YOU WERE LOOKING FOR: Persona 3 Fes The Journey Or The Answer
The enemies dodge A LOT, and many seem to have skills that allow them to dodge their elemental weakness. You will waste so much SP in this game just trying to hit the damn enemies. On top of that, you can be doing everything right, only to get...
Be prepared for a lot of grinding. Most of this bonus mode is spent grinding. You spend an hour or two grinding to be able to fight the next boss, only to realize that you are not strong enough to fight them yet, and need to spend another 2 hours...
So throughout the entire game, you have to stare at a Social Link option that never becomes available, along with quests and the dictionary. Another thing that is kind of lazy is the item store lists the same items as new throughout the entire game. It may be a small thing to many of you out there, but to me it screams laziness. So much of this menu is useless. I really liked the new dungeon tracks and actually enjoyed it much more than the Tartarus music. Oh yeah, I got distracted by just how fucking terrible the rest of the game is and completely forgot to mention the plot.
The story begins about a month after the graduation ceremony in Persona 3, where the silent protagonist suddenly passes away. The group is spending their last evening together in the dorm before it gets closed down. They find this odd because yesterday was actually March 31st. The party blows it off as a mistake by the newscaster and decide to turn in for the evening. Everyone is suddenly awakened when there is a loud noise in the lounge. Aigis defends everyone and during her battle with the being, she awakens to the power of the wild card, the same power the silent protagonist of The Journey had. It also prevents the party from leaving the dorm, so once again, they will need to use their Personas and find the cause of this strange occurrence. The story in The Answer is decent, but definitely not worth the trouble you have to go through to see any of it. Most of what you will see during the adventure are short 5 minute flashbacks, not a great payoff after doing hours upon hours of grinding through battles that rely almost entirely on luck.
The meat of the story happens at the end, but most people will probably get frustrated and shut the game off long before then. That might have been okay if there were Social Links to take part in, but those are not available here. It does make sense from a storyline standpoint, but I really feel that finding a way to add meaningful interactions in between story and combat could have made things much more enjoyable. Overall Persona 3: FES is amazing journey with great story, wonderful character development, top notch voice acting, great music and combat.
Unfortunately, there is no definitive version of Persona 3. Neither one of the PS2 versions lets you directly control your party members during combat. The PSP version gives you total control over your characters during battles, adds a playable female main character, but is missing The Answer bonus content and is also missing the 3D exploration in towns. I scored mine for 15 dollars, brand new. The PSP version, on the other hand has shot up in price recently, with complete copies selling for over 50 bucks. Which version is right for you is something you will have to decide on your own.
The Journey, also known as Episode Yourself in the Japanese version, is an enhanced version of Persona 3. It includes the entire original game, but with several changes: The number of Personas in the game has increased. Secret videos of the protagonist 's dorm mates have been added to flesh them out. Koromaru can now be taken on walks. Several of the Social Links have been modified slightly, such as President Tanaka being available at a different time. Several new Quests have been added. New costumes can be worn in battle. A new event involving Chidori Yoshino was added. Naganaki Shrine was completely overhauled. A hard mode was added. Save data from Persona 3 can be transferred into the game, which includes the Persona Compendium, Social Stats Academics, Courage and Charm , and items received from completing Social Links.
But, I'm wondering if I should bother. Maybe I haven't played far enough admittedly I haven't even hit my 1st save point but the story seems to have derailed and is in real jeopardy of ruining everything I've liked about it. I put over in-game hours into the first part of the game and enjoyed the hell out of the experience. But, it seems that all that work I spent building up my hero level 92 and the members of my crew are for naught.
Aigis is back to level 25, even though she was level 82 when I ended the Journey, and my hero is gone. I did some quick reading I tried to remain spoiler free during my research and it looks like he won't be coming back and no one will get their old skills back. Is that true? At the end of the Journey after the credits rolled the game asked me if I wished to save and I said yes. But why bother if I have to start over again?
I read that there were no social links in the Answer and leveling occurs by just grinding your way through the new dungeons with Aigis as the new main character. Is that true, too? And then I read that all the old characters are moody and not much like their old selves. I tend to believe that might be true if Yukari is any measure. After the first few sentences out of her mouth I wanted to smack her for being such a bitch.
Anyway, if anyone has finished or gone further into the Answer portion of Persona 3 FES, please let me know if playing is worth my time, will it ruin the Journey for me, and does it get any better than the first hour leads me to believe. I have P4, which I may start instead if this bonus tale is a "bogus" tale.
Reviewed in the United States on September 11, STORY- [The Journey] This is the 'main' part of Persona 3, in which you play as a silent protagonist unofficially named Minato Arisato, in case you're interested who has come to the city to attend high school. He is supposed to stay in a dorm with other students, but upon his arrival he experiences a strange phenomenon known as the 'Dark Hour' - a time during which most normal people are put into a comatose state and strange creatures called 'Shadows' roam the streets.
As it turns out, the rest of his dorm mates are all aware of the Dark Hour, and upon learning that the protagonist is also like them, they recruit him into their organization to fight Shadows with them. It takes place slightly after the events of The Journey, and clears up some plot threads and cliff hangers from the last part of the game.
It's rather difficult to describe without spoiling the Journey, so I'll just leave it at that. The story of Persona 3 is quite engaging, although it takes a while to pick up. It has a sort of a mysterious feel to it, since you don't find out exactly what the Shadows are or who the main antagonist is until you're well into the story. There were some parts of P3 that were genuinely sad and upsetting - it did a very good job of making me feel emotionally invested in the plot.
Fights are initiated when the main character touches a Shadow roaming around the field. Striking out with your weapon and hitting the Shadows before they have a chance to attack you will give you the advantage, whereas the opposite is true if you are ambushed. Once you're actually in the battle, it's pretty standard RPG fare.
