It's not often that a game is worth buying twice, but Atlus
has made a second bite easier to swallow with Persona 3:
FES.
A special edition of last year's hybrid RPG, Persona 3,
FES
contains a dearth of new content and the entire original game with new elements
and all for an easy $30. While some of the new content doesn't quite live up to
the impact of the original release, FES represents a great value and is a
must-play for RPG fans who looked it over the first time.
Click here for an explanation of our review and scoring format.
The bulk of the content on the disc is the original 80+ hour
Persona 3 game, dubbed "The Journey" in FES.
You play as a transfer student who quickly discovers that his school is the
epicenter of a phenomenon known as the Dark Hour, a "25th
hour" during the day where time stops for the unaware and a huge tower
named Tartarus erupts from the school, the source of an evil plague of beings
known as Shadows. Only once you realize you harness the ability to wield the
titular entities called personas do you join a crew of your fellow
persona-wielding classmates to climb Tartarus and cleanse it of the Shadows
over the course of a school year.
It's Japanese, but you get the idea.
P3's combat may at first glance look like a typical
turn-based RPG, but it has a few key differences that make it unique. First,
you only directly control your character in the four-person battle party. You
can give them general commands to focus on healing or attacking a specific
enemy and while it works most of the time there will be instances where they
don't quite do what you wanted. Also given that you and your members are made
up of high school students that still have studying on their minds, tiredness
can set in, which puts the character at a significant disadvantage. This is bad
news because many of the fights in P3 – boss or otherwise – are rather brutal and
require both adept strategies and focused, healthy party members to win.
The most significantly unique trait of Persona 3 is of
course in its titular persona system. Personas come in the form of characters
from myth and legend and when equipped on your character give him specific
weaknesses, strengths, and special moves. Your character is the only one who
can choose from well over one hundred personas and choosing the right one for
specific situations is a key part of the battle strategy due to the system of
strengths and weaknesses. Hitting an enemy's weakness gives you an extra turn
and knocks the enemy to the floor – knock them all down and your party can
perform a devastating and satisfying "all-out-attack" that cannot be
blocked. Of course, if you get hit by your own persona's weakness you too will
fall down and waste a turn, leaving you wide open for attack - the pendulum can
swing the other way at any moment in P3, which keeps battles tense.
Your personas are tended to in an ethereal place known as
the Velvet Room and if you want to succeed you'll be spending a lot of time
within its indigo walls. The most important aspect of the Velvet Room is that
you can fuse two or more personas together to make a new one. Fusion is a key
holdover from Persona 3's parent series Shin Megami Tensei and the depth and
options from which you can pool your personas is addictive and entertaining in
and of itself. Though you lose the ones fused away, the resulting persona will
almost always be of a higher level than the parents, in addition to carrying
over some of their skills. Shortly into the game you are also given access to a
persona compendium where you can buy back personas you've fused, so
experimentation with personas is encouraged. Personas carry their own levels,
blocking some of their skills from being available due to level caps, but
that's where the game's system of S. Links comes in.
P3 does not forget that you are cast in the role of a high
school student and the social aspect of which is simulated in its Social Links
system. Akin to a dating simulator, the Social Links or S. Links allow you to
hang out with your fellow classmates and other dubious characters in amusing
cutscene sequences. How you react to their problems is key to how you grow in
these relationships and as the S. Links level up, so does the arcana or class
of persona they represent, which will give your corresponding personas an
experience boost when you fuse them in the Velvet Room. Seeing your friends to
the end is encouraged as not only will personas of their same arcana know all
of their abilities right off the bat, you'll also have access to fuse a special
high level persona that you wouldn't be able to otherwise. When you don't feel
like hanging out, you can always study, sing karaoke, or watch a movie – all
designed to increase your personal attributes which will allow you access to
more S. Links. Everything you do outside
of Tartarus has an effect inside of
Tartarus, so there is plenty of incentive to keep yourself occupied.
While the bulk of the content in The Journey is the same as
the original release including the superb-to-adequate voice acting and
strangely infectious soundtrack, this FES edition contains a new S. Link in the
form of a particular character from the original, makes certain other S. Links
easier to complete, adds a number of new personas, and other things like new
cutscenes and costumes. Additionally, you can carry over your save data from
the original game and import your personal statistics/persona compendium for a
new round in FES, which is a wonderful bonus
for those of you who spent hours mastering the fusion system and collecting
your favorite personas.
Look after him - he's your baby.
The biggest amount of new content in
FES
is the new episode dubbed "The Answer." Taking place directly after
the ending of The Journey, The Answer tries to address questions left open by
the original's ending. However, much of the story falls flat and doesn't quite
create the same impact as the original. The Answer retains the random dungeon
gameplay, which still works well, and is set at a difficulty more intense than
the original, and at some parts is a real challenge. It can be made even more
of a challenge due to the lack of a persona compendium in this chapter, which
makes fusion less enjoyable because you have to be conservative with what you
give up. However, the continuation of where the story left off from the
original is the real draw of The Answer, and fans die-hard enough to want to
know what happens are the only ones who would get anything out of it anyway.
Despite some setbacks in its new content, FES
is still a worthwhile experience for those who have already played Persona 3 to
death. Its $30 price point is chump change to experience a 80+ hour main game
with a dearth of new content and a flawed but playable 30+ hour extra
chapter. Persona 3 is easily one of the
best RPGs to come out of Japan
in years and FES is without a doubt its
definitive form.
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