We all have favorite game series we really want to write about and discuss. Persona is that series for me. I finally feel like I'm in a place where I can discuss Persona 3. This is the first of of about 3-4 planned blog posts on Persona 3. 

I've been spending the last week or so trying to figure out what made Persona 4 work better than P3. All the elements are there that should make the game amazing. The story is arguably better than 4's, it's certainly darker, the characters are just as unique and endearing, and the gameplay itself hasn't changed all that much, but it's a combination of a larger variety of refinements to the formula that make P4 nearly perfect. Persona 3 id just a really amazing experience and just barely fails to reach the heights of it's successor, which is what you should expect. I expect a game's sequel to improve on the original.

So what's wrong? The first issue I have is the game's length. The game took me about 10 hours longer to finish than P4, not even including the around 27 hour long epilogue. I clocked in at a final play time of just over 85 hours. It isn't so much how long the game is, but how the game structures the narrative. The game feels really 'front loaded'. It starts really slow and when the story starts picking up, the game ends. The game is so slow to get started, by the end I was starting to get really tired of playing. If it weren't for the great story, I don't think I could have kept playing. 

Persona 3's dark tone turns out to be both a blessing and a curse. The game can feel hopeless and even suffocating at times. I would come away from a few hours of game time feeling very melancholy. I would deliberately avoid playing the game on bad days knowing I'd come away even more depressed than when I started. The dungeon design only adds to this. Sure the game varies the different Blocks of Tartarus look, but your still coming back to the same dungeon and that dungeon is very claustrophobic and drab. The fact that many of the social links are much more lighthearted can at times create drastic, sudden changes in tone that really can pull you out of the experience. I would go from a fun time out with a friend to one of my characters getting shot in a short period of time. That drastic of a tonal shift can be really distracting.

Even if it's not quite as good as Persona 4, P3 is still an amazing JRPG. It mixes a traditional turn based battle system with an unconventional setting and story telling methods. If you boil down the story to it's basest elements, it still tells a traditional  JRPG tale, but it doesn't feel that way. I would go as far as to say Persona 3 is the first truly innovative JRPG I've seen in a very long time. If some one told me a couple years ago that I'd actually want dating sim elements into my RPG, I wouldn't have believed them. It really is what makes the game for me, though. Without it, Persona would just be another JRPG about teenagers saving the world. The game uses the Social Links as a way to attach you to the characters. I almost feel like I become close friends with the characters by the end. It uses every day events a a way to endear you to all the side characters and make you actually care about what happens to them. It shows you that the characters have lives outside of saving the world, and I think that really helps set the story apart from other JRPGs.

Now, about that battle system. This was the hardest thing to adjust to coming from P4. The AI is alright and most of the time will do what you would have done anyway, but I still would have liked direct control over my secondary characters. Also, the game does a terrible time explaining the Battle System to new players. If I hadn't played any other Persona game, I wouldn't have understood so much of the basic stuff needed to play. Just simple things like Agi=Fire or Almighty spells can't be reflected. The fusion system is still nearly impenetrable for anyone who doesn't already know how it works. Also, I hate weaknesses and resistances for enemies feel almost random. If an enemy looks to be an ice type, it should be weak to ice. Persona's battle system, both in 3 and 4, seems to be just an arbitrary way to force you to scan an enemy at least once.

The game is amazing, end of story. Is it perfect? No. Does it have a lot of fairly major flaws? Yes, but I still love it. The characters are much less human than those in P4, but it's still far ahead of many other JRPGs on so many levels. I can't wait to see how they manage to make P5 better given all the power of a current generation console. Even if it's just as much of an improvement over 4 as 4 was over 3, it will still beat 99% of RPGs out there. 

  So this is it for my first blog series, for now at least. Two reasons this blog has taken so long. First, I've been trying to figure out what I should be writing about. Second, I've been spending a lot of time working on finishing the answer for my next series. I'm happy to say, I have finished it today. To give you an idea of my planned schedule, here is my next few planned posts. Persona 3 FES Retrospective: The Journey (My Review of 'The Journey' section of the game), Anatomy of an Epilogue, and an analysis of the themes of P3. Now onto another game with a lot of depth to it's story, BioShock.