You can attack, swap Personae, defend, give orders to your teammates, use items: it's all relatively easy to understand. The meat of the battles and most of the fun in them comes from switching out your different Personae and using their abilities as needed. Personae can be fused in a special area called the Velvet Room that can be accessed from the hub. Combining two or more Personae normally produces a stronger one, and there are a huge amount of them that are possible to create. You can also purchase Personae that you have previously owned without having to fuse them again, but the cost will vary depending on its level.
It's entertaining to see what kinds of Persona you can mix together and which abilities will be passed down from its 'parents'. All in all, it's a good system that has worked well in previous games and continues to be entertaining to this day. One thing that's kind of irritating is the fact that you can't directly control the rest of your party members. I have no idea why they decided that it would be a good idea to leave the decision-making up to the CPU while they could have just as easily let the player do it.
For the most part, the AI is actually quite good, but I still would have preferred to give them orders myself. The combat is okay, but it isn't the best or most original system to work with. The 'one more turn' thing can be exploited as soon as you figure out an enemy's weakness, which makes some battles a bit too boring and easy for my liking of course, if you really want a challenge, you could always try playing it on the 'hard' setting. Switching Personae is pretty cool, but all things considered, P3 follows the formula of turn-based combat to the letter. GAMEPLAY- The gameplay of Persona 3 is split up into two basic portions: the daytime segments, in which the hero attends classes at his highschool and interacts with characters; and the nighttime segments, in which you can explore Tartarus and make progress up the tower. Of course, you don't have forever to accomplish this: you have a little less than a year before the end of the game arrives.
A gigantic building with about a billion floors which you have to reach the top of by the end of the game! Sounds sort of like Dark Cloud, except even Dark Cloud didn't take place in one spot for the entire game. You can pick three of your multiple allies to join you in climbing the tower, and then off you go. Every floor of Tartarus is basically just a small maze of corridors in which Shadows muck about. To advance to the next floor, you must find a staircase. The dungeons themselves are nothing to get excited about. They're all randomly generated, and they all look almost exactly the same. These floors are divided even further into 'Blocks'. After each Block, the decoration of the floors will change. It's certainly a relief to see something different once in a while, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still basically the same thing each time. Certain floors have bosses which you need to fight in order to advance up the tower.
Luckily, there are transporters on these floors that will let you return to the main hall and then go back again if you want to. I'll admit, I'm not exactly a fan of dungeon crawlers, but luckily, P3 has other elements to its gameplay besides that one. The level design is certainly a little repetitive, and it can get a bit boring if you insist on carrying on for a while, but the game actually seems to discourage players from trying to grind a lot, and encourages using more time on other activities. It's okay though, because school mostly serves as a stepping stone for forging Social Links.
Social Links are basically different people that you meet throughout the game, and by interacting with them, you level their particular Links up. So why would you want to do that? Because each particular Social Link corresponds to an Arcana, and each Arcana has a set of Personae that belong to that Arcana.
Not a bad deal, right? You can meet different characters by joining clubs, raising different stats or completing specific tasks. Small events will take place every time you level up your Social Links, most of which expand on the character's backstory and personality. You also get opportunities to answer their questions or give them advice, usually by choosing from about three different dialogue options. If you give them an answer they like, their affection for you will go up. In this sense, it's kind of like a dating sim in fact, you can actually get a girlfriend: or multiple girlfriends, if you're into that sort of thing. There are tons of Social Links, and you have a limited number of days to finish them, so it's actually pretty unlikely that you'll be able to max everything on your first playthrough.
It's definitely difficult to juggle Tartarus and the Links, but that's part of the fun, no? The gameplay of P3 is solid. It never got boring for me because there was always something new to do, whether it was raising stats or fighting new bosses in Tartarus or leveling up different Social Links. It's got a good balance of dungeon-crawling and other activities that helps keep it fresh.
They lack some of the bells and whistles of more recent PS2 games, but they are also void of unnecessary clutter and they are still pleasing to the eye. Most of the time, the characters are represented by fairly simple looking 3D models that lack much detail but are passable by most games' standards. The actually character models themselves don't seem to be the focus, though - whenever you strike up a conversation with someone, a sort of static portrait will pop up of the character that is speaking. They usually have a range of emotions and as they speak they'll change their expressions. It's not the most cutting edge game on the PS2, but it's still pretty awesome nonetheless. The characters of P3 are great. The dialogue doesn't feel really forced, and the voice acting work really helps to make the characters more human except maybe in Fuuka's case. The writing also helped tremendously to flesh out your party members. Whoever did the translation for this game should be commended, because none of the lines sound awkward, out of place or poorly switched from Japanese to English.
They're not the 'deepest' characters written, but they are quite impressive by video game standards, and I found myself actually caring about them as the story progressed. The music of P3 is sort of a weird mashup of techno, hip-hop and J-pop. The soundtrack itself is quite good, although your mileage may vary regarding the songs with vocal work in them hellooo, gratuitous Engrish! There are a few really catchy tracks, and the boss themes are intense, so all in all it's above average.
By Jeff Haynes Updated: 12 May am Posted: 22 Apr pm It's pretty rare for PS2 titles to get "director's cut" versions, which is especially true right now with developers moving on to other systems. But it's even more unlikely when that special edition comes out for an RPG that commands a niche audience. When it was released last August, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 combined dungeon crawling, monster collection and dating sim mechanics to make one of the best RPGs of the year. But that wasn't nearly enough for Atlus , who decided to revamp the game in just about every way and make the definitive version of the title with the recently released Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES. The Journey essentially recaps the basic events of Persona 3, including the mysterious Dark Hour that always strikes at midnight. During this weird period, humans are turned into coffins and disturbing creatures named Shadows attack and feed on people.
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