Customer Reviews:
 Amazing game ! July 19, 2010
Arafinwe Ingalaure (Tirion upon Tuna)
Hello, if you are already a fan of the Shin Megami Tensei : Persona series, I have nothing else to add to what you already know. For those who do not know the series, you will hardly find a game with that much content and that is spent over 70 hours of gameplay for the main quest an an other 35 hours for the epilogue. Persona 3 is a great Japanese RPG set in modern Japan. Each day, between 11:59.59 PM and 12:00.00 AM exist the Dark Hour, one hour were all ordinary people turn into coffin. The unlucky one can be attacked by the "shadows" some creatures created from the darkest thought on living beeing, those who feeds on the people's conciousness and left them apathic. But some persons found a way to fight the shadows. Evoking their inner strenght, they draw from their "persona" a manifestation from their personalities. You play a tranfer student to a new High-school who recieved the gift of using many personas. With some of his student friends he must discover a way to get rid of the Dark Hour and the gloomy tower of Tartarus. The game play is divided in two, on the first one, you must live the life of a japanese high-school student and find a ways to establish social links (relationship with friends adults or girlfriends). You have a limited time that help you raise your character's stats such academic, charm and courage, those skills enables you to creat new social links. The social links are giving you experience points when you fuse personas. This help enhancing your persona quicker then by fighting monsters in the second part of the game, which are dungeons. Most dungeons are in a tower called Tartarus, all dungeon are randomly generated and are quite basic. But the combat system is really fun to play. It's turn base, each character has their own weaknesses that help you beat faster (but so do you and your allies) knock down all your nennemies and you can do an all-out attack which create a lots of damage. The system is not hard to understand and is very fun. Thought dubngeons can be quite repetitiv until you reacdh then end, it's the story that drivers you untikl the end. It's really one of the best RPG I have ever played. I did more then 80 hours for my first playthrought and I don't regret it.
Crawling through dungeons in high school May 8, 2010
lain4ever (Los Angeles, CA)
"Persona 3 FES" soups up science fiction with high school life in one of the most addicting RPGs ever made.
For a game, "Persona 3" is hardly the usual role-playing routine. Players take control of a high school boy who must balance his high school life with his other job as a shadow hunter. Unlike other RPGs, you actually "live" out your life in school by making decisions, studying for tests and socializing with other characters.
At first, it seems like a joke. You shop for weapons at the police department and healing items at the pharmacy. You can play arcade games in the mall to increase your charm and courage meters. However, this simulation is exactly what makes "Persona 3" an epic experience based on the pressure of high school life. Your social relationships actually build the power of the Personas, the guardian spirits you summon in battle.
This also ties in seamlessly with the dark, animated sequences in the game. You plays as a teenage boy who sees floating coffins on the way to his dorm. When he first arrives, a frightening girl reaches for a pistol. After a few days, black spider-like monsters attack his dorm.
However, he learns how to defend himself with a sword and a special pistol called an Evoker. By shooting himself in the head with the Evoker, he releases a Persona to defend himself from enemies. He learns from his roommates that he was chosen to lead them to explore a dungeon in an alternate world, known as Tartarus.
Anyone would get disturbed from watching these kids shoot themselves in the head so many times. Fortunately, most gamers will accept the gun-to-the-head visual as a gimmick to make the game look grim and dark. The motion is solely to summon monsters out of the person's head, like a spiritual device.
The fighting system is surprisingly simple and easy to learn. Players will choose the actions for their main character in a turn-based game, where players can easily see the order in which monsters will attack. The game visuals might bore gamers with randomly-generated dungeons that feature the same dull environments that appear on each section of Tartarus. The dungeon music also can grate on people's nerves, with a lame soundtrack consisting of piano chords and Halloween drum machines. Even the different music tracks loop repetitiously.
In spite of these flaws, the game is a surprisingly deep experience, focusing more on the characters' life outside of dungeon-crawling. By socializing with other classmates and friends, the main character can "max out" their social links so that they can summon the most powerful Personas in the game.
