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Review: Persona 3 Fes


Editors note: This review was submitted by Cory J. Someone who lives in Arizona, near me (schild), and was willing to play through the new content so I could start over as I wanted the "full experience." I'm not really going to say anything about this review other than "we warned you." Without further ado, I present you with... well... this.

If you haven't played the original Persona 3 let me start off by telling you exactly how much I hate you. There are no known English words that come to mind that can accurate sum up how much I want bad things to happen near and to you. It reminds me of this one time a yellow VW bug pulled up alongside of me. Two problems here:

1. I hate bugs.
2. It was yellow.

I wanted bad things to happen to this car and its occupants. Like, say, immediate death. This all-together dangerous and violent feeling that was surging through my body was only heightened when they pulled slightly ahead to reveal a plush yellow bug in the window and a vanity license plate that read, "luvmybug." Trying to remember how to breathe, I raced past them at full speed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the passenger and driver. Both were relavitely old, and by justifying that nature would take my revenge soon enough, if cancer wasn't already, I was able to calm down. Now, in retrospect they never really did anything to offend me, but if you're reading this and haven't played Persona 3, you have. Keep that in mind because in a minute I'm going to tell you all to shoot yourselves in the face. And no not in a clever way to tie in a Persona reference, mainly I just want you dead. You deserve it for being thick.


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How long is the new content?  Ten hours?  Sixty?

Did you read it at all?

He didn't finish it.

Did you read it at all?

He'll probably read this.

Did you read it at all?

Yes.  I was expecting an intelligent answer, perhaps from someone who HAS finished the game.  Or has maybe read something, somewhere, that said "feautring x hours of additional gameplay."

It's $20 less than the original game. And they didn't TAKE away content.

I've heard it's something like 15-20 hours.

Also, you got an intelligent answer. Meta, even.

Swell read.  Half an article of insults is always a sure win.

I've heard that it adds about 20 hours. I've also heard the epilogue has none of the sim elements and is almost all dungeon. I'll play it anyway because I'm curious about what will happen and of course because I want Yukari in a bathing suit while she fights monsters.

That is all.

Yeah, decent review considering it's more of a BiiF with insults.  I'd like to know more about the bonus content before dropping another 80 hours onto the game, though.

I mean the Aigis post-game.  Is the story really worth playing oustide of being a completionist?

Yeah. If anyone at Atlus started reading this, they stopped when you told people to shoot themselves in the face.

This is also when my possible interest in picking up the original Persona 3, or even finding out what it is, evaporated.

This was a bad idea. Rant reviews are better when they contain some form of humor, as opposed to amoral, misanthropic rage.

From what I've heard it drops the Sim elements but does continue the storyline so you know what happens to everyone after the end of the original game.

It's not like we already have a review of Persona 3 up (http://f13.net/index.php?itemid=578) or anything...

Great Game + More Stuff - $20 = Win, there's really not a whole lot else to say outside of that.

Wait, I'm a bit confused.  I've seen this game described as an expansion....  So do you need to own the original Persona 3 to play this, or is buying basically like getting a deluxe version of the original game?

Super deluxe version sans art book & soundtrack CD.

LOL at people who take things way to seriously! :grin:

And to Teleku, no you don't need the original. The game is split in two "The Journey" (original) and "The Answer" (FES),  but if you're just going to import your original save to the game you might want to reconsider.  The answer section is hard as hell, so level up,  and they've added a lot of new content to the original part.

Ah, cool.  Never played this, been meaning to try it out.  Might have to pick up this new version sometime then.  I more or less haven't touched console games for about 5 years now, and getting the itch to play some console RPG's again.

Here's the tl;dr version:

You really should've played it the first time around. And if you didn't, you're part of the problem. But there's a new printing with MORE GOOD STUFF. So play it this time. Also, it's $29.99. Probably the best value in gaming right now, period.

This. Faced with two choices, this is what you should have published, if your aim is to actually convince people to pick up the game and try it.

If your aim is to put some puerile (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/puerile) attempts at yuks on the frontpage, um, well, mission accomplished.

Hutch, seriously buddy, you crack me up. I especially love the link on "puerile." VERY SUBTLE! (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/subtle)" 

You've certainly got me convinced that you're above all forms of humor and DEFINITELY smarter than everyone else here!

Don't be an idiot.

Or better yet, buy the game and write a review.  If your review is better than Cory's (we'll have the community as a whole vote), I'll pay for the game.  It's as easy as that.

