Post by Virulain on Jul 18, 2010 14:02:06 GMT -5
I just completed my first full playthrough of Persona 3: FES - The Journey today, with my main at level 90, all Social Links complete, and 100% of the Persona Compendium filled. I completed almost all of the Elizabeth requests except for finding the Myouhou, since I wasn't really willing to spend a bunch of time grinding through Monad... That's for my next playthrough!
For those of you not in the know, P3:FES is for the Playstation 2 and is a turn-based RPG produced by Atlus. Atlus is well-known for its RPGs, in particular its Shin Tensei Megami series. The Persona games are a spin-off of the original MegaTen games. FES is an expanded version of P3, with many of its changes targeting the Social Links system first introduced to the Persona series in the original P3. All of the Persona games take place in contemporary Japan and star mainly high school students on the verge of graduation. The series' major themes are coming to terms with oneself, what adulthood means, the meaning of life, and other fairly common themes in JRPGs. What is uncommon about the series is its sensibility in handling such things. You will not have hour long monologues a la Final Fantasy emo villains. The storylines are very well-written, especially the relationships you form with other characters both on your team and in your character's every day life.
Persona 3 caught a good deal of flak for its imagery. In the game, children and teenagers use a device called an Evoker, which looks like a handgun, to awaken their Personas--by "shooting" themselves in the head. The Evoker is not a real firearm, as you quickly discover, and its purpose is later explained in the second episode of Persona 3: FES. However, the image is clearly evocative of suicide as well. Why use an image like that? Phillip Miner explains much more clearly than I can, but to summarize, not only is the conceit meant to capture your attention, it symbolizes taking a stand against despair that does not mean taking your own life.
Frankly, before I read that article, I was unconvinced and would never have bought the game. But Mr. Miner's article was intriguing, and so, out of curiosity, I bought the game a couple of years ago. I never got past the final boss until now... But I am glad I took the time to finish the game. In the meantime, I bought and completed Persona 4 as well, but that's for another post!
The graphics are dated compared to the power current generation consoles bring, but the art and designs are practically flawless. Each Persona and character has a distinct, unforgettable style, and the NPCs are all recognizable as well. The unfortunate thing is that in articulating 170 Personas and a few dozen characters, the monsters one fights--the Shadows--suffer from sharing from about two dozen basic forms between touch-ups and palette-swaps. While this might not be such a big deal, you have 254+ floors of enemies to fight and an entire, enormous optional dungeon to consume as well.
The game contains a number of cutscenes both using the game's graphical engine as well as utilizing purely animated scenes. I wish there were more of the latter, but the trend in RPGs these days is in sticking with scenes rendered by the game engine to improve immersion. The fully animated scenes are beautifully rendered but unfortunately tend to be a bit choppy and confused. A sympathetic viewer can see why; the animated scenes punctuate extremely emotional and active points of the main plot, and are key in unraveling the central conflicts of The Journey.
The music of P3 is well composed and nicely sets the tone for the scenes and settings. It is key in telling you the mood of the scene: beyond the usual "dungeon music" and "boss fight music" are several tracks which are really worthy of their own soundtrack disc (something you receive with Persona 4). You may suffer from the repetition of the music played in the dungeon, but early in the game you receive the ability to swap between five tracks for the remainder of the dungeon. Honestly, I spent much of my time concentrating on the battles, so I automatically tuned out the songs, by even my fiancee goes around dooting out the dungeon music from time to time. You will know it by heart and probably start hearing the tunes when the game is off after you've played a few hours of Persona 3.
To my surprise, the voice acting in P3 is surprisingly good. The voices suit all the characters perfectly and none are numbingly irritating. The VA budget must have been rather large! In my opinion, the main problem with the voiceovers is that there really aren't enough of them. Even some main scenes aren't voiced. Your social links are text-only as well, which changes in the sequel.
The game's controls are intuitive and mainly follow the conventional button format Square Enix games have set. You will not find yourself looking at the triangle/square/x/o buttons, even for minigames (of which there are thankfully few). You do have to deal with a number of menus, which mainly come into play when fusing Personas, which is an incredibly addictive and essential activity for customizing your fighting style. With 107 Personas to choose from, and nearly infinite variations between them, you can spend hours combining and training Personas to form your perfect fighting machine. Combat menus are straight-forward and easy to cycle through; given that the game is turn-based without any active time battle gimmicks, you will have no problems selecting which Persona and attacks you wish to use.
