Is Persona 3: FES worth playing?

[Dchao]

So I've had this game sitting around for a while and it looks like it would be a big investment in time to complete so I have a few questions before I start it.
1. How easy is it and will I have to grind much?
2. The computer control the other people in your party right? How well do they do so?
3. Is the story any good?

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I've only played the original Persona 3 and Persona 3 Portable, but I'll answer anyway.
1. It isn't too difficult, really more on the easy side. The game does require some grinding and gets positively grindtastic towards the end.
2. They do well for the most part. Sometimes they make really stupid decisions, but overall they are fine.
3. It is a decent story. It drags till about halfway through the game then really picks up. The first 20-30 hours the story is nonexistent.
It will definitely be a major time investment. But, in my opinion, it is totally worth it.

 

[Ando85]

So I've had this game sitting around for a while and it looks like it would be a big investment in time to complete so I have a few questions before I start it.
1. How easy is it and will I have to grind much?
2. The computer control the other people in your party right? How well do they do so?
3. Is the story any good?

1. Some bosses can be tough but with the right strategy overall the game is challenging but not way too high. It is a walk in the park say compared to Nocturne. The FES "Answer" portion however ramps up the difficulty to what expert would be on the main game.

2. Yes your other party members are AI. It isn't really a bad thing at all since you will be so busy managing your own personas and stuff. They are pretty smart too and you can select tactics for them to use. I never really had a problem with the AI doing anything incredibly stupid.

3. The story is remarkable. Like stated before it takes a bit to pick up but after awhile I couldn't put the game down. There is a lot of twists and turns and the overall story told in the game is unique and entertaining

It took me about 80 something hours to complete the main game. I haven't played thru the "Answer" yet which I heard tacks on another 30 hours or so. I've also heard that the Answer is mostly dungeon crawling. Yes it is a huge time investment but I'd say it is very much worth it. I highly recommend it.

 

[Artina89]

I love the game, and I think it is a wonderful time sink, but that is just my opinion. As for your questions:

1. Some of the bosses some grinding but all in all there wasn't anything too difficult that I can think of.

2. The other members of the party are AI, but they are OK for the most part. You do have some modicum of control as you can direct certain members to do things like "Conserve SP" or set them to "Heal or buff" and other commands.

3. The story doesn't kick in right away but if you stick with it its worth it (at least I thought it was) there are plenty of things to do, you can boost stats to increase your social standing and forge "social links" with certain characters, which is unique in itself. No two social links are the same, and in some cases the characters from some social links can be involved in some way in another character's social links, which I find unique.

 

[mireko]

1. A lot easier than some of the other games in the series, probably a hair harder than contemporary turn-based RPGs. I can't say for sure whether you'll need to grind, but that's certainly one way to make the bosses easy.

2. [sub]..I've actually only played the PSP version. I have FES in my shelf, haven't tried it yet.[/sub]

3. Yes. A little sillier than Persona 4, but it's very portentous and interesting. The heavy occult themes help a lot.

If you find Persona 3 to be too grindy or too difficult, I would recommend playing through Persona 4 first.

 

[Akihiko]

So I've had this game sitting around for a while and it looks like it would be a big investment in time to complete so I have a few questions before I start it.
1. How easy is it and will I have to grind much?
2. The computer control the other people in your party right? How well do they do so?
3. Is the story any good?

1. Other than the insta-death attacks enemys can do, it isn't really that difficult(Can be avoided by using a persona with light/dark block). Even the final boss isn't that difficult, it's just excessively long, making it annoying if you have to start again. Course the more you grind the easier it will be.

The necessity of grinding depends on your definition of it. I'd argue tartarus all together is one massive grind. However you could argue that because you have to explore it as part of the story, that it isn't. You can also break it up, as you can choose when to explore it, so if you get bored you can go back and do some more social links for the next few days.

2. It can be very hit and miss. You can give out tactics to your team member, so if you need healing, you can change their tactics to healing/support. However naturally it won't be perfect. Sometimes despite a party member being really low on health, they'll cure the status ailment instead of healing. Also you'll get party members spamming moves which do status ailments on the enemy, when it's completely un-necessary(If you use Mitsuru a lot you'll see what I mean). I'd say it does the job, and doesn't ruin the game, however it isn't amazing.

3. By far the best part of the game, the overarching story is full of twists and turns, though you'll often only get 1 or 2 reveals each ingame month. However, to make up for that you have social links, where you hang out with many different characters, and you'll help them through their inner struggles. Those also contain a great deal of story, and enough to keep you entertained through the 80hour experience.

 

[Rimefrost]

1. I only had to grind for one of the bosses in the game, and even then not that much. The game is long though.

2. This was my biggest issue. You can give party members basic commands like all out attacks or healing but they never really did exactly what I wanted them to do.

3. The story is great, enough said.

I highly recommend it.