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Persona 3 officially releases tomorrow and as such the reviews are starting to pour in. Here are the ones you can check out so far.

RPGFan - Damian Thomas's review (http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/persona3/index.html) and Ashton Liu's review (http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/persona3/index2.html).

Gamernode - Brian Lindsey's review (http://www.gamernode.com/Reviews/3376-Shin-Megami-Tensei-Persona-3/index.html).

GameAlmighty - Matt Butrovich's review (http://www.gamealmighty.com/game-review/review/Shin_Megami_Tensei_Persona_3_Review/).

Game Informer - Metacritic states GI gave the game an 8.5.

Play - Himuro informs us that Play gave the game a 9.5.


 RPGamer - Michael Beckett’s review (http://www.rpgamer.com/games/persona/persona3/reviews/persona3strev1.html).


I'll add more as time goes on, but for the most part it's safe to just watch Metacritic's page on the game (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps2/persona3?q=persona%203#critics).

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/persona/persona3/reviews/persona3strev1.html

Here's another, bud.

Plus, Play gave it a 9.5

Thanks. When I went to RPGamer it wasn't up yet. I think I'll just edit in the main post.

http://ps2.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r29763.htm

Pretty horrible review. It glazes with incoherency.

"If you break it down, the system isn’t much more than a name and/or aesthetic change from other RPGs that offer monster summoning and merging."

Can anyone point me to any other rpg series that lets you summon demons or fuse them together?

" Persona 3’s music is pleasurable, but the voice acting is this game’s best feature. The dialogue is entertaining and believable – you’ll begin to care about these characters within the first hour"

The voice acting is the game's best feature?

Another review:

http://www.f13.net/index.php?itemid=578#more

The voice acting for some of the main characters is admittedly very believable, particularly because it would have been easy to find people who just sounded too old. Some of it was offputting to me at first, such as Mitsuro, but you soon get used to it and it fits their personalities... I'm still not sure about Ikutsuki. But best feature, I don't know.

I think the main oddity of the battle system discussion in the GZ review is that there's no discussion of the press turn system even existing in the game at all. That alone separates it from FF and DQ, which he brings up in the review.

He doesn't seem to be fond of rpgs to begin with.

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3149975

The EGM Reviews Podcast talks about Persona 3 and it sounds like the people at EGM really liked it (you'll have to fast forward to around 36 mins to listen to that part), it's a pretty funny podcast.

http://www.honestgamers.com/systems/content.php?review_id=6020&platform=PlayStation+2&abr=PS2&gametitle=Shin+Megami+Tensei%3A+Persona+3

Here's another one, people. A solid 9.0! :xd:

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/persona3/review.html?tag=tabs;reviews

Gamespot review

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/807/807769p1.html

IGN review

Whoa! HOT!! Some might say these are the most important of all reviews. And I think the game did very well.

I'm kind of glad to see some mentions of the loading times. They're not long, but they're incredibly frequent and sometimes for the smallest of things. It's unusual given the almost non-existent loading in SMT:N and DDS.

I'm can kind of understand IGN's spell confusion too. You really kind of need to get used to the series before Bufu just means "ice". It is weird that the Persona status screens don't give you this information... but it is actually very clear about what spells they will learn next, at least in earlier levels (it basically says the level and spell you'll learn on the side).

With Fusion the problem is, really, that a good portion of it is random. There are rules to it -- for example, healing based Persona cannot learn physical attacks (all of this is explained at the Velvet Room) -- and you can kind of work all of these together to figure out what might be carried over. I don't think it's that bad, myself.

I'm hoping that the strategy guide explains all of that, I didn't get so many good persona's in my playthrough for now, lol.

I personally lost a lot of trust for reviews. I'm going to rent it (If I can) and try it for myself.

I think the only way you'll be able to rent it is if you have Gamefly... I can't even remember the last time I saw an Atlus game elsewhere to rent. Probably because it's never happened lol.

I don't really understand a lot of it sometimes. Most of the time you can't even buy these games at even Best Buy... although it looks like they'll have Persona 3.

Yeah, with what I'm seeing, I think I'll go and get it.

You're right, I've never seen any SMTs at Blockbuster before. Even if Best Buy gets it, it'll probably be a small amount, so I'm going with Gamestop. Although I really wanted to try Persona 1 and 2 first and see how those were.

I love how 1 is going for 100 dollars on ebay:P.

Persona 3 got 8.5, 9.5, and 9.5 and ended up with game of the month in the latest EGM

I guess there's hope for FES after all

I hope so, too!

Apparently it got a 9.0 and game of the month in PSM as well.

It's getting a lot of attention, some people I know are getting this game because of all these reviews.

That is really good to hear,these good reviews are really helping P3 out.

It's too bad they don't help it to come out sonner. ;P

Heh,no kidding.

