Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth.

Original Release: Nintendo 3DS, 2014. Version Reviewed: Nintendo 3DS, 2014.


THE PLOT:

It's the week of the Culture Festival... in two time periods. In 2011, the members of The Investigation Team not-so-stoically endure the failure of their class's "Group Date Cafe." In 2009, the members of SEES mourn the cancellation of their festival due to a severe and unexpected typhoon. For both groups, in both time periods, the festival is an absolute disappointment.

Until they find themselves transported to an alternative Culture Festival, in a pocket dimension where time has no meaning. At first glance, all appears normal enough: A high school festival, with fried food and games. But behind the displays are labyrinths, which mysterious new arrivals Zen and Rei insist are dangerous.

Zen and Rei admit that they have no memory of a life before this bizarre festival. Zen has taken it on himself to act as the waifish Rei's protector, while she becomes enthusiastic at the idea of returning to the real world with the main characters.

But to return to reality, they must first overcome the labyrinths - which means overcoming the Shadows that lurk their floors, guarding precious secrets within!

A meeting that defies the laws of time...

CHARACTERS:

Persona Q brings together the full casts of Persona 3 and Persona 4. Something already done by the Arena games... but the team-up works better here. This game recognizes what those earlier ones didn't: That the two teams have very different dynamics. The Persona 4 group is made up of people who quickly become close friends who place inherent trust in each other. The Persona 3 group is united by a common goal, but is kept separate by secrets and individual agendas.

It is easy enough to tell which characters interested the game developers - simply by which characters most successfully come across as three-dimensional. In the Persona 4 route, supposed meathead Kanji recognizes that young Ken is troubled, and manages to reach out and bond with him while teaching the boy how to repair his shoelaces. In the Persona 3 route, Yukari observes the closeness among their newfound counterparts, which prompts her to push against Mitsuru's secretiveness.  In both routes, Rise and Fuuka bond over the plight of guiding the others in combat while not actually being able to directly help.

Unfortunately, not every character is as well treated. Akihiko's characterization follows all the worst tendencies of the Arena games, reducing him to a meathead bodybuilder with a protein fetish... which is basically completely unlike the intelligent, quietly resolved upperclassman from Persona 3. Persona 4's Chie is similarly reduced to an obsession with meat and training, and not much else. Finally, Teddie is just a bad running joke.  Now unlike Akihiko and Chie, I already hated Teddie in the main game, but I could at least see what the game developers were going for.  Here, he's almost exclusively a lech; and given the disdain with which the other characters treat him, it's a genuine mystery as to why they keep him around.

One of the game's many random encounters.

GAMEPLAY:

The gameplay is apparently lifted pretty directly from the popular Etrian Odyssey series. As you explore each labyrinth, you use the 3DS stylus to create a map on the bottom screen, dropping icons for doors, conveyor belts, and other notable features as you go. I expected to find this wearisome; instead, it became my favorite part of the game. The mapmaking is startlingly addictive, to the point where I occasionally felt annoyance when it was interrupted by combat or story scenes.

Combat is almost entirely through random encounters, which do borrow elements of the Persona combat system. Enemies have weaknesses, which can be exploited and can potentially result in them being knocked down. A successful enough turn can end with an All-Out-Attack, which is less devastating here than in the main Persona series, but can still greatly shorten boss battles.

In addition to random encounter and dungeon bosses, each labyrinth contains powerful enemies known as FOEs. Initially, you are best advised to avoid them. Later, there will be times when you will need to fight them (and times when it will just make traversing an area much easier if you fight them). As with normal enemies, exploiting weaknesses is key to defeating them - though in most cases, you will also want to apply various buffs, de-buffs, and other status effects to win.

The group encounters Zen and Rei,
who have lost their memories.

THOUGHTS:

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth feels a lot more like a "proper" Persona game than the Arena spinoffs did. The gameplay, while far from exact, is similar enough to the main games to feel of a piece with them. The story is revealed in the course of explorations of increasingly convoluted labyrinths, and character interactions are both sprinkled throughout the story and made available outside the dungeons through "Strolls" (this game's equivalent of the main games' Social Links).

