The Persona 3 Thread

I finally took the shrink wrap off of Persona 3 Portable today. It's kind of a mixed sensation. Although I waited to join you until after defeating both Devil Survivor games, I want to compare this to the 90 minutes I spent with Persona 2 on the PSP.

Once the player is trusted to actually play the game, some mechanics feel a lot more streamlined than expected. Combat, Personas, and navigation just seem more obvious than when I dipped my toes into Persona 2.

Yet it also felt like a good two hours before the game trusted me to make any decisions. "You decide to..." seemed to show up on every third screen. It could also be that the experience eased me into the rest of the system more quickly, but I was really eager to actually play the game by that point.

I'm enjoying it overall, and have also re-read this thread to learn from everyone else. Thank you for that.

You're not wrong. Persona 3 takes a little bit to get going. Persona 4 is even worse with that.

That's actually one of the complaints I do have with Persona 3 & 4. There is a LOT of just hitting X to further the game along, especially in the beginning. Same thing happens during midterms/finals or special holidays. Luckily the writing is good enough that I'm actually interested in what is going on, but yeah, there are definitely some spots in the game where you're just watching it instead of doing anything.

For my own P3 playthrough, I just got to the 98th floor and have hit another guardian--the three magical magus. That's going to take some doing since I can't seem to do that much damage and those guys pack a hard hit. The problem I'm having is that I kind of dinked around during the summer vacation on S.Links (Max'd Hermit, 9 on Chariot and Hiero) and skills (4 Academics, 5 on Charm/Courage) instead of exploring Tarturus and now I'm worried I'll run out of time before saving a person stuck in the tower.

Also thinking I may have wasted time on getting new S.Links, as the Persona's I'm fusing don't seem to be of any arcana I have So, the next guardian / main boss fight may be a little more interesting than previously thought.

Yeah, it always annoyed me that during exam week the main character is always too focused to do anything else. Seeing those days fly by on the calendar is kind of frustrating. Still, I guess it's the Japanese way.

Yeah convenient there's no full moons during finals.

Stele wrote:

Yeah convenient there's no full moons during finals. ;)

"Sorry I can't take my exam today, I was busy saving everyone here from soul devouring Shadows. Can I make up this one?"

I'm looking to jump in Persona, where is a good starting point. I plan on playing it on my Vita.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

I'm looking to jump in Persona, where is a good starting point. I plan on playing it on my Vita.

Unless you have more free time than there are zeros in a number with a lot of zeros, it might be worth your while to wait for the localisation of the P4 port. Otherwise, Persona 3 is excellent - and I like its atmosphere a little more in some ways -, and the PSP port is apparently superb (in case you've not read any of this thread. At all.)

Pretendbeard wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

I'm looking to jump in Persona, where is a good starting point. I plan on playing it on my Vita.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

I'm looking to jump in Persona, where is a good starting point. I plan on playing it on my Vita.

Unless you have more free time than there are zeros in a number with a lot of zeros, it might be worth your while to wait for the localisation of the P4 port. Otherwise, Persona 3 is excellent - and I like its atmosphere a little more in some ways -, and the PSP port is apparently superb (in case you've not read any of this thread. At all.)

I've heard a lot of people saying that P3 is great. I have no idea if the stories are continuous or completely separate, am I going to not understand somethings if I jump in at 4, should I get 3 to gauge if I would like 4?

Completely separate, minus some fanservice they may have worked in through re-releases.

It probably goes down to this: do you want to pretend you live where I do, or where GT Chris does? :p

Since Golden isn't available yet, Persona 3 Portable would be the perfect starting point. Then look forward to when P4 Golden comes out. Both 3 and 4 are great games.

I decided to get 3. I started as a female (old habits). I named her Koi. I haven't played much, just to the first save point. It reminds me of Katawa Shoujo and I really than enjoyed that.

The female writing felt better to me so probably the right choice. I guess there are some different romances available on the male side if you want to check them out on your second play through.

