Persona 3

Anyone who knows a few things about me knows that I love anime, music and FPS games. Those are the three things I adore doing the most, think what you will, that’s just how I am. That being said, I haven’t played very many JRPGs in my time. I’ve played some Final Fantasy and Pokémon, but then again, who hasn’t. So it was an odd day when I saw the trailer for Persona 3 and said to myself “Wow, I really want that game”. With anime cut scenes, multiple paths and an in-depth story, I couldn’t resist and bought it the day it was imported to Canada. It was a tad pricey, but I didn’t care, I bought it anyways. I popped it in my PS2, and couldn’t put it down for at least 3 days, playing nonstop. Grinding in the dungeons, leveling up, unlocking more characters and revealing the secrets behind Persona, it was something I wasn’t used to, and I began to like it. It also came with an official soundtrack and art book, which gave me more for my money, since some of the art inside is really well done, although the OST is mainly background music, its pretty good as well.

Yay, Engrish Persona 3 Opening

Persona 3 is of course the 3rd installment in the Persona series, stories of teenagers whom find out they posses powers of Persona, the ability to summon spirits from within themselves, using them to fight off evil. I haven’t played the first and second, but I understand that the plot has nothing to do with the 3rd one, but there are certain things in the first two that help explain the third, but oh well. You take control of a silent protagonist whom you get to name yourself; you’re thrown into his shoes and are forced to find out what’s going on along with him. You find out that there are more people with Persona then just you, in fact there’s a whole dorm full of them at your school, and you have no choice but to work along with them to stop the “Shadows” that are attacking the general public and turning them into mindless shells. You also find out that the very school you attend is the home of all the shadows, and at twelve o’clock sharp, time stops and the school transforms into a giant twisting tower called “Tartarus”, which in Greek mythology is a place under earth, heaven and supposedly a dark abyss used as a dungeon of torment in Hades. You use your handy evoker to make your way through Tartarus, an Evoker is a handy dandy little gun that you shoot yourself in the head with to release your Persona. Makes sense? No, it doesn’t, but who cares, its fun to point the controller at your temple when they do it, or maybe that’s just a sign that they’re doing it way too much and I’m starting to be effected by it. You must climb your way to the top of Tartarus, fighting off shadows and becoming stronger along the way, so that you can defeat the shadow leaders when they attack. The reasons as to why you have Personas, why shadows exist and why your school turns into Tartarus are all mysteries that you must solve as you play through the game, and the deeper you go into Tartarus, the more questions arise.

Welcome To Persona, Grab A Gun and Blow Your Brains Out

Persona 3 was a great deal better in terms of game play and graphics compared to the first two, that much is obvious just from looking at a few screenshots from them, but compared to other RPGs out there it’s not something that will change RPGs forever, but it’s still really fun. Instead of controlling all the characters like in most RPGs, you can only control the main character, and give “orders” to the others. If you don’t give any orders they’ll act on their own, attacking, healing and blocking as they see fit. Personas make the game a lot more fun, every character has his or her own Persona which usually reflects on what kind of person they are. The brute Shinjiro has a Persona with no weakness and massive attack damage, the seemingly cold hearted and perfect Mitsuru has a Persona that uses Ice as its weapon… etc. Yet the main character has the ability to summon multiple Personas. Got into a fight with a fire shadow? Get out Jack Frost and deal weakness damage. This makes the battle take a more strategic turn, especially in boss fights when you’ll need to find out the bosses weakness if you want to defeat it. Another thing about Persona is the voice acting, each major scene has full voice acting, save for the main character, where you just choose what you want to say and the characters react. The voice acting is very good, although its odd hearing American voice actors try and pronounce Japanese names in the right way, or when they randomly start using “Sempai” in an English dubbed game. The characters will also yell out the name of their Personas when they summon them, along with the attack, as well as battle cries and motivational speeches mid-battle, which brings a type of heat to the battle.

Quickly Igor, TO THE LAB!!

The world of Persona 3 is quite large, though it just seems like a small city; there are a lot of people to talk to. See a young girl playing alone at the playground, kidna-… I mean… be her friend, and eventually learn her story of divorcing parents and how she feels as if it’s her fault, you can either console her or ridicule her, it’s your choice, and you can do this with a LOT of characters. Besides that you can also go on dates with female characters in the game (Except Aegis ;_;), you get to learn more about the character as you date them, as well as their preferences, which becomes important in later dates, when they ask for their favorite flower or something. You can date the main characters as well, which proves to be harder then minor characters, but is worth it in the end. Every relationship you get into with characters creates a social link, the higher you get in the social link, the more powerful of a Persona you can summon of that type. Hang out with a dying dude for a long time, and you get max Moon soul link, which means you can summon full power Osiris or something.

Persona is a wide angled game, you can chose whatever you do or don’t want to do, and you can play the entire game and only have to go to Tartarus once, you’ll never beat a boss, but you have that CHOICE. Oddly enough that’s also a major downfall for Persona 3, why go grinding when you can go on a date with Yukari and sing karaoke? Eventually you’ll forget to grind, it’s happened to everyone I know whose played the game and to myself as well. I didn’t grind as much as I should have for an in game month, and was completely screwed when the boss showed up, and ended up stuck, having to load from an old save and start over again. If you’re playing Persona 3, grind, nonstop for like… a week, you NEED to. If you don’t you’ll end up like me, a million days back from where I once was, going through the same situations.

Persona Wallie feat. The Best NonDateable Character In The Game ;_;

Persona 3 is a really good JRPG that allows people to live fake lives like the SIMs but makes it fun, but forgetting that you’re playing to kill monsters will be your downfall. With fun and interesting characters, a good story, amazing animations, cut scenes, voice acting and game play it’s a good JRPG for fans of the genre and anime fans alike. It’s hard to put down and has over 70 hours of game play, so if you do decided to buy it, tell Beverly to cancel all your reservations and appointments, you’ll be gone for a while. Check it out, and remember, no matter how many kids you see shoot themselves in the head, doing it will NOT make you cool.

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