90%PlayStation 3

This one is really loved by those that played it when it came out and I'm glad to say it holds up. The series really takes root here and you can tell that they really got into a rhythm when developing this one. There's a ton of versions of this out now but it's still worth it to play this one. I still stand by my original claim that the game can get so goddamn depressing that it's funny sometimes though.

75%PlayStation 3

Really cool story, art design, style, all that.
Unfortunately, the gameplay leaves a decent bit to be desired. The Once More system is great, and would be refined over the later games, but it's in an early iteration here and not being able to manually control party members is awful

100%PlayStation 2

Um dos melhores jogos da vida parça,a resposta achei muito boa não e tão difícil assim, difícil mesmo foi aguentar a matis

80%Emulated

+ Solid introduction of modern Persona gameplay loop like Social Links
+ Snappy and engaging combat centered around weakness explotation
+ Beautiful visual presentation in killer art style and bumpin' hip-hop/J-pop soundtrack

- Tartarus sucks as well as the Fatigue that comes with it
- Inability to directly control party members is astonishingly stupid

80%PlayStation 2

Overall, I really love this game, though sometimes it felt like a slog (took me a couple of years to finish, in which time I completed many smaller games, while having breaks from this one).

The characters are likeable, the story is good, the gameplay is fun (though Tartarus gets pretty repetitive) and the music will forever be in my head.

A very memorable game - I look forward to playing P4 and 5

100%Emulated

THE BEST GAME I EVER PLAYED

Edit:
I beat this masterpiece in 07/12 and every time I remember the ending I cry

75%Emulated

Persona 3 FES is...certainly a game. It's one of the most important games in the series as it's the pioneer of the 'Neo-Persona' series as some people call it. As the third entry in the series that would go on to influence the rest of it as well as change so much about the game before in terms of story, characters, narrative progression, music, and so on...it's alright. I don't think it's exactly aged the best in a lot of ways but I understand what Atlus was trying to do at the time, this was their desperate attempt to keep themselves alive and it worked. The Social links in this game are kind of hit or miss, some of them are great, some of them aren't, and the music is pretty great in its own right even compared to Reload (which I can't comment on as I haven't played it yet nor do I plan to until I finished P5R and P5T first), the voice-acting, while iconic, is a bit of a mixed bag, the gameplay is...grindy, low-key a little bit repetitive, but can be fun when it's challenging. It's a mixed bag with a lot of things I like and don't like about it, but as it was (technically) the first game in the series and in the entire Megami Tensei franchise I played I'm glad to have finally finished it properly.

All in all, while P3 FES is undeniably important in Atlus's game catalog as well as for this series and JRPGs as a whole...this game's aged pretty roughly and I understand better now why Atlus chose to make Persona 3 Reload in the first place. If you're gonna play this version of the game today, please for the love of god use mods.

Pray for me as I play this game two more times with P3P for FEMC and Reload and see if I'm still singing the same tunes.

100%PlayStation 2

My favorite game of all time. While I don't think it's perfect (yes ik im rating it 100% but. ya.), I think that everything about this game ties so well together and made such a special experience. I just seriously love everything about this game, even it's flaws. The first time finishing it got me super obsessed. Love it to DEATH.

90%Emulated

Clunky as shit. Don't want to fuck all the girls in town, only the robot

90%Emulated

It's a LONG game, have to invest alot of time into it, same goes for all other persona games.
This version of persona 3 did not give me controls for the characters that were fighting alongside me, sometimes the ai sucked but other than that the combat system is very good, better and bit more complex than persona 4
The story is, really really good. Worth all the time I put into the game tbh.
These games (P3fes and p4g) will stick onto me for prbbly rest of my life💀
Do try them out, the persona games are rly good.

100%Emulated

KIMI WA NE TASHIKA NI ANO TOKI WATASHI NO SOBA NI ITA ITSUDATTE ITSUDATTE ITSUDATTE SUGU YOKO DE WARATTEITA NAKUSHITEMO TORIMODOSU KIMI WO I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU~~ ಥ_ಥ. The third Persona game I played (and my favorite). The theme, characters, music, I adore it all.

