please change the fucking cover art im gonna go crazy

sometimes in the past i had played persona 3 fes and it was definitely the highlight of my life till that moment if i gotta be honest and im really happy to see that nothing really changed from that time i still love every single part of this game i love every single character and i cant really say anything bad for this experience that is as tight and incredible as everybody says and i genuinely cannot believe how breathtaking it can be after so many years from the original release of the game

its been a while since i actually explored this entry in the persona franchise and even though this is definitely a step down from p4 and p5 this can still sit rightfully at the top of the trilogy to this day this is still my favorite entry in the spin off series and while i also love p1 and p2 for what they have to offer i definitely still have a sweet spot for this game above the others in the series

im pretty sure everybody knows what this game is about as of nowadays but i just gonna talk about it anyway like people actually asked me to elaborate on my love for this game so i will definitely do that

persona 3 stars a guy transferring to a new school and for some different reasons he ends up in a squad of different people trying to fight off enemies called shadows in a structure called tartarus during an hidden hour after midnight called the dark hour (theres a lot of different terminology alright) where people get some into some weird ??? coffins ??? and actually escalates into something called the apathy syndrome where people become weirdly lobotomised or something of the like and to do that they have to use the power of personas

now personas are basically demons from shin megami tensei recontextualised to actually be used in this series as “another you” and usually just take the form of mythological creatures or deities or shit like that now you know im a big fan of shin megami tensei and its general sense of design so of course i was gonna love this iteration

thats the general incipit of the whole game and while this is definitely the main story theres a lot lying below the surface that needs to be explored

persona 3 fes is famously divided like every other game in the franchise (apart from 1 and 2 skull face) in 2 different sections where you either have some slice of life story high school events and turns into a jrpg in the night segments where you have to fight off the different shadows and ascend tartarus in the hope of a better tomorrow

basically what happens is that you gotta finish the game in a single year (omg atelier ???) and what happens is that during the day you can do social links with different characters that are basically segments where you hang out with people and this is gonna make the arcana social link go up and each single level will actually make the personae of the same arcana way more powerful when you fuse them so theres basically a lot of nuance to this but more on this later

persona still borrows a lot from shin megami tensei and this is actually seen in the fact that the main mechanic of the game is recruiting and fusing demons which is a fucking blast every time even though you cant choose the skills the demon is going to inherit and that makes me actually suicidal ngl like you want me to create the best persona ever and make me inherit marin karin are you actually out of your mind what the fuck honestly this is something that makes me go buck wild in older smt games like why would you make me redo and redo the same persona combinations until i can get some good inherited skills do you just want to purposefully make me angry cmon atlus dont fuck with me rn

while i definitely have some gripes with the gameplay elements i still have a lot of love for it the jrpg elements are super tight fusing personas is fun as hell the combat that still has the basic smt principle of exploiting weaknesses actually makes the game even juicier with the 1 more mechanic + the all out attack its just so fucking good its incredible and since youre gonna do this for like 80+ hours at least this needs to be some degree of fun its just a simple and quick way to finish battles off and this still have some of the classic smt flair in the fact that if youre pretty unlucky and the rng wants to fuck you up you can get demons actually doing mahamaon and killing every single party member or like crit and crit and crit until you bite the dust funnily enough

lets address the elephant in the room though while i still think p3fes is actually the safest choice i have a huge fucking problem with it: you cant control party members which fucking sucks because im adhd and need to use my controller at all times or else i get fidgety and THATS WHY i ended up using the controllable characters patch (and also the undub patch dont @ me i hate english VA i dont know in how many more reviews i got to say this) and while i definitely think this is the way to go i had a lot of game breaking bugs during battles because of course it was gonna get buggy because you know they basically recoded shit or something i have no idea how this works so yeah i mean i had to do a lot of save states and even when i actually made some save states i was dumb enough to actually save in critical moments so i had to wipe like 3 hours of progress sometimes that to say that TO ME it was actually a god sent addition but it is to be said that these are the conditions of the patch i dont really think the original AI party is actually that bad but i cannot deal with not controlling every and each character in a turn based combat game so theres that

i do also recommend the undub which is done really well they also added some subtitles to the cutscenes they put work in that so yeah just try it out maybe it is for you

anyhow the other elephant in the room is tartarus now we need to make a detour for a moment i do think tartarus is actually the oddest dungeon out of the 3 different personas the ones in persona 4 are actually pretty interesting because theyre character specific and (for what ive seen) persona 5 also has some character specific dungeons that look absolutely fucking gorgeous but as much as ive seen mementos or whatever its name is works the same as tartarus