It is also a long game. I would argue that it ends up being slightly too long. The first three dungeons are sprightly and fun, each utilizing clever gimmicks to maintain interest. "Group Date Café" was my favorite of these, with your explorations and battles interrupted periodically by quizzes that will determine which of the characters is your "destined partner," with genuinely funny results (wisely, the game allows you to replay this mini-game to see what happens with different partners). The fourth dungeon, however - the "Inaba Pride Festival" - is visually uninteresting and takes far too long to fully explore; and its gimmick of unlocking doors with a lit torch quickly becomes tiresome.

The story is generally strong. The first half builds up an effective mystery. When the answers come, they fit the overall tone and style of the piece, and a combination of good writing and excellent voice acting grants some of the revelations genuine power. A bit of the heavy-handedness that plagued the Arena games creeps in near the end... but just as it starts to feel preachy, the game has the good sense to switch to a well-designed, multi-stage boss battle, which is followed by an enjoyably good-natured epilogue.

Indulge in some comically bizarre
matchmaking at "The Group Date Café."

OVERALL:

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is the first spinoff that truly feels like a Persona game. It's a game of two crossovers: narratively, by combining the Persona 3 and Persona 4 casts; and mechanically, by combining the gameplay of Persona and Etrian Odyssey. Both combinations work - and in fact, my enjoyment of the game's mapmaking has me now interested in the Etrian games, which never particularly attracted me before.

If it didn't get so bogged down during the Inaba Pride dungeon, I would rank this as at least an "8." Unfortunately, that dungeon stalls the game's momentum. Though the final dungeon was back to being visually interesting and mostly well-designed, I never felt as fully connected with Persona Q after the Inaba Pride stumble.

Still, this is a fine game, enjoyable both in story and gameplay terms. It's long - probably a little too long. But it's well worth spending time with.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Game: Persona 4 - Arena Ultimax
Next Game: Persona 4 - Dancing All Night

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Persona 4 Arena Ultimax.

Original Release: Arcade, 2013. Version Reviewed: XBox 360, 2014.


THE PLOT:

It is only the day after the P-1 Grand Prix alerted Yu and his Investigation Team to the existence of a mysterious new enemy. The friends have barely started discussing what to do next... When suddenly, they find the choice made for them. The town of Inaba is engulfed by a mysterious red fog, and the entire population vanishes. A broadcast by General Teddie informs them that they are now participants in the P-1 Climax. To compel participation, the general shows them Mitsuru and her Shadow Operatives, now held captive, and informs them that they have one hour to rescue them or it will mean the end of the world!

The team moves out, following their separate paths, all of them leading to a bizarre tower that has appeared at the site of their high school. As they converge on the site, they face opponents: Shadow versions of themselves. But each fight leaves them increasingly exhausted, and they gradually realize that the fights are siphoning off their energy. They must fight to continue on their journey - but with each bout, they strengthen their enemy and bring him closer to his ultimate goal!

Yukari, Ken, and Koramaru arrive,
determined to rescue their friends.

CHARACTERS:

Several of the original English language voice actors have been replaced for this title; Kanji, Naoto, Igor, and Margaret all get new voice actors for Arena Ultimax. Fortunately, the replacements for Kanji and Naoto work well.  Matthew Mercer, as Kanji, pitches his voice to sound so much like Troy Baker's earlier performance that few will be able to discern a difference. Naoto's new voice actress, Valerie Arem, isn't quite as dead-on, but her voice is close enough - and, critically, she gives a very performance in her own right, making it easy to quickly accept the change.

The new voices for Velvet Room denizens Igor and Margaret are... less successful. The new Igor is outright terrible, and it's a relief that he only has a single scene. Marisha Ray, taking over as Margaret, makes a reasonable vocal match to her predecessor, but her performance is stiff and awkward. I've read it was apparently her first voice role, so I have hopes that her performance improves in future titles.