I played BioShock when it first came out a couple years ago, and it really left an impression on me. It made me realize that you actually tell a deep, adult story in a way that couldn't have been done by film or literature. It was also the first game I actually obtained the full 1000 points in. I played it through twice in just a couple of weekends. 

What made BioShock's story so compelling and unique? First, the setting. It's completely original and just feels so full of history. The environment has a history, and it shows. It's enhanced by the audio logs you find lying around. The Audio Logs are an amazing way to tell the history of Rapture and finding each one was a treat. Another thing that makes BioShock's tale unique is the way it tells its story. The game feels so cinematic, yet it does things no film could ever do. It is really one of the first stories completely unique to gaming. It doesn't make the mistake so many other games do, it doesn't try to explain everything. It doesn't have a random character tell you Big Daddies are dangerous, it shows you. There are so few interactions with other characters in the game that the story is really about a man trying to survive in a bad situation. The story gradually grows and grows until the tension reaches a fever pitch, and then the game throws the most surprising game twists I've ever seen. 

Than the game keeps going. This is the problem Sure, becoming a Big Daddy was awesome, but it didn't really feel necessary to the story and the game then moves on to one of the least satisfying final boss fights in game history before wrapping up with a fairly bland ending. This is really the games only fault, though. I love the enemy design. They manage to do a lot with very little. They never over power your character, though. Even at the end of the game, fighting a Big Daddy is still a tense experience. It's a lot easier than before, but one wrong move and you still could be in real trouble. Overall, it's the game's environment and story that make it unique and amazing and what make it one of the most fun games I've played this generation. I'm interested to see how they continue to make Rapture a mysterious place in BiShock 2. If they can't pull that off, I think they'll have a hell of a time living up to the original.

This is one I think is going to surprise people, my favorite Zelda game is Wind Waker. I'll admit, I have't finished EVERY Zelda. I've still yet to finish Zelda 2 or track down Link's Awakening, but I doubt those would top Wind Waker in my book. Why do I like Wind Waker so much? One word, style. The game exudes it in every way. It makes the best out of what it's given, and I think that thought really shows. 

Wind Waker is still the Zelda game I can return to nowadays between new releases. Twilight Princess looks dull to me now, and the recent handheld games only hold my attention through one play through. The variety the game has to offer in both visuals and game design really draws me in. For some reason, the treasure hunting in this game hooks me way more than the collectables in any other Zelda title. Having a map showing me where to go draws me into the game much better than just having to run around searching every corner for the next heart container, as in any other Zelda. The combat is simple, yet fluid and interesting. I don't mind having to cut through waves and waves of enemies, as I can parry and vary my tactics to make things more interesting. I also don't have the stress on my wrist Twilight Princess caused after a few hours of game time.

The next thing that ensures I can come back to the game in the foreseeable future is the art style. Art style is what can make a game age well or poorly, and Wind Waker still looks good because of it's cartoonish style. In fact, I'd wager Wind Waker will never look dated, from a visual standpoint, as you can't really improve the look with a higher fidelity graphics chip. Twilight Princess already looks dated to me now, but I can still play Wind Waker without the game feeling like it was from 6 years ago.

The game is not without its problems, though, and some of those problems are quite serious. Before you get the song that summons the tornado, travel between islands is hell. Even afterward you still have to find your way to your destination from wherever the whirlwind drops you up. Boating seems cool at first, but gets really monotonous quickly. I kind of wish they would have added an upgrade system for your boat to make things at least a tad bit more interesting. It wouldn't have fixed the problem completely, but it would have helped. The other problem I have is the stupid triforce fetch quest near the end of the game. That series of events is really arbitrary and just serves to artificially increase the game's length. I usually play up to that point before quitting. I don't really feel the need to get all the way to the end again. I still enjoy the journey up to that point so much, I can ignore the other flaws and I feel those flaws are much more minor than the flaws of some of the series other recent entries.