What is weird is that I haven't played this game, but I have absolutely zero desire to ever even try after this review.

Cory Jacobs, saving my time since 1984

That's because you hate all things that come out of Japan unless it's a street brawl.

So if you miss playing Persona 3 simply because of nerd rage over nerd rage, it's your loss. Persona 3 is the best JRPG ever made for the PS2.

Plus, how can you hate BACON AWESOME!. That's a great name. BACON AWESOME!

*nod, nod*

I hate the crap outta JRPGs and I managed to play Persona 3 long enough to make a hollywood loaf when I virtually chatted with a purported virtual girl in a virtual MMO.  That shit was hot. And I hear FES lets you walk dogs? Fuck me with a spoon.

I KNOW! Exciting, right?  :awesome_for_real:

Game will let you carry over your Academics, Charm, and Courage scores along with any of the Social Link Max items from regular P3.  I think it'll allow you to do this for any game in progress. This may be a bit more lenient than regular P3's new game+, which I believe required a completed game. 

This is right there with Final Fantasy 6 and Shadow Hearts 2 for me as far as jRPGs go.  The game is just a masterpiece with just about every element (music, visuals, voice acting)  done perfectly.  You can almost feel the love put into making this game.  It can get a bit grindy though, which may be it's really only fault for me.

Block out about an hour to 90 minutes for the intro when you start playing.  First save chance doesn't really pop up until around 50 minutes in and you're still not out of the intro period at that time.  Less time, however, if you click through most of the dialog.  Heh, you notice a lot of cameos in the introduction if you pay attention.

Am I an idiot because you liked the review? Or the game? I'm not attacking the game, if that matters.

Back atcha in either case.


Schild already wrote a better review. Vote on that.

Wear looser underwear.  Srsly.

So my capsule review of Persona 3:Fes:The New Parts As Opposed To The Old Parts With New Part Injections:

* No persona compendium, which means that you don't get to gleefully engage in persona breeding experiments: fuse 'em and lose 'em. (Hint: don't fuse Orpheus like I did!)
* Dungeon crawl - no social links, very little gameplay outside of Tartarus v2.0
* No carryover from the main game at all. Your characters all start at around level 25 (actually level 20 but you get about 10k XP after the first preset battle). The characters even tell you "yeah, it's been a year and I got REALLY rusty." Sorry, Akihiko, you didn't just get really rusty, you LOST EIGHTY LEVELS. EIGHTY. I think the term you are looking for is 'senility'.
* Difficulty seems to be midway between Medium and Hard - it doesn't randomly spank you with Enemy Advantage for no reason like Hard does, but the encounters are stil pretty nasty.

So if you like dungeon crawlin', you'll enjoy this. If you don't, skip it and wait for the inevitable plot spoilers on Youtube or something.

too much unfunny angry fanboi for my tastes.

This, except I'd add that I've been playing RPGs, J and otherwise since Final Fantasy I on the NES. This is hands down, my favorite console RPG ever and narrowly misses out to the Baldur's Gate PC series as my favorite computer/console RPG of all time. I'm replaying it in FES and instead of being bored with the dialogue and stuff like I usually am on replays, I'm immersed in the characters again. I told my fiancee it felt like I was back among a group of friends again.

If I take nothing else away from my time on F13 it will be Schild mentioning this game and perking my interest in it. Between this and Suidoken I've found a console series I much prefer to Final Fantasy 27 or whatever the new Square game will be.

Dude stop being so hardcore about Persona 3.  It's so niche it's niches have niches.

Finally got back into the game. Decided to start completely anew.

And fuck if it's not one of the best games ever made, I don't know what is.

Edit:

This is gonna be a fun year! I can feel it!

I imagine the best game (jrpg) ever would have some sort of variety in its dungeon crawl, and wouldn't make you go out on dates in order to become more powerful?

It's not really about dates. That only increases one of the categories. It's relationships with humans in general. It's fucking awesome and MMOGs have a shitload to learn from it.

If you're responding to me, I said my favorite console RPG, not my favorite console game. Slight difference. I'm still debating that to be honest.

The dungeon crawl doesn't have alot of variety, true, which was one of my complaints when I played the non-FES version. Combat gets kind of repetitive. But it does in any console RPG. This one has enough variety in the fights themselves that it doesn't bother me too badly.

