Persona 3 - is it right for me?

[heybtbm]

This coming from the guy that didn't read carefully enough to get the title of the game right. :P It's FES, not "Fez". Sorry, I just had to poke fun, heh.

It was a typo...relax. Here's some more fez love...

[sirhansirhan]

So, it looks like no one is releasing a FES-specific strategy guide, then, huh? I can't find a mention of one anywhere. I guess I should pick up a guide to the original, then, while they're still around...

[Nate Nanjo]

I should add that for the people that have played Persona 3 already, their save file will carry over to the Fez edition. You won't have to play the game twice to get all of the new content.
.

To add to this, not much is carried over.

You get your Academic, Charm, and Courage stats (this is quite possibly the best carry over), any Social Link items (from maxing it out), persona listed in compendium(with base stats), and any fusion spells.

Meaning I had to restart at level one, I was pissed at first, but at least it allows me to use any persona from the compendium regardless of level. Although they don't have great skills.

[heybtbm]

I picked up P3: Fes Edition on Thursday. With the impending release of GTA4, I'm not even going to attempt to start a 100+ hour RPG. It's next on my list though. I figured it was best to buy it now instead of possibly looking everywhere for it in a month or two.

[G-Boobie]

It's quite possibly the best re-release I've ever played.

Can I gush all fanboy for a second here?... I loves me some Megaten.

That is all. Thank you.

[mailman187666]

I never finished the original Persona 3 so I decided to just start all over and bring in some of my save data from the original edition. At least I can skip through a bunch of crap that I didn't really need to read all over again. Definately worth the 30 bucks, I want to finish the Journey before I start the Epilouge version of the game. I wonder if I'll ever get around to that knowing that GTA4 is going to be my new 'crack'.

[boatofcar]

I'm about 10 hours in and I have some questions. Can anybody help me out with some (spoiler-free) questions?

Do I have to have a Persona "equipped" for it to level up?

When you split up your party, do you (and by extent, your Persona) gain experience points when your other party members win battles?

How can I figure out what weapons/armor/accessories can be equipped to each party member before I buy?

Sometimes I can't see the Persona cards clearly and end up picking one I already have. Is there any way to see the names of the cards before you flip them over?

I'm not seeing the advantage in fusing Personas. It seems really complicated, and sometimes I end up with one that has neither power of the ones before it, rendering it useless to me. I tried reading the manual but I'm still not getting it. Am I just slow?

[G-Boobie]

I haven't played Persona 3 since last year(other than a few hours of FES), but I'll try and answer your questions, sir.

I'm about 10 hours in and I have some questions. Can anybody help me out with some (spoiler-free) questions?

Do I have to have a Persona "equipped" for it to level up?

Yessir.

When you split up your party, do you (and by extent, your Persona) gain experience points when your other party members win battles?

... You know, I don't know. Which is weird. I assume though that you do.

How can I figure out what weapons/armor/accessories can be equipped to each party member before I buy?

If memory serves, each character has a weapon they prefer. Junpei and the main character use swords, Yukari uses a bow, etc. etc. As for armor and accessories, I seem to remember that armor is divided into boy/girl sets, and anyone can use any accessory(though that could be Persona 4 clouding my memory...)

Sometimes I can't see the Persona cards clearly and end up picking one I already have. Is there any way to see the names of the cards before you flip them over?

No: you should be going by how they look. After a while you'll know what the cards are on sight and will avoid picking one you already have.

I'm not seeing the advantage in fusing Personas. It seems really complicated, and sometimes I end up with one that has neither power of the ones before it, rendering it useless to me. I tried reading the manual but I'm still not getting it. Am I just slow?

Oh boy... You aren't slow, and yes it's massively complicated, and even though I beat the original release, there are parts of Persona fusion that I still don't get. It's less irritating that it was in Nocturne, but it's still a bitch.

The gist of combat in Persona is that it's entirely dependent on the elements. The most efficient way to win battles and advance quickly is by exploiting elemental weaknesses in enemies. Moreover, the only way to defeat most bosses is by figuring out their elemental strengths and/or weaknesses and tailoring your Personas accordingly.