The FES edition adds even more features. Players can fulfill tasks given to them by Elizabeth, one of the supporting characters in the game. Elizabeth will reward players with extra items, including the special suit items that change their character's appearance in battle and inside the dungeon. Experts of "Persona 3" can also challenge themselves with the hard mode, or they can play the new chapter, "The Answer," after beating the main game.
This is one of the best JRPGs of the decade. It literally reaches above and beyond the limitations of the "Final Fantasy" games with a high school environment and an eclectic blend of anime and J-pop. The game is hard to find nowadays, but it's still worth every penny.
Persona 3 Fes February 23, 2010
T. Phah (USA)
If you do not know whether to buy persona 3 or persona 3 Fes, you should buy persona 3 fes. It contains the original storyline and everything else from Persona 3; but it also includes upgrades such as more social link and personas. There is also an additional 30+ hours to let you know what happened at the end of the journey.
 Best of the Last PS2 January 9, 2010
Don Ho (Virginia)
This is a thinking mans game and the last of the best for PS2. The whole series of these games were little known at first but more gamers are discovering them. Amazon has them all at great prices.
 A Pretty Unusual RPG...But does "different" equal "better"? October 25, 2009
Feelah the tigress
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Well, this is my first exposure to the Shin Megami Tensei series, and I must say that I find this game is pretty different from traditional RPGS, at least in terms of gameplay. Being as this is my first Shin Megami Tensei game, I won't be comparing this to others in the series. So, on to the review!
Graphics (score 8/10): Graphics aren't bad. They're not as spectacular that they could be for the PS2 but I've never really been one to nitpick over graphics. The art style is very anime-ish, so if you don't like that, beware. I really like that style, though, so it was not a problem for me.
Music (score 7/10): Well, how much you like this music will depend on how much you like Rap and J-pop with nonsensical lyrics. I'm not really fond of it, but neither do I hate it, so I was pretty neutral towards the music. The thing that really bugs me, though, is that the songs start to become really repetitive after awhile. Part of this is due to the fact that there aren't many locations in the game, so you hear that location's song a lot. The music does change up as you progress past certain points in the game, but it does little to alleviate the feeling of "song overload". There IS voice acting, and it is very good. So, no complaints there.
Characters (score 9/10): Well, the main characters (aside from your avatar character, which I'll get to later) are very well developed, and the NPCs even have very good character development. Everyone has great character depth and feels like they could be a real person, with real personalities. However, your main character is a strange anomaly in a game filled with deep personality characterizations. He doesn't even have a default name (let's call him Minato for the purposes of this review), nor does he possess a personality of any kind. Yep, it's another "silent protagonist"- a tired RPG convention that I'm frankly getting sick of. I mean, when Dragon Quest VIII did it, it was pushing it, but now I'm just sick of it. Main characters are just not memorable or likeable when they are mute. Well, glad I got that out of my system. At least the other characters make up for it. Another thing of interest, the social link system has you talking to various NPCs, which is basically a dating/friendship sim. Answering "correctly" for each person will increase your social link strength and benefit your Personas (which are monsters you can summon to aid you in battle). I must say that after playing through this, I'm starting to feel that Minato is either a social whore or a sociopath. You spend all your time simply choosing whatever answer will please the person you're currently with, even if it blatantly contradicts what you just said to another person. Minato is basically manipulating these people for his own gain (the Personas' strength) just like a sociopath. And the way that he just gives whatever answers will please people is kinda whore-ish. If you think about it that way while you're playing, it's hilarious. I would've liked the ability to choose whatever answer I want without being penalized (if you choose wrongly, you won't strengthen the social link and power up your personas). Although I suppose the game developers had to give you some incentive to talk to people, otherwise their dating/friendship sim would've been completely worthless. Anyway, I knock a point off for Minato's lack of personality.