now do i think tartarus is bad ? no . i probably had less fun in it than in p4 and p5 dungeons but that doesnt mean its bad the first blocks arent that interesting but the more you actually ascend into it the more the floors start getting interesting like the psychedelic one is such an highlight i had so much fun in it it makes absolutely no sense and the final block is real thematically consistent to the rest of the game

while i definitely do understand where the most of the people here are coming from i also believe that theres definitely a huge chance that they are people who only played persona 5 because yknow its the most popular game in the smt franchise ever and of course tartarus was gonna get this kind of treatment since yeah its rudimentary its monotonous and its tedious BUT i still love it to hell and back slowly ascending the entire tower is such a joy that i cannot honestly think about this game without actually thinking about tartarus farming over and over and over again

now still talking about gameplay as a whole this is still the first persona to actually include the SoL/RPG elements which means its yes very simple but not because of that less effective doing the social links honing your 3 skills exploring the town buying stuff discovering new events doing side quests and shit actually makes for a really interesting gameplay loop that feels rewarding in the long run im not gonna lie that this still feels like stone age persona loop but again they had to start somewhere for the love of christ

in general i think the gameplay is such a blast and people who dont agree are dipshits and dont deserve shinjiros huge fat fucking cock thats honestly such a shame for as much as i want to criticise these decisions i actually have 100 contrasting reasons to actually say the opposite which means that every single hater of this game can suck my balls kissessssssssssss

a real shocker here will be the fact that yes persona 3 also has some super slick art direction now we all know and love the art direction in p5 even though at this point it feels like thats the only game that has an art direction but i digress (it is some of the best art direction ive ever seen though,,,,,,,, ngl) and i definitely can see a lot of care being put into this one the artworks of the characters are some of my favorites in the entire scope of videogames the models of the city are great every single persona is detailed as shit and the vibes of the entire game are absolutely unmatched and when you also add a bomb UI and art style you have the winning formula of the century and to not even talk about the entire ost department which is honestly as thick as it can get now im not gonna put 100 songs in the hyperlink because im trying to be more humble and lose less time in my life time is precious everybody

that to say that im gonna put just one song and my favorite in the entire playlist is changing seasons(https://youtu.be/ONsRqzQUeoo?si=6uDeTBnNrZiLwlkS) its such a sick track what the hell but as youll already know theres not really a single tracks that goes off the mark every single song is infused with a lot of hip hop vibes and enhance the entire experience to another level entirely

while i definitely feel that these are absolute strong points for the game i still do think that a lot of the best elements sit right into the story department and in particular the characters and interactions

the story definitely takes a real slowdown real soon in the game but as soon as like half a year passes youre gonna get plot twist after plot twist after plot twist boom boom boom one after the other im not gonna lie and this would probably fall flat if it werent for the gorgeous cast of characters

theres some that i like more and some that i like less i genuinely think shinjiro and akihiko are my lifelong companions im literally so in love with them i feel like im gonna pass out in particular shinjiro every time i think about him something in my pants swells i dont know guys im 10 and inexperienced should i take the gay test on trustworthy gay test sites online what do we think

so that to say that shinji and aki are my husbands i love how they both interact with each other and i love their archetypes so im definitely biased in the fact that i love boys i love boxer boys who can fuck my face up and fuck my ass up and i also like gloomy boys who dont want none to do with the outside world and social interactions shinjiro this game is literally based on social interactions stop being afuckinng cunt
i love them dearly

mind you even though those 2 are the loml i definitely have a lot of affection for my sweet little troubled yukari who feigns confidence through sass and a lot of ass mitsuru is literally the dominatrix of my dreams her persona has a whip and if that isnt a real indicator of her sexual tendencies idk what is junpei is my sweet little sunshine and while he can be a dickhead sometimes theres definitely a lot to his character than it meets the eye aigis is my baby i gave birth to her and im not gonna let anybody get near her ever in my entire life i love koromaru with the deepest parts of my heart and theres nothing that will change the fact that hes the bestest boy ever and ken is a good kid !!! i think and fuuka is still such a mystery to me but i definitely love her a damn lot maybe i dont know as much about her as i want to since i forgot to complete her social link teehee dont @ me mitsuru had the priority yall

