Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES

Persona 3 wasn’t even on my radar back in 2008 when it was released. My PS2 had been thoroughly caked in dust for months due to an exponentially worsening disc laser. In the summer of 2009, two friends had told me that they’d purchased this relatively unknown JRPG for $8.99. Needless to say, because the price was right and I’d have people to talk to about this older title, I picked it up along with Persona 4. Two playthroughs, a complete persona compendium, 99% of the quests finished, a maxed party, and 130+ hours later, I have this to say about the game: it is easily one of the best JRPGs I’ve ever played. 
 
The story revolves around the Main Character who transfers to a new high school, and, struck by dumb luck, gets placed in the dorm where some hush-hush extracurriculars are taking place. They fight otherworldly demons known as shadows in a time unbeknown to normal folk aptly titled, “ The Dark Hour.” Over the course of the game, the Main Character, as well as several other colorful high school youths, joins SEES, the student organization in charge of vanquishing the shadow threat and traversing the monolithic stronghold that appears only during the Dark Hour known as Tartarus. 

 
The game mechanics split into two distinct halves. The first is the social aspect, where the majority of the elaborate storyline will take place. The fruit of your social labor is known as a Social Link, which is created by befriending a classmate or a fellow citizen of the Bay Area. By bringing Personas that match your Social Link’s Arcana and answering their questions, your bond will grow until it maxes out and the Main Character gets rewarded with an unshakable bond with that person and access to a brand-new Persona. The system is relatively easy to use and understand, but takes a significant amount of planning to master. Of the games twenty-one different social links, many of them take place only while school is in session, on holidays, and on specific days of the week. If you go in expecting to master all of the Social Links, you’ll need an expert knowledge of the game’s calendar, and access to the many different Personas of the corresponding Arcana. The Main Character is also bestowed three attributes (Charm, Courage, and Academics) that will increase by studying, singing karaoke, and drinking a particular latte. There is plenty to do outside of the Dark Hour, and the game will keep you just as busy as you want to be. 
 

The second half of the game takes place during the Dark Hour and in Tartarus, where the dungeon crawler mechanics are in full effect. Tartarus itself is a 250+ floor tower where you fight shadows that get harder as the floors increase. The battle mechanics are simplistic, but effective. Since you’ll only have direct control over the Main Character, the rest of your exploration team will have to be set to macros that determine the overall theme of their actions (i.e. Full Assault, Healing/Support, etc.). This is where the game can get incredibility infuriating if the system isn’t managed correctly or giving the attention it needs. You will die because a party member doesn’t make a smart decision. It is simply part of the game; understanding the macro system can decrease that occurrence significantly. The Personas act as Pokemon-esque entities, where the Main Character can swap them out once a turn to accommodate their abilities for the situation. They all have unique weaknesses, strengths, actions, and levels. Managing Personas occurs inside the Velvet Room, where you can fuse old Personas for new, pull out a particularly useful Persona out of the compendium, or take up the unusual requests of a tenant. 

The strength in Persona 3 FES comes in the meshing of these two distinctly different gameplay structures. While a pure dungeon-crawler or social-sim would become tiring very quickly, this game allows one to be pursued until exhaustion, where the player can then experience the other side of the game, to take a much needed break from the other. This allows for good pacing of the overall story. The Social Links allow a unique level of character development, and often you’ll find yourselves more interested in their unfolding stories over that of the main plot. This is not a negative; this is an extremely strong positive that allows you take your mind off of the impending event that comes every full moon. SEES doesn’t consume the Main Character’s life, and P3 shows that everything else still continues.
 
The game is not without hiccups, some much worse than others. While Persona 3 FES contains enhancements to the main game of Persona 3, called “The Journey”, it also includes a new section of the game titled “The Answer,” that falls short of what made the original such a strong game. It focuses on the dungeon-crawling aspect, ignoring the charm of the Social Link system, and has a very light, unnecessary plot. While it isn’t required that The Answer be played through, its inclusion created a definite ending to the original story that wasn’t needed and, in my case, wasn’t desired.   
 

The game is unbelievably stylish. The menus are functional, and great to look at. The J-Pop and J-Hop that fills the game’s soundtrack are a welcome change from the usually orchestral pieces that fill RPGs (though the game isn’t missing the piano-based music an RPG always accompanies). The graphics, while not mind-blowing, are a solid effort on an older console. However, the Personas can be very hit-or-miss. Some will look on par with therest of the game, while others will be monotone, featuring very little detail, drab color schemes and unexpected blocky-ness.  

Also, the game’s attribute system is too unforgiving to be seen as a positive. While upgrading your stats always leaves you feeling rewarded, they should not have been key factors in initiating social links. The game would have been better off leaving them to affect conversational choices. That would have given incentive to use the system, but take away a significant punishment for not increasing them at the game’s pace. Plus, I often felt that increasing these stats was taking away from other things I needed to do, such as exploring Tartarus or increasing a Social Link.  

These problems and the pure scale of the game can be a turnoff for anyone not accustomed to RPGs or utilizing a significant level of strategy in their gaming. However, for fans of RPGs, Persona 3 FES can be a strong contender for the title of best RPG released on the PS2. And with a New Game+ feature that offers an optional boss and a new dungeon to explore, P3 is a fantastic value for your gaming dollar.