Combat consists mainly of climbing through an enormous dungeon called Tartarus between Full Moon events. Tartarus is over 254 stories of dungeon crawling fun, with mini-bosses roughly every 12 floors. The dungeon is broken into themed "Blocks," and new blocks (and new areas of these blocks) become active after each Full Moon event.
If you enjoy boss fights, this is the game for you. Luckily, for those of you who hate the grinding which accompanies those big battles, there are three difficulty modes. Easy nets you more cash to use in fusions, has slightly weaker enemies, and allows you to level more quickly, meaning you can play through for the battles, Personas, and Social Links without all the work. For those of us who like to suffer, there's Hard Mode as well, which gives you less cash, more time between leveling up, and much more difficult enemies. Normal Mode itself is not exactly a walk in the park either, especially if you don't take the time to grind and plan out your Personas' abilities.
The combat system itself is built on combos and cooperative attacks. When you have a critical strike or attack an enemy's weakness, you receive a bonus turn. Exploiting an enemy's weakness will knock nearly all enemies down, which also often causes the enemy to lose a turn. This same tactic can be used against your team (SEES, the "Shadow Extracurricular Execution Squad"). If you successfully knock down all enemies, you can utilize an All-Out Attack, wherein your entire party dogpiles on the hapless foes. As the story progresses, new team tactics open up, giving more options for ass-kicking goodness. Certain Persona abilities are also only available if you have a key pair of Personae in your inventory. These abilities are known as Fusion Spells, and offer unique effects and powerful attacks. A final major element of the combat system is your indirect attack of the other 3 members of your party. You do not directly give them commands in P3 or FES (though in the PSP version, you have the option), but scan enemies and set each NPC's tactics according to what you need to accomplish.
Of course, you have a huge number of optional sidequests to pursue as well. Social Links, Elizabeth's requests, and the optional Monad Block dungeon expand the play time by hours. The first two also give you a chance to experience much more of Port Island, the town wherein the game takes place, and learn more about the characters and story. And perhaps more importantly for the power gamers among us, completing requests and ranking up Social Links will vastly increase the powers at your character's command.
The game is heavy on story and character development. If you prefer story-driven rather than action-driven gaming, this RPG is for you. The many side stories are well-detailed and planned out, and you will find yourself identifying with the other characters and their struggles. You have a large number of romance options as well, which is expanded in the Playstation Portable version, wherein you have a choice of playing a male or female lead.
Content-wise, the game uses some disturbing imagery (including the gun to the head, and the general creepiness of the Dark Hour) but is neither gory nor explicit. There is some swearing and implication of substance abuse and sex, but it's more tastefully handled than primetime and daytime television, and more maturely handled than most of the media we consume for entertainment. Some of the Personae are suggestive (or, in the case of Mara, beyond suggestive) in appearance, and the particularly conservative won't appreciate most of them. All Personae are based on legendary or mythological figures, ranging the gamut from Jack Frost and the Kurama Tengu to Messiah and Lucifer.
All in all, if you need a new game and want something with character-driven action, dungeon crawling, tons of side quests, and beautiful art, Persona 3: FES is for you. Don't come expecting the flashiest graphics and a huge soundtrack, but each aspect of the game has obviously been carefully polished. The most irritating thing you may find is that sometimes the pathfinding of your team's NPCs is a little buggy, but these problems happen very rarely. If you find that you are spending more time than you wish grinding, you may need to start over in Easy Mode so you can spend more time enjoying the story instead. The lack of an in-game switch between difficulties can be a hindrance and is part of an outdated, punitive system of design. Still, the presence of 3 difficulty modes is welcome. Some players also find the inability to directly control other party members in combat frustrating; this can be ameliorated by always scanning new enemies, including mini-bosses and regular bosses. While you may not be able to see the weaknesses and strengths, your NPC teammates will be able to, and will act accordingly. Always set their tactics to appropriate responses as well.
