Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES is a video game that consists of 5 releases

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This expansion to Persona 3 adds additional content and a continuation of the original game's storyline.

Overview

Persona 3: FES is an expansion to the original RPG Persona 3, itself another installment from Persona andPersona 2, both of which were developed and released by Atlus. In Japan, FES had two versions: the Independent and Appendant version. The Appendant version required the original Persona 3 and the Independent version does not. However when Atlus localized the game, they released the Independent version at the price of the Appendant version. FES contains additional quests and new events added to the original game, purportedly comprising 30 additional hours of gameplay in a new chapter called The Answer. Also included are 23 new Personas, new costumes, a weapon synthesis system, and a new hard difficulty mode and much more. Persona was very well received in North American winning a game of the year award from gamespy. Persona 3 and Persona 3 FES have sold 340,000 copies in North America combined, a high success considering ATLUS' typically short production runs.

Plot

You start out as a boy transferring into Gekkoukan High School during his last year. When the player, a silent protagonist, enters his new dorm he is greeted by a rmysterious boy who asks him to sign his name on a book, this is where the player decides the protagonist's name. The strange boy then declares that the "contract" has been signed, and that the player has one year in which "to be responsible for [his own] actions".

At this time the player experiences "The Dark Hour", an extra hour-long period that exists (and passes) in the second between midnight and the next day. Only people with the capacity to summon a "Persona" (a spiritual figure that lends power to the summoner) can experience the Dark Hour. Everyone else appears as if sealed inside a coffin, completely unaware of the extratemporal period that has just passed. During the Dark Hour, monsters called "Shadows" emerge to prey upon the local populace and feed upon their psyche. The next day, an attacked victim remains in a zombie-like, near-catatonic state, thought by the rest of the world to have contracted a strange malady called "Apathy Syndrome".

After an attack by an unusually powerful Shadow, the player is recruited into SEES (Special Extracurricular Execution Squad), an organization tasked with finding out why and how the Shadows manifest, and to stop it. All this seems to be connected to Tartarus, a giant tower that rises from the school grounds during the Dark Hour. And at its apex, perhaps some answers wait.

Gameplay

Combat

Basic Persona Combat.

Instead allowing you to control every single action of the entire party, Persona focuses more on the player controlling the main character instead. The player instead has the choice to give generalcommands to his/her comrades in the form of phrases like "Heal/Support" or "Conserve SP". Players gain new abilities by collecting personae. When the player equips a persona he/she is than able to use the magic attacks that the persona has in their arsenal. The Persona also has the ability to learn new attacks by leveling up, personas level up the exact same way as the player does, both the player gainign the same amount of experience at the end of a battle.

All characters in the game (Shadows and characters' Personae alike) bear elemental strengths and weaknesses. Attacking weaknesses can knock an enemy down, costing it its turn, and gaining that character another turn in which to act. The system works vice-versa as well, allowing enemies to attack the party's weaknesses. The player's advantage is in his unique ability to summon and command different personae at will, granting new abilities and changing elemental strengths and weaknesses according to the demands of any given battle. Knocking down all enemies in a given battle grants an opportunity to conduct an "All-out Attack" wherein the entire party executes a free high-damage gang attack on all the enemies in the field. Battles end in a shuffle, wherein random, shuffled cards containing benefits, such as extra cash, random weapons, or new personae are shuffled, allowing the player to select the combat's rewards.

Calendar

In Persona 3 the player has only a year of in-game time to finish the game. Throughout the game the player follows a schedule. In the morning they go to school, and in the afternoon, lunchtime and after school times, they can participate in social links, or choose to perform other actions (such as studying or eating out) that can raise the player's social stats like charm, courage and intelligence. Higher stats are needed to advance the different social links present in the game. At midnight the player will enter the "Dark Hour", deciding whether or not to enter and explore Tartarus. The game also counts days until a full moon occurs. When a full moon occurs a very strong Shadow will come to town and you must defeat it. These moments are usually related along the main storyline and are important events.

Tartarus

Traversing through Tartarus.

Everyday at midnight the player can go into Tartarus. During the Dark Hour, the player's school actually transforms into Tartarus, a dungeon filled with the shadows. The player must be wary of their time in Tartarus for their characters will begin to grow increasingly tired. When a character is tired they will need to rest and they will refuse to go to Tartarus until they are better. To remedy this, taking a break from Tartarus is recommended. The dungeon has around 250 floors, each floor being randomly generated each time the player enters it or accesses the stairs to the next floor.

Tartarus is divided into blocks, each block having a different design to its floors. Along with the blocks in Tartarus there are also bosses. After a certain amount of floors scaled the player is faced with a mini-boss blocking their progression and must defeat it. In each boss floor there is a marker, by hitting this you gain the ability to enter Tartarus from that floor.

Social Links

Social Links level up, reverse or even become broken depending on the player's actions when spending time with friends.

Along the path of the main storyline you will meet many different characters that aren't involved with personas. Each one of these characters have their own dilemmas and stories that the player can participate in. When the player develops these relationships with characters they gain something called a social link. Each type of social link represents the Arcana of a persona (A social link is labeled "The Fool" and theirs is a Fool type persona). As the relationship progresses the social link levels up, opening up the player's ability in achieving higher level personas of that type. Characters you interact with will do things like call you to visit them on weekends and things of that nature. Beware, however, that sometimes a social link can reverse or even break if you don't spend time with a character for a long time, or when you're spending too much time with one character. For instance, if you're dating a female social link and then spend time with another girl can make her angry, and the social link may reverse. It cannot be resolved unless you reconcile with that character.

Fusing Personas

To gain access to new personas the player is able to fuse his/her existing personas to make new ones. The player will be able to fuse up to six personas together at once, by doing this you can create stronger personas. When personas are fused the result can take on the abilities of the other personas before it. So if one of the personas used to fuse had a healing spell, the result will take on that same healing spell. Upon creation the persona will gain experience corresponding with the level of the Social link that holds that persona's Arcana.

"The Answer"

SEES venture into the Abyss of Time.

The Answer picks up the story one month after the events of Persona 3. The main character has been in a coma for a month and has just recently been declared dead. To make matters worse, the SEES members' dorm is being closed down. Mysteriously, all the dates on their TVs, phones, and clocks are no longer advancing. After some investigation, the SEES members discover that there is maze called the Abyss of Time located below the dormitory. The SEES members must explore the area to find out why they're stuck in a time loop, and ultimately to gain insights as to fate of the main character. Aigis replaces the protagonist as the main character for The Answer, gaining his unique ability to summon and fuse multiple personae. A new character, Aigis' sister Metis, is also introduced during The Answer. The Answer's gameplay was largely identical to that of The Journey, though it lacked an adjustable difficulty level, the social link system, and the persona library, thus preventing Aigis from simply buying previously discovered personae, and relying solely on fusion and random acquisition to expand her portfolio.

Useful links

Official website

General Information Edit

Game Name	Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2
Publisher(s)	Atlus Co., Ltd. KOEI Ltd. Atlus U.S.A., Inc.
Developer(s)	Atlus Co., Ltd.
Genres	Add a new genre Role-Playing (RPG) Simulation
Themes	Add a new theme Horror Fantasy Dating Anime
Original US Release	April 22, 2008 need a fuzzy date?
Original US Release	Q4 2007 know the real date?
Aliases	Persona 3 FES
CERO	CERO: B
ESRB	ESRB: M