viciouskillersquirrel
Member
I'll start by stating that first introduction to the Persona series was P4G. I started playing this game when I was in bed, sick with the flu and fell in love with it. It is a seriously amazing game, its dated treatment of LGBTQ issues aside, and I beat it three times in rapid succession. That game alone justified my Vita purchase.
It made me curious about other games in the series and this prompted me to check out Persona 3, which seems well regarded. The funny thing about this game is that unlike P4, it has no "definitive" version, so I was made to choose between QoL improvements and a female protagonist with Portable and extra content as well as anime cutscenes in FES. My lifestyle being more suited to handhelds than consoles (and not wanting to shell out ridonkulous amounts of money) made the choice for me and I went portable.
I chose a male avatar for my first play through.
The first thing I noticed about the game was the fact that your avatar doesn't have a presence in the game world outside of Tartarus. I think this is in the original and in Portable, but that FES added P4-style character interactions. It was a little strange at first, I'll admit, and I did miss the character models emoting during cut scenes, but after a while, I forgot about it completely.
The next thing I noticed was the soundtrack. P4 had this peppy, upbeat, bubblegum pop soundtrack that put me in the headspace of a teenager. This game's soundtrack was muted and slower by comparison, at least for the male protagonist. The female protagonist has a new soundtrack, I would later learn to my surprise, which I find to be superior overall, especially the battle themes. The original soundtrack, though it fits the game's more dour mood, isn't as full of earworms as P4, with some obvious exceptions (you now have "I never felt like..." playing in your head).
The S-Links don't have quite the same impact for me as the ones in P4. I don't know if it's because of the lack of character models or because a lot of them aren't voice acted (I was surprised I didn't hear Chihiro speak after remembering her cameo in P4), but it mostly fell flat for me. The other thing that surprised me was that the romance path in the female S-Links was mandatory. It lessened the impact of Yukari, for instance, opening up to the protagonist after being guarded for so long because I knew that he was already with Chihiro (whose story is rather sweet, I think).
It made the protagonist seem like a real heartless jerk on my first playthrough. The game tried to introduce some consequences by making the girls jealous above a certain S-Link rank, but all that did was to force me to burn through the upper ranks of one girl quickly before moving on to the next. I think you can even date two girls at the same time with impunity provided you never do it on days when their availability overlaps. The other thing that surprised me was the lack of a confrontation scene prior to the Christmas event. The Valentines Day scene in P4G at least made me feel like a proper heel during my magnum dong lothario protagonist playthrough (especially Chie and Naoto, holy shit). In this game, Chihiro appears to take her first boyfriend never speaking to her again after having conquered her phobia of men and having slept with the guy (?) in her stride. In real life, that would be a devastating, life altering event that would ruin her relationships for years to come.
The same thing happens with Elizabeth when she's in your room and you can choose to either sleep with her or keep it in your pants. There were apparently no lasting consequences for either choice, regardless of whether or not you hook up with other girls. I was disappointed.
I wanted the game to make me feel guilty, damn it.
The story was... eh. It was kind of just there, the motivation for the characters seeming to be just wanting to get along with life and reacting to events rather than being driven forward by a central mystery. When the late game twists happened (
), I was like "Oh, okay" rather than flabbergastered when some of the late P4 stuff happens.
The other thing I missed from P4 were scenes with the main crew doing teenage stuff together and getting up to wacky hijinks. I suppose it's harder to contrive given that the characters aren't all in the same grade, but it made it seem, for example, that Mitsuru and Yukari weren't really friends outside of SEES and living in the same dorm. The only real exceptions I can think of are the Kyoto trip and the holiday they took to that island where they met Aegis and where the horny teacher from P4 makes her cameo on the beach.
Gameplay wise, it was more of the same as you got in P4, though the dungeons were always the weakest part of Persona for me. The only complaints I have are the fact that you can't choose the moves new personas inherit through fusion (even though you can game the system so that you are effectively doing that anyway, but it just takes hours) and the fact that some of Elizabeth and Theo's side quests rely on pure RNG loot taken from chests.
I'm playing through a female protagonist run at the moment and I'm already liking it much better. The soundtrack is improved and it seems as though not all the new male S-Links are automatic romance quests (or Junpei's doesn't seem to be at least). The other thing is that the female protagonist appears to have a much more dynamic voice. Plus it's nice to focus on S-Links now that the main character's life stats are maxed out.