Though I retain my distaste for Teddie - the real one as much as (if not more than) the General - the rest of the cast remains engaging.  The Persona 3 characters who were excluded from the first Arena return here, and their presence is very welcome.  I particularly enjoyed the scenes in which we caught up with Yukari, Junpei, and Ken and learned which paths their lives had taken since the events of P3. Labrys, introduced only one game earlier, slots right into the ensemble, feeling like someone who has always been there - which is good, given that the Persona 3 storyline makes her the lead, rather than any of the old fan favorites!

Yosuke battles a Shadow version of his friend Yu.

GAMEPLAY:

Story Mode has thankfully been streamlined from Persona 4 Arena. Instead of offering a separate narrative for each character, the game presents two large-scale ensemble narratives, one centered on the Persona 4 cast and one on the Persona 3 cast. This greatly reduces the repetition, particularly since the two narratives, while telling the same overall story, are starkly different in which aspects of the story are emphasized.

Story Mode still is largely presented as a non-interactive visual novel, with the fights themselves being the only real gameplay elements. The rest of the time, the player is left to watch and read as the story unfolds, though the game does take regular breaks to allow the player to select from available subplots. Nevertheless, anyone not a fan of either the visual novel format or of the Persona mythos and characters is likely to grow impatient.

The Main Menu grants access to various fighting modes. Both the "Arcade" and "Score Attack" modes from Persona 4 Arena return. They are joined by a "Golden" Mode, in which you select a character to fight through 50 battles. After sets of battles, you are able to level up. It was more of a marathon than I was interested in, and I abandoned the mode about 20 battles in; however, fighting game enthusiasts will likely enjoy it a lot.

A familiar-looking tower looms
over the fog-covered town of Inaba...

THOUGHTS:

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax makes several improvements to its predecessor... but also suffers from some continuing annoyances and even takes a few backward steps.  Not being a fan of fighting games, I spent most of my time with the game's Story Mode, which will be the focus of this review.  Fight game fans can probably nudge my final score up by at least a point.

I'll start with a note about the visual presentation.  This game offers a better variety of artwork than the first Arena, and most of the still images are of high quality. A few of them are genuinely gorgeous to look at. There are also more cutscenes, particularly in the early parts of the game, which helps to break up the static nature of the overall piece.

Ultimax's single biggest story improvement over the first Arena is the streamlining of the narrative into two main viewpoints, one for each cast (a third, DLC viewpoint is also available, and I would recommend this bonus chapter). This removes much of the repetition that marred the previous game.  Also improved is the text.  As I noted in my earlier review, the first Arena featured a truly ridiculous number of typos and grammatical errors in its copious text; this game only has a few such errors that I spotted, and falls within what I would consider acceptable for a professional product.

However, one aggravation remains - and is actually more irritating in this game than the previous one.  With the narrative distilled to two main strands, it should have been entirely possible to make the two strands consistent with each other.  There has been no effort made to do this.  Instead, the two stories actively conflict with each other, to a degree that is irreconcilable by even the most flexible fan brain.  Therefore, after I cleared the Persona 4 strand, my playthrough of the Persona 3 one was marked by an increasing sense that I was... well, watching officially licensed fanfiction rather than a proper, unified sequel.

The other issue is that the story is thematically heavy-handed. I'll grant that a certain heavy-handedness is part and parcel of the Persona series.  This title, however, goes truly over-the-top with its moralizing, stating and restating the importance of bonds and friendships to a point where the makers of '80s after school specials would likely advise the writers to dial it down.  After a while, I actively began to sympathize with the villains' sardonic dismissals of these very things.

Finally, I genuinely hated the final boss. In addition to being a sledgehammer-like personification of selfishness, the villain is a generic Giant Shouty Demon who, after losing the final fight, topples to his death screaming about the impossibility of his defeat. As trite as that sounds on paper?  It actually plays out worse in the climactic cutscene. The combination of this ending and the preceding heavy-handedness leave Arena Ultimax feeling ultimately weaker and emptier than the first Arena's story.