Story (score 9/10): The story itself is very interesting. It involves a bunch of Japanese High School students discovering that there is a special extra hour in the night called the "Dark Hour" that most people do not experience, and that there are monsters that come out during this time called Shadows. And, of course, only they have the power to fight the Shadows. The story just evolves from there, and is very entertaining. I also liked the themes of the story, which include elements of Jungian psychology, various philosophies, suicide and mortality, responsibility, and even a little bit of existentialism. On the negative side, while I love the story itself, the pacing could've been better. I really complain about this more in the gameplay section (and knock points off the score there), but I'll make mention of it here. You must wade through bunches of only mildly interesting filler consisting of just going to school and talking to people before relevant portions of the story are revealed. If only the pacing of the story was better, this game could've been that much more enjoyable.
Battle System (score 8/10): Well, battles are turn-based, which I like. The party is AI-controlled. I would've preferred to control them myself, but their AI is pretty darn good, so hat's off to the game developers. I do wish they had replaced irritating magic names like "Agi" and "Bufu" with simple to understand thing like "Fire" and "Ice". I don't see why they couldn't; every other RPG has already done this and it is very helpful. You can see enemies on-screen, which is also pretty cool (no random encounters here! ...not that I really mind random encounters). Anyway, there's not much to else to say here.
Gameplay (score 6/10): This is a bit of a catch-all category for me. Well, Persona 3 has several aspects which normally spell doom for an RPG: randomly generated dungeon floors (I'm not a fan of these), a time-based gameplay system (this game operates on a "day by day" system, where time passes in a day by entering certain locations and choosing to "spend time" with people), AI-controlled party members, being limited to a single town/dungeon for the duration of the game, and a dating/friendship sim that constitutes a huge portion of gameplay. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn't it? Surprisingly, it isn't as terrible as I thought it would be, but it's still bad. That's right, you heard me. First, let's discuss the good points:
The randomly generated floors of the dungeon aren't too difficult to navigate, so that's good. The AI of your party is pretty good, especially compared to other games, like Kingdom Hearts (in which your A.I.-controlled party members are idiots). The dating/friendship sim isn't too bad since the individual stories of the NPCs are pretty interesting.
Now, having gotten the good points out of the way, let's discuss the bad:
I must say that this game is really tedious and there is a feeling of excessive grinding throughout (which I despise). I mean, all RPGs have a little grinding (and I love RPGs) but this is just ridiculous. You spend most of your time courting various "friends" in the ONE town of the game and the other half of your time is spent grinding through the ONE dungeon in this game. So, you see how this can get tedious after awhile (and this game is long!). I kind of wish they had cut out 70% of the grind and just made it a shorter game because the pacing feels like your crawling along. If you've ever wondered why other RPGs have teenagers unrealistically skipping school and traveling across the world, it's because doing it the realistic way by having them attend school every day (like Persona 3) is tedious as all heck. I sort of felt like I was going stir crazy after awhile from being stuck in the same repetitive locations--the couple times that the characters went on vacation to somewhere new I was like--OMG! Something different!!! Unfortunately, the vast majority of your time is spent in that one town or that one dungeon. Despite its flaws, strangely, I still found this game to be fun, but it just doesn't merit a higher score in this section. There is one really good thing that would make you want to replay this game--there's a new game plus option which allows you to keep all your weapons, items, Personas in the compendium, money, and your main character's level. So, if you play it again, you can breeze right through (well, sort of, it still takes a long time). I'd probably enjoy this game much more on the second play-through since the majority of the grind is already done.
Overall (score 7/10): NOTE this score is not an average; it's my subjective overall score. I feel so conflicted about this game; on the one hand, it's tedious and irritating to wade through all the dreck to get to the interesting bits of story, but on the other hand, the game is oddly compelling and enjoyable to play in spurts. In fact, I think this game would have been much better if it were shorter. I don't normally say things like that, but if they had cut out some of the calendar days so that the game takes place over half a year instead of a full year (so that the game concludes in 50 hours instead of 100+), then maybe it wouldn't have felt so tedious and grinding. They could've cut out some of the filler and more concisely told their story, which would have made this game amazing. Still, I enjoyed this game enough to try playing other games in the series. However, I honestly can't decide whether I should recommend this game or not. This game seems to be rather hit or miss for people, so I suppose the best way to know whether or not you will like this game is to just rent it or buy it, and just see for yourself.
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