Reviews > Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
(PS2) 8.5
July 24, 2007
I first spotted this game in a preview in the Japanese game magazine Famitsu, way back in November 2006, and it was looking awesome even then. Sort of a mix of a daily-life simulator for a Japanese high school student and your typical Japanese RPG, Persona 3 makes it all work together seamlessly in one ultra-stylish visual and musical package, woven together by a story that's pretty damn captivating. Not to mention the fact that most of your attacks involve shooting yourself in the head with a psychic "Evoker" gun.
The life simulation aspects of Persona 3 have you going to class, studying, joining your classmates in after-school activities, and, ultimately, making friends. This is where Persona 3 can teach us all some lessons on life, as each friend you make and relationship you strengthen unleashes a greater degree of psychic power for your personas in the RPG aspects of the game. Soon you too can become a ruthless social climber. Persona 3 can get a little bit absurd here, as the unfolding character revelations of your friends are accompanied by voices in your head, telling you of your growing strength within a given Arcana of the Tarot. One time, I let a little girl drink some of my soda and was struck by a semi-psychotic episode that gave me a little bit of info about the Hanged Man and the power of self-sacrifice. Making friends is pretty entertaining.
Similar to many Japanese comics and cartoons, concurrent to the high school drama, you and your friends engage in clandestine activities at night, battling against shadowy forces that threaten the world. Atlus Software has managed to put together a story full of enough mysterious and just plain cool elements to keep you interested the entire way through.
The combat in the RPG portion of the game is well-constructed and manages not to become too dull or repetitive. You can see enemies before the actual battles and avoid them or hunt them down if that's your inclination. Throughout the battle, you and your team members summon your Persona's to blast enemies with elemental or physical damage. You are only directly in charge of your own character, issuing general tactical commands to the others, but, in many cases, they will handle the battle quite well on their own. If you've already determined an enemy's weakness, they will exploit it without any guidance, and will avoid using ineffective attacks once they've figured them out.
Day after day, Persona 3 has you going to school, meeting people, developing your skills in the areas of charm, academics, and courage, and saving the world at night. It gets to be an interesting balancing act, with no one aspect figuring so strongly that you get sick of it. What's more, if you take away some of the more over-the-top aspects of the story, Persona 3 actually gives you a pretty decent depiction of what high school is like in Japan. In the final estimation, this is last generation software for the PS2 that really manages to show the entirety of the system's potential. A great game.
Visuals – 8
Audio – 9
Control - 9
Story – 9.5
Fun – 8.5
Value – 7.5
Style – 9.5
Overall: 8.5 (Great)
*Brian Schulman - Associate Editor, GameWad.com
SECOND OPINION: *Eddie R Inzauto - Senior Editor, GameWad.com
From the moment I booted up Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, I was drawn in. The visual style is crisp and unique - one of those clean looking games that you know has it's stuff together. Then came the audio. The game features a variety of music. including classical, techno, and even hip-hop recorded over top of jazz. It all sounds great and somehow fits the game. The entire presentation makes the game a pleasure to play.
Then there is the story. So each day has an extra hour when people transmogrify into coffins? And during that time strange "Shadows" lurk all over the place while a few gifted, demon-spirit-summoning high school kids go crawling through a tower to hunt them down in order to uncover the secrets behind the dark hour, the coffins, and all the other freaky stuff going down? Sign me up!
Even the combat system is well-designed and fully realized. There are no random encounters, party members act for themselves (and do so intelligently), there is a wide variety of skills and summons at your disposal, the AI is smart, etc. The main problems with Persona 3's gameplay comes from equipment management.
Lastly, there is the school portion of the game. Building relationships in Persona 3 is not like a dating sim, as one might think before getting to know the game. You can form and strengthen relationships with anyone, and you earn the ability to summon new Personas based on your social graces. I know it sounds awkward, but it somehow fits.
Then of course there's the fact that taking a dump makes you character feel "great." Win.
Overall: 8.4 (Great)
