Customer Reviews:
 Fun at first... September 5, 2010
Stella
The game is definitely unique for its genre. And I enjoyed it at first, but gets monotonous fast.
 Great Game August 29, 2010
MuddyDonut
This game is very unique with its system, battle is a little bit dull but boss battles are great! Great game overall and well worth buying.
This game sits with my FFX August 15, 2010
Amanda Frazzini
You play an orphaned boy, transferring schools. You actually go to school, learn, join after school activities, make friends and lovers (!) All while killing shadows at midnight, using your persona. You develop your relationships as well as fighting skills to level up. Interesting story, credible characters and interactions. Love this game ; )
Amazing game ! July 19, 2010
Arafinwe Ingalaure (Tirion upon Tuna)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Hello, if you are already a fan of the Shin Megami Tensei : Persona series, I have nothing else to add to what you already know. For those who do not know the series, you will hardly find a game with that much content and that is spent over 70 hours of gameplay for the main quest an an other 35 hours for the epilogue. Persona 3 is a great Japanese RPG set in modern Japan. Each day, between 11:59.59 PM and 12:00.00 AM exist the Dark Hour, one hour were all ordinary people turn into coffin. The unlucky one can be attacked by the "shadows" some creatures created from the darkest thought on living beeing, those who feeds on the people's conciousness and left them apathic. But some persons found a way to fight the shadows. Evoking their inner strenght, they draw from their "persona" a manifestation from their personalities. You play a tranfer student to a new High-school who recieved the gift of using many personas. With some of his student friends he must discover a way to get rid of the Dark Hour and the gloomy tower of Tartarus. The game play is divided in two, on the first one, you must live the life of a japanese high-school student and find a ways to establish social links (relationship with friends adults or girlfriends). You have a limited time that help you raise your character's stats such academic, charm and courage, those skills enables you to creat new social links. The social links are giving you experience points when you fuse personas. This help enhancing your persona quicker then by fighting monsters in the second part of the game, which are dungeons. Most dungeons are in a tower called Tartarus, all dungeon are randomly generated and are quite basic. But the combat system is really fun to play. It's turn base, each character has their own weaknesses that help you beat faster (but so do you and your allies) knock down all your nennemies and you can do an all-out attack which create a lots of damage. The system is not hard to understand and is very fun. Thought dubngeons can be quite repetitiv until you reacdh then end, it's the story that drivers you untikl the end. It's really one of the best RPG I have ever played. I did more then 80 hours for my first playthrought and I don't regret it.
Crawling through dungeons in high school May 8, 2010
lain4ever (Los Angeles, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Persona 3 FES" soups up science fiction with high school life in one of the most addicting RPGs ever made.
For a game, "Persona 3" is hardly the usual role-playing routine. Players take control of a high school boy who must balance his high school life with his other job as a shadow hunter. Unlike other RPGs, you actually "live" out your life in school by making decisions, studying for tests and socializing with other characters.
At first, it seems like a joke. You shop for weapons at the police department and healing items at the pharmacy. You can play arcade games in the mall to increase your charm and courage meters. However, this simulation is exactly what makes "Persona 3" an epic experience based on the pressure of high school life. Your social relationships actually build the power of the Personas, the guardian spirits you summon in battle.
This also ties in seamlessly with the dark, animated sequences in the game. You plays as a teenage boy who sees floating coffins on the way to his dorm. When he first arrives, a frightening girl reaches for a pistol. After a few days, black spider-like monsters attack his dorm.
However, he learns how to defend himself with a sword and a special pistol called an Evoker. By shooting himself in the head with the Evoker, he releases a Persona to defend himself from enemies. He learns from his roommates that he was chosen to lead them to explore a dungeon in an alternate world, known as Tartarus.
Anyone would get disturbed from watching these kids shoot themselves in the head so many times. Fortunately, most gamers will accept the gun-to-the-head visual as a gimmick to make the game look grim and dark. The motion is solely to summon monsters out of the person's head, like a spiritual device.
The fighting system is surprisingly simple and easy to learn. Players will choose the actions for their main character in a turn-based game, where players can easily see the order in which monsters will attack. The game visuals might bore gamers with randomly-generated dungeons that feature the same dull environments that appear on each section of Tartarus. The dungeon music also can grate on people's nerves, with a lame soundtrack consisting of piano chords and Halloween drum machines. Even the different music tracks loop repetitiously.
In spite of these flaws, the game is a surprisingly deep experience, focusing more on the characters' life outside of dungeon-crawling. By socializing with other classmates and friends, the main character can "max out" their social links so that they can summon the most powerful Personas in the game.
The FES edition adds even more features. Players can fulfill tasks given to them by Elizabeth, one of the supporting characters in the game. Elizabeth will reward players with extra items, including the special suit items that change their character's appearance in battle and inside the dungeon. Experts of "Persona 3" can also challenge themselves with the hard mode, or they can play the new chapter, "The Answer," after beating the main game.
This is one of the best JRPGs of the decade. It literally reaches above and beyond the limitations of the "Final Fantasy" games with a high school environment and an eclectic blend of anime and J-pop. The game is hard to find nowadays, but it's still worth every penny.
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