I finished the Journey a week or so ago and have just gotten around to beginning the Answer.  But, I'm wondering if I should bother.  Maybe I haven't played far enough (admittedly I haven't even hit my 1st save point) but the story seems to have derailed and is in real jeopardy of ruining everything I've liked about it.  I put over 190 in-game hours into the first part of the game and enjoyed the hell out of the experience.  But, it seems that all that work I spent building up my hero (level 92)  and the members of my crew are for naught.  Aigis is back to level 25, even though she was level 82 when I ended the Journey, and my hero is gone.  I did some quick reading (I tried to remain spoiler free during my research) and it looks like he won't be coming back and no one will get their old skills back.  Is that true?  At the end of the Journey (after the credits rolled) the game asked me if I wished to save and I said yes.  But why bother if I have to start over again?

I read that there were no social links in the Answer and leveling occurs by just grinding your way through the new dungeons with Aigis as the new main character.  Is that true, too?  And then I read that all the old characters are moody and not much like their old selves.  I tend to believe that might be true if Yukari is any measure.  After the first few sentences out of her mouth I wanted to smack her for being such a bitch. 

Anyway, if anyone has finished or gone further into the Answer portion of Persona 3 FES, please let me know if playing is worth my time, will it ruin the Journey for me, and does it get any better than the first hour leads me to believe.

I have P4, which I may start instead if this bonus tale is a "bogus" tale.

Wonder why no one replied to this, but if you're still wondering after a month, I would say what you have heard is pretty much correct.

It's a seperate story, everyone resets to low level, Aigis gains the ability to summon any persona, but she doesn't have access to the compendium, so mostly you fuse what you find. The Personas level quickly so it's not much of an issue.

The Answer does fill in some missing gaps from the main story, won't go into it for spoilers sake.

It's 90% combat and it is very hard compared to the Journey on normal. Was suprised how tough it was but felt like a big accomplishment when I finally finished it.

Yeah the characters are pretty moody, but it has a happier ending than the Journey. It certainly won't spoil the game for you, but you won't gain that much from playing it. The games about 90% combat, 10% scenes, you could probably watch them all on youtube.

Reason I stuck with it is because the new team member was alot of fun and for the challenge. Was glad when it ended though.

But would say if you have P4 waiting, play that instead.

Considering the events of the journey, can you really blame the party for being moody? They're not gonna be all cheery pals again, this is a hard time for all of them. Yukari's bitchiness did wear at me somewhat, but she redeems herself in my eyes.

Was it worth playing... god, I don't know.  Here's the thing, you're going to have to do it on hard mode which means that your elemental attacks may miss more often and it's more difficult to set up all out attacks, especially when you don't have control over your party.  Going back to Persona 3 FES after 4 was hard enough, but the jump into the Answer from the Journey was even more brutal than the jump back from 4 to 3.

I left the Answer feeling that it really pointed out the greatness of Persona 3's "Journey" section and Persona 4, because the Answer had none of it.  It was a tacked on grind which fed you some background information and gave a sort of resolution and showed the aftershocks of the main story, but it felt like the effort required to get the information wasn't really worth it.   The social linking really breaks up the grind and without that and the compendium it's brutal.  No powerups for fused persona, and one mistake can set you back.  If you liked the meticulous grinding, the Answer won't bother you much, if Tartarus in the later stages of the games was your least favorite part of the game the Answer multiplies the frustration by a ton.

That being said, Yukari has every right to be moody and pissed off.  I hated seeing her in that state more than I hated her being in that state. 

I just beat the Journey too, and I'm not really excited for the Answer from what I've heard. 90% combat sounds like it could get pretty boring. Maybe I'll just watch the cutscenes on youtube or something and just move onto 4 instead. I'll give it a shot though.