Initially, the game has no bad ideas at all. The Tartarus as the main (and almost only) dungeon being randomized gives it a sense of unknown in every journey, with even some team management elements in order to explore each floor in different ways. Speaking of teammates, the decision to not be able to control them directly gives the combat a fresh strategic view. Equally refreshing, the life simulation manages to convey its adolescent fantasy by mixing both mundane and supernatural worlds. Even the social links having direct effect and thus forcing you to relate with as many people as possible and to keep them happy whenever you encounter them is a right decision. True, it can lead to some condescending behavior towards everyone because of convenience, but it can also be understood as a way to understand each person.
And at the premises is where Persona 3 ends. The dungeon is soon revealed as poorly followed in thought. The floor generation is incredibly samey, and there is never a sense of getting lost (or a need to spread the companions around) because of using such a limited pool of assets in incredibly small sized floors. It fails both as a hassle to progress and as an adventuring device. The shadow enemies, being exactly the same during the whole game and the only enemy to encounter, are easy to observe and evade from the very beginning. The enemies happen to be so predictable that not only escalating to the next Tartarus checkpoint while avoiding combat or giving a back strike to start with an advantage is mindless, there is no trouble in doing both even with emulator turbo enabled.
Thankfully, you can progress through Tartarus at your own pace, but even if you defeat the bosses and reach the story blocked checkpoint, the game incentivizes you to go back and grind. It will be your only source of experience, money and personas to begin with. The worst part is noticing that the randomness of the dungeon that was supposed to make it intimidating ends up acting as a pseudogacha where to celebrate the encountering of rare chests and drops. And yes, your characters fatigue after a number of fights, but instead of making this as a threat, it is another incentive to keep grinding the dungeon while everyone is capable of combat (and the most interesting implications of this, getting blocked because of mismanagement, is erased for your convenience at the end of the game).
The JRPG dungeon grinding systems are the best part of the game.
The life simulation suffers from a similar need to press the turbo button because of its babyfied copy of Tokimeki Memorial being shallow, elongated, devoid of friction and with no interesting real choices to make (similarly, Tokimeki also had an implicit comment on time being wasted on improving oneself while life went away, it helped to get the point across that three years of high school went away in 5 hours at most in opposition to less than one year ending after 60+ hours). I could forgive this and other details like the weird push for romantic connotations with every female character, the friendship hilariously disappearing whenever the social link is completed (when the bond is unbreakable, according to the game own words) or the aforementioned convenient condescending approach to dialogue options if the stories would be any good. They start with an attempt of being lighthearted, and noticing how boring they are halfway through, they usually throw some half-baked drama that makes Inazuma Eleven secret characters' backstories look like Shakespearian tragedies.
Even though it is appreciated that the game main plot is rather calm to just enjoy the day to day (something that, as already said, fails to do so), the narrative obstacles in the smaller stories are just a teaser of the ineptitude of the whole game. The main group, despite living in the same residence and going to the same school, seems afraid to spend time together that is not relevant to the main plot. It is so clearly disinterested in making a group dynamic that up until the very end of the game it will be usual to approach one of your team members at night for a casual talk and hear a tutorial prompt instead. I have to admit that the overall insipidness of everyone helps to look at the dog the same as any other team member, at least.
The more “serious” story beats may be the worst part. Just to exemplify, the first arc of the story that wants to carry some weight deals with a group of girls bullying one of their classmates. As obvious as it is at this point, Persona 3 does not care in any human way about neither life in general nor in teenage life in particular, so the bully is forgiven and corrected after her life is saved by the bullied and the story is concluded, they are now inseparable friends even. This very same ineptitude could be discussed with every dramatic driven story beat, save perhaps for the admittedly okayish ending (talking about The Journey here, I prefer to ignore the whole existence of The Answer in every sense).
As much as Persona 3 ends up wanting to talk about the importance and impact of death and its worries or where our world is going to (in quite a conservative mindset where marriage and divorce rates are relevantly present in the news for instance), its attempt cannot be taken seriously at such a glaring misunderstanding of life itself.
And at the premises is where Persona 3 ends. The dungeon is soon revealed as poorly followed in thought. The floor generation is incredibly samey, and there is never a sense of getting lost (or a need to spread the companions around) because of using such a limited pool of assets in incredibly small sized floors. It fails both as a hassle to progress and as an adventuring device. The shadow enemies, being exactly the same during the whole game and the only enemy to encounter, are easy to observe and evade from the very beginning. The enemies happen to be so predictable that not only escalating to the next Tartarus checkpoint while avoiding combat or giving a back strike to start with an advantage is mindless, there is no trouble in doing both even with emulator turbo enabled.
Thankfully, you can progress through Tartarus at your own pace, but even if you defeat the bosses and reach the story blocked checkpoint, the game incentivizes you to go back and grind. It will be your only source of experience, money and personas to begin with. The worst part is noticing that the randomness of the dungeon that was supposed to make it intimidating ends up acting as a pseudogacha where to celebrate the encountering of rare chests and drops. And yes, your characters fatigue after a number of fights, but instead of making this as a threat, it is another incentive to keep grinding the dungeon while everyone is capable of combat (and the most interesting implications of this, getting blocked because of mismanagement, is erased for your convenience at the end of the game).
The JRPG dungeon grinding systems are the best part of the game.
The life simulation suffers from a similar need to press the turbo button because of its babyfied copy of Tokimeki Memorial being shallow, elongated, devoid of friction and with no interesting real choices to make (similarly, Tokimeki also had an implicit comment on time being wasted on improving oneself while life went away, it helped to get the point across that three years of high school went away in 5 hours at most in opposition to less than one year ending after 60+ hours). I could forgive this and other details like the weird push for romantic connotations with every female character, the friendship hilariously disappearing whenever the social link is completed (when the bond is unbreakable, according to the game own words) or the aforementioned convenient condescending approach to dialogue options if the stories would be any good. They start with an attempt of being lighthearted, and noticing how boring they are halfway through, they usually throw some half-baked drama that makes Inazuma Eleven secret characters' backstories look like Shakespearian tragedies.
Even though it is appreciated that the game main plot is rather calm to just enjoy the day to day (something that, as already said, fails to do so), the narrative obstacles in the smaller stories are just a teaser of the ineptitude of the whole game. The main group, despite living in the same residence and going to the same school, seems afraid to spend time together that is not relevant to the main plot. It is so clearly disinterested in making a group dynamic that up until the very end of the game it will be usual to approach one of your team members at night for a casual talk and hear a tutorial prompt instead. I have to admit that the overall insipidness of everyone helps to look at the dog the same as any other team member, at least.
The more “serious” story beats may be the worst part. Just to exemplify, the first arc of the story that wants to carry some weight deals with a group of girls bullying one of their classmates. As obvious as it is at this point, Persona 3 does not care in any human way about neither life in general nor in teenage life in particular, so the bully is forgiven and corrected after her life is saved by the bullied and the story is concluded, they are now inseparable friends even. This very same ineptitude could be discussed with every dramatic driven story beat, save perhaps for the admittedly okayish ending (talking about The Journey here, I prefer to ignore the whole existence of The Answer in every sense).
As much as Persona 3 ends up wanting to talk about the importance and impact of death and its worries or where our world is going to (in quite a conservative mindset where marriage and divorce rates are relevantly present in the news for instance), its attempt cannot be taken seriously at such a glaring misunderstanding of life itself.