This review is largely outdated and doesn't wholly reflect my views on Persona 3 anymore, namely in the fact that Persona 3 is no longer my favorite game. Still, people seem to like it, and so it remains for posterity's sake.

My favorite game of all time – what makes Persona 3 truly special isn't its individual qualities but how they interplay and work together as a whole. There are games that surpass Persona 3's merits one by one, but as a single cohesive work of art there truly isn't anything else like it.

Persona 3 has the sort of message that's meant to be heard by certain people – coming hot off the dating sim and visual novel craze of the early 2000s and deconstructing some of their greatest cliches while also embracing exactly what makes them appealing to so many people, Persona 3's narrative and its protagonist's story of opening up to the world around him and embracing life while it lasts is incredibly resonant and continues to mean the world to me and many others some fifteen years on.

If you're looking for a mechanically tight JRPG experience you might best look elsewhere, as Persona 3 isn't a game that intends to impress by gameplay alone. However, if you want a JRPG that makes the most of its mechanical quirks to help convey its message and portrays a theme of hope and determination against a bleak cyberpunk backdrop, then this game is definitely worth its 80+ hour runtime.

EDIT: Per request I've elucidated a little bit on two of the major points of this review in the comments below.

Reviewed on Apr 19, 2021


22 Comments


2 years ago

TALK

2 years ago

Genuine question: What the hell in p3 is a deconstruction of dating sim/vn tropes? All I remember is it playing into them 100% seriously, it borderline comes off as pandering to an audience that wouldn't normally play the prior persona games.

Also, cyberpunk? The fuck in p3 is cyberpunk? The fact that there's a robot and some vague machine lookin things? P3 is a pretty far cry from cyberpunk on both a thematic AND aesthetic front, genuinely do not get that at all. This ain't soul hackers or some shit like that

2 years ago

electing not to answer the above comment because he was an asshole about it

2 years ago

Good afternoon my good man saetia,

Hi, first I just wanted to say; great review! I especially agree with the sixth line of your review, it's magnificent. However, permit me to pose a few ponderings that I still had upon finishing your thought-provoking review.

First of all, I was wondering how Persona 3 is a deconstruction of dating sim and VN tropes? I do not mean to disagree or discredit you, but when I played the game, it seemed like a standard execution to me. In fact, I would say that it was more wonted than the previous Persona games. Of course, it is possible, and quite likely that my analysis is missing a few key observations, preventing me from reaching the same conclusion as you.

As for my other inquiry, I am unable to understand how Persona 3 fits the qualifications that are usually ascribed to the "cyberpunk" genre. As far as I know, the only aspect of the game that could be perceived as cyberpunk is the robot character, Aigis.

However, please do not view these mere curious musings as a challenge; I mean absolutely no disrespect! I simply wish to understand your point of view even further, and develop a greater understanding of this great JRPG.

Thank you for your time,
PKMudkipz

2 years ago

hi! i'm not able to sit down and write a lengthy analysis or provide direct examples of everything I've covered here right now, but I'll provide the gist of it:

- i want to note that to deconstruct something isn't to outright criticize it or make broad statements about it, and oftentimes a deconstruction can be as simple as playing things entirely straight without the pretenses often afforded by fictional tropes - usually by taking it apart and exposing how it might happen in a real-life scenario. the most notable and immediately clear aspect of this in relation to persona 3 is the protagonist's personality – it's not uncommon or unheard of in JRPGs, dating sims or (to a somewhat lesser extent) visual novels for the player character to be an emotionless blank slate who is only given life by the player's choices, but in persona 3 the protagonist's outward lack of personality and seeming willingness only to act on others' whims is actively a part of his characterization. it's something that other characters frequently comment on and are outright affected by – the most obvious and notable example of his downright odd demeanor and personality is during the beach scene with yukari, where she snaps and shouts at him for his people-pleasing tendencies and emotionless personality (quote the script: "Well, you're just Mr. Perfect. Nothing ever fazes you. And now, you've got the nerve to try and tell me how to feel!? You think you know me!? You don't know anything!"). there's a lot to this exchange and the relationship between the protagonist and yukari in general with regards to how persona 3 likes to play with cliches and standards of jrpg/vn/dating sim writing, but this is already getting to be pretty long-winded, so i'll cut it short for now.

