"Get back here you son of a b----"
PSN re-release
Game: Persona 3 F.E.S
Developer: Atlus
M.S.R.P: 9.99
Platforms: Ps3
The persona series by Atlus has a massive cult following, they are little known RPG's that often place you in the perspective of a highschooler tasked between balancing school work and fighting demons. This game was originally released for the PS2 and is now available for download on PSN. Is this game worth it's asking price, or is it better left as a forgotten relic?
Story:
Persona 3 begins with you being a teen who has just transferred to a new school. The protagonist is silent in the hopes that you will feel like you are the individual himself. You begin the game by choosing your name and are told you will have one school year to overcome all the obstacles life has for you and to "use your heart as your guide."
The character is put in a dorm with other students who all attend a wealth private boarding school. All goes well until one night a dormmate kicks open your door at midnight and asks you to come with her, because your dorm is under attack. The two of you escape to the rooftop where you are attacked by creatures called shadows. The dormmate helping you, pulls out a gun and points it to her head and screams out, "Persona" but nothing happens. She becomes disarmed and so you take the gun and try it yourself, causing a god to appear before you and fight with you. Later that night your fellow dorm mates reveal to you that you were chosen for this dorm because you have the ability to summon these gods, these other forms of yourself called "Personas" and that they all have that ability and would like you to fight with them.
Every night at midnight there is a hidden hour that occurs where these demons appear and only those with the power of persona are awake to fight them. On top of that every night a giant tower appears in the middle of town, and they believe the answers for why the shadows and the secret hours appear must be at the top. You decide to help them climb this tower, balancing school and a social life as well to put an end to all this once and for all.
Interesting story huh?
Grade: B+
Gameplay:
The game is a simple RPG with a social simulation aspect involved. At night, if you so choose you can climb the tower known as "Tartarus" to fight enemies and become stronger. During the day you attend class, hang out with friends, do homework or hang around town. Ya know, typical highschooler stuff.
This all takes place in the course of the year in game time and a day usually consists of going to school then doing at least two activities of your choice. So essentially you go to school, then hang out with people then go to "Tartarus", or go to school, spend time at an arcade then go home and study. When fighting the game is a turn based rpg, you and your dormmates make up your "party" (the groups of individuals who will fight with you every night). You can only control the main character in combat and the rest of your party is controlled by the games computer.
Your party members don't always make the smartest moves in battle but they are reliable enough and if you want them to focus on something especially (I.e; healing) you can command them to be the healer for most of the battle. Every turn you can only make one move but if you make a move that exploits an enemies weakness (i.e hitting a tree enemy with a fire attack) then your characters can do something called "AN ALL OUT ATTACK" where your party throws taking turns to the wind and bum rushes the enemy doing extra damage and not costing a turn.
Aside from that the game is essentially just walking around and talking to people. The better friendships you get the stronger you are in battle, and you can even date some of the people you are closest to. It becomes a weird cross between an rpg and a social sim and it really makes the highschool experience seem a lot more fun than it is in reality?
Did I also mention you take midterms???
Grade: B+
Graphics and Sound
Being a port of a PS2 game the graphics are a bit outdated. The game is mostly cell shaded but even so, its art style shows its age horribly. There is a lot of hand drawn art in the game as well however, like when people talk / descriptions of personas and they still look amazing.
The music in the game can be catchy especially the battle music. All the tracks are memorable and given that this is a game from way way back and the tracks still got stuck in my head from time to time, thats saying something.
Grade: B
Verdict:
I say get this game because you will never play anything like it. The dialogue is believable and witty and you will find yourself caring and falling in love with the characters in this world. It is blaintantly apparent the developers spent alot of time making this game and it shows, this is definetely something to pick up. This version also comes with the add on "The Answer" which takes place a few months after the end of the game adding another 20 hours to gameplay. All this for such a meager price should not be passed up.
Final Grade: B+
Is it worth your money: Yes, for 9.99 it's a steal.
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