85%PlayStation 2

One of my favs

90%PlayStation 2

best persona game with incredible Y2K visual style, great music and amazing plot

100%PlayStation 2

um, nurse? we have a category 6 meldown over here. 😭

i have had a quite the history with Persona 3 and its scattered forms (multiple starts and stops for FES, a short lived attempt at Portable before wanting to avoid the VN presentation for my first go, and more) so it feels quite strange to have actually seen it through. i'm sure some of my distaste for the other Persona games i've played (much moreso for 4 than 5) wasn't helping anything with me getting around to this but i'm glad it finally happened. this exceeded my (admittedly low) expectations and then some.

this is a massive beast of a game size wise so i'm going to be a bit scattershot in talking about a few things that stuck out to me in a significant way and leave it be.

probably the strongest element of the whole thing was the presentation as a full package. visuals across the board are an absolute feast whether it's in the mundane of day to day life, the persona and shadow designs, or the FMVs themselves (have i already mentioned that i'm glad i played this for my first P3 experience? it can be said again.) beyond this, the music is an absolute stunner. the game snatching my ass with multiple daily life song swaps makes the prevalence of Your Affection and Beneath the Mask (i like the latter but P5 is a long ass game for just the one track) a massive drag in hindsight. the sound and vibe tackled across the soundtrack aligns the most with my general taste so it's probably my favorite of the modern Persona trilogy in that regard.

elsewhere i found myself particularly impressed with the cast (both SEES and elsewhere) and social links almost universally. i cannot stress enough how much of a difference it makes that your dormmates feel like actual people with their own lives/things going on without centering themselves on you/the mc. scenes developing the characters by themselves or together amongst themselves without the mc were among the best moments in the game. things like that either would've been shifted to include the mc or have not happened at all as most party member development is stuffed into the s links in 4/5.

the social links had a surprisingly solid batting average as well. kenji is a dumbass so his social link was a slog and the Hermit was a Mess (a bit of a gag but still) yet everything else ranged from passable to great. the Sun and Hierophant in particular were wonderful and my favorites across the series, i think?

before wrapping this up i'll mention the sense of intent behind most of game's design. things like the fatigue system, SEES members having their own availability, uncontrollable party members (the tactics system is fine, please spend 5 seconds playing around with it 💀), and even Tartarus itself might seem irritating in a vacuum or other experience but as it is here it gives the game such a sense of cohesion and personality. i 100% believe that all of these elements all worked in the service of the story that the game told and made it hit all that much harder in the end.

not sure what else to really say, i could ramble on more but this is already disorganized but i think i've communicated how special this was to me in a sufficient fashion. never in a million years would i have expected to like a modern Persona game this much but i'm glad that i did. Portable and Reload are potential someday things but not for a very long time, The Answer is probably a full on pass because the dungeon crawling seems to be extremely difficult and i don't think this needs following up on in that way. or at least not how The Answer seems to go about it.

100%PlayStation 2

It was my first contact with the megaten franchise, I heard about it from a friend who liked jrpg, so he recommended it to me. It was the best experience with a video game in my life, it introduced me to the franchise, its message behind it is beautiful, the characters and music are perfect, I LOVE this game, I could talk about it all day

50%Emulated

Very slow pacing so far, tartarus is a grind hell, and the combat isn't enjoyable enough to justify it.

60%PlayStation 3

aigis overhears

70%PlayStation 2

See Reload for review of game, comparion for thoughts on FES

90%PlayStation 2

just fucking amazing

100%Emulated

My favorite Persona game (P3). Played from December 2023 - February 2024.

80%PlayStation 2

Really good JRPG, the only thing I was missing is option to refuse relationship with characters in their social links

90%PlayStation 2

12/10 story & characters
6/10 gameplay
3/10 pacing

made me cry more than any other game I have ever played, from both frustration and intense emotional catharsis

100%PlayStation 2

That was an amazing game.

80%PlayStation 2

每月通关游戏：6月，女神异闻录3 FES。先谢汉化组。

p3本体130小时，全社群、全员等级max，全书100%，大概有一半的时间花在爬塔上。

艾吉斯篇20小时----正常时间应该翻倍不止。由于FES没有面具全书，塔的层数极高，单层面积极大，不同弱点的怪物极致混搭，后期普遍自带弱点识破，在我早期用艾吉斯打四只没有弱点识破的小怪无论怎样sl都会miss的情况下，给自己照着本体的模板金手指了一个全技能带米吉多拉翁的爱丽丝。不过哪怕是这样，大后期也打得很辛苦。结合游戏剧情，是真正极致的坐牢体验😂。

什么，为什么是爱丽丝不是大僧正？这还用选？

p3的剧情是个人在345三作里最喜欢的一部，也是个人觉得本质上最酷的一部。开始我觉得这部的故事挺一般的，尤其是顺平千鸟前期的剧情我非常不喜欢。但真次郎的故事后，主线从故事到节奏突然加速，大多数社群此时也进入中后期，游戏剧情上的体验全方面好起来了，不过此时游戏时间也已经到达60小时，这个时间我p4g都快通关了。

