[Male Protagonist Route Completed]

Here's the deal.
I truly believe Persona 3 is a fantastic unforgettable experience like no other. I believe it has the best storyline of the franchise so far, a great growing cast of characters (represented greatly both in story and gameplay perspectives), fun RPG mechanics and an ingenious calendar system that helped Persona as a whole evolve something of its own identity.

But instead of talking about what makes the fundamentals and the storyline of P3 so masterful (i.e. reserving those for the Remake review), I wanna talk about... the fundamental issues that plague Portable's version of The Journey campaign.

Being sincere, I'm not against the idea of a Persona game presented in a visual novel style, I've been a fan of many visual novel games in the past (including the likes of Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, a little bit of 999), and at first I didn't mind it was presented this way.
The problem however, is that the final result and lost in translation of how certain event scenes got translated into this format.
I get that Portable was made for the PSP originally, but I still couldn't believe they couldn't just add the animated cutscenes from FES as well as, you know, more image stills that represent certain action scenes or give certain atmosphere.
I don't think I need to mention how Makoto Yuki's Persona awakening sucks ass in this version, and how certain daily life sequences feel so empty.
And for this 2023 remaster, it feels like Atlus and P-Studio decided to press the Lazy Switch, cause maaaan, this remaster is.... boooof.
The backgrounds are AI upscaled in the worst way, the audio quality is terrible (it felt like listening an early Professor Layton game on the DS with very crusty audio), and I HATE, ABSOLUTELY HATE, the RNG of heritable skills on the Velvet Room's Persona Fusions. Why couldn't they fix that obvious flaw and let the player choose the skills they want for a better gameplay experience, something that they actually FIXED when they remastered Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne back then. It's asinine.

Portable's advantage is that you can at least control your party members.... and that's about it.

With all honesty, now that Persona 3 Reload exists, there's absolutely no reason to ever return to play this version of P3 ever again.
Well.... at least on the Male Protagonist perspective.
This version's main feature was the Female Protagonist route which definitely deserves its own review for the future.
I'll definitely return to play Portable to experience Kotone Shiomi's route.

But if you honestly wanna experience the best version of P3... it's kinda debatable but... in my viewpoint, maybe Reload will certainly be that.
I'll get to that bridge when it comes, don't you worry baby.

Happy New Years' Eve everyone.
Finally was able to finish the main story of this game.

And... what can I say. This game is a masterpiece. Plain and simple.
Sure, it has some issues in terms of UI and the use of Field Skills, but its pros makes its cons disappear when experiencing.
Fantastic worldbuilding, incredible twists and turns, one of the best cast of main characters and villains. And to believe this game came out on the first year on the Switch and with a small development team, this game is a miracle in how it turned out.
May Xenoblade continue for many eons to come.

Sidenote, I'll also be returning to this game to finish my 100% run in the future.

Euuuuuugh....
I'm sorry everyone. I tried. I tried my hardest to like this. But I just couldn't.
I apprecciate it's growing roster of Pokemon you can play as and still expanding, and I actually really like the concept and gameplay of this "sport" that is set in this game.
But..... I just don't like MOBAs, and this game didn't change my mind about that.
I dislike the microtransactions, the music is generic and boring, the character movement is too slow for my tastes.
I'm even avoiding giving it a rating cause this is obviously not a game for me, and I don't want to take away the enjoyment from people who do enjoy this types of games.

I'm sorry Greninja, my boy. I love that you're in this game, but it's not a very entertaining time for me.

And if you still want an arbitrary rating, uhhhhhm.
It's a Morbius/10.
Okay see ya.

Have you ever had this moment where you discover a piece of media that you didn't have full knowledge of, but as time passes and you make research of, you start getting more interested in that piece of media and when you finally experience it, it becomes something that it's not only incredibly great, but it becomes something so meaningful to you that you start thinking about it when relating it to your sensibilities.
Many things made me feel that way. There was Disney's Fantasia, the EarthBound (MOTHER) trilogy, the first Xenoblade Chronicles, the film The Prince of Egypt, Persona 5... and that feeling came again in the most fresh way possible with... Live A Live.
This game has become something so meaningful to me and I love almost every aspect of this game.... from it's storytelling structure, the different gimmicks of each of its chapters, the characters, but most importantly, its best quality, this is a great collection of homages to some of the most well known storytelling genres you can experience in a game or movie, not only in terms of spoof, but because it uses subversions that tackle many events that make each scenario stand out than what you expect.
Some chapters definitely were better than others, but they're so varied in how they are told and how they are played, that each one can be a favorite of someone else depending of what kind of player they are and what they look forward for a game.
The combat system is actually pretty fun and engaging, and it makes you think of different strategies and how to tackle many battles depending of the chapter you are. (Although I'll admit that the random encounters in the final chapters did kinda get annoying).
For my favorite chapter, I'm between Imperial China or Distant Future. As for my weakest, I'll have to go with Near Future (not bad by any means, but it had some hiccups during the gameplay experience, but I do loved its 90s anime quirkiness).
But all in all, I enjoyed each of these chapters, and everything rounds up with a fantastic pay off and a final boss that was challenging but incredibly satisfactory.
When it comes to this being a remake from a 1994 Super Famicom game, this remake is a miracle. The HD-2D visuals are fantastic and beautiful, the voice acting is incredibly well and emotive, great UI menus, and I absolutely apprecciate all the optional easter eggs and secrets that you can find on your leisure.