Teddie faces his evil doppelganger.  Who is arguably
slightly less annoying than the real thing.

OVERALL:

Despite the improvements, I ended up liking Persona 4 Arena Ultimax even less than Persona 4 Arena. While the most glaring issues have been fixed, the newer game introduces off-putting issues of its own. The story mode may be better presented here... but that is offset by the story itself, which suffers from preachiness and a weak climax.

I admit, my final opinion is colored by my indifference to the fighting game genre.  I appreciate that, rather than just churn out a quick cash-in, real effort went into creating a spinoff that doubles as a full, earnest-to-a-fault sequel.  Still, I can't pretend that the end result best reflects the series' strengths, and it arguably amplifies some of the series' weaknesses. To my tastes, at least, the Persona 4 Arena duology feels like a minor footnote to the larger overall franchise.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Game: Persona 4 Arena
Next Game: Persona Q - Shadow of the Labyrinth

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Persona 4 Arena.

Original Release: Arcade, Playstation 3, XBox 360, 2012. Version Reviewed: XBox 360, 2012.


THE PLOT:

Two months after leaving the small town of Inaba, Yu Narukami (Persona 4's no-longer-nameless protagonist) returns for the Golden Week holiday. He is looking forward to reuniting with his friends from the Investigation Team. It's a rainy night, however, so out of habit he checks to see if the supernatural Midnight Channel is showing.

It is - and this time, what it's broadcasting is what looks like a cheesy promotional video featuring him and his friends, as if they were contestants in a fighting tournament. When he catches up with his friends, he learns that Teddie, Kanji, and Rise are missing, and that Naoto is out of town on another investigation. They decide to go into the TV World to determine just what is happening.

They are greeted by none other than Teddie himself, wearing a strange outfit and calling himself "General Teddie." This figure informs them that they must fight each other in a recreation of their high school, with Rise acting as emcee. Why are their friends behaving so oddly? And just who are the other strangers inside the TV World - an imperious woman in a fur coat, a half-naked man in a red cape, and a blonde robot girl - and what is their link to this bizarre tournament?

The only way to find out is to move forward. And since only the winner of each match may proceed, that means the friends must fight each other - and win!

Yosuke encounters a young woman
who can't remember her own name.

CHARACTERS:

For a fighting game, Persona 4 Arena offers a surprisingly exhaustive "Story Mode," as the above summary shows. The story acts as a direct sequel not only to Persona 4, but to Persona 3 as well, with prominent roles for P3's Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Aegis (along with a couple other cameos). The premise was devised by the producer and character designer of the Persona series, so it's little surprise that the characters mostly feel as complete here as in the core games.

I mentioned in my review of Persona 4 that I didn't think the characters were quite as distinct as the ones in P3, and the results here bear that out, with Mitsuru and Aegis coming across as particularly dominant figures. Of the P4 group, sidekick character Yosuke ends up with the meatiest arc, his narrative ultimately being more fully satisfying than Yu's. Each character gets at least one moment to shine, however. Even Kanji's largely comedy-relief strand sees the muscled doofus showing both strength and insight when apparently confronted by his effete Shadow.

Naoto's investigation brings her into
contact with Persona 3's Mitsuru Kirijo.

GAMEPLAY:

The game tries to cater to both fighting game fans and fans of the Persona series' storytelling by offering multiple modes.  The Story Mode is substantial. You start with four characters to choose from, and play the first roughly 2/3 of their stories, up to a cliffhanger. As you play these characters' stories, more characters unlock - until you end up with twelve total parallel narratives. Ultimately, if you play every character's version of events, you will end up with around 30 hours of content.

Content - but not gameplay.  Each of the stories is presented as a visual novel. All dialogue is voiced, but save for occasional cutscenes, the action is largely described through text against still images. Occasionally, you may get to make a choice between two courses of action (and in a few stories, the wrong choice can lead to a humorous "bad ending"), but there's not much interactivity beyond that except for the actual matches. In Story Mode, each match is only a single round, and the AI opponents are extremely easy to defeat, leaving less than ten minutes of actual gameplay for each 2 -3 hour long character tale. Fine if you just want to see what happens next to the various characters... But probably not very exciting for fighting game enthusiasts.