后来细想了一下，不喜欢顺平那段剧情，不会是因为我过了纯情冲动的年龄了吧？也是有点儿悲伤😂。

p3f的剧情实际上很短，主要是给本体起了个补完的作用，但个人还是很喜欢这个补完的。不能拒绝谈恋爱的主角，最后的结局倒也算是个解决办法（残忍😂。

p3里很多细节点我也很喜欢，比如面具觉醒剧情是345三作里最融入主线剧情的一作；我不知道这作的制作组里当时有多少人处于中年危机，但这作里对中年危机的描写太过真实，和孩子争吵不想面对天天混夜店的和尚，忙于工作对客人低三下四却又被家人抱怨不回家导致离婚的出租车司机，失业了不敢告诉家人最后甚至想到以死骗保留给家人的上班族，一直被学生抱怨只有体育课才能放飞自己最后还是对学生说了对不起的小学老师，后悔没有早点同意孩子养猫的妈妈，离婚后才明白孩子和家庭有多重要的夫妇。打这些字的时候我都想流泪了😂。

p3f的op我非常喜欢，配上newgame开始的播片更是绝配。为了确认这一点，我特意去重听了p3p3pp4p4gp5p5r的op，确认，这就是我的系列这三作最喜欢😂。

另外一首非常喜欢的是Heartful Cry，这曲严重涉及剧透，不多说了。

不过剧情之外的体验就很差了，比如很多人诟病的爬塔。我用模拟器，有即时sl，有可以操控队友的金手指，爬塔都爬得略有痛苦，可想而知在主机上玩原版的玩家是什么感受。四区之后的战斗后奖励抽卡更是离谱，彷佛在看花式洗牌表演。

但本体的爬塔比起p3f的，又算得上是和蔼可亲了。我甚至完全理解了只重制P3不带p3f的苦衷😂。

之前通关p4g后我想这系列算不算罐头，现在通关p3f，我觉得哪怕是罐头，也是一步一个甚至几个台阶的在进步的，是好罐头😂。

只是，“伊格尔，作品变得潮到出水的代价是什么呢？” “是剧情，我献祭了剧情。”

这种事情不要啊😂。

100%PlayStation 2

Perfect Ending with sadness😔

70%PlayStation 3

**Favorite Characters:** Mitsuru, Akihiko

**Least Favorite Characters:** Junpei

i love long games but i feel like this is too long

repetitive dungeon crawler, it might be because i came from persona 5 but i don’t like repeating the same dungeon over and over again. plus it’s hard to estimate if i’m even close to my goal, which is important for my motivation as a player.

the music is so good

the gun concept for summoning personas is so cool, i think it’s my favorite out of 3,4 and 5.

i hate that you can only have social links with your party members of the opposite sex, and that their social links have forced romance levels. it feels like i’m cheating on them all and it’s not the feel i got from the protagonist. also the fact that there is no extra skills or party bonuses from social links sucks

you can max out your stats pretty early in the game which makes it more boring as you lose stuff to do at night

i might be a little biased bc i played this on the bad ps3 graphics so that might have been why i felt it was so long too

80%PlayStation 2

The only Tensei experience I have had were the DDS games, and I have to say I definitely enjoyed Persona a lot more. The over arcing story with plenty of twists and turns was great but building relationships to create stronger personas led to some pretty great side stories. Combat was similar to the previous games I played, but it definitely felt a lot more balanced and while difficult at times, it didn't feel absurdly hard like DDS 2's final dungeon did. Even after sinking more than 100 hours into the game, it didn't feel like it was overly long, honestly felt like a great length for how well the story flowed. The soundtrack was also killer throughout the game and never got old. Great JRPG with a lot of cool mechanics, excited to move onto Persona 4 and then finally the coveted 5th game.

70%PlayStation 2

Gameplay outdated but the story is pretty good tho

80%PlayStation 2

I'm usually very easy on Persona games, but this time I feel I'm being particularly generous. This game has serious pacing problems, and half the characters range from forgettable to unbearably annoying. Just goes to show you how captivating I find the core Persona gameplay. It's just that fun for me. Also, fuck the Answer.

85%PlayStation 3

(This review only covers the main game without the answer)

Amazing game all around that lives and dies because of its themes.