as much as i love all of them im still pretty sad that in the original game you can only do social links with the girls in the party like who THE FUCK thought that was a good idea can i PLEASE suck shinjiros dick or do i need to pay a nsfw cosplayer on twitter to do that im not joking im gonna do that so thats sort of a let down and anyway the social links that are present here cant really compensate the absence of the main party to the whole meal like the school mates are fun like theres the gerontophile into milfs, walmart ryuji with a broken leg + his team manager whose social link i didnt finish so i have no pun, an immigrant that really feels kind of japanesephobic somehow, a timid girl whos scared of boys but also cant wait to suck dick, a son of a doctor who wants to be an artist but actually changes idea after a sitcom type of chain of events, a girl whose parents really need a fucking divorce, an athlete (thats his whole personality), a guy that i really hate so i fucking ignored aka the emperor, an online friend who actually is the most random character of the entire game and also a good excuse to put some persona 2 cameos, a guy with bulimia im not actually making fun of this one its actually pretty serious /gen, a monk who decided to follow buddha instead of pussy but then changes directions again because yknow pussy juice, a conniving businessman who wants to actually make you his apprentice, a couple with a a ,,,,, a d ea d umh a dead son umh wait i thought social links were supposed to be fun wait wait what and UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH WE DONT TALK ABOUT THE SUN ARCANA PLEASE

so as i was saying social links are some of the most inspired parts of the entire game and its such a shame that most of the time you wont see each and every one of them because yknow time management and shit but thats also the cool thing about persona you can do whatever the fuck you want and actually pursuit the stuff you actually want to see finished like i made my life work around the mitsuru social link and i studied my fucking ass off just to have a glimpse of her ginormous puthey thats what humans actually do so why the fuck not
so i guess im gonna get into spoiler territory now so SPOILER ALERT DONT READ ETC ETC

i genuinely love the fact that this game is surrounded by death everywhere its themes are some of the thickest and more real arguments to ever talk about and every single character conveys this kind of story to hell and back everyone in SEES actually had to face the pain of losing a beloved one mitsuru and yukari have to deal with the loss of a father ken misses his mother everyday akihiko is still grieving for the death of his little sister junpei is still traumatised by losing his loved one in a second and all of them are still trying to make sense of the departure of shinjiro DONT GET ME STARTED ON SHINJIRO DYING BECAUSE UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH LORD

death is a thing that permeates all life and it takes BALLS to actually make a game that is surrounded by death everywhere story beats remind you that the world is dying every character is actually trying to make sense to the world around them and even the social links have a lot to say about life as a whole

theres some other games that tackle these themes im not gonna pretend persona 3 is the only game which has memento mori as its main theme but i cannot overstate enough how beautifully composed every single story line and emotional breakdown to actually drive home this series of events that have a lot to say about our world and how we live in it

the final stretch of the game with the near apocalypse is probably my favorite part due to the fact that every single character is using their grief as a mean to move on theyre trying to use all their suffering as a way to become powerful against a common threat that threatens life itself and while i think the nyx boss fight can be a bit of a pain to go through it has to be said that is so thematically rich that i cannot hate it for any reason in the world ever

and to this day the ending makes me bawl my eyes OUT you know what this game has not the most heartbreaking ending in the world in a shocking sense the slow and steady demise of the main character can be seen even from a few days before but when its all done youre left with you yourself aigis crying for you your friends grieving and all the memories you made together till now seeping through the cracks of you consciousness

while i do agree this is the most 2000s emo tumblr storyline ive ever witnessed it is told so beautifully that it honestly touched my heart theres not really a lot that i can say about this game apart from please play it and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make it through the ending of the sun arcana you will be left with no regrets and a lots of tears youre advised listen to me it is definitely such an emotional social link and possibly the best social link of the entire franchise im not gonna lie here wow

the ending of the game is as heart wrenching as it can get and really encapsulates the entire experience in a like 3 days theres a lot of weird things that i can say about this game maybe the fact that there arent controllable characters is weird or the fact that it is as melodramatic as it can get the gameflow is pretty slow you can go an entire month without any story beat whatsoever and i wish shinjiro was still in the party but thats something that i will experience when i will play p3p

as much as this is not a perfect game i can attest to the fact that this is a perfect game in my eyes every single element of it comes together to create such an unforgettable experience that i didnt find anywhere else in the media p4 and p5 still have the flair and drama of this one but its definitely toned down for some other elements of psychological matter but to this day the way the theme of death is treated in this one
please please please please please check this one out and if possible play the original FES release not that portable isnt good but i think this is the way this game should be experienced (for the first time at least) and with all its gripes i still think this is as good as it gets

cant fucking wait for the FUCKING REMAKE LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORD

i still have to play the answer tho