Devolpers: Atlus
Release Date: April 22, 2007
Status: Finished
Director: Katsura Hashino
Composer: Shoji Meguro
Artist: Shigenori Soejima

Imma say my opinion up front bout this game, this shit sucks so much ass. This game is a disappointment to me, yall hyped this shit up so much. "Best persona game" "One of the best Megaten games" "Best written persona game" "Best ost" NO. STFU YOUR WRONG. Imagine going from the peak game that is Persona 2 to this trash in 2008, I would kms. Every thing I can dislike about a game is here. Bad ost, poorly written story and characters, garbage gameplay. I can't believe this shit gets the praise that it get. This is coming from a person that has pretty much played every Megaten game. From the first Megami Tensei on the NES to SMT Vengence, even mother fucking Jack Bros. I have sunk hours of my life into them since Fall of 2018. Not saying that this makes my opinion worth more than a newer fan, just to put into perspective what kinda person wrote this reveiw. And no I am not a SMT elitist, I like all of the older persona games and think Persona 4 isn't bad. But sorry(not) this is one of the worse Megaten games to be made.

Gamplay: The main critism I see for this game's gameplay is the AI team control, I actually like it. I think it works well and does exactly as you tell it to do, and if they can't do it they won't. It's your fault if your teammate doesn't follow your instruction. That's one of the only things I can praise about the gameplay though. The main battle mechanics becomes really boring and samey after the first couple of battles. The main mechanic being the 'One More' system. You can tell its based off a semi-earlier game in the series, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Which started the much better and fun battle system called 'Press Turn'. You lose or gain extra turns by doing certain things. Like getting a crit for an extra turn or losing a couple for missing an attack. On paper it sounds extremly close to 'One More', with exploiting or achieving certain things to get more chances in battle. But in modern Persona you are very limited with how you do that, you can only get it if you knock the enemy down. You're most likely achieving that with exploiting enemy weaknesses. Which the only challenge that comes from it is guessing the enemy weakness, after that game memorizes what that weakness was, so you don't have to.
You're also gonna be playing with the system in the same boring ass excuse of a dungeon called 'Tartarus'. It contains the same songs, only having different iterations of it when you reach the next area for the entire game. 40 fucking hours of listening to the same garbage song. The battle theme also sucks, I'll get more into the music later though. Tartarus is an AI generated dungeon baring boss floors where you have to find an exit to get to the next floor. It is very ugly, boring, and lacks any structure due to it. I can't even say more on it since it lacks any material to talk about. Speaking of something that lacks anything of substance, the bosses fucking suck.
Theyre mostly the easiest damage sponges ever, bareley any strategy to them that also ties into the problems with the battle system. I mean the whole FINAL BOSS is just a 40 minute waste of time no strategy fight, with the most bullshit pretty much insta kill moves that can make you play it ALL OVER AGAIN. Let me repeat the fact that it's a 40 FUCKING MINUTE BATTLE SPONGE. All the other boss fights are just mini versions of it so I ain't even gonna bother to talk about them. TL;DR the gameplay mostly sucks.

Sound: Before I get into the ost I should just get the sfx and voice acting out the way. They...well exist, the sfx serivcable and I don't really have anything about them to talk about tbh. The voice acting is bad. Ive seen so many people try to defend it throughout the years but no bro its fucking sucks. Its stiff sounding and un-natural sounding. Highly emotional scenes just end up making me laugh due to voice acting. This isnt insult to the Va's as ik they are talented and have done other good work, like Junpeis Va(a bad person irl). It just so happens that Persona 3 isnt one of them. Onto the music...I FUCKING HATE LOTUS JUICE OMFG. LITERALLY THE MOST DUMBASS NIGGA EVER. His flow sucks, his lyrics don't make any fucking sense, and the instrumentals he raps over is also ass. Being produced by either him or the most over worked dude, Shoji Meguro. You can tell its made by Meguro when they'res random ass guitar and the same dumbass pianos. On some real shit, they need to give bro a break, they been working him since Nocturne with multiple games at the same time for more than a decade now. And I know he can make some good shit when he isn't being squeezed dry. Anyway, the sound is a fusion Rap, Jazz, and Rock. Shit does NOT blend well. I wouldn't even say that the whole soundtrack sucks, its just that you hear the same 5 bad songs for pretty much the whole 70 hours of the game. Highlights for me on the ost are probably, 'Memories of the City', 'Shadow', and 'Blind Alley'. The rest of the ost is unnotable or is absolute trash. I would say that The Answer slightly improved the ost, I really mean slightly though. I wouldnt bother unless you want a laugh from the Lotus Juice tracks lol.

Art: I think the art direction is fine. Its matches the tone that the game goes for(fails). Out of all of modern Persona its not my fav . Sometimes the character faces look dumb asf and ugly. I also think that the original to this game demon designs aren't good and get reused alot. Like get reused way to much. The graphics are meh. I do prefer Nocturnes look more and feel like they couldlve went with full models in this game like it. I think some of the scene like the crucifixion scene with Ikutski looking so goofy with the more smaller proportioned models. Not the strongest art direction.