This is easily one of the best surprises that I had the pleasure of playing this year, and it's a game that will stick with me for many years to come.
One of my new favorite games of all time.
I can highly recommend it to everybody!

The Legend is truly aLive!

This is basically the NES equivalent of Wii Chess.
It promises the main function of the game, it works, but... that's just it.... it's just Pinball. And it's just one Pinball machine.
Even the 1 Player B Mode is just the same machine but faster.

It's ok, but nothing can beat the chad 3D Pinball Space Cadet.
Though to be fair, it can be addicting to mess around and waste minutes with it.

Not only a fantastic return to form to the Kirby series, but an impressive first entry into its new future of 3D Kirby games.
I loved everything about it.
The world setting, the level designs, some of the best boss battles in the series, the BEST soundtrack in the Kirby series, yeah I said it!
I'm not sure if call it my favorite, but it's REALLY up there!
This is a game that will ring in my mind for many years, thanks in small parts to some of the best aspects this game delivered.
Welcome back Kirby to the NEW WORLD.

EDIT: Just 100% it. Yep, the secret final boss was soooo good, it ramped up to a 10/10 for me.
I changed my mind, this IS my new favorite Kirby game.

Enjoyed that more than I thought I was going to.
Even as someone who's never played the original 1992 X game, this was a really enjoyable experience.
The missions were fun and varied, a decent level of challenge, lots of optional quests to raise your ship's ranking, and the story and premise was really cool with great callbacks to the original game.
But for the love of god, play it on Button Controls.
The Touch Controls was some of the most uncomfortable control schemes I ever felt playing a game, I cannot stress that enough.
I recommend getting it before it disappears forever alongside the 3DS eShop.

Mainline Metroid Marathon #2 of 6:
Very solid remake of the original GB Return of Samus game.
I'll admit, the Metroid hunting did felt a bit repetitive and some environments did felt repeated in some areas.
But overall, I enjoyed the QoL improvements, and the bosses were enjoyable and full of action, although I did wish the final boss had more to do than just spamming Plasma Beam.
Overall, a great time, but it could of been improved in some aspects of combat like less use and reliance of the Counter Melee.
P.S. Never played AM2R, so I can't compare on that aspect.

Pointless game!
Pointless, pointless, pointless!
Worthless!

The music is pretty good, but aside from that, this is the most horrendous betrayal of what the Paper Mario series was founded upon, and it caused the most negative impact by making future titles of the series (which are good by their own) not even try to reach what the original trilogy's vision was made.

Even by it's own game, it is still a waste of time and it's one of the most horribly designed games ever created. Battles are useless cause they never give you an incentive to do them besides getting the items you need to do more battles, making it a pointless cycle of gameplay, and even with the required bosses, the ways to defeat them are incredibly cryptic and makes them insanely hard unless you use a guide to know what you're doing.

This game is the definition of a pasionless vision.
There are some interesting ideas, the new Pokémon designs are good, but they never go full out on them.
The story is incredibly boring and mediocre, Dynamax is a worthless mechanic, it doesn't challenge your brain power like for some reason Pokémon Company thinks children never develop problem-solving capabilities, it has some of the worst divorces of player engagement in a RPG of all things handholding you for a non-existent story forcing you to never get involved of the growth of the world building outside of just beating the Gyms.
They used Xenogears Disc 2 levels of storytelling at points, I'm not even joking, in a 2019 RPG game.
The worst part, is that they lock out actually engaging smaller campaigns in the form of expensive DLC, campaigns that should of been part of the base game and could of enhanced the quality of the entire package.

Uggh, this game just frustrates me more the longer I think about it. And I really Pokémon fans deserve better experiences with more ambition than what this rushed product delivered.