Persona 3 -- Anyone play this?

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Svengali

Limp Gawd
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So I just caught wind of the Persona 4 trailer thats going around the net and I decided to finally take a look at the Persona series. I've heard of this series before back on the PSX but never really paid attention to it (I'm a big RPG fan but I guess the title was vague and I never really knew what it was) I saw the Persona 3 review on Gametrailers and it looks REALLY interesting.

So, anyone play Persona 3? What do you think? (no spoilers please)

I'm thinking about picking up Persona 3 FES in April as the localized version is just making it stateside and apparently its got 30 hours of extra content to the original game and some sort of sequel attached as well, only 30 bucks too, seems like a good value.
 
No, I've never played it, but I've played 2 and it was insanely interesting and good. 3 looks to continue it as well, though. I'm gonna pick up Fes when it comes out.

The only thing about Persona games, atleast in 2 anyway, is that you talk to monsters and it gets annoying a bit sometimes. Its not required but its a feature that you just want to do but then you mess up and meh...
 
I got Persona 3 last August. It's got very interesting gameplay, a very good difficulty curve (the game is actually very though for an RPG), and apparently a good story.

I never got into it enough, as I got sidetracked by Metroid Prime 3, Heavenly Sword, Orange Box, Ratchet, Uncharted, Disgaea PSP, and so on and so on (I have huge gaming ADD). I've been wanting to play it for the past 2 months really badly now, but I'm holding off until FES, since it's got overall tweaks and the added story...I figured I waited this long, what's another 2 months?

Anyways, you'd be stupid not to pick it up for 30 bucks. The main game is somewhere along the lines of 70-100 hours for most people, and add another 30 hour story, and you've got some insane value for your money.

There are a few things you should be aware of though:

1) This game is part dating sim, part dungeon crawl. The whole idea is, that during the day, you go to class, and afterwards build your social connections with people. The different social connections you have fortify different types of Personas. At night, you have the option to explore Tartarus, a massive dungeon with hundreds of levels, increasing greatly in difficulty as you go on. The story gets mixed through all of this.

2) If you're picking this up, pre-order it NOW, and get it first day. Atlus published titles generally only go through 1 print run, and they're done. The games become exceedingly rare. Do this for every Atlus title you're interested in the future (as if you keep them shrinkwrapped, you can often sell them for more than you payed...hence games like Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga selling for $70-100 used).

pothb said:
The only thing about Persona games, atleast in 2 anyway, is that you talk to monsters and it gets annoying a bit sometimes. Its not required but its a feature that you just want to do but then you mess up and meh...
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In the 10 hours or so that I played, I did not talk to a single monster =\. Persona 3 might be different than what you experienced in 2.
 
ex0du5 said:
2) If you're picking this up, pre-order it NOW, and get it first day. Atlus published titles generally only go through 1 print run, and they're done. The games become exceedingly rare. Do this for every Atlus title you're interested in the future (as if you keep them shrinkwrapped, you can often sell them for more than you payed...hence games like Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga selling for $70-100 used).
.
Click to expand...

This used to be true but there are tons of Atlus games that aren't worth shit... Digital Devil Saga 2 is around $25 on Ebay. SMT Devil Summoner is another one that is worth less than what it cost when it was brand new. Magna Carta, Metal Saga, Steambot Chronicles, Growlanser V (which only sold a sad 6,000 copies), Stella Deus, all of these games are worth less than what they cost new when they came out, and aren't rare at all.

For every DDS 1 and SMT Nocturne, there is a DDS 2 and SMT Devil Summoner that aren't rare or expensive. Somewhere along the line Atlus helped fabricate this rumor that all of their games were incredibly low print run and have to be bought ASAP, because it spurs the hardcore and the resellers into grabbing copies earlier rather than waiting for price drops. It seems that 1 out of every 5 games they produce is going to be hard to find. Then that's not even counting if they re-release it, which they did with Disgaea an astonishing 5 times.

I mean, I'm not trying to call you out or anything, but as someone who sold games on Ebay for a long time, Atlus games weren't really the money makers everyone thinks they are, as I had sold sealed copies of nearly every game I listed up there in the past year and I didn't get what I paid for them, except for DDS and SMT Nocturne.

I do agree that FES might be a bit rare simply because it's a re-release of a game that already hit a system that is pretty much on its last legs, I think Atlus is going to underproduce it since it's hitting even more of a niche audience than Persona 3 was. But even Persona 3 is not hard to find if you look hard enough, I found a brand new copy at EB a week or two ago (didn't buy it, obviously) and I've seen copies at K-Mart of all places. But most of the (imo, since I'm not a fan of the majority of what they put out anymore) trash they produce isn't worth buying or holding onto. I mean, look at all the people who grabbed tons of DDS 2's because they thought it would be rare like DDS or Nocturne was? Or even the people who bought extra Persona 3's and it's going for maybe $10 over retail on Ebay.
 