Here's the first bad P3 review by Tom Chick.

http://www.quartertothree.com/inhouse/news/340/

"If there’s one thing I’ve had my fill of more than healing potions, it’s a “Game Over” screen that sends me back to my last save."

This a horrible complaint.

"But Persona 3 is far too typical a JRPG to hold my interest. Which I grant says more about me than Persona 3. "

Someone please tell me of a jrpg released in America that is anything like P3?

"Which brings me to the combat system. It’s entirely typical of a JRPG. I match attack types against vulnerability types to do extra damage. How long I last in a dungeon is mainly a function of how quickly characters get tired"

Please tell me of other jrpgs where your characters eventually get tired, causing them to take more damage after a period of time, Mr. Chick. Contradiction.

"a contrived time limit that will drag out the dungeon crawling over the course of the game"

Importers and reviewers say that party members get less tired the stronger they get. Good job at playing it for 5 hours.

"I have no idea which I’m supposed to choose. None of those is a strong choice, or even a particularly informative choice. They don’t indicate any sort of character or personality. Bioware, for instance, would split the answers between the obvious good, neutral, and puppy-kicking replies. But in Persona 3, I can’t see the pattern."

And this is a bad thing? One of the worst things about Bioware games is that the choices are so black and white and predictable.

none of his complaints bother me, lack of save points in the dungeon? that dude would've gone crazy playing Nocturne.

I can basically respond to all of these lol.

By the way, the title of his review is "The First and Last Five Hours of Persona 3".

Some might take this as him meaning the actual last five hours of the game, but it's clear he means he played five hours and was sick of it.

Thus this isn't so much a review as complain fest by someone who invested no time into the game. I think this is fair in a way. Not every one is going to like it... but at the same time, I wonder why any site would publish something to this effect and want to be taken seriously.

Play Easy mode.
In some ways it is a typical JRPG, but it makes me wonder why this guy of all people was given the game to review in the first place. It arguably does more different things than any recent JRPG of note, however.

Instantly gives the impression that he was looking to complain about this game before he played it, in my opinion.

It's true that this is how the battle system works, but at their heart, every game is based upon this. Taking advantage of weaknesses is a basic component of any game with an adversary. I can play a FPS and some guns work better than others. I mean, what is really the point here? This is no less true of RPGs not from Japan.

I think his comment of being tired doesn't matter until this next comment.

You get tired fast at first. This was something I was concerned about for the first few hours, but not later on. Even like 7 to 10 hours in, I have never really had a problem getting tired in a dungeon at all. If I do it's probably well after I've completed my main goals. He wouldn't know this. He played 5 hours total.

I get the impression that this reviewer simply didn't know how to balance these things out. Every thing you do over the course of the day can make you tired. If you're bloating out the day with strenuous activities, not making sure to rest when you do feel poorly and study at night instead... you're going to get screwed in the dungeons.

If this is something that significantly bothers you after several hours in I would really suggest altering how you treat your character. I mean, seriously, I've barely taken this into consideration since after the first few hours. The stronger you get, the longer you last it seems. And it's a significant increase pretty fast.

Combining these two "tired" comments with his seemingly general disdain for JRPGs, but are mostly fended off by him playing five hours of it total.

In some ways I can understand this. There are times when you will not be sure of which of the things to say is positive and some responses do seem very general... but at the same time, it's not really an issue because these characters don't all want to hear what might be construed as the most positive thing.

If you spend any time at all reading what they say, understanding their basic personalities and seeing their reactions to things you've said previously you will quickly figure out what is likely the best things to say to them in any given situation.

For example, there's a guy on the sports team who likes to put up a tough front. Even after one conversation you'll notice he doesn't like sappy responses. Choices are always followed with a "___ seems embarrassed, or ____ seems disappointed" or "____ seems reassured".

So, in this case, it becomes clear that you might tell him to "Suck it up" if he is moaning or that he can use your shoulder if he's too hurt to walk as opposed to you literally trying to pick him up.

I really don't think this is a concern if you bother to read into it. If you read his whole "review", his point comes off more valid that it does by random quotes... but even still. His one example is not enough to properly gauge the character and there are situations where none of the choices is more beneficial than the other whatsoever.

Admittedly your choices are never that complex, which I'm thinking is more of his complaint than anything else. I think that is a fair one.

Again, I think the guy went into this with a bias, felt it was validated by his limited time with it and complained about the game so he could move on to the next thing. This is more of an impressions article than anything else.

Sounds good, Tony. How far in are you?

I'd probably say 18 to 20 hours. Working at home has its benefits.

Also, I edited in the fact that this "review" is more a hands on of the five hours the guy wanted to put into it before he gave up on it entirely. :xd:

Heh, it sounds like the game kicked his @$$.

that's pretty cool

1. Do you want to be a good guy!
2. Do you want to be a bad guy!

I really hate it when choices end up being like that. Thanks for the little example Tony, really makes me want to play the game that much more!

