I would call myself a fan of JRPGs but like many of us with other hobbies and distractions there are dozens I have never played.
The Shin Megami Tensei series and all its spin offs I have all of two vague memories of playing; first is SMT IV(I think) on the 3DS for a few hours, it was probably just a demo of sorts.
The other is grabbing Persona 5 when I got my PS4 which I installed, played maybe 10 minutes of and turned off. At that time I had only just got the console (late into the cycle) and had a pile of things to look at so a 100 hour JRPG went down the list.
Persona is a series which everyone I know who loves it, Loves it. Even those who are late adopters rate P5 as one of their GOATs.
A small part of what took me so long to get into the series was also I didn’t want to start at 5.
In a way I’d have liked to start at the very start, but then should I start from the first SMT if I’m going to go back? The decision itself caused some paralysis.
Persona 3 and it’s multiple remakes were the earlier games I heard a good amount of chat about and when good ol’ Game Pass added Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden to the service I felt that finally, in 2023, I was going to dive into this series and check it out.
I’ve started this review with a little life story because I’m sure random Backloggd users may read my thoughts and compare it to more recent games. I am aware of some of the changes, but this is essentially a Persona game reviewed in isolation so if it seems too positive or negative when thinking of the rest of the series, that’s why.
P3P then. It was quite a trip and one I would recommend to most players. I found the story engaging, the characters well written, the combat decent and the other systems interesting and fairly deep, some more so than others.
Going into P3P was a headache. A million articles and forum posts of “P3P is the one to play” “P3P is terrible, play FES” put me in a position where I wondered if I should bother.
Skim reading a lot of this stuff I could see that a major point was P3P being a Portable version was a little stripped back, I didn’t care.
I went in thinking of this as an older game and also with the look towards the future of enjoying the series improvements in graphics, QoL etc
No walking about the world manually and a visual novel style look for conversations and cutscenes worked well.
In fact the point and click nature of Iwotodai actually made me worry that in the future it may feel more tedious checking out everywhere if I had to walk around.
There were definitely scenes I would have liked to have seen more than just still images (as an aside I’m watching the anime films to get that hit as it were) but the writing and the music were easily engaging enough that for the most part the thought didn’t cross my mind.
The characters are something I’ve already mentioned a lot and without a decent cast this game would fail and would not get the love it has.
I worried at first, was playing a Japanese school kid going to feel too cliché?
Was the “Social Links” aspect of the game, which I knew would inevitably include dating, be too cringe-inducing?
How often would this game make me groan due to Japanese social ideals?
Happily, with a few caveats, none of these problems actually came in and ruined my time.
You do play a protagonist (I chose male as it was my first time, where a female protagonist was a later entry for this remake) who is a junior at school, one of the main team members, as well as a few s.links, are horny teenage boys.
For the most part I found it to either felt it reflected my experiences of that time fairly well or was actually more tasteful than I expected. Even the team member who from start to finish is obsessed with the girls ends up having some deeper elements to him and felt much more of a redeemable character.
The biggest moment that made me feel uncomfortable wasn’t even within the social links aspect of the game but actually within the dungeon crawling of Tarturus (I’ll get to that later) where some optional armours are themed.
There’s Summer and Winter uniforms, Tuxedos and swimsuits. The latter while obviously there as fan service at least felt fitting, you gained clothes that the characters would wear throughout a year and that would include beachwear. What doesn’t however is “Battle Panties”.
I’m not a prude, I watch anime, I love Xenoblade, I’m used to this stuff but underwear, some in a fetish style being selectable for teenagers, children, is fucked. Also and this is both funny and annoying at the same time, the biggest groan I got was the first female team member who got access to them… they were better than any other armour available. “Fuck off!” I exclaimed at my screen.
Back to how the social links are good. Without spoiling there are a variety of characters, lots of different stories you have the chance to see all the way through, seeing changes in other people’s lives. I didn’t max out all of these links but did just about find all 22 of them, represented by the major arcana of Tarot.
I actually enjoyed the fact I missed out on some, to others spending almost 70 hours on a game and missing some content could be annoying and I get that perspective, but to me it was nice to show real value and meaning in how I had the protagonist spend their spare time and, just like in real life, time management is not a simple task.
It’d be easy to sit and dissect the social links, speak about how some really hit me, some surprised me and how much they added to the overall feel of the town, the characters' life and the importance of what the heroes are doing.
However, the much quicker point I wanted to note was how good this ends up being a loop and how actually the time I spent in this game felt big and memorable. It never dragged and flew by.
I mentioned Tartarus earlier; during the game’s “Dark Hour” (a time only a select few experience) the school becomes this monolithic tower which has floors upon floors of dungeons crawling with “shadows” the game’s enemies. The protagonist and friends can enter here at the end of most days, your goal to simply fight and head towards the top.