- i understand that persona 3 lacks some of the conventional elements of cyberpunk that a lot of people might associate it with such as the low-life protagonist, the neon lighting and emphasis on body modification, especially in comparison to some of megami tensei's other entries such as digital devil saga or soul hackers. however, cyberpunk is my favorite genre of fiction and something i've spent an inordinate amount of time consuming, studying and writing within myself, and i'd go as far to say that persona 3 is not only cyberpunk but my favorite cyberpunk narrative.

megami tensei has had heavy roots in cyberpunk from the very start (most heavily pronounced in the first two digital devil story games as well as the first two shin megami tensei games), and persona 3 is no different: it takes place in an enormous artificial island owned and proprieted by a near-omniscient corporation (the kirijo group). furthermore, the kirijo group's desire for power to control time and space via the shadows' unique abilities is exactly what led to the presence of the dark hour and directly led to the inevitable end of the world – and rather than attempt to cover it up or contain it themselves they opt to enlist children, either by forcibly kidnapping them off the streets and perfoming horrific experiments on them to force them into inheriting persona abilities at the cost of their lives or recruiting them from a high school purpose-built to recruit children to fight in SEES, all the while equipping them with technology intended to weaponize psychological trauma and force their personae out. this is all to say nothing of aigis and the other anti-shadow weapons, whose narrative as a living weapon purpose-built to fulfill a single role but eventually finding meaning in life rides the most cliche'd and oft-repeated tropes of cyberpunk.

in sum: persona 3 is a narrative where the closest thing to an instigating villain and shared threat that the game has is a corrupt, power-hungry corporation that employs child soldiers to do their dirty work and creates sentient artificial beings only to force them to give their lives cleaning up a mess that they created, a major antagonistic force remains vehemently opposed to the corporation (and maintains a prominent internet presence to recruit others into their ranks, no less), all against a bleak, oppressive urban atmosphere with a heavy dissonance between those who can attend the pristine private school and those who are forced to corral in slums, back alleys and on the streets in the most dingy and downtrodden of locales. it might not have sockets plugged into brains or bright neon billboards, but in ethos and spirit alone it's as cyberpunk as it gets.

or maybe you just don't see it the way i do and that's fine as well. art is subjective, after all.

2 years ago

Good explanation, I hadn't thought of it that way before

2 years ago

Damn that comment is good, feels like it practically deserves to be in a review of its own lol

2 years ago

thank you both! one of these days I'm going to sit down and write down a fully-fledged review on why Persona 3 is my Favorite Thing Ever and why I think it's remarkable not only within its own series but in the context of games as a whole, when I find the time to.

2 years ago

i think you're missing most of the "cyber" in cyberpunk. you've definitely got the "punk" part down, and i'd absolutely agree that persona 3 has many themes and story beats surrounding corruption of corporations, and i won't deny that aigis is in fact a robot, but that's pretty much the furthest it goes. the rest of p3 (and persona as a whole) is undeniably rooted in fantastical interpretations of psychological concepts above pretty much anything else

imo with a description that broad you could probably make a case for just about anything being cyberpunk in some fashion

2 years ago

this very much is a "i don't think i can interpret this the way you do" kinda comment, but imo you take a few steps leaps here that are pretty easy to question.

before even calling p3 a deconstruction, you have to remember that this is a game where you have no repercussions for (and even have to) assemble a harem of a bunch of women you romance as the personalityless perfect protagonist you also describe. i would even argue that the example you cite of yukari at the beach is meant to mean way more about her character at the time than the protagonist's. also note that almost immediately after she says all of what you described, she asks the protagonist for the same advice anyone else would - as previous commenters said, it winds up just being another example of things being played straight. i liked yukari when i played, but i always wished she would have retained the sort of questioning tone toward the protagonist's perfection the whole way through. the answer disappointed me in that sense, though by that point i knew she wouldn't have been that sort of character anymore anyway.