The story is superb. The plot doesn't kick into action until like halfway thru the game, but the game's message is where P3 finds its narrative substance. The themes of this game will hit you in some way because it tackles a pretty universal and appealing topic for any human being. The characters are also pretty good, the script might not be tightest or the most grounded (you can feel the age in some lines here and there) but most of them have great characterizations and arcs that might speak to you in some way.

I strongly recommend to play this game in the way you are most comfortable with. Unless you use a guide (or take an insane amount of time pre-planning in advance) you will not get to see every social link, every persona or every sidequest. It's respectable if you don't find this appealing. But for P3, it's best to play this game in any% at your own pace and seeing every Social Link that speaks to you personally.

The gameplay is fun for the most part. it inherits many traits from the game's themes and some of these are a bit unconventional, but for the most part, you will warm up to them and they are going to feel natural after a while. It may require some trial and error tho so there's no shame in playing in easy if you find the gameplay to be rather weird. The combat is fun when you get down to it and you might find yourself enjoying it a lot more while doing the many request the game has that involve dugeon crawling and combat.

If you are interested in this game. The only part where P3 MIGHT dissapoint you no matter what, its in the social activities and the tight scheduling. P3 calendar system is great and thematically rich, it's used rather well to tell the narrative in a way that feels interactive and fitting for the medium. But in the late game you might find yourself a bit bored because of the lack of mini games or overall activities that could give you some kind of thing to do in your in-game day to day basis. These issues do show up if you manage to level up your social stats early however, but it's worth taking into account if you are a busy person or lack some patience.

P3 FES as a whole is an amazing RPG that I would strongly recommend if you are into the medium and you want an unique experience out of it. If many of these issues do seem very unconventional for you however, you might want to check out the 2024 remake or the "portable" version that streamlines the gameplay with many QOL features and even a female protagonist with a whole different perspective and social life.

90%PlayStation 2

The beginning is pretty good, the mid part is quite redundant and repetitive. However, the ending part (last 2 months) are amazing, and such a rollercoaster of emotions. Despite its drawbacks, it's all in all a really good game, also introducing the modern Persona series.

90%PlayStation 2

Amazing story, great combat, really enjoyable characters.

There is too much required grinding in Tartarus, otherwise it's great.

90%PlayStation 3

Story is the best of persona series, but gameplay itself was boring with ai-controlled teammates; if I get down or charmed or something, all I could do was let go of my controller and watch it play itself. If I didn't play it on easy, I would've dropped this game... (Maybe this is because I've experienced battle systems in P4 and P5 before P3) I dropped The Answer because they made the game super tedious so we get some decent "playtime". I hate when they do this because I'm here to enjoy stories, not to grind my levels and doing so dying to unlucky RNG. Got through 3rd boss and before 4th I quit.

75%Emulated

Employing a creative fusion of life simulation and JRPG scaffolding, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 repackaged Shin Megami Tensei's dark flavor and style in a more accessible format, propelled by one of the most infectious soundtracks of all time. Its primary gameplay elements are divided into two major segments: A simplified version of life-sim, and a pseudo-dungeon crawler. This blend of genres, and the interplay of mechanics connecting them offer a fresh, creative approach to JRPGs.

Adding to the experience were the charming personalities of Persona 3's cast. Impressively arranged character moments alternate between overly tragic and profoundly sobering, and The occasional poignant issues surrounding them is where this work truly shines, not to mention the themes delved into for characters such as Aigis and Ryoji. The social link system, where relationships with characters both major and minor can be nurtured, further explored the idea of its lifesim/RPG dynamic.

Not only does the gameplay stand apart, the tone succeeds in its assembly of dance party/spy thriller staging that masks the dark themes of hopelessness. The character designs and story are strong cases of this, but its soundtrack conveys its attitude more effectively as the tone gets more bleak. At its best, the game offers a terrifying vision, conjuring images of depraved delinquents celebrating as the apocalypse looms over the horizon, the theme is an exercise in hedonism, resignation, and apathy.

Despite the accomplishments in story, characters, themes and soundtrack, Persona 3's change in combat is a major disappointment. The basic combat system of Persona 2 is replaced by Pokemon's approach revolving around elemental weakness/resistance, so heavily that every other strategy is rendered obsolete. It boils down to finding and exploiting the enemy's weaknesses with no need of progression or creativity. The lack of player control in-battle and randomly generated dungeons limit the RPG aspects even further. But the combat & systems seem negligible in the face of its non-gameplay merits. By simply entrusting their development to revealing chats and domestic subplots, Persona 3 marked the final stage in JRPG's quest for an ever more personal sense of companionship among party members, a sort of 'crystallization' of what Sakura Wars and Tales hinted at in their approaches to character-building.

