Persona 3 FES -Where it All Began

Persona 3 FES is a game of many strengths which not only brought the franchise into mainstream but also laid the groundwork for it's successors to work on.  

With the release of Persona 5 Royal just around the corner I decided to take a look at Persona 3 the first one in the series to have an enhanced version i.e Persona 3 FES and see what's in it to make it a fan favourite as well as the systems it introduced to the series.
Since the game is divided into two parts I am gonna review them individually
The Journey
The journey is the main story mode of the game featuring the protagonist.
Presentation-

Persona 3 has you take control of a nameless protagonist as he transfers to the city of Port Island for his high school.But things are not as simple,when a mysterious disease called Apathy Syndrome starts spreading the protagonists discovers about another hour in the day called the Dark Hour which is only experienced by some.A time where a huge tower called Tartarus appears along with weird creatures called the Shadows.Together you and your friends must solve the mystery of Dark Hour by using your power to summon Persona. The story of Persona 3 deals with alot of heavy themes like the acceptance of death and all life must come to an end,but it takes a really long time to reach this part.Story in this game is really poorly paced and takes a really long time to get interesting.Most of the main plot happens after 30-40 hours,although to its credit the game does try to hold your attention through this time by using events like a vacation to a resort to build characters.The characters themselves are quite well written and engaging.All of them go through a proper character arc transforming them from cliches to real people with depth.If you can sustain through the story's  slow period,when it does get going the story is really interesting as it plays with its themes which culminates in a very effective and well presented ending that left me feeling satisfied. 
The visuals of the game haven't aged well but since you view most of the game from a top down camera and that conversations are conveyed through character sprites visual novel style it doesn't really matter.
   another thing that I really liked were the animated cutscenes which have this macabre artstyle which honestly looks pretty cool.

Gameplay-

This is where most of the game's faults arise.The gameplay is divided into two halves-first is similiar to your life sims where you explore the town,talk to people,go to school,study for,exams and the other where you go to explore Tartarus with your squad fighting shadows through turn based combat.
Both these sections complement each other giving you incentive to balance both.
  Let's talk about he combat first.The game puts a different spin on your usual JRPG turn based combat by exploiting weaknesses. How it works is that most shadows have a certain weakness either to an element or a  certain type of physical attack,hitting it with that will knock the enemy down and provide you with an extra turn.Once all the enemies are knocked you can perform an All-Out Attack in which everyone just rushes in on the enemy to deal massive damage to them all. Your Personas and your party members have weaknesses too which can be exploited by the shadows. The combat is fun and doesn't get annoying as based on your Persona you can finish the entire fight in one quick turn.What I don't like about the combat is how you can only control the protagonist and the rest of the party is controlled by AI. This is my major gripe with the combat,you can control their behaviour to some extent by assigning them jobs like Heal/Support but its still not guaranteed to work the way you want.There were times when the entire party would be low on HP but instead of healing everyone my healer decided to just heal herself leading to my party getting slaughtered on the next turn. Another thing that gets to me about Tartarus is the variety.The dungeons in Persona 3 are basically elaborate mazes and not very different from one another,same goes for the music while exploring them.It really does get exhausting navigating through samey environments listening to the same slow piano notes for hours on end.Enemy variety on the other hand is really varied and was one of my incentives to keep playing.Similiar to enemies the amount of Personas at your disposal is ridiculous.Personas are like Pokemon just instead of cute creatures you have gods and demons from various mythologies.You can also fuse personas to make new ones or fuse them with a weapon to make a stronger weapon.


On the other hand the high school sim part of the game serves as the perfect downtime when you're bored with Tartarus.You can explore the city of Port Island engaging in activities like singing karaoke,eating outside or watching movies.You can also spend time with your friends where the game's social link mechanic comes into play which would go on to become a staple of the series.Basically every person you form a bond(social link) with is assigned an arcana and higher the level of your social link higher is the exp gained whenever you fuse a persona of that arcana.You increase your social link by spending time with people and in order to be able to spend time with all of them you have to do the aforementioned activities to increase your three stats i.e courage,charm,knowledge. All these systems come together to complement and form a very absorbing gameplay loop where you always have something to do.

The Answer-

The answer is an extra campaign present in FES edition which continues the story from Journey
Presentation-

One month after the events of Journey the SEES are paid visit by another anti shadow robot called Metis.

She informs them about the Abyss of Time a place beneath their dorms due to which they are stuck in an endless time loop.In order to destroy the Abyss the team gets together once again this time with Aigis as the leader.Story wise the Answer is pretty weak.The only thing you get are some glimpses of some character's past.Aside from that there is some character development for a few characters namely Aigis and Yukari, that too happens only near the end.It fills one plothole of the main story but it isn't that major.

Gameplay-

To best sum up the gameplay of The Answer- it is a 30 hour grind. This time you play as Aigis as you move through the Abyss going through 7 dungeons.The problem is it has no downtime.In Journey when the combat gets too much the life sim part helps to provide some downtime,balancing both parts.However in this case there is no life sim only combat and it does get tedious.

The Verdict -

Persona 3 FES is quite an absorbing game.It has a some flaws in pacing and combat but it makes up for it by providing downtime in exploring the city and having strong characters to keep your interest until the the time the story really gets going.The Answer isn't worth it in my opinion but all the other content FES brings to the base game is a welcome addition.Special mention goes to the music for capturing the mood of the game so well.All in all Persona 3 FES is very engaging and amazing experience with great characters and an amazing ending that really stuck with me,I heartily recommend this game not only because it's great but also because it laid the foundation for future installments in the series. 

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