Let's say you have two Personas: one attuned to lightning and weak against wind, and one attuned to fire and weak against ice. You fight a boss who stomps on your head like a riot cop because he uses both ice and wind attacks. That means that every time he hits you with an ice or wind attack, he gets another turn... Which he'll generally use to hit you with yet another ice or wind attack. That's no way to succeed. So you'd fuse the two, creating a new Persona that might not have those weaknesses. If those two hypothetical Persona don't fuse into something helpful, there's always the next Shuffle Time.

Persona's also level very very slowly compared to the hero, so the only efficient way to have Personas at a comparable level with your character is through fusion.

... It gets more complicated. Seriously.

The four things to consider when fusing Persona are:

1) Their Tarot affiliation. The social links you create with students and other folk directly affect how strong a fused Persona will be. If you have five ranks in, let's say, the Hermit social link, you can make far more useful Personas of the Hermit Tarot.

A bit of advice: max out your Fool social link. Trust me.

2) The phase of the moon. You get better results if the moon is either full, new, or half. Not always... But usually. I'm sure there's some arcane algorithm that explains how the moon works, but I didn't bother learning it and I had no troubles.

3) The Persona's level. The higher the level of a Persona being fused, the higher the level of any Persona created.

4) How many Persona you're fusing. If memory serves, and Persona 4 isn't clouding my memory, you can eventually fuse more than two Persona into a new Persona. These Persona are almost always more powerful and useful than a Persona created with just two.

A few other things to remember:

1) Always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS remember to register new Persona's in the compendium. That way, you can use a useful Persona in a necessary fusion and still have that Persona in your inventory(for a price, of course. Higher level Persona's are pretty expensive to recall, but sometimes it's worth it).

2) Don't be afraid to experiment. Unlike most RPG's, every section of Tartarus is it's own little 'elemental ecosystem': there is no one Persona(and by extension, single spells or combinations of spells) that will carry you all the way through the game. Don't be afraid to fuse a useful Persona to try out new abilities and techniques for a new section of dungeon. Finding the right combination of attack spells, support spells, and buffs/debuffs is both necessary and satisfying. Just remember to register any Persona you intend to fuse.

3) GameFAQs is your friend.

A quick digression: Persona 3 is great and everything, but Persona 4 is FANTASTIC. It cuts a lot of the worst things about 3 out(like getting tired), has a far less insane story, better writing and characters, and is about twenty hours shorter. It's a bit more forgiving, too. If you get tired of 3, give Persona 4 a shot.

[josekortez]

How can I figure out what weapons/armor/accessories can be equipped to each party member before I buy?

I'm not seeing the advantage in fusing Personas. It seems really complicated, and sometimes I end up with one that has neither power of the ones before it, rendering it useless to me. I tried reading the manual but I'm still not getting it. Am I just slow?

I wouldn't worry so much about purchasing the weapons and accessories because many of them, even the more powerful ones, show up in the dungeons when you win battles.

Also, the fusing is complicated as heck without a guidebook or an FAQ to tell you, and it seems to be completely random at times. I wouldn't spend as much time fusing early on, but it seems to help a lot more later on. Right now, I'm about 65 or so floors into the tower, and the levelled up Personas help.

I have two separate sets of Persona 3 save data on two different memory cards just so I can experiment with fusing. I even screwed around with Orpheus and fused him with something else once. Luckily, I had the previous memory card to go back to when I didn't like it.

[Nate Nanjo]

I'm about 10 hours in and I have some questions. Can anybody help me out with some (spoiler-free) questions?

Do I have to have a Persona "equipped" for it to level up?

There is a skill called Growth and Growth 2 which allow a persona to gain exp while inactive.