A common complaint I have heard is that Tartarus is extremely basic, it has blocks but each floor barely seems any different and the enemies, while there is a decent variation after a while, just become palette swaps with better stats.
This is true and it also feels most like the point of the game where the dreaded “grind” can kick in, but honestly, and I might be too forgiving, it never bothered me.
Each full moon the game gives you a different place to enjoy combat with some interesting bosses, so there is variety. The side missions that involve combat are mostly not too “grindy” and at the end of the day I don’t think the dungeons are even half the game anyway.
This brings me back to these loops.
This is why I said earlier the game never dragged. The gameplay loop was always going to school, picking an after school social link or social skill to increase via other means (studying etc). The evening then would be either preparing for battle while also increasing s.links or skills and once or twice an in-game month I’d make my trip to Tartarus.
The trips to Tartarus would then feel like their own game, a challenge even of seeing if I could get to the next barrier that would unlock later.
For me the difficulty was pitched perfectly, the combat wasn’t the best I’ve played but as far as turn-based tactics go, discovering weaknesses, setting up the right tactical loop in your team it was all enjoyable.
Tartarus itself added further gameplay loops that made me feel like “just one more go” through either the side missions or more often getting stuck into the almost Pokémon-like system of getting new Personas themselves.
Oh did I not mention the title refers to ghosts your protagonists summon by shooting themselves?
It’s a great hook, it’s basically Stands from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure gamified.
If it wasn’t clear from the words I’ve written or the score I’ve given. I loved this game.
Things were not perfect, it felt stripped down in areas as expected and I hope the sequels do build upon and tighten the formula as they go and I’m sure they will.
I will be surprised however if I find the future stories and characters themselves to be “better”.
If you’re a person who doesn’t need their games to feel modern, a person who’s played and enjoyed some JRPGs then I would say you should definitely give this a go.
Saying “Persona good” is the least hot take you’ll find on here today but I just want it to be clear that even stepping back (at least this far) didn’t feel too archaic or confusing and it may feel like I’m excusing it more than I should but the stripped back nature actually helps the loops, the mild addiction that a great game can bring.
One where, if it weren’t for there being sequels I want to check off my personal list, I’d be going back almost straight away to play again, see new things, try new ideas, max out more social links and defeat more enemies.
Persona (said aloud as I type it).
The Shin Megami Tensei series and all its spin offs I have all of two vague memories of playing; first is SMT IV(I think) on the 3DS for a few hours, it was probably just a demo of sorts.
The other is grabbing Persona 5 when I got my PS4 which I installed, played maybe 10 minutes of and turned off. At that time I had only just got the console (late into the cycle) and had a pile of things to look at so a 100 hour JRPG went down the list.
Persona is a series which everyone I know who loves it, Loves it. Even those who are late adopters rate P5 as one of their GOATs.
A small part of what took me so long to get into the series was also I didn’t want to start at 5.
In a way I’d have liked to start at the very start, but then should I start from the first SMT if I’m going to go back? The decision itself caused some paralysis.
Persona 3 and it’s multiple remakes were the earlier games I heard a good amount of chat about and when good ol’ Game Pass added Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden to the service I felt that finally, in 2023, I was going to dive into this series and check it out.
I’ve started this review with a little life story because I’m sure random Backloggd users may read my thoughts and compare it to more recent games. I am aware of some of the changes, but this is essentially a Persona game reviewed in isolation so if it seems too positive or negative when thinking of the rest of the series, that’s why.
P3P then. It was quite a trip and one I would recommend to most players. I found the story engaging, the characters well written, the combat decent and the other systems interesting and fairly deep, some more so than others.
Going into P3P was a headache. A million articles and forum posts of “P3P is the one to play” “P3P is terrible, play FES” put me in a position where I wondered if I should bother.
Skim reading a lot of this stuff I could see that a major point was P3P being a Portable version was a little stripped back, I didn’t care.
I went in thinking of this as an older game and also with the look towards the future of enjoying the series improvements in graphics, QoL etc
No walking about the world manually and a visual novel style look for conversations and cutscenes worked well.
In fact the point and click nature of Iwotodai actually made me worry that in the future it may feel more tedious checking out everywhere if I had to walk around.
There were definitely scenes I would have liked to have seen more than just still images (as an aside I’m watching the anime films to get that hit as it were) but the writing and the music were easily engaging enough that for the most part the thought didn’t cross my mind.
The characters are something I’ve already mentioned a lot and without a decent cast this game would fail and would not get the love it has.
I worried at first, was playing a Japanese school kid going to feel too cliché?
Was the “Social Links” aspect of the game, which I knew would inevitably include dating, be too cringe-inducing?
How often would this game make me groan due to Japanese social ideals?
