Persona 3 is a must have for all RPG fans.
User Rating: 9 | Persona 3 PS2
Persona 3 is a turn based Role-playing game which is set in a high school. You take control over a student who’s just been transferred to Gekkoken High and suddenly joins a club known as SEES. In SEES he learns to fight against shadows that appear in a tower known by Tarturus; A tower which appears only during the Dark Hour for mysterious reasons. The game has a basic battle system where every character has an amount of HP and SP which works as MP, and it increases every time you level up. The only difference P3 battle system has that you can either control other party members through choosing from various strategies offered in the command menu, or choose to “Act Freely” which means they’ll be controlled by A.I. all through the battle. Summoning personas; which are powerful creatures to assist you achieve victory in battles as their name suggests are reflection of a summoner’s personality. But every persona has different characteristics and skills depending on their category. There are twenty two categories in the game based on tarot’s old classification starting with “Fool” category and ending with “The world”. Each persona comes with different abilities and levels. Naturally, personas with higher levels have stronger abilities than lower levels which means, you can either level up personas to replace old abilities with new ones or unlock higher level personas by leveling up your social link and in order for you to unlock personas of a different category you have to form a new social link. Social link system works as in simulation games so you have to form a bond with students in high school, people you meet in town, mall or any where you go to form a new social link, and then you have to level up the social link card to unlock higher personas of a certain category. Using personas abilities consumes HP or SP and usually abilities in physical form are the ones which consume HP and magic spells consume SP. The attributes on the battlefield depends on two things which are the persona’s attributes which differ from a persona to another and the weapon and armor the characters are wearing. You can buy armors and weapons from a store or obtain them for free after fighting with shadows in Tarturus. You can also double the experience points you gain, heal your party’s HP, obtain a persona and earn money after defeating shadows if you choose the right card. There are other kind of attributes which allows you to establish new social links such as charm, academics and courage and those can be upgraded by answering questions asked by teachers in classes and studying, hanging out with friends or spending time experiencing new things. The story and presentation in P3 are the main highlights of the game. While it might seem to you that P3 has the same old story about a bunch of kids trying to save the world when the way it’s told what makes it really interesting and unique. Aside from having animated cut-scenes, the dark and futuristic atmosphere had made it fresh and intriguing, starting with the setting which is a simple school, to a dorm, a shopping mall and other places. This might sound boring to you but the events and dialogues which take place in those locations are done cleverly to keep you wanting more. There's drama, romance, comdey, horror, sci-fi...Simply put P3 is well-paced and quenches your thirst for a great and touching story. You'll feel connected with most of the characters as each has a story of his/her own and their stories flow cleverly with the main story.
The sound system is one of the best I’ve heard on play station 2 whether it was the soundtrack or the voice acting because both were superb. The dialogues are lively and witty and the voice acting alone helped filling the gap the game had because of the lack of cut-scenes. But I personally wish they were more. As for the original score, the pop music fits perfectly with the life style of students as it’s energetic and upbeat. If you have a play station 2 and you're a fan of RPGs, this game is a must have for you then.