The other modes are gameplay-intensive. An "Arcade Mode" pits your selected character against either eight or nine opponents. While not actively difficult, the AI here is tougher than in Story Mode and will call for players to do more than simply repeatedly mash "X."  For those who want a genuine challenge, a "Score Attack Mode" is available; I dipped my toe into this a few times, and can attest to it being genuinely pretty tough, moreso than I personally was looking for. Multiplayer is technically available... Though given the game's age, I doubt there's enough of an online player base anymore to easily put together a match, even assuming the servers for it still exist.

Be prepared for reading.  A lot of reading.

THOUGHTS:

Persona 4 Arena was the series' first major spinoff, made as the series was becoming more of a genuine mainstream success. I'll admit, I expected a quick cash grab and nothing more, and was genuinely surprised by the detailed narrative. The story is genuinely intriguing - and, once the backstory becomes available to play around the midpoint, quite emotionally effective as well.

The single biggest problem with the Story Mode is that it's intriguing once. Well, actually three times - once from the viewpoint of the Investigation Team; once from the Persona 3 cast's viewpoint; and once from Naoto's, which straddles the two strands. Had the alternating viewpoints been restricted to simply one strand for each unique POV (plus the backstory and a nifty surprise side-story that opens up at the very end), then it would have worked just about perfectly. But if you want to see all the story material, then you will be completing this narrative with each of the characters. Since the story itself remains largely the same, that means a lot of repetition. I rarely hit the "SKIP" button in video game cutscenes. By the time I finished the final strand, I was skipping regularly.

Another issue is the lack of interactivity in the Story Mode. I suspect this title was given a limited schedule and budget, certainly compared to the mainline games. There are several parts of each story that would have made for strong gaming moments. Aegis deals with a hostage situation. Naoto must race through an airport to fling a tracer onto a departing vehicle. All the characters have to navigate a high school turned into a labyrinth by invisible walls. Each of these bits (and more) would have been great to play. Instead, they are described by text over still images, making them considerably less exciting.

A final issue, one that strongly points to a rushed schedule, is the text itself... which is positively riddled with typos and grammatical errors. I don't tend to harp on the occasional misspelling in game text. Persona 4 Arena, however, has a jaw-dropping number of these. Misspellings abound, as do sentences with missing words or phrases. At one point, during a conversation between Aegis and Chie, a line being spoken by Chie is attributed to Aegis. Even a cursory proofreading would have fixed many of these, making it incredible that they remain in a professional, licensed product.

Lest I come across too harshly, it should be said that the actual gameplay, particularly in Arcade and Score Modes, offers a lot of depth and detail. The characters aren't just skins on a basic fight template; each character has a unique fight style, with some being most effective at close range and some most effective as distance fighters. The sheer number of combos available will test the memory of ardent fighting game enthusiasts, and multiple options to block and evade attacks are available.

The story itself is a worthy one, and it is enjoyable to see the casts of the two games brought together in this way. I suspect with a bit more time and money, this could have been something truly special; even with all the issues, it's well worth a rental or a cheap purchase. At the same time, I hope that some of the issues that keep Persona 4 Arena from being all it could have been were resolved for the sequel.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Previous Game: Persona 4
Next Game: Persona 4 - Arena Ultimax

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Persona 3.

Original Release: Playstation 2, 2006. Versions Reviewed: FES Version, Playstation 2, 2008; P3P Version, PSP, 2010.


THE PLOT:

A high school student, orphaned ten years ago by mysterious circumstances, transfers to Gekkoukan High School. He comes late to his new dorm, arriving during a hidden time period known as "The Dark Hour." During this time, most people are transformed, and the high school itself changes into an ominous tower known as Tartarus. The people who don't change fall into two categories: prey for demonic beings called Shadows, and those with the power to summon Personas to fight the Shadows.

