Persona 3 has been one of those highly praised but very hard to play video games in recent years namely following the success of Persona 5. The 5th entry in the series created a boom in popularity for the Persona games as a whole, being a spin off of the Shin Megumi Tensei series that is designed to be a more approachable RPG. SMT mainline games and even some spin-offs like Digital Devil Summoner are known for being pretty fucking hard as JRPG's go, this is due to the hated JRPG mechanic of "if the main dude dies it's game over, even if the rest of the party is alive" and lots of instant death attacks.
Persona games still have those mechanics (even 5) but tone it way down and tend to be more forthcoming with upcoming attacks as well as clearly marking what you need to do to block those game over attacks. However Persona for the most part, remains true to the old school dungeon crawling JRPG's of old with one big twist. Between the dungeon crawling is a slice of life sim where you will go to school, study for exams, build friendships, and maybe fall in love. All of these activities working together to build each other up binding together with a typically wonderful coming of age story revolving around a specific theme. This combination built incredible success with Persona 4 and 5, and the system originated in Persona 3. Briefly I'll mention that Persona 1 and 2 while similar in concept didn't have the slice of life part, 3 is where the formula really came into perfect shape.
But seeing as how Persona 3 is the first crack at a set formula for the series, it's also the one that does it the worst by a wide margin.
Persona 3 involves you as a high school student coming to a new school that turns into a tower of demons at midnight. Only a select few people have the power to see this tower and the creatures that escape from within, and even fewer have the ability to bring out persona's to fight back. A Persona is a demon from within, a sort of inner strength manifested with powers that allow for combat to happen. The beginning of the game is where the problems arise for me. Unlike P4 and P5, there isn't much foundation to go on with P3. There isn't really a set up for who your character is nor is there much of a set up for why demon fighting is a thing. These get explained much later in the game, but the fact that there isn't much to attach the player to the mystery it's trying to set up is a bummer.
Additionally P3's social system is extremely obtuse. Unlike in P4 and 5, where social links are practically highlighted with big neon signs that say "Make friends with this person!", P3 doesn't have that and it'll just casually suggest you talk to everybody and join some clubs to maybe make friends, or don't we don't care fuck you. While some people might enjoy figuring that shit out, when you combine the tight time schedule the game in running on (the calendar system that every entry uses) you need to manage your time wisely or risk not having enough to see everything you might want to see. The vast majority of story and social links are extremely missable in P3 and I don't really like that. I'm fine missing out on maxing everyone unless you play perfectly, but I'm not fine with missing things that you have no way to know are even there in the first place.
This issue is compounded in the recent console release of Persona 3 because you are not getting a port of the PS2 games here, instead you are getting a port of the PSP version called Persona 3 Portable. P3Portable forgoes the use of 3d graphics for exploration and all non-dungeon activities are told via visual novel style, making it harder for special characters to stand out until you talk to them.
Speaking of social links, where the later games make your party members big parts of your social circle (as it would make sense to form a bond with the people you are trying to save the world with) P3 saves these for the back half of the game where you might finally have the stats for them to respect you. For example one of your party members wont hang out with you unless you reach Genius level smarts. Which takes months of dedication to reach and keep in mind that studying also means you aren't developing other social links. It's all very frustratingly designed in that regard, and as you play through P3 you always have the feeling you are missing a shitload of stuff simply because the game isn't telling you or even providing clues that the content is there. It's like Elden Ring, and you all know my feelings on Elden Ring.
That being said the combat is fun and typical of more recent Persona games, all the basics are there including getting demons to join you, fusing them to make better demons, elemental weaknesses, all out attacks, the whole 9 yards of Persona combat.
I can definitely see where P4 and P5 grew from this entry, but know that it's very odd to have played the Persona games in a reverse order to end up with P3P.
Persona games still have those mechanics (even 5) but tone it way down and tend to be more forthcoming with upcoming attacks as well as clearly marking what you need to do to block those game over attacks. However Persona for the most part, remains true to the old school dungeon crawling JRPG's of old with one big twist. Between the dungeon crawling is a slice of life sim where you will go to school, study for exams, build friendships, and maybe fall in love. All of these activities working together to build each other up binding together with a typically wonderful coming of age story revolving around a specific theme. This combination built incredible success with Persona 4 and 5, and the system originated in Persona 3. Briefly I'll mention that Persona 1 and 2 while similar in concept didn't have the slice of life part, 3 is where the formula really came into perfect shape.
But seeing as how Persona 3 is the first crack at a set formula for the series, it's also the one that does it the worst by a wide margin.
Persona 3 involves you as a high school student coming to a new school that turns into a tower of demons at midnight. Only a select few people have the power to see this tower and the creatures that escape from within, and even fewer have the ability to bring out persona's to fight back. A Persona is a demon from within, a sort of inner strength manifested with powers that allow for combat to happen. The beginning of the game is where the problems arise for me. Unlike P4 and P5, there isn't much foundation to go on with P3. There isn't really a set up for who your character is nor is there much of a set up for why demon fighting is a thing. These get explained much later in the game, but the fact that there isn't much to attach the player to the mystery it's trying to set up is a bummer.
Additionally P3's social system is extremely obtuse. Unlike in P4 and 5, where social links are practically highlighted with big neon signs that say "Make friends with this person!", P3 doesn't have that and it'll just casually suggest you talk to everybody and join some clubs to maybe make friends, or don't we don't care fuck you. While some people might enjoy figuring that shit out, when you combine the tight time schedule the game in running on (the calendar system that every entry uses) you need to manage your time wisely or risk not having enough to see everything you might want to see. The vast majority of story and social links are extremely missable in P3 and I don't really like that. I'm fine missing out on maxing everyone unless you play perfectly, but I'm not fine with missing things that you have no way to know are even there in the first place.
This issue is compounded in the recent console release of Persona 3 because you are not getting a port of the PS2 games here, instead you are getting a port of the PSP version called Persona 3 Portable. P3Portable forgoes the use of 3d graphics for exploration and all non-dungeon activities are told via visual novel style, making it harder for special characters to stand out until you talk to them.
Speaking of social links, where the later games make your party members big parts of your social circle (as it would make sense to form a bond with the people you are trying to save the world with) P3 saves these for the back half of the game where you might finally have the stats for them to respect you. For example one of your party members wont hang out with you unless you reach Genius level smarts. Which takes months of dedication to reach and keep in mind that studying also means you aren't developing other social links. It's all very frustratingly designed in that regard, and as you play through P3 you always have the feeling you are missing a shitload of stuff simply because the game isn't telling you or even providing clues that the content is there. It's like Elden Ring, and you all know my feelings on Elden Ring.
That being said the combat is fun and typical of more recent Persona games, all the basics are there including getting demons to join you, fusing them to make better demons, elemental weaknesses, all out attacks, the whole 9 yards of Persona combat.
I can definitely see where P4 and P5 grew from this entry, but know that it's very odd to have played the Persona games in a reverse order to end up with P3P.
