Tomorrow I’ll be graduating from high school. Finally, those four years of studying and socializing will all pay off for this very moment. The moment when I hear my name and walk on stage to receive the diploma I worked hard for. But before that, I decided to replay through my favorite game of all time, Persona 3 FES. It took me the entirety of May to finish everything this game has to offer. Well, everything in the Journey. I have no idea when I’ll finally play The Answer but anyway…I originally played through Persona 3 right before high school, so I figured the time was right for a re playthrough and reevaluation. Is Persona 3 FES still worthy of being my favorite game of all time? Did it age well or am I too used to the modern JRPGs of today? Has my taste changed over the years to no longer enjoy the repetitious day by day gameplay?

Is Persona 4 truly the better game? No.

Persona 3 FES is still absolutely perfect in my eyes and the peak of the Persona franchise. The cycle of walking through Iwatodai, socializing around in Gekkoukan High, and grinding away in Tartarus is still enjoyable after all these years and at times I appreciated it more than ever after playing through all the other Persona games. Yes, I may be exaggerating a bit when I mention this game being “perfect,” because it is certainly not. Ultrakill is. But this isn’t Ultrakill, so I’ll mention all the problems I’ve noticed now that I’m more of a critic these days. I will mention though, I have installed mods for this second playthrough to make the game more difficult and make it look better with HD mods. Yes, I emulated it. Yes, I played on hard mode. And yes, you are submissive if you installed control party mods or played P3P only for a controllable party. Just kidding, I completely understand. Despite all the mods I installed to improve the party’s AI, I can’t deny that I would much rather prefer Persona 3 with gameplay more similar to the most recent game in the series, Persona 5, than constantly hoping that your party members do the thing you want them to do. Utilizing the tactics command helps of course (and it’s a shame that most players will tend to forget that) but it still doesn’t allow for certain strategies nor spontaneous change in plans whenever the enemy decides to change their own strategy. If the protagonist gets knocked down in combat, the protagonist will spend his turn getting back up, not allowing a chance to change tactics. All you could do in that situation is sit down and watch your teammates continue to use the same tactics you may not want to use anymore or them not doing anything at all. It could lead to some frustrating moments in time. Especially in boss battles. Doesn’t help that there is no shared EXP system, so if you want to progress the game at a steady pace, then choose three other party members and stick with them for the majority of the game. Not being able to view other party members’ skills nor equipment with the menu feels outdated. I don’t want to talk to Fukka, then check the status of everybody just to look at what another party member has equipped outside of Tartarus. I like to plan accordingly when I go out and buy equipment. This choice in design just makes planning feel more like a chore. Grinding is also another major issue. I didn’t have a problem with it when I was younger because I had all the time in the world. Being older, I now can understand how slow leveling can feel at times. The first month felt excruciating slow. With the second somehow feeling worse. After that though, the pacing improves alongside with the leveling thankfully.

Outside of battle though, my major issue is the social links. They suck. I’m sorry, but really, there are only five social links I enjoyed the writing and pacing of. That being the Empress, Hermit, Sun, Hanged Man, and Aeon arcanas. Lovers and Tower arcanas were okay too, but those five truly shined above the others. You can tell that this was ATLUS’s first dive into this social link system. A majority of them have pacing issues where they feel too slow throughout, only to have problems brought up and resolved within three ranks. Another issue with these social links is that they are too short. The social link would say five lines, the protagonist responds with an answer that sucks up to them, the player earns points, and the most annoying sequence would play every single time you rank up a social link where a voice speaks in your head, a tarot card show up on screen, and sparkles wrap around the protagonist informing you that you have become closer to a friend you only spoke a sentence to. If that friend happens to be a girl, the game will always inform you of the status of the relationship you two have. Almost like it’s reminding you that your sole objective in befriending and learning more about these girls is just to date them. Not exactly a big fan of that aspect and I hope they change that in a future remake.

Those are all the negatives I have with Persona 3 FES though. In fact, these negatives are so minuscule compared to the positives that they don’t affect the rating at all. The real heart of Persona 3 lies in its plot and characters. The SEES cast is by far my most favorite RPG party in history. All of them have proper character development (with the exception of the dog, for obvious reasons) that matters in the long run of the Persona series. What bothered me the most about the Persona 4 and 5 spinoffs is that those games don’t account the development that each party member has been through. Their Ultimate Personas that they obtain in their social links don’t transfer over with them to spinoffs that take place after the original game. It’s like their development throughout their original game’s story didn’t matter at all. For the Persona 3 party members, each of their character developments matter as their Ultimate Personas, a sign of their evolving personality, carry to the later games in the series. It further highlights the significance of their development that happens in the events of The Journey. It doesn’t reset after the story’s over. That little detail further makes each party member appear more realistic. I adore the dark tone present in every corner of this game’s appearance. The animated cutscenes stand out to me more than any other from the Persona series due to its abstract nature that matches the aesthetics of the Dark Hour. The protagonist's awakening cutscene is absolutely the best awakening scene in a Persona game. The imagery is insane in these cutscenes compared to later game’s animated cutscenes feeling ripped straight out of a generic seasonal anime. At least in style.

What really makes Persona 3 my favorite game of all time is with the themes and message. Nihilism is the true villain of Persona 3. I don’t mean to sound unprofessional in this review, but that is incredibly based. Peak fiction. The last few months of Persona 3 is the peak of writing in the Persona series. Everything mixes together in a beautiful symphony to convey the message that life is meaningful. "You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life... Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of.” Those two lines spoken by Aigis changed my philosophy on life completely. When you're just a freshman in high school it can become easy to start thinking life as being meaningless or something not worth celebrating. High school is a struggle. Playing Persona 3 the first time, I was a completely different man than I am today. He embraced death as he had nothing to live for at the time. Today, I embrace life as I have everything I need to celebrate it. I found my meaning in life. I have Persona 3 to thank for that. I don’t need to become the world’s most famous writer nor the man who saved the world. I don’t need the approval of the world. I only need the love of one. That is my calling. Tomorrow when I walk on stage, dressed in cap and gown to receive my diploma, I will remember my meaning in life and be thankful for the opportunity to live. I will look forward to the future and realize that my life is only just beginning. If I kept that edgy, nihilistic mindset I had when I was younger, I would not be able to realize any of this. I wouldn’t appreciate the small things I have in life. I realize that I am completely off course for a review of a video game. Persona 3 FES is different for me though. Every time I talk about it, it always leads to something like this. I’m not writing this review to persuade others that this game is good. I’m writing this review for myself. For closure. And to thank Persona 3 for changing my life. Everybody has that one piece of media that changes them forever. Mine just happened to be a game about teenagers shooting themselves in the head. If you have anything to take from this review…Replay your favorite game again. You’ll end up loving it even more than before.

EDIT: Made some minor changes to stances that doesn't really fit my opinion today.