Viewing Single Post From: Video Game Review Club

Viewing Single Post From: Video Game Review Club
Laharl	Aug 21 2008, 10:31 PM
FEFF's Resident Psychopath Posts: 4,457 Group: Veteran Member #264 Joined: June 28, 2005	Title:Persona 3:FES Genre:RPG Platform:Playstation2 *Story* You play the role of a highschool student attending Gekkoukan High. Shortly arriving, however, you are attacked my mysterious creatures known as Shadows which only appear during a time known as the Dark Hour. This event causes the MC(you may name him yourself) to awaken to his Persona, a special power only a select few can use. Using his persona, he is able to defeat the Shadows. As a twist of fate, the other students in the dorm are also Persona users. They can use this unique power via a instrument known as an Evoker. It takes the form of a gun, but is actually used to summon the powers of their Persona, which is a second soul dwelling deep inside an individual. After the attack, you are asked to join SEES, a team devoted to destroying the Shadows. Soon thereafter, you are introduced to the Tartarus. This also only reveals itself during the Dark Hour. The Dark Hour is a time between 12:00 AM and 1:00 AM that only Persona-users can experience. It occurs each night at midnight and lasts for one hour. Normal people are turned into coffins through a process called Transmogrication. While in this form, they are completly oblivious to the Dark Hour. It is the job of the members os SEES to explore Tartarus and rid humanity of the Shadow menace. *Gameplay* The gameplay in Persona 3 is unique, in that its a RPG with Sim elements. I have heard that some people don't like this and actually stop playing this great game because of it. Their loss. This actually fits into the story quite well. You spend your time following a predertimined schedule which goes like this: Early Morning ---> Morning ---> Daytime(only days you don't have school) --> Lunchtime --> After school --> Evening --> Dark Hour(if you choose to go to Tartarus and on certin events)/Late Night(only if you don't go to Tartarus or fight a boss) --> Early Morning It then repeats this loop through out the game. Some do not like it, but as mentioned earlier, it compliments the story well. During these periods of time, you can do pretty much whatever you want. You can play arcade games, eat at a local resturant, or develop your Social Links, or S.Links for short. These S.Links are an important part of the game. Each S.Link is tied to a person(s) and a corresponding Arcana. To strengthen these S.Links you must spend time with the person associated with the S.Link. This takes up time, which means moving through the various phases of the day so planning is required to finish them in one playthrough.. S.Links increase by leveling them up, to a maxium of 10. There are several benifits to having a maxed S.Link. Say you have the Lovers Arcana at lvl10. When you fuse a Persona with that Arcana, it will recieve a huge experience boost. The second goodie it that upon maxing out a S.Link, you also recieve an item which lets you fuse a strong Persona. The Persona you can fuse from a maxed S.Link is the strongest Persona of that Arcana. However, you can't develop these S.Links whenever you want. On perdertimed times, you will be unable to increase certin S.Links like during exams or such. When your not spending time working on your S.Links, you usally will be in the Tartarus. This is the only dungeon in the game, which sort of sucks, but also fits well within the story of the game. Tartarus consists of various floors which you and a team of up to four can explore. Most of the time you are allowed to choose who goes with you, but some characters are out of action for a while. Taratrus is also where most the fighting and fun come from. Enemies appear on screen like you do. You can attack them first to gain an advantage in battle. During a fight, you have several options which are your basic attack, item & run. I'm not going to go into detail about this. Its pretty self explanatory. While you have full control over the MC, your allies are controlled through the games AI. You can give them orders, though. Some complain about the AI, but I saw no problem with it. They do what you tell them well. If you can defeat the enemy, you are awarded with standard RPG experience. You can also recieve other bonuses by a card shuffling mechanic. You are shown four different cards for a few seconds. These are then shuffled and you may randomly pick one. The awards you get from these cards can be anything to extra experience to a new Persona. As you advance in Tartarus, the shuffling methods become more complex such as the cards moving faster. However, the bonuses you get from them increase to compensate. On certin floors, you are faced with a boss fight. Before each fight you can return to the entrance to save and such. Some bosses are eeasy while others are downright impossible. And just like bosses, on certin floors there is a gate blocking your path upwords. These blocks can only be removed by going through the story. Once they are, you will recieve a notice. This is to stop people from reaching the top too soon. Besides the battles & S.Links, you can also fuse Personas to create stronger ones and take quests. To do this, you must go to the Velvet Room. There you can make powerful Personas. At first you can only fuse 2 - 3 Personas, but at a certin point in the game, you will be able to fuse up to six. Fusing Personas is the key to getting stronger, besides leveling and getting new equipment. You can also take requests from Elizabeth. These requests have you doing various things like killing enemies to get an item or fusing Personas with a certin skill. The awards you get are pretty good. Some have a deadline that if you fail to meet, will result in that request being removed for the rest of the game. Thankfully they are not hard to meet and the prizes you get from them are nothing to worry about if you miss them. *Graphics* The graphics in Persona 3 are decent. They're not terrible, but at the same time not incredible. There are anime cutscens at important parts of the story, but after playing Tales of... games, these don't really impress me anymore. The Persona desings are good though. I like the style of whoever drew them. Sadly, they look better drawn then they do in-game. The animations are also okay. Nothing like FF though. No needlessly long animations here. But I did wish they put effort into this. *Sound/Music* Oh, boy. This is where Persona 3 fails. The music in this game had me listening to something else. Out of all the music, only a few I thought were good, and the best you can't hear till the last month of the game. In Tartarus, you are given the option to change the music after getting Fukka. Its a shame you can only listenin to it here, as its not bad. Its the music that you hear during day thats terrible. You constantly hear the same repeated track over and over. The worst one rears its ugly head after summer break. I HATE this song. And the one in the dorm isin't much better. I don't know if its rap or not. Like the graphics, Atlus could have done better, but at least the graphics don't make my ears bleed. --*Overall Rating-- Story: 10/10 Gameplay:10/10 Graphics:5/10 Music:3/10 Despite the flaws in the music & graphics, I highly suggest you get this game. Try to get FES as it has things the regular P3 dosen't. The story is good & the gameplay isin't bad either. FINAL GRADE:*A- P.S. The only reason the last category isin't a '0' is because of the few good tracks this game has.


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