A pinnacle point in Role playing history
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES Review
Over the years I have played many console role playing games and it’s gotten to a point where these games are just becoming too similar for me. Persona 3 however was a game I jumped into having no prior knowledge of the Shin Megami Tensei series at all; I just expected it to be another clichéd console RPG. I was very wrong
It’s hard to talk about the story of Persona 3 without spoiling the plot itself however the basic plotline is that you are in the shoes of an average young teenager who recently transferred to Gekkoukan high school. But it seems that not everything is clear in this average Japanese town. Your character comes to awaken to his power known as ‘Persona’ which only a certain number of individuals can wield by pointing a gun like object at their head and pulling the trigger to call their Persona to aid.
Monsters that are referred to as shadows are threatening the world with a strange disease known as Apathy Syndrome: these shadows appear at a time known only to some as the dark hour: an hour which occurs between midnight and one o’clock. Most of the public are absent from the dark hour and transmogrified in coffins, however certain individuals in the game that the player can interact with have set up a organisation known as SEES or the Specialised Extracurricular Execution Squad and are determined to free the Earth of all shadows and the dark hour.
However saving the world is only one slice of Persona 3, when you are not fighting you are at school attending class, boosting social links or playing sports. You have the chance to make friends at school and develop a relationship with them; all friends have their own story in which you will be involved with whatever problem he or she has. The way you spend your time at school also has an impact on how well you perform during the dark hour.
That’s not to say that the player is restricted to the school though, Players have the advantage of exploring the town of Iwatodai whether it be going to mall, shrine, weapons store or even going for a bite to eat with your friends. Persona 3 definitely has alot of options for exploration and doing so is very enjoyable.
When not fooling around in the town or attending school, the player is encouraged to fight shadows during the dark hour, in which you explore the massive tower known as Tarturus. The tower consists of over 200 floors of shadows and boss fights and progressing higher up Tarturus also increases difficulty level: where shadows around the first floors are pretty easy compared to the ones higher up which in some cases I had to think tactically how not to get myself killed. Although optional the dark hour it strongly encouraged in order to beat the monthly boss battles which occur every on full moon of every month.
Gameplay in Tarturus comes with both its pros and it cons. On the pros side exploration isn’t like your typical turn based RPG where at any moment a random battle could pop from nowhere. Persona 3 however gives the player the ability to give the upper hand in a battle in which you will ambush the enemy by running up to its back and surprising it from behind with your sword. Dungeons are also full of a number of goodies to collect: mainly treasure chests but there are other random things for you to find in their too. A few cons I found in the dungeon exploration though was the fact that in order to keep a steady pace on the tower you had to activate certain portals along the way which was really frustrating when you have to repeat going up 15 floors every night which made fighting progression alot longer.
But that’s not to say that the combat in Persona 3 is frustrating, in fact in some ways it is very good. Combat in Persona 3 uses an Active battle system with some minor changes to the mechanics which really had me liking the combat. You have a basic series of commands with the obvious one in mind being ‘Attack’. However there is one command which you may be using more than often, this command is ‘Skill’.
Using skill is basically like the magic command in many RPG’s however your Persona will be able to perform a hefty number of these skills such as Agi which is your basic fire spell, or Bufu which is ice. You will find yourself using your Persona more than your weapon which in turn is saved for ‘All out attacks’ which take place when the player stuns all the enemies on screen and then continues on to unleash a powerful attack, this is very useful when it comes to boss fights however you first must identify it’s weakness before it can be stunned, some enemies cannot be stunned at all but of course there’s always its weakness which you can use to your advantage.
Fighting can be tough and this is definitely not your button masher RPG, Persona 3 requires you in many cases to strategically think of your next move. Of course there’s your obvious strategies such as fire beats ice and such but at times you may have to think deeper, at one case my opponent had no magical weakness or attacking weakness, the only way to defeat him was to fire air propelled weapons at it like the bow for example. Battles of course can be tough especially towards the end of the game but with enough levelling up it is very rewarding.
One unique aspect of Persona 3 is character development with both major and minor characters. Early on you will come to notice that every character that you can have a social link with all have a reason or story for being with the protagonist. This aspect was very interesting and was probably one of the main points of the game that I loved over other role playing games.
Over time you will become attached to your team and your friends, a classic example was the female classmate social link where in the beginning you hang out with her and over time you start to develop a romantic relationship and eventually sustain an unbreakable bond which will actually benefit you when levelling up your Persona’s.
The graphics in Persona 3 are some of the best I have seen on the Playstation 2. Probably the glossiest of Persona’s graphics are indeed its character artwork which looks absolutely stunning from the menu’s to the character artwork everything is perfect in this area. Character models are also well designed as well as the characters themselves which all have fantastic costumes and the attention to detail is phenomenal, in which I think this is one of the first games where I have had a video game crush: ok I said it but I have never seen such a beautiful redheaded Japanese girl. CG also makes an appearance which also has a admirable artistic style and implements into certain scenes well.
The one con with Persona’s graphics though are the Dungeons which after a very short period of time the repetitive environment just gets old very quickly, what stops this from being a major problem though is that each block in Tarturus has a unique design but as I said it gets old after about 5 floors.
Atlus has been known to create games with breathtaking artistic musical scores which of course in Persona 3 meet all of the expectations needed. Some of the music is more memorable than others but in whole the soundtrack is a joy to listen to and never gets old. If only they played Persona music at school.
The pinnacle of the audio development though is the voice acting which is some of the best I have heard since Final Fantasy X.
Atlus did a great job of getting onboard a team of devoted professionals that all play their characters very well and one classic example of this is when an emotional scene pops up and you actually feel immersed into these characters and their personalities.
On the time scale this is not your average eight to ten hours you would normally get in an action game, instead Persona 3 will take anywhere from up to 60 to 100 hours depending on how you play to finish the game. And to add even more replay value the side story FES will add around another 30 to 40 hours more game time with also increased difficulty for those players looking for some challenge.
If I had to tell you right now my favourite role playing game of all time it would be Persona 3 on many levels due to that the game’s plot is just a joy from start to finish. The character development is just mind blowing and I actually feel like I have a part in these people’s lives. But, most of all Persona 3 compared to other RPG’s is very unpredictable which now every RPG with a dumb story is so damn predictable but oh no Persona 3 is a total contrast and it stands out as being one of a kind. Get out and buy Persona 3 FES now.
Written by Jack Gordon
08/10/2009 00:51:05