Hmm... Where have I seen this post before?

I'd say he had no right to write a review when playing only 5 hours. That's like reading the first chapter of Harry Potter and saying the series is crap. Ranting is fine, but calling it a review is sort of sad.

Well, admittedly, it's only a news post lol.

Yeah, obviously not a review.

If it's not a review really, then I'm fine with it. I just don't like when people write a review about a game they have not even nearly half completed.

And to think that these whole Chick guy got a review copy that's was thrown out by him after 5 hours... It's so unfair... :mad:

Aye...Atlus should have sent that review copy to me. =P

If he is sick and tired of that game..we will surely take it off his hands.

Wow that review sounds stupid.

(It’s entirely typical of a JRPG. I match attack types against vulnerability types to do extra damage)

So the complaint is that the battle system revolves around finding an enemies weakness and exploiting it??!!

Im pretty sure any game boils down to that. If you play a first person shooter and an enemy has a sniper rifle you fight at close range, if you play resident evil you shoot a zombie before its close enough to chew on you.

Useless review copy sent to him. :mad:

http://www.destructoid.com/destructoid-review-shin-megami-tensei-persona-3-38043.phtml

10/10 from both reviewers

I'm hoping I can get the game finished by Tuesday, but I doubt it'll happen. I'm kind of uncomfortable reviewing it before I complete it, but I have to wonder how much could possibly sway my opinion on it after how far I've gotten into it.

I don't have any interest in giving a score, though... but if I had to agree with any one number, I'd probably stick a 9 out there. I really have enjoyed it.

WHAT? Over already? Wow does the game is short or what? Man I always want my games to be as much long as it can.

I might have rushed through it.  Not doing most of the sidequest.

The  Chick guy seems like he has a bias against all Japanese rpgs so his opinion is invalid to me. Glad P3 got two other flawless recommendations however!

I work at home, so I can kind of play the game whenever I want. Trust me, I've put a LOT of time into it. It's easily a 70 hour plus game.

If it's a 70 hour + game I'll be grinding at it awhile. I understand how people that work out of home can beat it over a time span of fewer days.  What I don't understand are "rpg rush nuts". People that say they beat Digital Devil 2 in 28 hours or  Shadow hearts Covenant at around 30 hours. If you level up and do all the side quests in Covenant it is easily a 80-100 hour game. I hate to  sound like  an old foogey but what happened to stop and smell the roses?

Well, DDS2, for example, didn't exactly have a ton of side quests to do. I did all of the extra battles and I think it still only took me 35 hours. I could have spent more time leveling up Mantras and such, but when you've finished every thing off it doesn't seem all that important. Some people are just faster, I guess, and others I imagine just aren't interested in much beyond the main story... which I think is understandable. There are definitely games I'm kind of just done with by that point lol.

I've been doing all of the quests as they come up in Persona 3. They're usually well separated (and even then, most just involve finding an item or killing something). I've leveled up enough that none of the bosses have really been a problem. So I don't know, I've had the game over 3 weeks now (and other reviewers even longer -- but obviously I can't speak of them), so personally it's not like I'm skipping every thing in the game. I'm just not really playing anything else.

Honestly, even if you really skipped over a lot of stuff, it's still probably in the neighborhood of 70+ hours. I'm sure some will beat it faster, but on average I think it would take people even longer than that... This is just my guess. I've not finished the game, but if an average month takes as long as it has for me so far, multiplying it by the full year puts it up around there somewhere.

It's also a game I'm actually thinking I'll want to play a second time too, which is very rare for me. I don't think anyone is going to be disappointed in terms of length or sheer amount of things to do.

Also, I've resigned myself to the fact that I won't have it finished by the time it comes out to provide any sort of final, definitive review. Even by my estimates, I'd have another 20 to 30+ hours to go just to finish the story without blasting through it and ignoring every thing (I've personally just been playing it like I would if I didn't even run this site, I just enjoy playing it). It's just not humanly possible and unfortunately I won't be around for two weeks or so after that lol.

Still, I think I've answered some good questions about it and helped hype it up some. It's very good and honestly, it's the only RPG in a long time that I've even felt like investing this much time in. So I guess that makes up for the lack of a review so soon. I'll do one eventually.

Actually, come Monday, I'll probably just write something about how I feel about it where I am at the time and then do a final review a bit later on. If you're coming to this site at all, I'm kind of going to assume that I don't need to sit and explain all the elements of the story and such. I'm wanting to stick more with what was done especially well, what sets it apart and how fun it is. I don't think many reviews have gotten the idea of how fun it is or isn't across very well.