There is a lot to love about this game. It just seems that I would have enjoyed it more had I not played P4G first. There are a bunch of things missing that add so much to the experience and I would love for this game to eventually get a definitive "Golden" version.
It made me curious about other games in the series and this prompted me to check out Persona 3, which seems well regarded. The funny thing about this game is that unlike P4, it has no "definitive" version, so I was made to choose between QoL improvements and a female protagonist with Portable and extra content as well as anime cutscenes in FES. My lifestyle being more suited to handhelds than consoles (and not wanting to shell out ridonkulous amounts of money) made the choice for me and I went portable.
I chose a male avatar for my first play through.
The first thing I noticed about the game was the fact that your avatar doesn't have a presence in the game world outside of Tartarus. I think this is in the original and in Portable, but that FES added P4-style character interactions. It was a little strange at first, I'll admit, and I did miss the character models emoting during cut scenes, but after a while, I forgot about it completely.
The next thing I noticed was the soundtrack. P4 had this peppy, upbeat, bubblegum pop soundtrack that put me in the headspace of a teenager. This game's soundtrack was muted and slower by comparison, at least for the male protagonist. The female protagonist has a new soundtrack, I would later learn to my surprise, which I find to be superior overall, especially the battle themes. The original soundtrack, though it fits the game's more dour mood, isn't as full of earworms as P4, with some obvious exceptions (you now have "I never felt like..." playing in your head).
The S-Links don't have quite the same impact for me as the ones in P4. I don't know if it's because of the lack of character models or because a lot of them aren't voice acted (I was surprised I didn't hear Chihiro speak after remembering her cameo in P4), but it mostly fell flat for me. The other thing that surprised me was that the romance path in the female S-Links was mandatory. It lessened the impact of Yukari, for instance, opening up to the protagonist after being guarded for so long because I knew that he was already with Chihiro (whose story is rather sweet, I think).
It made the protagonist seem like a real heartless jerk on my first playthrough. The game tried to introduce some consequences by making the girls jealous above a certain S-Link rank, but all that did was to force me to burn through the upper ranks of one girl quickly before moving on to the next. I think you can even date two girls at the same time with impunity provided you never do it on days when their availability overlaps. The other thing that surprised me was the lack of a confrontation scene prior to the Christmas event. The Valentines Day scene in P4G at least made me feel like a proper heel during my magnum dong lothario protagonist playthrough (especially Chie and Naoto, holy shit). In this game, Chihiro appears to take her first boyfriend never speaking to her again after having conquered her phobia of men and having slept with the guy (?) in her stride. In real life, that would be a devastating, life altering event that would ruin her relationships for years to come.
The same thing happens with Elizabeth when she's in your room and you can choose to either sleep with her or keep it in your pants. There were apparently no lasting consequences for either choice, regardless of whether or not you hook up with other girls. I was disappointed.
I wanted the game to make me feel guilty, damn it.
The story was... eh. It was kind of just there, the motivation for the characters seeming to be just wanting to get along with life and reacting to events rather than being driven forward by a central mystery. When the late game twists happened (
Ikutsuki being evil the whole time and Pharos being an avatar of Nyx etc
The other thing I missed from P4 were scenes with the main crew doing teenage stuff together and getting up to wacky hijinks. I suppose it's harder to contrive given that the characters aren't all in the same grade, but it made it seem, for example, that Mitsuru and Yukari weren't really friends outside of SEES and living in the same dorm. The only real exceptions I can think of are the Kyoto trip and the holiday they took to that island where they met Aegis and where the horny teacher from P4 makes her cameo on the beach.
Gameplay wise, it was more of the same as you got in P4, though the dungeons were always the weakest part of Persona for me. The only complaints I have are the fact that you can't choose the moves new personas inherit through fusion (even though you can game the system so that you are effectively doing that anyway, but it just takes hours) and the fact that some of Elizabeth and Theo's side quests rely on pure RNG loot taken from chests.
I'm playing through a female protagonist run at the moment and I'm already liking it much better. The soundtrack is improved and it seems as though not all the new male S-Links are automatic romance quests (or Junpei's doesn't seem to be at least). The other thing is that the female protagonist appears to have a much more dynamic voice. Plus it's nice to focus on S-Links now that the main character's life stats are maxed out.
There is a lot to love about this game. It just seems that I would have enjoyed it more had I not played P4G first. There are a bunch of things missing that add so much to the experience and I would love for this game to eventually get a definitive "Golden" version.
