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Favorite Games

Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru
Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru
Portal 2
Portal 2
Lobotomy Corporation
Lobotomy Corporation
Killer7
Killer7
Persona 3 FES
Persona 3 FES

249

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009

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Final Fantasy III
Final Fantasy III

Mar 16

Persona 3 Reload
Persona 3 Reload

Mar 13

Fear & Hunger
Fear & Hunger

Feb 18

Tekken 8
Tekken 8

Feb 13

Silent Hill: The Short Message
Silent Hill: The Short Message

Feb 03

Recently Reviewed See More

This review contains spoilers

persona 3 is an interesting game to look back on in retrospect. despite being the first one of the ''nusona'' games, it's definitely much more thematically cohesive than the newer ones. even though i still enjoy persona 4 and 5, i think they fall into discrepancies with their own themes and things they are trying to say narratively and visually. take persona 4 for instance; despite its so-called big shtick being ''being yourself even if that's not what society expects from you'', persona 4 somehow manages to turn that upside down into ''actually being what society expects from you is fine and a much better thing :)'' with ALL of its main characters. there's also golden that somehow manages to ruin persona 4's atmosphere, which is imho the best thing about persona 4, with its poor lighting and absence of the fog. persona 5 is also guilty of a similar incoherency. it proudly dons the looks of punk aesthetic and calls itself a counter-culture game, despite being... neither punk nor counter-culture? it's surprisingly a conservative game even though it doesn't look like that at first glance.

so, how does persona 3 manage to achieve that cohesiveness? if you dissect persona 3 into its pieces, you might see that it's akin to a symbiote where each organism helps & compliments each other to create the experience of living as a teenager in 2009 rather than being composed of different entities just doing their own thing. take the main allurement of the nusona games for example; the calendar system. it's a fun way to tell a long story, sure, but if the newer persona games had a more traditional approach to their own narratives rather than using the calendar system, i really don't think it would make their respective stories less interesting. whereas in persona 3, the calendar system is not only integral to the narrative, but it's also maybe the most important pillar of its identity.

many people say persona 3 is about death, which is not wrong, but i like to use a lil' bit different wording and say it's more about life itself rather than its inevitable end. surely death is a prominent theme in the game. death is an inevitable thing, and we all know that. the game is not even subtle about this as well! boot persona 3 (the original version) up, and one of the first texts you'll see under a minute is ''memento mori''. so, what are we going to do about that? should we just accept that fact and rot away while waiting for the unavoidable end? that's where the calendar system kicks in.

the story takes until october to unfold (which is like 4 months before the game's end), but this is not a bad thing at all. because from the get-go you'll be busy building your own narrative by planning whom will you hang out with and/or what will you do with your free time. yes, the exact same thing can be said for both persona 4 and 5 as well, but i don't think their impact is even comparable with persona 3 at all. the quality of writing aside, one of the main reasons how it is so impactful for me is that most of the social links in persona 3 are about what to do with life and the many answers you see from different perspectives. you get to be friends with and hear stories of a bunch of different people like a 19-year-old guy who knows he is going to die soon due to his sickness, a 9-year-old kid who's struggling with her family's divorce, a robot who is struggling to understand the meaning of life, and etc. you hear about how they decide to keep living despite whatever painful thing they endured, and what will they do with their lives. yeah, not all of the social links are interesting, but i think this is intended because it makes a great contrast between the interesting and the boring social links, and having shitty social links actually embraces the game's theme of the transientness of life, because are you really sure you want to spend your remaining time with people you don't even like?

and as minato keeps creating and strengthening his links, time marches on, and seasons change. the cold winter comes, minato and his friends decide to spare ryouji to save their precious memories and keep on living despite beating death itself is seemingly impossible, and the new year takes the vibrant colors of the city away. the end is coming, whether it's the end of the world or the end of the story. the game reminds you that your time is coming to an end, and asks you if you did spend your time well.

i first played portable when i was around 12, then played fes during covid & my first year of university, and now experiencing the same story for the third time as a 21-year-old in japan as a transfer student, i can still easily say january manages to make me feel a myriad of different emotions at once. and actually not just january, but many parts of the game! the social links (especially the ones i mentioned earlier), seeing yukari grieve her father's death, the relationship of junpei and chidori, october 4th, the ending, and much more resonate with me even more after growing up and experiencing a lot of new stuff, unlike persona 4 and 5.

