THE PLOT:
It is March 31, not quite a month after the SEES team suffered a devastating loss. The once close-knit group is slowly breaking apart. Yukari is obsessed with moving forward with her life, barely even feigning interest in the activities of the group. Meanwhile, Aegis has deliberately regressed to being "just a machine," even requesting to be transferred back to the Kirijo lab rather than continuing with school.
At midnight, however, time loops back on itself. They are unable to leave the dorm, and all calendars and broadcasts indicate that they are repeating March 31 over and over.
That's when a new arrival appears: Metis, an anti-Shadow weapon similar to Aegis, who refers to Aegis as her "sister." Metis reveals that The Abyss of Time has appeared in the basement of their dorm - a series of doors leading into a labyrinthine dungeon. When they make their way to the bottom of each of these structures, they get another glimpse of the past - and as they progress, they find themselves chasing a shadowy figure. A figure who looks strikingly familiar...
CHARACTERS:
The characterizations are The Answer's greatest asset. We see the characters from the main game struggling to deal with grief, loss, and even depression, which manifests differently for each of them. Yukari tries to shut the others away form her life. Aegis attempts to withdraw completely. Perpetual screwup Junpei ends up seeming the most emotionally healthy of the lot - which makes sense, given that he had to deal with a loss of his own during the main game. Meanwhile, glimpses of the past show how each of the characters awakened to their Persona abilities, in scenes that range from genuinely interesting to throwaway fan service.
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| Doors to the past open up beneath the SEES dormitory. |
GAMEPLAY:
The Answer was a new campaign included in the 2008 FES re-release of Persona 3. It is effectively a value-added DLC campaign... albeit one that ends up being large enough to legitimately review as a game unto itself. As such, it's no surprise that it is a heavily stripped-down affair. Gone are the Social Links. Story and characterization is advanced through scenes that come after you complete each dungeon. In between story scenes, you pick your party and venture into Tartar... ah, The Abyss of Time, which consists of mini-dungeons located behind doors that in absolutely no way resemble the levels of the main game's tower.
The dungeon crawling is all but identical to that of the main game. The Answer does place a save point immediately before each boss, allowing players to test whether they are able to defeat the next boss without having to risk losing an hour of more of progress. If you throw your characters at the boss a few times and can't beat it, then it's a simple matter to exit, restock on supplies, then grind a few levels while working your way back down to that point. The dungeons are also smaller than the various sections of Tartarus were, and you are actually rewarded with story progress when you complete one - though that equates roughly to ten minutes (or less) of story material for every 2 - 3 hours of dungeon crawling.
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| An early Boss Battle. There are a lot of these... |
THOUGHTS:
The Answer proved controversial among fans of Persona 3. On the one hand, it's clearly a significant expansion, essentially being a game in its own right. It explains several aspects of the main game, offers an ambitious story in its own right, and follows up on the surviving characters. However, there is a sense that it overexplains things that were best left ambiguous - and that it strips down the Persona 3 experience to its least enjoyable elements.
The dungeon crawling was by far my least favorite part of the main game... and roughly 80% of The Answer is pure dungeon crawling. After a genuinely intriguing opening, it quickly becomes apparent that there isn't enough story here to support 30+ hours of gameplay. The narrative more or less stops for the bulk of the game, with only very small slices of character backstory rewarding players for persevering through each dungeon. Essentially, for every 3 hours of grinding, you get maybe 5 - 10 minutes of story material - not a good balance.
The actual plot is interesting, when it finally kicks back into gear. That doesn't really happen until you finish exploring The Abyss of Time. Once it does, however, the fracturing of the SEES team is paid off with a fairly vicious argument among the group. The portion of the story that puts the main characters in conflict with each other works well, and is a point that should have been reached sooner and developed further.
The resolution of that conflict is also where the game's story should have ended, however, because the actual endgame is not very good. From a gameplay perspective, I found the final boss ridiculously easy to beat (do as much damage as possible when he powers up his big attack; heal and pick away at him at all other times). Worse than the weak final boss is the storytelling for the endgame. The final scenes overexplain developments that were more effective when left ambiguous, and some of the dialogue surrounding this revelation becomes almost comically heavy-handed. At the end of Persona 3, I felt the strong emotion that the game wanted from me. At the end of The Answer, I was mainly just laughing at the unsubtle moralistic messaging.
In the end, I can't really recommend The Answer. It's a good three times longer than the story will support, it's composed almost entirely of grinding, and an initially intriguing narrative crumbles during a heavy-handed finale.
It's a pity, because I believe there was potential in this story for something truly special. As it stands, however, it's often tedious and ultimately unsatisfying. As of this writing, The Answer easily ranks as by far my least favorite Persona title.
Overall Rating: 3/10.
Previous Game: Persona 3
Next Game: Persona 4
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