The transfer student's new dorm is actually home to the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (SEES), a group of high school age Persona users trying to explore Tartarus, to learn its secrets and stop the Dark Hour. Mitsuru Kirijo, the heir to the powerful Kirijo Group, recognizes the newcomer's unusual abilities, and appoints him leader. The recovery of a taped message from ten years earlier points to a chance to stop the Shadows permanently. But they will soon find that not all Persona users are allies - and even some allies ultimately can't be trusted!


CHARACTERS:

Characterization continues to be a strength for the series. The protagonist is largely a blank slate - Your dialogue choices can make him compassionate or callous, committed or unconcerned. The remaining personalities, however, are very well-defined. Mitsuru is a born leader, but as the story unfolds we see that she is driven by a sense of guilt. Dorm-mates Yukari and Junpei feud in a way that recalls Innocent Sin's Eikichi and Lisa... But Yukari's jibes often come across as unintentionally hurtful, particularly when Junpei reacts to her bad nickname for him ("Stu-pei").

I'll admit I had little patience for Ken, a plucky 10-year-old who is made part of the group about halfway through. To be fair to the writers, he is given a decent backstory. I just couldn't quite overcome my disbelief that the members of the group would be on board with allowing someone that young to risk his life. Somehow, his presence on the team ended up feeling more ridiculous than Anime Robot Aegis (who, incredibly, ends up becoming possibly the game's best character) and Koramaru, the Persona-using dog. Still, for the most part the main cast are engaging and reasonably likable, and I grew strongly attached to the group long before the game was over.

The party begins its exploration of Tartarus.
All 264 floors of it.

GAMEPLAY:

Persona 3 is a world away from its PS1 predecessors, both in terms of graphics and gameplay. Settings are more detailed, combat animations are more visually interesting, the soundtrack is more varied, and there is a substantial amount of voice acting.  This doesn't make it better than its predecessors (I rate Eternal Punishment considerably higher overall) - But this feels like a modern game in a way the PS1 titles didn't.

The game sets the template for those to follow, splitting itself basically into two parts. During the day, you explore the city, increasing stats such as Academics and Courage and befriending various characters, maxing out "Social Links." Each Social Link effectively acts as a little slice-of-life subplot. Some of these are genuinely involving, such as a member of a sports team who is jeopardizing his health by ignoring a knee injury, or a dying young man who is trying to write a fable before he passes. Some are humorous - I loved the conversations with Tanaka, a corrupt business magnate who has become rich by fleecing the public. Others tend toward the dull (foreign exchange student Bebe can go take a very long hike back to his home country, thanks), or even downright creepy (classmate Kenji and his stalker-like crush on a teacher). Overall, though, I thoroughly enjoyed this addition, and regretted having to make choices as to which links to advance and which to ignore as the game went on.

The other half of the game involves dungeon crawling and combat as you ascend Tartarus. In most respects, I found Tartarus much less enjoyable than the dungeons of the PS1 Persona games. First, it's very long, spanning well over 200 floors. It's visually uninteresting. The walls change color every time you get to a new "block" (about every 30 - 40 floors). Other than that, there's not much to catch the eye. Oh, and you can only save at the entrance. There are two-way teleports every dozen floors or so, just in front of a mini-boss... But if you leave at any point before you reach those teleports, you have to start your ascent from the last such checkpoint. This gradually turns the climb into a joyless slog.

I will say that the combat is pretty good. As in previous games, each enemy has weaknesses. Use the correct attack, and the enemy will collapse.  In this game, the collapse will trigger an "all-out attack" - basically, a pile on from all the members of your party that, in most cases, will result in an insta-kill. Gone are the myriad menus of previous games. Now, you have a streamlined wheel from which you can select your attacks, use items, or issue commands to your teammates. 

HOWEVER... In the PS2 version, you can only issue general commands. You have no direct control over teammates, which means that every so often, they will do something extremely counter-productive. Most of the time, this is a minor irritation - But in tough combats, your companions' insistence on, say, spamming low-hit charm skill "Marin Karin" instead of actually doing something useful can get you killed and cost you 30 - 40 minutes of progress.

