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GF Rating
9
Excellent
132 dark hours
posted by happythug (VANCOUVER, WA) Jul 6, 2008
Member since Oct 2007
3 out of 3 gamers (100%) found this review helpful
Wow, first this is the longest RPG I've ever played.
I've played persona games before, and I have to admit in the past they have been too hard and frustrating, but this one nails it. The different game modes offers a perfect contrast to keep things rolling and rarely do you get bored. When you have to go and be social at school to make better persona's available to you its more fun than it sounds and very rewarding. Battle is often a very intense all or nothing struggle to exploit the enemies weakness. The tension at some points in the game is very high. The difference between a perfect win and agonizing defeat might only be who went first. So its important to catch the enemies off guard. You can do this with consistency because each group of monsters is represented by a shadowy avatar in the game world that you can surprise or be surprised by, it just takes a bit of clever running around and timing to avoid getting surprised, though laziness will still cause it to happen and you might even die!
All the main characters have rich personalities that in general are not totally stereo typical. The complete immersion into japanese culture is a learning experience and actually pretty interesting.
At the end of battle you often get to choose from shuffling cards to win new persona masses of extra experience, items or money. Carefully selecting what card you want is a bit of a mini game in itself and helps keep the pace exciting during long dungeon runs.
FUN FUN FUN, but I will mention my only complaints now.
The Graphics are acceptable, but really not very interesting. The dungeon, while it might have some psychedelic backgrounds that look cool is pretty much a blank empty space where monsters run, not very interesting at all.
Rarely you will end up with too much social networking time and no one to network with so you will just have to sleep through your day.
Bottom line, 132 hours of gaming, 125 of them were fun.
I've played persona games before, and I have to admit in the past they have been too hard and frustrating, but this one nails it. The different game modes offers a perfect contrast to keep things rolling and rarely do you get bored. When you have to go and be social at school to make better persona's available to you its more fun than it sounds and very rewarding. Battle is often a very intense all or nothing struggle to exploit the enemies weakness. The tension at some points in the game is very high. The difference between a perfect win and agonizing defeat might only be who went first. So its important to catch the enemies off guard. You can do this with consistency because each group of monsters is represented by a shadowy avatar in the game world that you can surprise or be surprised by, it just takes a bit of clever running around and timing to avoid getting surprised, though laziness will still cause it to happen and you might even die!
All the main characters have rich personalities that in general are not totally stereo typical. The complete immersion into japanese culture is a learning experience and actually pretty interesting.
At the end of battle you often get to choose from shuffling cards to win new persona masses of extra experience, items or money. Carefully selecting what card you want is a bit of a mini game in itself and helps keep the pace exciting during long dungeon runs.
FUN FUN FUN, but I will mention my only complaints now.
The Graphics are acceptable, but really not very interesting. The dungeon, while it might have some psychedelic backgrounds that look cool is pretty much a blank empty space where monsters run, not very interesting at all.
Rarely you will end up with too much social networking time and no one to network with so you will just have to sleep through your day.
Bottom line, 132 hours of gaming, 125 of them were fun.
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GF Rating
9
Excellent
It's great, but...
posted by Urganite (AKRON, OH) Mar 11, 2008
Member since Sep 2004
11 out of 12 gamers (92%) found this review helpful
A game that deserves much praise for just being what it is, Persona 3 is a game that despite some small shortfalls is so long and well balanced that it really makes you wonder what you're spending your money on with a lot of other games. I won't bore the reader with the high points of the game, I'm just going to go over reasons it didn't get a 10 score.
The tower exploration system which is similar to survival-style games like Gauntlet or Azure Dreams that relies on randomly generated rooms and hallways is a bit more simple than I'm used to seeing from a modern dungeon generator. You'll never notice this or even really care, because you spend almost all of your time in the dungeon either just leveling or finding the stairwell, and less than half the game will end up being played in the dungeon anyway. Fighting can be a bit tedious, especially when the enemy can be defeated at a particular level without taking damage by just autoattacking. Allowing your party to spread out, instead of causing your party to gain experience faster just turns you into a baby sitter. However, watching characters use the evokers is always entertaining on some morbid level.
The graphics outside of combat are pretty good, the tower graphics can be pretty plain after a while, but have their own high points, the music is pretty great, the only thing I can complain about really is the terrible voice acting. I'm getting really tired of playing games with cheesy, uninspired voice acting, it completely destroys the experience.
Other than that, this is an SMT game. Many people won't know what that means, many people will think this is the best game ever. I however think that I've somehow played this game before, only slightly differently, about 5 or 6 times now. I wish there was no tedious battle mechanic to get in the way of the character development. That's seriously how I feel.
The tower exploration system which is similar to survival-style games like Gauntlet or Azure Dreams that relies on randomly generated rooms and hallways is a bit more simple than I'm used to seeing from a modern dungeon generator. You'll never notice this or even really care, because you spend almost all of your time in the dungeon either just leveling or finding the stairwell, and less than half the game will end up being played in the dungeon anyway. Fighting can be a bit tedious, especially when the enemy can be defeated at a particular level without taking damage by just autoattacking. Allowing your party to spread out, instead of causing your party to gain experience faster just turns you into a baby sitter. However, watching characters use the evokers is always entertaining on some morbid level.
The graphics outside of combat are pretty good, the tower graphics can be pretty plain after a while, but have their own high points, the music is pretty great, the only thing I can complain about really is the terrible voice acting. I'm getting really tired of playing games with cheesy, uninspired voice acting, it completely destroys the experience.
Other than that, this is an SMT game. Many people won't know what that means, many people will think this is the best game ever. I however think that I've somehow played this game before, only slightly differently, about 5 or 6 times now. I wish there was no tedious battle mechanic to get in the way of the character development. That's seriously how I feel.
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GF Rating
10
Perfect
need more rpgs like this.
posted by PlayBizzle (SANTA ROSA, CA) May 22, 2009
Member since Jun 2005
1 out of 1 gamers (100%) found this review helpful
I loved this game i bought FES and 4 because of this it took away from me playing ps3 games on my ps3 lol, it is on the longer side but if you like JRPGs this is one of the best. Has a great story, i doesnt really feel like the other SMTs kinda felt like they just put his branding on it so it would sell but they really didnt need to this game was great. worth the rent for sure and in my case its a buyer.
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