And you might not like the social links (dates) but I do. I also like the fact that most of the time I have more freedom (or at least illusion of it) than I do in your typical JRPG. I enjoyed Lost Odyssey for instance, but I felt railroaded even more than normal because I'd just finished Persona 3 6 months or so before I played it.

Some aspects of the game will of course come down to taste. I feel immersed in the Persona 3 world and I love that it's not "generic fantasy/sci fi hybrid #72" like every single game that Square puts out.

Also, the level of emo in the game is practically non-existant. Maybe the main character's hair style but that's about it. The men in the game actually look you know...male.

Oh yeah, I liked it a lot too.  I just don't think it's game of the decade, let alone JRPG of the decade (Shadow Hearts 2, maybe?)

If Shadowhearts 2 took itself a LITTLE more seriously, it would be a tough call. But it didn't, there was a slew of silliness. Shadowhearts 3 is right the fuck out. Talk about the wrong direction.

I haven't played the Shadow Hearts games so I can't judge them relative to Persona 3.

Play them, now.

One of us!  One of us!

Just...don't start with 3.  1 and then 2 if you can, though at the least, try 2. 

It's OK to start with 2.  It kind of retcons some of 1's major plot points and umm.. goes with the less desirable ending for 1.  Although you won't get some of the emotional impact and significance of some of the plot points if you don't finish the first.  And.. 1 is a really good game.  Better than FF7 IMO, although most will probably disagree with me there.

3 is completely skippable.  I'm near finished with it and can't be bothered to.  It's like a parody of the entire series.

No disagreement here.  While part of it could be attributed to advances in tech and all that allowing more to be done, Shadow Hearts 2 is just leaps and bounds beyond most other stuff out there, old and new.  Playing it's made it harder to slog through the more standard fare, really.  I hope SH 4, if/when we get one, is more along the lines of it rather than 3. 

We're not going to get SH4.

Long and short of it:

Basically Aruze acquired Sacnoth from SNK. Changed it to Nautilius - an internal studio, and promptly killed it when Sakaguchi split from Square to go work with him. But given the amount of talent and genius there, I highly doubt they'll be making games for Sakaguchi much longer as their fanbase is almost ASSUREDLY on the DS, PSP, Wii, and PS3. Basically every system that ISN'T the 360. That said, I don't know how firm a grip Sakaguchi has on them.

 In fact, making an RPG on the 360 is practically a license to fail. Don't ask me how that happened. I don't have an answer for you, but man, do RPGs lose any heart they have once they hit that system. Which I suppose might be developer sabotage, even Eternal Sonata came out for the 360 gutted of a main character option and a shitload of story only to be announced later for the PS3 with all of that content.

Edit: Researched a bit more:

feelplus is a Japanese video game developer that was created by Microsoft Game Studios specificially to aid Mistwalker in video game development. It is comprised of former employees of Nautilus. So far they have released one game, with another in development.

That's interesting and really fucking saddening. Like, totally. But I suppose they're guaranteed funding this way.

Edit 2: Wikipedia is wrong. According to the home page, they're owned by AQ Interactive, which also owns Cavia (Bullet Witch) and Artoon (Vampire Rain [total shit] and Blue Dragon [Sakaguchi masturbatory bullshit]). Interestingly enough, AQ Interactive also owns XSeed, a US branch that fancies itself the next Atlus and is made up of a bunch of ex Squeenix US guys.

Well, that sure as hell sucks.  Good to know, though. 

Speaking of RPG/JP stuff on the 360, how was Lost Odyssey, really?

Also, how is the upcoming Atlus stuff on the 360 looking? I played the Operation Darkness demo, and it's balls.

Lost Oddysey was pretty good. It's a railroad fest like 90% of JRPGs. You have pretty much zero freedom until the last disc. But it has an interesting story. That said, there's not much that stands out about it in comparison to Final Fantasy. Good graphics. Good gameplay. A minimum of grinding IMO. Also, save points and no save anywhere option. On a weird note, one of the "hot" female characters has what looks like blue veins in her cleavage. I found it very distracting since her cleavage is very prominent any time she's in a cutscene.

I don't know much about upcoming Atlus stuff on the 360, I'm sure Schild will have some info on that however.

Well, Atlus Japan has very little (nothing?) to do with the 360? Atlus is just localizing some stuff due to the popularity of the 360 in America. As such, if you're looking for a Persona or SMT to show up on the 360 or some Flight Plan game, just keep waiting. You're gonna need to get a PS3.

