It’s tempting to assume that the social elements of the game are a pointless distraction, but the characters you meet and interact with are interesting and are usually very well written. Remember how I mentioned that the hero transfers to the local school? Well by day you have to attend school and are given the choice of socialising with your peers in your free time. The game isn’t all about fighting however. Turn-based battles: Love them or hate them, they’re here to stay It also goes a long way to keeping the combat interesting as you are always gaining new Personas with new strengths, weaknesses and abilities. It’s a deceptively simple system, but is always entertaining trying to make each Persona with your favourite skills. As you mix Personas certain skills are passed down to the new one created. You collect new Personas as you battle your way through Tartarus and you can merge Personas together to create new ones in the mysterious Velvet Room. Your main character has the unique ability to use multiple Personas and change between them during battle. For a start there is the Pokémon style collection aspect of trying to collect new Personas for your hero. It’s good then that the combat is accompanied by several other game mechanics that keep things fresh. The combat is fun aside from a few frustrating moments, but sadly can wear a little thin after a while. This is exceptionally helpful as, unfortunately, Persona 3 is one of those games where if your main character is defeated the game ends immediately. Possibly one of the best additions is the way that now, whenever your main character is about to be defeated in battle, one of your party members will take the blow in their place. When you level up one of your main character’s Personas to a certain level they will give you a skill card that allows you to transfer particular skills between Personas. For a start a defend command has finally been added. Several tweaks to the combat have been made for the new portable version of the game. It’s a simple system that has a surprising depth, and always keeps you on your toes. You can keep chaining attacks across enemies this way until, when they are all knocked down, you can perform an all-out attack with your party that deals heavy damage to all enemies. By landing a critical hit or attacking with an element the enemy is weak to they can be knocked down, granting an extra turn. The main mechanic that separates the battles in Persona 3 Portable to other titles is the extra turn system. Combat is a standard turn-based affair with a wide variety skills available to each character through their Persona. You have to do a lot of combat as you make your way up, so it’s a good thing that the combat is easy to pick up and hard to master. Our heroes begin adventuring into the mysterious tower of Tartarus at night and must attempt to climb to the top in order to unveil the mysteries of the dark hour. Get it, because you’re playing as a girl? (Slaps face with palm) The Jungian psychological concepts examined throughout the plot aren’t particularly subtle, but it certainly gives the story an interesting slant that beats the generic “orphans out for revenge against the empire” paradigm. The characters too are well designed and entertaining and the whole affair has a very high school anime feel to it. It’s certainly an interesting scenario and the plot has enough twists and turns to keep you engaged. Thus the band of heroes take it upon themselves to explore the shadows’ nest, the mysterious tower of Tartarus, and attempt to put a stop to the dark hour once and for all. Our character soon discovers that they and a selection of school friends possess the power of Persona, a magical being that grants them the strength to combat the shadow menace. There are a select few who remain conscious during the dark hour, but their minds are prey for the evil shadows, the evil monsters that emerge during the dark hour. They soon find out that a mysterious hour between midnight and one AM called the dark hour sees everyone transform into coffins each day. The story is set in a fictional city in modern day Japan where our teenage hero (or heroine) has recently transferred for their schooling. Having been released for the third time now, has Persona 3 still got what it takes to wow fans and newcomers alike once more? I stopped laughing when I actually got to play it, and found it to be one of the best RPGs I’d played during that whole console generation. When I was told that the folks over at Atlus had mixed a social simulator with Jungian psychology into a JRPG framework, I laughed heartily at what seemed to be a rather ridiculous idea.
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