coming back to looking back on persona 3 in retrospect, one interesting thing is how each new iteration of the same story manages to feel different, whether for better or for worse. portable doesn't let you wander the streets like the original, and instead of cutscenes, it gives you more text and changes the presentation of the game into more akin to a visual novel. i love visual novels, but i still think this kinda hinders the presentation. strolling around the city might not seem like an important deal at all, i also thought the same thing at first; but when i first played fes, i immediately realized how wrong i was. it just manages you to connect to the city even if it seems like a trivial thing. portable also offers you a female protagonist. now, i haven't really finished a playthrough as her so i can't talk about much, but hamuko being a much more energetic and lively main character is an interesting contrast to the lifeless husk that is minato at the beginning of the game. honestly, i think hamuko's existence makes minato's character even more interesting, if it makes sense?

so what about reload? i've talked a lot about why i love persona 3; and yet haven't spoken much about its remake, although this is supposedly a review for reload. well, i think it's decent enough? it's definitely a remake that's unnecessary, for sure. i also think it does a lot of things much worse than the original. persona 3 (and by extension, fes and portable) is a product of its time. for instance, the anime cutscenes of the original are pretty reminiscent of denpa stuff from the late 90's/early 2000's. take a look at the original game's first anime cutscene, probably my favourite one, if you haven't already. the erratic editing, the haunting sound effects that keep harassing your ears, the weird shots that are extremely close to faces of characters, all those desaturated colours create such a strong mood that it's insane. it's like a weird anime from gonzo or madhouse that you might randomly find on the net. and it's not just that one particular scene i mentioned. check this one or this one as well. the quality of the animation is not good, but it's so well-directed with a style that fits the game like a glove that it's a big factor in why i prefer fes over reload. i know that trying to replicate the same style in 2024 would be meaningless and foolish, also i mean how the hell are you going to do that last scene that shows how human aigis has become ? one of the reasons that how it works so well is it being a product of its time. and yet, instead of finding a new style for the cutscenes that fits the game, what we all got is either bland and directionless anime cutscenes or in-game cutscenes that just feel stiff.

i was afraid of atlus going for a maximalist ui design once again because of how persona 5's ui was so universally loved. the over-the-top and over-stylish ui of persona 5 is one of my all-time favourite ui's, but the reason that choice of design works is how it suits the bravado and flamboyentness of the phantom thieves so well. truth be told, i fully expected to atlus take the easy route and do the same thing because it's fancy, yet they surprised me with this one. it's definitely stylish and manages to fit the game's identity. i might be overthinking at this but, i also love how it pronounces the water motifs of the original more, thus embracing the themes of life in the game. that being said, i definitely miss the gun cylinder that appeared during the fights, even though if it's less convenient than pressing a button immediately.

the soundtrack is also a big offender at certain times. talking about music is not my forte, so i can't say much about technical details or whatever, but the mixes sounding unclean and dirty was one of the charms of the original game's music. it's just nasty and i love it because it's so reflective of the time the game's set in. so when the mixes are so clean, it just feels wrong to listen, even if they're not horrible or anything. some of the new female singer's parts also feel weirdly off and like a bad cover as well, yet songs like color your night where she can do her own thing are really great. i like the new battle theme, but i don't think it fits the game's vibes well? overall, i prefer the original version of the soundtrack, but some new mixes like changing seasons and kimi no kioku are surprisingly well-made.

the remake is definitely made with love (despite its bland cutscene direction and horrible and greedy dlc pricing lol), even fixes some problems with the original like the horrendously slow animations; and justifiedly will probably be the favourite version of persona 3 for many, even though in my eyes it's a subpar version. yet, even though i call it subpar, persona 3 is such a great game that you have to go out of your way to manage to ruin it, even an inferior version of it is still a masterpiece in my eyes.

honestly if the future of silent hill is a wattpad walking simulator that's full of horrible and annoying chase sequences, i'd rather just someone reduce the franchise to ashes for good

This review contains spoilers

the ending still hits hard, but to be honest knowing that rgg studio is still continuing kiryu's story after this game kinda lessens the impact of it