Well he did say ones you're interested in. Nocturne is crazy fun thuogh... even if punching is your main attack and kicking takes away your health >.>
Sorry just had to put that there, cuz my friend and I talked about the attack being a lame looking punch and it came out that way. Then when we foundkicking, he kept killing himself since he used it profusely.
 
Roufuss said:
I do agree that FES might be a bit rare simply because it's a re-release of a game that already hit a system that is pretty much on its last legs, I think Atlus is going to underproduce it since it's hitting even more of a niche audience than Persona 3 was. But even Persona 3 is not hard to find if you look hard enough, I found a brand new copy at EB a week or two ago (didn't buy it, obviously) and I've seen copies at K-Mart of all places. But most of the (imo, since I'm not a fan of the majority of what they put out anymore) trash they produce isn't worth buying or holding onto. I mean, look at all the people who grabbed tons of DDS 2's because they thought it would be rare like DDS or Nocturne was? Or even the people who bought extra Persona 3's and it's going for maybe $10 over retail on Ebay.
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Persona 3 is selling for 70-80 on Ebay. That's 20-30 over retail.

Also, my point wasn't to get the games to make money. My point was to get the games before they become increasingly hard to find. That's why I said to only get the games he was interested in. I wouldn't pass up on a game like this to hope to get it in a bargain bin or cheap on Ebay in the future, because you can often times get really screwed. If you're remotely interested in the game, just pick it up before it's gone.
 
I'm kind of looking for user input on the game as a whole not whether I can sell it on ebay or any of that other stuff. If you don't mind taking that to another thread I'd appreciate it. I feel it's derailing the purpose of this thread. I've really only got one or two good responses so far. I mean im pretty much sold on it but I certainly would rather hear more on what praises or negatives you guys have to say about the gameplay, story, presentation etc itself and not its rarity or other things.
 
There are plenty of plot twists to keep you guessing on what's going to happen next, although it's kinda slow in the begining.

The dungeon crawling aspect goes is pretty linear. You're given new floors of Tartarus to explore nearly every month. You can fall behind on exploration, but you can not go above the floor until another event trigger is hit.

In the dating sim aspect of the game you go about hanging out with friends. You can date five girls in total (6 in FES) and the rest are mostly guys you simply hang out with.

You can also craft Personas later in game, getting a Persona is fairly easy, but getting a Persona with the skills you want is perhaps the biggest time sink ever.
 
I picked this up and it stole 100 hours of my life. And I would do it all over again. I was hesitant to pick this up at first when I heard about the sim aspect of it, but ended getting it as I had ~50 bux to gamestop after selling my gamecube and some games I just didn't play anymore. It was ultimately a good move (well maybe not now that FES is only $30) but I did get the artbook and CD so that's gotta count for something. I have already pre-ordered FES and can't wait to play the expansion part of it. Persona 4 is a day one purchase for me when (and if) it's released in the US.
 
I've been a fan of the Shin Megami Tensei Series for a long time. Actually, it was Persona 2: Eternal Punishment that made me interested in the series and made the RPG my favorite genre of game. Now, there are a multitude of differences between MegaTen and the 'gaidens' or side stories of the series. Persona seemed to me as Atlus attempting to catch the Final Fantasy wave in terms of story presentation and characters. SMT tended to work along the lines of Western games like Wizardry.

However, I've always liked the characterization in the persona games because it limited the character set allowing more time of development for each character. I've found that other JRPGs tend to maybe introduce PCs (player characters) and make them relevant for maybe a couple scenes later but then just become tokens to the Protagonist.

Now I'm really conflicted on P3 when I played it. The game had a very good beginning and a solid ending. It's like a 60 hour game with the first 10 and last 10 are the most interesting, the other 40 tended to rely more on straight leveling and the social link system, which was its charm as well as its curse. It introduced a really good type of character interaction between the Protag and NPCs (as well as group members towards the end). However, I felt the layout made the game seem more like a chore and, to be honest, not fully necessary in order to finish the game, though the bonus exp to personae is still welcome.

I also felt that the plot twist at like the 75% mark of the game was absolutely cliche. It basically inverts the entire reason the group was created in the first place.

I'm probably skipping FES because from what I've read it's mostly about a character I despised in the first place.
 
I'm waiting for the FES release. Good thing Atlus announced that so my friends and I didn't have to hunt down eBay copies.
 
the first persona was one of the first rpgs i've played and i remember it being really tough. don't know about the others though
 
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