You'll also find a good deal of replay value; in addition to your first playthrough of The Journey (the original story of Persona 3), there is a New Game+ mode which opens up some new sidequests and allows you to complete any Social Links you didn't finish the first time around. The Monad Block is also available to you from the start. In addition to The Journey, a new adventure unique to FES called "The Answer" is available, and takes place less than a month after the end of the first game.
For those of you not in the know, P3:FES is for the Playstation 2 and is a turn-based RPG produced by Atlus. Atlus is well-known for its RPGs, in particular its Shin Tensei Megami series. The Persona games are a spin-off of the original MegaTen games. FES is an expanded version of P3, with many of its changes targeting the Social Links system first introduced to the Persona series in the original P3. All of the Persona games take place in contemporary Japan and star mainly high school students on the verge of graduation. The series' major themes are coming to terms with oneself, what adulthood means, the meaning of life, and other fairly common themes in JRPGs. What is uncommon about the series is its sensibility in handling such things. You will not have hour long monologues a la Final Fantasy emo villains. The storylines are very well-written, especially the relationships you form with other characters both on your team and in your character's every day life.
Persona 3 caught a good deal of flak for its imagery. In the game, children and teenagers use a device called an Evoker, which looks like a handgun, to awaken their Personas--by "shooting" themselves in the head. The Evoker is not a real firearm, as you quickly discover, and its purpose is later explained in the second episode of Persona 3: FES. However, the image is clearly evocative of suicide as well. Why use an image like that? Phillip Miner explains much more clearly than I can, but to summarize, not only is the conceit meant to capture your attention, it symbolizes taking a stand against despair that does not mean taking your own life.
Frankly, before I read that article, I was unconvinced and would never have bought the game. But Mr. Miner's article was intriguing, and so, out of curiosity, I bought the game a couple of years ago. I never got past the final boss until now... But I am glad I took the time to finish the game. In the meantime, I bought and completed Persona 4 as well, but that's for another post!
The graphics are dated compared to the power current generation consoles bring, but the art and designs are practically flawless. Each Persona and character has a distinct, unforgettable style, and the NPCs are all recognizable as well. The unfortunate thing is that in articulating 170 Personas and a few dozen characters, the monsters one fights--the Shadows--suffer from sharing from about two dozen basic forms between touch-ups and palette-swaps. While this might not be such a big deal, you have 254+ floors of enemies to fight and an entire, enormous optional dungeon to consume as well.
The game contains a number of cutscenes both using the game's graphical engine as well as utilizing purely animated scenes. I wish there were more of the latter, but the trend in RPGs these days is in sticking with scenes rendered by the game engine to improve immersion. The fully animated scenes are beautifully rendered but unfortunately tend to be a bit choppy and confused. A sympathetic viewer can see why; the animated scenes punctuate extremely emotional and active points of the main plot, and are key in unraveling the central conflicts of The Journey.
The music of P3 is well composed and nicely sets the tone for the scenes and settings. It is key in telling you the mood of the scene: beyond the usual "dungeon music" and "boss fight music" are several tracks which are really worthy of their own soundtrack disc (something you receive with Persona 4). You may suffer from the repetition of the music played in the dungeon, but early in the game you receive the ability to swap between five tracks for the remainder of the dungeon. Honestly, I spent much of my time concentrating on the battles, so I automatically tuned out the songs, by even my fiancee goes around dooting out the dungeon music from time to time. You will know it by heart and probably start hearing the tunes when the game is off after you've played a few hours of Persona 3.
To my surprise, the voice acting in P3 is surprisingly good. The voices suit all the characters perfectly and none are numbingly irritating. The VA budget must have been rather large! In my opinion, the main problem with the voiceovers is that there really aren't enough of them. Even some main scenes aren't voiced. Your social links are text-only as well, which changes in the sequel.
The game's controls are intuitive and mainly follow the conventional button format Square Enix games have set. You will not find yourself looking at the triangle/square/x/o buttons, even for minigames (of which there are thankfully few). You do have to deal with a number of menus, which mainly come into play when fusing Personas, which is an incredibly addictive and essential activity for customizing your fighting style. With 107 Personas to choose from, and nearly infinite variations between them, you can spend hours combining and training Personas to form your perfect fighting machine. Combat menus are straight-forward and easy to cycle through; given that the game is turn-based without any active time battle gimmicks, you will have no problems selecting which Persona and attacks you wish to use.
