Persona 3 Reviews

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.

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"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."

Play Easy mode.

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

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.

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"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"

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.

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

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.

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"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."

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.