I also think the game has streamlined the demon encounters a little too much. Gone are the demon negotiations that were often so much fun in the PS1 games. Instead, you gain Personas and other power-ups through a tedious and frustrating shell game. I cannot overstate how much I don't find this to be an improvement.

Your first Persona: Orpheus, Master of Strings.

THE MANY FACES OF PERSONA 3

When Sony released the PSP handheld system, Persona 3 was reissued for it as P3P: Persona 3 Portable. Many improvements were made for the handheld. You can set the combat to input direct commands, allowing you control over your teammates' attacks. This makes the battles less frustrating, though sometimes at the cost of making them too easy - Though it's a simple matter to change it back if you prefer.

The most significant new feature is the existence of an optional female protagonist. The main storyline is the same regardless of the route chosen, but many of the Social Links are different - including links with the male members of SEES, further developing their characters. In many cases, the writing for these interactions is noticeably better than the writing for the male protagonist, particularly as the Female route allows most of these relationships to be non-romantic (whereas one could be forgiven for thinking that the male protagonist plans to defeat the Final Boss by unleashing as many STDs as possible).

Unfortunately, because of the limits of the PSP system, other parts of the game were compromised. Gone are the fully-animated cutscenes of the PS2 version. The eerie opening sequence is much less effective when transformed into a series of still frames. The emotional ending still hits... but some of the impact is blunted. Other moments, such as the humorous "dates"with Velvet Room attendant Elizabeth, just aren't as funny without the visual element.

In addition, town exploration is rendered into clicking a cursor on characters and objects, rather than the full exploration of the PS2 game. This point-and-click presentation is initially off-putting, though I will say that I adjusted to it completely after the first few hours, as I got sucked into the story all over again.

Oh, and though I'll be splitting it off into its own review, it should be noted that The Answer, a sequel campaign created for FES, is not available on Portable. I'll admit to not being The Answer's biggest fan, but its absence on the PSP version is worth mentioning.

All of which leaves FES as the overall better version. Still, if you have the ability to play both, I would recommend it, as each route offers strong moments not available in the other. Maybe, in this age of endless remasters and re-releases, Atlus will release a definitive version that includes all the features at some point.

Takaya, the leader of Strega,
tries to stop you from ending The Dark Hour.

THOUGHTS:

Persona 3 is a very good game, but for me it falls just short of being a great one. The reason for that can be summed up in a single word: Tartarus.

I did not enjoy Tartarus. The tower is boring. The actual combat is fun, but I'm not a fan of the way it is initiated. Shadows crawl around on the floor, and you run up and hit the Shadow with your weapon of choice. But if you don't hit fast enough (or if you miss, which is annoyingly easy given the imprecision of the PS2 input), then the enemy goes first. Some of the combat is annoyingly luck based... and since, practically speaking, you have to ascend around 12 floors before saving if you want to make any actual progress and even one bit of bad luck can wipe that all out in a heartbeat, this combines to create a high level of frustration.

Long before the end, I realized that I was playing for the story, the characters, and the Social Links, and was merely tolerating Tartarus. Which is fair enough, as I'm sure many players found the social life material dull and skipped through it as quickly as they could to get back to the combat. Still, I'm not sure that it's entirely a good thing that my least favorite part of the game was... Well, the game-like part of it. Junpei, Akihiko, and your character wandering around a beach, failing miserably in attempts to pick up women? Amusing and, for the most part, realistically awkward. Battling your 20th Shadow in a row on your way from Floor 109 to the visually-identical Floor 110? Largely tiresome.

Still, I won't deny that the game held me in its grip for almost 200 hours of combined playtime (between the two versions). Nor will I deny the emotional impact of the game's final stretch. As I said: Taken as a whole, this game is good. What I like about Persona 3, I love. But there's too much that I don't like for me to rate this as highly as I might like to.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

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