Combat consists mainly of climbing through an enormous dungeon called Tartarus between Full Moon events. Tartarus is over 254 stories of dungeon crawling fun, with mini-bosses roughly every 12 floors. The dungeon is broken into themed "Blocks," and new blocks (and new areas of these blocks) become active after each Full Moon event.
If you enjoy boss fights, this is the game for you. Luckily, for those of you who hate the grinding which accompanies those big battles, there are three difficulty modes. Easy nets you more cash to use in fusions, has slightly weaker enemies, and allows you to level more quickly, meaning you can play through for the battles, Personas, and Social Links without all the work. For those of us who like to suffer, there's Hard Mode as well, which gives you less cash, more time between leveling up, and much more difficult enemies. Normal Mode itself is not exactly a walk in the park either, especially if you don't take the time to grind and plan out your Personas' abilities.
The combat system itself is built on combos and cooperative attacks. When you have a critical strike or attack an enemy's weakness, you receive a bonus turn. Exploiting an enemy's weakness will knock nearly all enemies down, which also often causes the enemy to lose a turn. This same tactic can be used against your team (SEES, the "Shadow Extracurricular Execution Squad"). If you successfully knock down all enemies, you can utilize an All-Out Attack, wherein your entire party dogpiles on the hapless foes. As the story progresses, new team tactics open up, giving more options for ass-kicking goodness. Certain Persona abilities are also only available if you have a key pair of Personae in your inventory. These abilities are known as Fusion Spells, and offer unique effects and powerful attacks. A final major element of the combat system is your indirect attack of the other 3 members of your party. You do not directly give them commands in P3 or FES (though in the PSP version, you have the option), but scan enemies and set each NPC's tactics according to what you need to accomplish.
Of course, you have a huge number of optional sidequests to pursue as well. Social Links, Elizabeth's requests, and the optional Monad Block dungeon expand the play time by hours. The first two also give you a chance to experience much more of Port Island, the town wherein the game takes place, and learn more about the characters and story. And perhaps more importantly for the power gamers among us, completing requests and ranking up Social Links will vastly increase the powers at your character's command.
The game is heavy on story and character development. If you prefer story-driven rather than action-driven gaming, this RPG is for you. The many side stories are well-detailed and planned out, and you will find yourself identifying with the other characters and their struggles. You have a large number of romance options as well, which is expanded in the Playstation Portable version, wherein you have a choice of playing a male or female lead.
Content-wise, the game uses some disturbing imagery (including the gun to the head, and the general creepiness of the Dark Hour) but is neither gory nor explicit. There is some swearing and implication of substance abuse and sex, but it's more tastefully handled than primetime and daytime television, and more maturely handled than most of the media we consume for entertainment. Some of the Personae are suggestive (or, in the case of Mara, beyond suggestive) in appearance, and the particularly conservative won't appreciate most of them. All Personae are based on legendary or mythological figures, ranging the gamut from Jack Frost and the Kurama Tengu to Messiah and Lucifer.
All in all, if you need a new game and want something with character-driven action, dungeon crawling, tons of side quests, and beautiful art, Persona 3: FES is for you. Don't come expecting the flashiest graphics and a huge soundtrack, but each aspect of the game has obviously been carefully polished. The most irritating thing you may find is that sometimes the pathfinding of your team's NPCs is a little buggy, but these problems happen very rarely. If you find that you are spending more time than you wish grinding, you may need to start over in Easy Mode so you can spend more time enjoying the story instead. The lack of an in-game switch between difficulties can be a hindrance and is part of an outdated, punitive system of design. Still, the presence of 3 difficulty modes is welcome. Some players also find the inability to directly control other party members in combat frustrating; this can be ameliorated by always scanning new enemies, including mini-bosses and regular bosses. While you may not be able to see the weaknesses and strengths, your NPC teammates will be able to, and will act accordingly. Always set their tactics to appropriate responses as well.
You'll also find a good deal of replay value; in addition to your first playthrough of The Journey (the original story of Persona 3), there is a New Game+ mode which opens up some new sidequests and allows you to complete any Social Links you didn't finish the first time around. The Monad Block is also available to you from the start. In addition to The Journey, a new adventure unique to FES called "The Answer" is available, and takes place less than a month after the end of the first game.