[boatofcar]

Thanks for the great responses, guys! Especially G-Boobie, you really helped clear up the questions that I had. You guys rock

[josekortez]

Is this game right for you? I'm not too sure. But, I can tell you right now, Persona 3 is the most insanely weeaboo (Wapanese, Wannabe Japanese, etc.) game ever created by man. The localization, for starters, is decent enough. The game still takes place in Japan (so no sudden switch to AMERIKKKA) and every damn cultural thing about Japan is still there. The way school is on Saturday, the way that there's kendo teams, just everything screams I LOVE JAPAN LOVELOVELOVE.

OK, so that's somewhat of a strike against it. Well, let's talk about some gameplay, OK? You have the option of exploring this HUGE tower every night. However, sometimes you're still tired from the night before, or that dumb healer bitch on your team is too sick to go in (that time of the month?). Well, in these cases, you can sometimes STUDY, or just go to sleep. Which leads to the next topic.

You, school, and schoolgirls.

Personally, this part of the game does not contain enough tentacles, but I suppose AO is a little much for Atlus. Well, school is Monday through Saturday (Wait, they might switch every other Saturday, I didn't play that far yet). Scripted events occur where you answer questions for your idiot companions or join the kendo team, or hit on some sort of Ganguro girl that totally will never, ever, put out. Working with your friends increases your various social links. So, every time you build better friendship, you have voices in your head tell you that you can create better Personas. You know, those demons you shoot yourself in the head for help? Personas. Yep.

Yeah, if you didn't know, your characters have a magic gun that they shoot themselves in the head with so they can summon badass demons. I suppose the whiny looking emo kids go well with this concept.

All right, so after you go to school, and assuming that bitchy healer isn't on her period, you go to Tartarus, the Xbox-sized tower that appears where your school does. This happens during the Dark Hour, which is a magical realm that exists between midnight and 12:01. You fight these shadows in Tartarus, because they eat people. Sort of. Their souls, maybe? I guess shadows just make people apathetic. Seriously, they say on the in-game news that there are EXTREME CASES OF APATHY.

Uh huh.

So, while you explore Tartarus, you see your enemies, and you can strike first (A la Valkyrie Profile) to get the advantage. Combat, unlike everything else in Persona 3, is pretty decent. You only control the main character, although you can give basic commands to your teammates, like "Standby," and "Bitch better be healin'." If you strike an enemy's weakness, you'll get an extra attack. Hitting all of your opponents with their weaknesses will give you the option to do a hilariously cartoony all-out attack. Good stuff, all around.

It's possible to break the system, though. I did. I beat the Floor 10 trio of enemies by telling my fellow attacker to standby, and the healer to heal. Long story short, every turn I attacked all three of the same enemy with the type of attack they were weak against. This knocked each of them into a state where they more or less lose a turn, unless they are attacked. See the broken part, yet? Attack, attack, attack, standby. Friend stands by. Bitch heals if necessary. All three enemies waste a turn getting back up. Rinse and repeat. I hope later enemies aren't this exploitable.

Finally, there's the art style and music. The music sounds good in-game, but horrible when in real life. Nothing against GANGSTA MUZAK, but it doesn't work when mildly browsing the internet. The art is a mix of win and epic fail. The character portraits and artbook are amazingly detailed and expertly crafted, even though Kazuma Kaneko bailed on this game. However, the characters models themselves ARE HORRIBLY SHITTY AND MUDDY AND DISGUSTING. Jesus. The 3D modeling in this game looks like a mixture of barf, shit, and piss. I can barely tell which way my characters are looking sometimes. Man.

Also, my disc seems to skip a lot on the aforementioned GANGSTA song. It's great hearing your PS2 make noises. The disc isn't being scratched, so I either got a faulty disc or my PS2 has AIDS. Front Mission 3 and Silent Hill, along with Gradius V have occasional RRRRRR noises ejecting from the PS2, but nothing like Persona 3. I will further test this out on my friend's multiple PS2's tomorrow.

Well, that's my short and messy review. Take it as you will.

This is the best review of Persona 3 I have ever read.

[Sabz5150]

I dunno Fox. One of my friends imported Persona 3, an he loved it. And he hated Persona 2. I'm getting it because anything with "Shin Megami Tensei" is right for me! I've been sold ever since Nocturne.

It's Pokemon.... for Satan!