I realized last night that I never got around to completing the boss fight for this game, even though I started it about a year ago. I figured it was worth trying to finish a game I had sunk 90 hours into, right?
The premise of the game is the same as the rest of the Persona series: you and a group of people end up with the ability to summon personae, which are like aspects of ones' personality turned into summons. You are special (for reasons not spoiled here) in that you can use many different types of persona, which forms most of the strategy: being well-equipped with a versatile set of persona is more valuable at times than what equipment you're wearing. These basically act as summon spells, except each persona can have up to eight different moves at a time.
The key feature to the game and most post-PS2 era SMT games is a variant on the Press Turn system, which uses elemental strengths and weaknesses to grant extra turns. For example, if I use Wind magic against an enemy weak to Wind, I knock it down and get another turn right there and then. There are different variations on what does and doesn't work, but that's the basic idea. Since persona can have various movesets, the more versatile each persona has (for example, hybrid ice/wind uses are more effective than one guy with four different flavors of fire moves) the more useful they end up being.
Another feature is persona fusion, wherein you can use two or more persona to make new persona. This is a feature that becomes indispensible during the last sections of the game, as sometimes going nuts with fusions for a little bit can yield better results than grinding specific persona. Furthermore you can inherit skills from the fused persona, meaning you can end up with persona that have abilities they wouldn't naturally learn, which is actually what ended up helping me finish the last boss fight.
Finally there are Social Links, where this game usually ends up having a split in the audience. Persona 3 was the first in the series to add interaction with friends and party members in exchange for a boost in fusion powers. Each persona is grouped into one of the 20 major arcana of tarot, with a respective friend/team member representing an aspect of that tarot. One of the first people you end up teaming with, Yukari, is associated with the Lovers arcana. So by going to the movies with her on a day off, you can level up your Lovers arcana (all the way up to level 10), resulting in boosted experience when you fuse persona of the Lovers arcana. Again, the ability to get multiple free levels out of a fusion could mean the difference between spending your time grinding and spending your time winning.
One major complaint among fans is that some of your contacts are female, so the social aspect of the game at times plays like a dating sim. My defense is it's one way for you to establish relationships with other characters, and the idea of making a main character asexual is something that got thrown out of character-driven RPGs a long, long, long, long time ago. Furthermore, the PSP remake of this game will feature a female protagonist, meaning you can get yo mack on with boys if that sort of thing appeals to you.
The other major complaint of the series is that this is the first and only SMT title where you do not control your party members. You can issue general commands, but otherwise they pick their own moves as based on a pretty sophisticated AI. It isn't perfect in that it's not telepathic, but that's kind of the point: the central theme of the game is friendship and trust, and simply put, being able to fully control your party would take away a part of what makes the game special.
I haven't even discussed the story yet, because I want to leave this as spoiler-free as possible, but the basic idea is this: There is a mysterious 25th hour called the Dark Hour that most people can't see: in fact, most of them temporarily transform into the shape of a coffin. The protagonist and the team of persona users named SEES are the only ones immune to this effect, and therefore are charged with figuring out what the hey is going on. Also there's the weird part about how your high school turns into Tartarus, a 200+ floor tower, aka the game's only dungeon. It may seem tedious, but the game takes place over the course of ten months so you'll have plenty of time to get to the top.
Speaking of which: each significant action takes up a set amount of time, meaning you have to budget between raising your personality stats, raising your Social Links, and crawling through Tartarus.
I have written way too much. Let's go to the summaries:
Gameplay: 5
The intricate balance of plot, combat, and friendship is pitch-perfect and shy of the upgrades to the basic systems Persona 4 brought (and ultimately Persona 3 PSP will bring), I would change nothing.
Story: 4
Again, without revealing too much, the game is far more character-driven than story-driven. What central driving plot there is is told well, and is paced in a way that just makes sense. My only problem is that some choice elements weren't as fleshed out as they could be, though those particular plot points weren't in the first release, and were added in for the FES release.
Graphics: 5
All of the character models are detailed perfectly, the personas all look awesome, the settings and structures are evocative of modern-day Japan, and the cinematic sequences are gorgeous without being too anime.
Sound: 5
This is another point where the crowds are split. The music for the most part ends up sounding like a hip-hop/jazz/pop hybrid with lots of Japanese vocals, which will not appeal to everyone. That there's a large variety of battle music, every setting has its own theme, and all of them are memorable more than counteracts that. The soundtrack is not 100% in that it will appeal to everyone, but that it fits what the game is doing.
Oh yeah, and the sound effects are well-done.
Overall: 5
This game took me almost a year and over 90 hours to complete. The reason for the time gap was that I found the final boss battle too difficult at the time, being as this was my first SMT game. I sat the game down, played Persona 4 and Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor during my break, picked it back up, and messed with some fusions and ground about three or four levels. I ended up beating the final boss on my first go.
This is a game that requires you fight smart, not strong. There will be fights you have to sit back and heal while you let your team do the damage. There will be fights where you switch to one persona for elemental coverage and then only attack physically because it has an ice affinity and won't learn fire moves. You will die repeatedly. Essentially this game is for people who have worn out the X button, and only the X button, on several controllers. This game is for people who would like having a greater influence on major plot points, say who the main character ends up fooling around with or whether you want to be a dick to everyone you see. This game is for people who would like a challenge, both in the game itself and of their own abilities as players.
Beating that final boss after a year and 90 hours is one of the most rewarding experiences of my gaming history, and I can't wait to load up a New Game+ file.
Final Score: 5 (classic)
- E
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