Happily, with a few caveats, none of these problems actually came in and ruined my time.
You do play a protagonist (I chose male as it was my first time, where a female protagonist was a later entry for this remake) who is a junior at school, one of the main team members, as well as a few s.links, are horny teenage boys.
For the most part I found it to either felt it reflected my experiences of that time fairly well or was actually more tasteful than I expected. Even the team member who from start to finish is obsessed with the girls ends up having some deeper elements to him and felt much more of a redeemable character.
The biggest moment that made me feel uncomfortable wasn’t even within the social links aspect of the game but actually within the dungeon crawling of Tarturus (I’ll get to that later) where some optional armours are themed.
There’s Summer and Winter uniforms, Tuxedos and swimsuits. The latter while obviously there as fan service at least felt fitting, you gained clothes that the characters would wear throughout a year and that would include beachwear. What doesn’t however is “Battle Panties”.
I’m not a prude, I watch anime, I love Xenoblade, I’m used to this stuff but underwear, some in a fetish style being selectable for teenagers, children, is fucked. Also and this is both funny and annoying at the same time, the biggest groan I got was the first female team member who got access to them… they were better than any other armour available. “Fuck off!” I exclaimed at my screen.
Back to how the social links are good. Without spoiling there are a variety of characters, lots of different stories you have the chance to see all the way through, seeing changes in other people’s lives. I didn’t max out all of these links but did just about find all 22 of them, represented by the major arcana of Tarot.
I actually enjoyed the fact I missed out on some, to others spending almost 70 hours on a game and missing some content could be annoying and I get that perspective, but to me it was nice to show real value and meaning in how I had the protagonist spend their spare time and, just like in real life, time management is not a simple task.
It’d be easy to sit and dissect the social links, speak about how some really hit me, some surprised me and how much they added to the overall feel of the town, the characters' life and the importance of what the heroes are doing.
However, the much quicker point I wanted to note was how good this ends up being a loop and how actually the time I spent in this game felt big and memorable. It never dragged and flew by.
I mentioned Tartarus earlier; during the game’s “Dark Hour” (a time only a select few experience) the school becomes this monolithic tower which has floors upon floors of dungeons crawling with “shadows” the game’s enemies. The protagonist and friends can enter here at the end of most days, your goal to simply fight and head towards the top.
A common complaint I have heard is that Tartarus is extremely basic, it has blocks but each floor barely seems any different and the enemies, while there is a decent variation after a while, just become palette swaps with better stats.
This is true and it also feels most like the point of the game where the dreaded “grind” can kick in, but honestly, and I might be too forgiving, it never bothered me.
Each full moon the game gives you a different place to enjoy combat with some interesting bosses, so there is variety. The side missions that involve combat are mostly not too “grindy” and at the end of the day I don’t think the dungeons are even half the game anyway.
This brings me back to these loops.
This is why I said earlier the game never dragged. The gameplay loop was always going to school, picking an after school social link or social skill to increase via other means (studying etc). The evening then would be either preparing for battle while also increasing s.links or skills and once or twice an in-game month I’d make my trip to Tartarus.
The trips to Tartarus would then feel like their own game, a challenge even of seeing if I could get to the next barrier that would unlock later.
For me the difficulty was pitched perfectly, the combat wasn’t the best I’ve played but as far as turn-based tactics go, discovering weaknesses, setting up the right tactical loop in your team it was all enjoyable.
Tartarus itself added further gameplay loops that made me feel like “just one more go” through either the side missions or more often getting stuck into the almost Pokémon-like system of getting new Personas themselves.
Oh did I not mention the title refers to ghosts your protagonists summon by shooting themselves?
It’s a great hook, it’s basically Stands from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure gamified.
If it wasn’t clear from the words I’ve written or the score I’ve given. I loved this game.
Things were not perfect, it felt stripped down in areas as expected and I hope the sequels do build upon and tighten the formula as they go and I’m sure they will.
I will be surprised however if I find the future stories and characters themselves to be “better”.
If you’re a person who doesn’t need their games to feel modern, a person who’s played and enjoyed some JRPGs then I would say you should definitely give this a go.
Saying “Persona good” is the least hot take you’ll find on here today but I just want it to be clear that even stepping back (at least this far) didn’t feel too archaic or confusing and it may feel like I’m excusing it more than I should but the stripped back nature actually helps the loops, the mild addiction that a great game can bring.
One where, if it weren’t for there being sequels I want to check off my personal list, I’d be going back almost straight away to play again, see new things, try new ideas, max out more social links and defeat more enemies.
Persona (said aloud as I type it).
2 Comments
@lemonov people love "easy listening" "trash tv", video game slop has the same appeal... slurp.
Lemonov
6 months ago
That's right. Accept mediocrity, consume the slop.