before i say anything else, i do find it really cool that someone legitimately looked at p3 and decided in their heads that it's cyberpunk. you explained your take on it well and got me more interested in the genre than i think i've ever been. it's likely the most punk persona game, which i find pretty funny considering 1 and 2 were so much more buddy-buddy with mainline smt, but yeah.

that said, i think what you use to qualify it as cyberpunk for yourself isn't nearly enough to qualify it as anything for me. in megaten as a whole, p3 was effectively the point where persona was going to finally branch away from smt1/2/if stylings, so it trying to hearken to its parent series seems a bit strange to me. i could understand a perspective of not 'losing its roots', but i don't really buy it when it's followed up immediately by p4.

and like i said i think your explanation makes sense in how you decided to call it a 'cyberpunk narrative'. the elements you assign to cyberpunk do seem to be present narratively. still, every point made there made me ask, "as someone who isn't particularly into cyberpunk stuff, did this actually push me to categorize p3 as a style of narrative/a set of narrative elements that i wasn't familiar with?" the answer was no. megacorps with nasty secrets and plans isn't at all unique to cyberpunk, nor is horrible experimentation or the dissonance between cleaner society and the oppressed or 'dirtied' outside (that's the "punk" but not the "cyber"). personally i'd call the first few entries of persona to be a set of more general apocalyptic science fantasy stories with a social science emphasis (that obviously being psychology or anthropology). the notable lack of the cyberpunk aesthetic is something of a last straw for me to take a step back from calling p3 such, especially since it (as a game) hinges entirely on the magical elements established in the previous entries (even the scientific meddling the kirijo group does involves magical shit beyond their control, hence the fantastical climax of the game). i'd totally get the take of p3 as the most punk (maybe even cyberpunk) persona game by a wide margin, but saying it straight-up has a "cyberpunk backdrop" seems a bit disingenuous imo. if i were reading this review as someone who hadn't played the game but was a fan of cyberpunk for its stylings rather than specifically elements of its ethos (which one could argue are more just "punk" in general), i'd feel lied to upon actually playing it.

still, it's pretty cool that you could look at p3 and say that it has a cyberpunk ethos in the first place - it's something i certainly wouldn't have ever expected. based on your explanation, it seems like a pretty thought-out interpretation of things and certainly wasn't out of nowhere. i guess i just take issue with calling p3 something with a cyberpunk backdrop when the cyberpunk it does have is almost entirely contained within a postmortem analysis of specific story and world elements, not the actual backdrop of the game as you play it.

2 years ago

Well as someone who really likes Persona 3 I'd be real interested in that. @ saetia

2 years ago

steps/leaps*

a typo in my very first sentence, that's what i get for writing a comment late at night

2 years ago

tbh (and not to discredit the sheer amount of effort you've put into your reply which I admire and commend) I'm not here to debate anybody or even Discuss games so much as backloggd is just my little spot to host my thoughts on games I play. if you don't see things the way that I do that's cool

2 years ago

that's totally respectable. you do you
good avi btw

2 years ago

okay but "changing seasons" slaps abominably

2 years ago

yeah I feel you @ saetia, I wouldn't want to do the same in my own comments. all in all I just like seeing stuff like this cause it reminds me of how much of an art form games can be with how people interpret em

2 years ago

pseuds among us

2 years ago

Amazing review (with the added comment.) One of my favorites on this site.

1 year ago

ok after seeing the first sentence is p3 still your favourite game or is it chrono cross now

1 year ago

it's Chrono Cross now, yeah. I used to have Chrono Cross and P3 on my Backloggd but after replaying the former it wasn't even a question, in my mind.

this review is outdated and very much gives a shorthand description of the things I (still very much do) find special about P3 and I've been piecemealing a longer, more cohesive review for a long time. maybe I'll post it Eventually:tm:

@irumae

1 year ago

I think another review would be great, I think your comments on cyperpunk and vn tropes was actually very interesting and thoughtful 👀 /srs