Story:

WARNING FROM HERE ON OUT IT WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS. I DONT RECCOMEND IT BUT IF YOU WANT TO PLAY THE GAME PLEASE LEAVE NOW

It is also extremely long so goodluck with my rambling

If youre still reading now I guessing you've already played or don't care for spoilers. Either way Imma be giving an extremely basic run down of the plot. You play as High Schooler named Makoto Yuki that moves back to his hometown of Tatsumi Port Island.
You suddenly get roped into a group called (what a dumb fucking name) after finding out you have the "potentional". This group pretty much exist to fight shadows and find out theyre origin during the dark hour, an extra 25th hour of the day. Most people aren't conscious during this time, turning into coffins. The people who are though are ones with the "potentional", which is pretty much just the ability to awaken to your persona . It turns out youre special and can summon more than one persona. With youre powers you go through this mysterous Tower called 'Tartarus' in which you and other members of S.E.E.S explore to hopefully find out the truth about the Dark Hour.

On paper this seems like a decent plot to hook in the player, kinda basic but alright ig. I mean all of this information is given to you in the first about 40 minutes of the game. The way its given though...not so great. I think the game has a bad issue with as a story telling tool. It spells outs the whole story for you without leaving much to figure out on your own. And I mean the most blatent obvious exposition dumps are found in plenty throughout the story. While exposition dumps arent necessarily bad in a story as Ive seen it done well plenty of times. This games does it in a way that doesnt make sense plot wise and as I said before, poorly "hidden". Example from the top of my head is this. He's explaining the fucking dark hour to people who already know it, this serves no one in the scene other than the player. Even then not really because later on in like maybe 20 minutes they explain to you AGAIN incase you werent listening and AGAIN every time a new character is introduced to S.E.E.S. The game feels like its constantly insulting the player with how many times it repeats itself at you Ex: How many times they explain the dark hour. The dialogue ends up coming off as stiff and awkward, not that it isnt outside of the exposition. The dialogue being like that ends up making important scenes feel very commedic and unserious. And in a story where its going for a "darker" tone, you can see how this can effect it greatly. The story is also paced bad, in the game you have to play for days without barley any main plot until the end of the month. Maybe if youre lucky youd get a short cutscene inbetween not really giving much of any new info. "Erm but thats what the social links are for, so you can explore character background and maybe some info that has to do with the main plot", I'm actually getting to the poor character writing within that and out that rn.

I know it may shock you but...I think the characters suck too *gasp!!!*. Ik Ik its crazy especially since Ive been praising this game so much in the rest of the review. The mostly really bad writing for the main characters make me not care for them much. The character interactions have little to no chemistry with eachother, and the ones that supposably do dont feel like anything but awkward. I also dont fw the way they tell the character stories. Most of the basic ass character motivations don't end up not meaning shit to me because they just spell out to me. So when extremely highly emotional scenes happen I cant feel shit. Take Akihiko for example, his character has him dealling with him wanting to get stronger and stronger to make sure he can protect the people he loves. He gets like this because he couldnt save his sister when he was younger and "weak", so he constanly trains to make sure it never happens again. How do they show us his backstory you may ask, mostly through really awkward exposition dumping with Shinji. He trys to come to peace with it but his boyfri- I meant bestie, Shinji ends up dying and Akihiko ends up beating himself up again for not being stronger (the cutscene is really funny). Both these scene didnt illicit anything from me but laughter because of how i didnt really care and how dumb they where they were. Supposbly Akihiko moves on from this but i dont see it happen. The game has never heard of show dont tell. Im told that the characters have changed and are at peace. But barely anything in the game actually shows me any proof that thats the case other than the characters saying that they did. Thats why the character arcs mostly all end in extremely unsatisfactory and underdelvolped way for me.

You know how I metioned that they told his backstory mostly through convos with Shinji. Thats because some wise guy at Atlus decided, mmmm I dont think we need any male character(around mcs age) social links because its mostly just a dating sim mechanic for the poorly written woman anyway. I gotta say I hate that mechanic. The dating sim mechanic is just weird especially with the pedaphillic one WITH YOUR TEACHER. The rest of the romances feel really half assed and more of wish full fillment. But whatever its optional so it doesnt matt..IT ISNT OPTIONAL IF YOU WANNA COMPLETE THEM GARBAGE ASS LINKS. To finish any romanceble females characters you gotta fucking date them. No friend zone option, which is lowkey worse cuz if you want to play all em you gotta cheat and when you cheat well you also gotta sit through even more painful ass cutscenes.
The non romancable social links are mixed to me if Imma be honest. Some of the ones like Hierphant or Sun being very good social links that mirror the themes of the game. The rest are either boring or weird asf. Ryuji is a garbage plot device and the plotline with Aigis sealing death inside you is dumb, nothing else to say bout it lol. To finish this off, I aint even gonna talk about Nyx or the ending sections since theyre isnt much for me to talk about. I will give the story praise with the shift toward the end, that shit a breath of fresh air. To bad they dont actually live up to that peak feeling that they set up during the ending, I didnt really care for the Mc dying, it felt extremely underwhelming. I didnt really end up feeling anything cuz I was so over and done on this playthrough that I couldnt care less. TL;DR this game sucks and I dont think you should waste your time on it. Play something like idk Persona 2 or DDS. I'll get to 'The Answer' eventually, I just need a break from this game. Give me 5 years.

Gameplay: 3/10
Music: 2/10
Art Direction: 6/10
Story: 3/10
Overall Score: 3.5/10
Final Notes: This shit is fucking garbage
Last Edited: 8/19/24