Well crap. I had designs to finish this game. Moved my saves from my psp to the ps3. Never got around to moving them to my vita. When I turned my ps3 on the other day, got the error that claimed the hard drive was corrupted. Now I've got to decide whether or not I want to start from scratch.

I recommend playing them all, they're all fantastic games. They're also all on sale right now on PSN, ($10 for Persona Portable and P3P, $20 for Persona 2: Innocent Sin), so you can easily get them on your Vita.

I have all three as UMDs and plans to play them in reverse order.

I'm near the end of May right now in P3P. Maybe putting the difficulty to "Easy" was a mistake, but I did want a more relaxing experience. This certainly is something different.

Parts of it remind me of Thousand Arms, which got me hooked on Atlus games so many years ago. I'm glad for that kind of experience, even if it's not really the same thing. I'm just hoping that any social links I miss don't come back to kill me later in the game.

ahrezmendi wrote:

I recommend playing them all, they're all fantastic games.

As true as this may be, I find it hard to recommend that anyone does this unless they're already wholly sold. Yeah, they're great - but they're also monstrously long. Personally, I've been tempted to pick up Persona 3 FES after noticing that it's out there on the PS Store, but I know I'll have had my fill (and then some) by the time P4 Vita is released if I do this, and I'm kind of punching to make an earnest crack at P4 again.

I just killed my first shadow. The setup was pretty intense. I'm loving that I enjoy games like this now. Just a couple years ago I would have never given this game the time of day. In fact, I didn't.

I've gotten to the end of the first block of Tartarus. Does the next block open once I progress through the story or is there something I have to do?

The first block opened for me shortly after a pretty obvious event on a certain date. I'm currently up to the second and waiting for that to open.

It's all story-related. Although it's advisable to get to the top of each block when you can, the next one won't open until

Spoiler:

the next full moon,

and later on it will be two of those before each one opens.

That was the impression I was left with, Minarchist. Thanks.

Once you get to a block is there much reason to go back to Tartarus until it opens?

EverythingsTentative wrote:

Once you get to a block is there much reason to go back to Tartarus until it opens?

If you've already completed Elizabeth's requests, not really. The full moon bosses are designed to be somewhat easier than the floor guardians near the top of whatever block you're on, so if you've made it to a barrier in Tartarus you should be good to go.

Started P3P on my Vita a couple days ago, so I should probably check in to this thread. I liked what I played so far. I basically just got through the introduction and am now at the base of the dark tower thing where the high school is located during non dark hour times. I'll let ya guys know if I run into anything that requires help.

During the first block I was thinking, "This is pretty easy maybe I should have started on a high difficulty level". Then on Block 2 I get put in my place by two

Spoiler:

giant metal men.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

During the first block I was thinking, "This is pretty easy maybe I should have started on a high difficulty level". Then on Block 2 I get put in my place by...

Welcome to Persona, Tentative! You'll get that feeling quite a bit, just remember that Persona is always out to kill you. Always.

I picked up P3:FES on PSN to give it a shot and try something different. It's my first SMT game.

Once it got going, it's pretty enjoyable. The social links are interesting, although I can't help but feel there's something meta about needing to be an absolutely terrible friend to so many people to make your personas stronger. Also, I wish the party AI was better; boss fights are way harder then they need to be because of it.

But at the same, I get to use the bathroom to improve my status. That never gets old!

In Persona 3: Portable you can control your party members I believe.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

In Persona 3: Portable you can control your party members I believe.

Wow, talk about added features

I understand how having uncontrolled party members fits the theme of the game (you're building relationships with dynamic people, not controlling a bunch of automatons) and I like what they were thinking there. But getting into a situation where your PC is stunned and your party can't figure out that a Dis-Poison is better then a light heal or to attack the dangerous enemy rather then the charmed one is just plain frustrating. It's only a real problem on the more challenging boss fights, but still. It's not hard people, figure it out! There are time tested RPG battle mechanics!