I got bored with Lost Odyssey on the last disc.  The fights take way too long once you're overpowered and want to be done with them in seconds between loading times and ridiculously long combat animations (thanks, ring system!)

Of course, it might also have something to do with my 360 constantly telling me that my disc is dirty.

After spending a few hours with the original campaign and becoming simultaneously bored/frustrated with Tartarus, I decided to try the new chapter out.  I'm about 2 hours in now and am loving it.  Although I know it's a lot of the same as before, the new story is intriguing and that's keeping me going for now.  But damn if it isn't still a hard game to play.

Warning: The new chapter won't have as much meaning or relevance to you if you don't play the original game to it's conclusion. I find it interesting you got bored with Tarturus but are enjoying the new chapter since it is basically nothing but a Tarturus-like dungeon.

Oh, I played the original already.  It's re-playing it that got boring.  Otherwise I'd be eating it up all over again!

Oh. Ok. :) I replayed the original mostly for the improved bits. Aegis's S-link alone made it worth it for me since it gave me more insight into her.

I'm in the next to last door in the add-on and am enjoying it myself. I think I have one more boss in that door then I'll be on the home sprint for totally finishing the add-on. I think the thing I like the most about this add-on is the insight into the characters you get with each cut-scene.

The thing I dislike the most is how Yukari has come across in some of the conversations.

Oh ok, it isn't just me then. Finished the main part, in about 5 minutes into FES and already sick of her.
The way she says "Let's get this over with" had me looking for the dialog option "We're sorry that the fight for our survival is so inconvenient for you you dumb bitch.  Maybe next time we'll be able to sync it up better with your schedule." Probably for the best this one doesn't have a social link.

I've now finished the Answer. All I'll say is you do find out why she is acting that way towards the end. Alot of fans seem to be split on it. I actually like it and think she's being realistic under the circumstances when you take into account her history and that she's a teenage girl.

I found the ending to be a bittersweet and nice finale.

Is there a walkthough online anywhere for the Answer? My tolerance for S-Link-free fusions and randomly immune bosses is low.

First boss fight = WTF?  What's up with them consistently dodging spells and then raping me?

It's a pain. I managed to finish the whole game with Metis, Yukari, and Mitsuri. If I have any hints it is to take Metis with you for the entire game. In fact, they should have made her a required party member because if not, you can get hardcore screwed at the end of the game.

I made a Surt to get Ragnorak and an Odin to get Thunder Reign and the game got easier. Sadly, alot of the boss fights do come down to luck. Boss dodges the attack he's weak to 4 times in a row? You're dead. If you hit a few times, you probably win. I also found that leveling seems to be more important in the Answer than in the Journey, especially since Fusion spells don't work. I generally leveled until the XPs dropped too much for my tastes, or some of the shadows started running from me when I got close. Then the boss fights were pieces of cake. That said, I was only level 76 when I finished the Answer.

I noticed that on the blue guys in the first fight my fire spells missed less if I went from right to left on them.  Probably just me being superstitious.  I did finally beat them yesterday, though.

Changing the deadline for Elizabeth's requests was a tad evil.  Now I can't cheese them!

Trying to beat the 14th floor boss at level 5 while tired is BLARG!

I thought I'd drop in and point out I've spent like $1k to play this game.  Which is to say, I wouldn't own a PS3 and a 24" WS monitor if not for playing my lil bro's copy.  Because like, fuck it, its so damn shithot awesome.  I'm also going to listen to Schild more often.  I didn't want to post this, but not posting it would be unfair...   I feel bad for FFXII which is what I think I may follow this with...

For real, if you EVER enjoyed a JRPG in your life, even just watching one over a friend's shoulder.  GO BUY THIS NOW.  NOW NOW NOW.

To be fair, FFXII prolly has a better battle system.

But the story, I am told, sucks balls.

That's because FFXII is Star Wars. And Star Wars sucked balls.

The first four or five hours of FFXII are absolutely epic.  And then it gets mundane.

I'm even told the love interest-type storyline simply evaporates.

Idiots; nerds lap that shit up.

Actually, I was kind of glad that they didn't railroad a love story in XII.  It was unnecessary.

Well sure they don't need to railroad it, but it should at least have been an Option. I was sort of interested in the characters. Hearing that the particular arc goes Nowhere after that camp outside the city is mind boggling.