these games. Persona 4 is everything you loved about Persona 3, except better. The social links are better, they have voice acting, they don’t play by the same rules, your party members can be turned to manual controls, the list goes on and on. Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love is a Dating Sim S[trategy]RPG, in that order, where Persona 3 could be considered an RPG Dating Sim in that order. However, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love is another great game to play with an audience, because much of the Dating Sim is hilarious, and the whole game is totally over the top. Thousand Arms is another of the elusive Date Sim/RPG genre, and one that is an affectionate parody of both of its parent genres.