You have played the game a long time Tony. I think even though you haven't beat it you still know more about the world then say a guy that plays it 5  hours then posts his review. I wouldn't sweat it too much.

It seems like the game will have alot to do as you say  and even replay factor due to the stipulation you can develop relationships with  other students in unique ways.

This has actually been something that trips me up sometimes. You can't really have simultaneous "intimate" relationships with more than one girl for obvious reasons. I'm still not really sure who to stick with lol.

I thought the fencer girl seemed intriguing but the girl with the pink sweater (Yuka-Tan?) seems a bit snobby. I don't think she's a bad person par se, just not that girl you'd want to be around for fun or exploring open minded possibilities with. However since all I've seen are trailers and very brief character bios I'm unsure who I'll pursue and can't make a final judgement.

I do think it would be funny if you could indeed be a "male-slut" but as a result suffered the consequences of it and got mauled and hung by the flag pole by your under wear by your female compatriots. lol.

Or have two girls that are bi and wouldn't mind being with the main character together at once and with each other at  once! (Waits for the pervert police mental asylum people to take him away.)

Im guessing then Aigis can't be won over then?...blah...
Then again with her out I guess that leave only Mitsuru and Yukari...;-;
So ya....options are few then...=p

Well...in FF your destined to be with one girl...whether you like her or not, heh.

Yuna: Oh Tidus we are destined to be! By the way I've become a pop star music princess like Britney spears!

Tidus: Crap! Why can't I choose Rikku or Lu-Lu?! Well I guess Lu Lu got banged up by Wakka....but Rikku and Payne are still single! I hate you linear plot! You limit my options!

Not that I hate Yuna...just using  a spoof scenario to illustrate my point. lol.

True...I forget that at times....I guess im too used to sandbox games like Metal Saga where your allowed just so much freedom on how you take yourself....Then again the glaring flaw with said games is that a defanete "end" isn't realy possable and people can get lost fast without a clue on what to do next. ^_^;;

You can only go on dates with Aigis and Elizabeth in FES, from what I've heard, Elizabeth's date scenes are quite hilarious.

So you cannot date Yuka Tan? That seems odd. She seemed like the leading female character from all the advertisements and what not. Oh well I guess we're not going to have any steamy developments or quite as many options.  Unless that is you can get romantically involved with the other female characters through other plot devices besides "dating".

Rpgs never seem to address "alternative life styles" or the fact not everyone "dates" as the means to  eventually get intimate.

You can date Yukari.

I'm leaning towards Mitsuru but the few scenes I've seen with Yukari seem like they'd be really hard to want to blow her off.

Hey Guyz! I found something wrong in the persona 3 character section, it might be a great spoiler so... read it at your owns

[SPOILER]In a Character profile it says

Name: Shinjiro Aragaki
Japanese Name: 荒垣真次郎
Persona: N/A

Bio: A 3rd year high school student and an acquaintance of Akihiko Sanada's. He's rough character who tries to maintain a cool attitude, but underneath appears to be kind.. He is unable to use Personae.

Character Voice: Unknown.

but! I really Know Shinjiro has a persona! Because i have the game and i play with Shinjiro! The problem is that i havent read the name sorry![/SPOILER]

I wouldn't go and say that Covenant is 80-100 hours if you do everything. I did do everything and I clocked in about 55 hours, which is decent for me. By everything I don't mean getting every item, or leveling everyone to max, I just did every sidequest, etc.


And time flies by, only 2 days till Persona 3, and I still got DDS 2 in my hands:P.

I have a 170 hour DDS1 file - played it, leveled to the max, did all the sidequests and got all the mantras on my first Cycle, then blasted through the second playthrough, max leveled, beat the Demi Fiend and then went onto a third Cycle to just mess around. I love that game.

Yeah, I often beat Covenant around 55 hours and From The New World around the same.

Awww. No male/male dating? Shucks. I wanted Akihiko :v:

170 hours O_o. I got to level 80(assuming 99 is cap) and almost full mantra (about 4 not finished on each character) and did the sidequests except for the demi-fiend (I played it back to back so I was too tired with it and was excited to go on to DDS2 to see the story out:P) and I still only fully clocked in 70 hours on my new cycle. Even so, I would only get about 90-100 hours if I did level to 99 to beat the demi fiend.

[spoiler]Yeah, I have the information... I'll probably add it today. It is like that mostly because I believe that's what the original Japanese site says. I'd almost rather just put "unknown" or something to avoid that part of the story.[/spoiler]

I'm actually probably going to restructure the entire Persona 3 character section so I can go a lot more indepth. The problem is that whenever I have a page that has something indepth, it's spoilerish... and then I get an e-mail asking me to not do that. I am working out a way around it.

The only  people that would give Persona 3 a low review are people that no longer have nostalgia for rpgs. Looks like its reception has been mostly favorably however. I'm glad about that.