Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES | A great experience for any fan or novice to RPG's

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES | Amazing Dating-Sim Style RPG

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Shin Megami Tensei...

	Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES PlayStation2 \| Atlus, 2008 average customer review:based on 35 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A great experience for any fan or novice to RPG's

I have played through dozens of turn-based RPG's and Persona 3 is one of the best. It's rare for me to finish a game and say, "I'm going to play this again as soon as I can!"

From the first cut scene you'll be hooked asking yourself what is going on? Unlike many games, you have one school year to complete your quest and almost everything you do, takes up time. During the day, you attend school and spend time doing activities; but at night, you journey to a labyrinth called Tartarus to wage war against beings called shadows that feed on human flesh. To assist you in battle, you can summon "personas" that are managed by "social links" which you achieve by establishing and creating friendship bonds with fellow students. As a student, you have to improve abilities like courage, charisma, and even academics to be able to talk to certain individuals. As a warrior, you must find the answer to stop the shadows before life as you know it ceases to exist.

ONE GAME IS NOT ENOUGH IN THIS PACKAGE, there is a second journey called The Answer which picks up where the first one leaves off. It is similar but much harder. It's not as long but it's almost as much fun as the original.

Overall an awesome package at a very low price and a must own for any fan of RPG's.

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Amazing Dating-Sim Style RPG

LOVED:
+ incredible social interactions (picking which girls to date)
+ wide range of demons to summon
+ live day to day student life
+ join after school clubs or sports
+ visit the mall, ramen shop, or bookstore

LOATHED:
- tedious grinding
- almost no replay factor

Definitely buy the FES version. It's everything the original was, plus added content. New personas, extra missions, costumes, and more.

The X-Com of JRPGs?

I can't take JRPGs. Not usually. The big eyes plastered to childish bodies. The lengthy, cryptic, expositions. The cookie-cutter characters. The sick-making adorableness. The endless, pointless, series of soul crushing random encounters...

But I keep trying. I know there must be something I'm missing because I can't get past my personal tastes (as impeccable as they are) as a Western adult PC gamer whose interests run towards Western RPGs when they're not preoccupied with historical simulations and wargames. Heck, it took me a decade to break down and even buy a console but I was ultimately glad for it.

And once again my resolve, or lack thereof, has paid off. Take one part X-Com, the blending of turn-based tactical combat on unpredictable/dangerous terrain with a highly integrated strategic component, and one part Scooby-Doo. That's to my atypical, and slightly disfunctional, brain what Persona 3 FES is.

It's an extended series of adventures for the Scooby Gang, or this Japanese version thereof, as they explore a mysterious world beyond ours by night (the Dark Hour's dungeon crawl) and go to school by day.

The tactical and strategic interplay of Persona 3 FES is fairly deep. It trades X-Com's map movements and military style tactics and UN members needing placating for chosing which friends to make in the Real World and, as you learn about them, empowering those aspects of your own mind related to them called Personas. As other reviewers have noted the whole stable of personas is massive and they're highly customizable using fusions and having other elements in hand, or timing them right, when they're done. The single most important factor in how powerful a given persona will be is driven by social ties.

Now I'm not going to say you don't give up a certain ambience of having your own constructable base, as in X-Com, or the ability to play through the loss of individuals on your team, as in X-Com, or the sheer attraction of commanding an elite squad of commandos.

What you gain are the story oriented interactions of more detailed NPCs and a wealth of little details and a whole setting that changes as time goes on. It's so rich with story elements, most of which are not foisted on you in classic CRPG style, that you will have to replay several times and do different things to even see a fraction of what the daytime world has to offer.

You can find yourself building up personal stats that, in turn, offer you access to different elements of the game. Most commonly these are new NPC Social contacts. who in turn empower the fusing of persona-spirits matching their own Tarot suit. You might find elements that build up a persona's stats (combat oriented compared to your more social oriented stats - they exist in tandem, not overlapping), have totally random effects, offer items to improve social standings with other characters, provide you with new items and much more.

Each of the many NPC Social links has a whole backstory behind it that gets fleshed out as time goes on. Some seem to intersect the main story a bit while others have nothing to do with it.

The strategy of figuring how best to spend your limited time in one day and to take advantage of all that's offered, or even finding it (and in some cases learning schedules for certain events - like what days a week certain films are shown or when the karaoke bar is open) is a big concern.

Driving all of this is the background knowledge of a couple daunting threats that loom on the calendar: The Full Moon will spawn uberbosses you need to defeat to progress. You have to have the strength to handle these things which you gain both by grinding in the dungeon as well as building up social ties to empower your combatant personas. Possibly more scary: Mid-terms and finals!

I'm really not the type who goes for JRPGs but the mix of strategic, tactical, storytelling and freedom to make some of your own choices along with the sheer wealth of options to explore overwhelms having to live in a Japanese High School by day and beat on random encounters by night. My mind's as much on the underlaying strategic consequences of what I'm doing as the candylike graphics and storytelling icing.

And, for better or worse, I'm kind liking that too. "Oh, Stupei! You didn't really say that did you?!"

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Interesting Take on an Interesting Title.

If you liked Persona 3, FES is a refreshing addition to your collection.
While you might be saying "Oh, I've beaten it already" the disc adds hours of bonus content as well as a bonus "second" chapter of the game introducing a new character.

You can also upload your save data from Persona 3,bringing certain stats over, making things slightly easier.

For those who have yet to play Persona 3, FES includes the main game. (plus the aforementioned extras such as new quests, personas, etc.)

Long plesant game

A nice RPG that goes for a nice presentation in characters and game design, the history I havent see it all since this is a LONG game, I think around 100hrs.
Dont be afraid of the teens pointing fake guns to their heads, that is just the way they summon the Personas, and that happens so often that you get to not notice it, and is not that disturbing.
The Personas, there are so many and you can fuse them to make even stronger personas is a nice touch.
The social links and the live at school is other nice touch that improves your character towards the nights of fighting.
Its a nice RPG that I recomend, maybe the weakest point is that the game is so long (that is good), that the story develops very slow pace (this is bad).

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reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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