100%Emulated

10

70%PlayStation 2

Writing should be way better than it is. Gameplay is not explained as well as it should be, but is really good other than the section of the game where you don't have immunity to instant death attacks and they're frequent

100%PlayStation 2

First SMT game I ever played. I played this game in highschool and it was special for me during that time. The way it lets you just spend your time hanging out and doing school things during the day that tie back into RPG combat during the night time just works perfectly. The time I spent playing this is so special to me.

70%PlayStation 2

I tried. I really, truly tried. Persona 3 suffers the dangerous disease known as "incredible story with awful gameplay" syndrome. The story this game is trying to tell me is truly absorbing but the gameplay makes it extremely hard to get into this game let alone complete it. Aside from the mind numbing repetition of Tartarus, we also have to deal with extremely low EXP gain as well as not having direct control over ones part members and to top it all off, a stamina meter that makes it literally impossible to grind for extended periods of time. It's as if this game was purposefully made to piss off the players. These crippling faults in the gameplay make getting through Persona 3 almost not worth it and that's the most tragic part. I'm well aware of this games legendary story but without proper gameplay to get me invested, I simply can't be bothered to progress if the gameplay is blatant torture. Despite the fact that I retired this game I will be nice and give this game a 7/10 for giving me a neat story even If I've only learned like 10% of it.
I really truly hope that the rumor about this game getting a remake is true because I'd love nothing more than to actually experience this game for real without wanting to kill myself playing it.

100%PlayStation 2

Story, characters, and soundtrack take the cake in Persona 3 FES. The combat is a bit dated for 2023 and very grindy, but if you can look past that then this game is for you. By far this is my favorite Persona game and on my top 3 favorite RPGs.

60%PlayStation 2

Persona 3 is the introduction into the modern persona games, bringing about the social link system that makes the series so great, yet has a much larger focus on the JRPG dungeon elements of the game. While the introduction of new gameplay elements are great, Persona 3 pales in comparision to the future series games and often feels like a slog to play through.

There are 2 main parts to the gameplay of Persona 3, first being the JRPG dungeon crawling through Tartarus and second being the social life activities. The dungeon crawling elements of the game have you climbing up Tartarus, a massive tower that exceeds 200 floors. Tartarus is split into sections that are only unlocked after certain "full moon" dates where there is a boss battle then the future path is unlocked. Each floor is randomly generated filled with random items, shadows to battle, and an exit to the next floor. In combat, your character can switch between personas to use abilities and usually try to exploit weaknesses to knock down enemies and do massive damage. There are several things that exist in future games that without, the game feels like a slog. First is being able to have an enemies known weaknesses and resistances when attacking with a skill. Otherwise if you have scanned an enemy before you must click that option on the tactics menu. Next is not being able to control team members. You can control their tactics but not there actions, which can become really annoying when you want a teammate to exploit an enemies weakness but they instead try to charm them. Next is the balancing of the game. The game really wants you to grind a lot to keep up. I could usually beat every section of Tartarus in about 2 trips, but in order to keep up in levels you need to go back and just grind the area you've already been to before. This grinding is not fun and I ended up using a 5x exp cheat to make that less. This is even worse in "The Answer" part of the game which is just essentially a bunch of more dungeon crawling and is just designed to be a time slog.

The second part of the game is the day to day social and life simulator aspect of the game. This has always been my favorite part of the persona games and Persona 3 is okay, but isn't as good as Persona 4 or 5. It felt impossible to get every social link to max without a guide which is okay because maxing out social links aren't super important in Persona 3 except for getting access to one persona and the EXP boost during fusion. While they fixed this in future games it felt disappointing when there were no more rewards at the end of a story line. Most social links aren't anything special but I enjoyed the Sun and Aeon ones the most. Leveling up you social stats such as academics, courage, and charm are important to start many social links but it ends up being super easy to max them all out. At night you have the option to go to Tartarus or go out to the Mall. In the mall you can go to the arcade to level up these social stats or there are 2 social links to do. At first it feels important to balance what you are doing at night until you run out of things to do way to early on once everything is maxed out and it feels like the game was incorrectly balanced and makes it feel like a waste. Or that the game really wants you to go to Tartarus way more than you want to.

The music in P3 is amazing and holds up compared to other future games. The story is just kinda generic JRPG trash, no themes that really stand out. There is the guilt the one character feels because they killed someone and how they live with themselves. I think almost all persona games don't really have great stories but it's more about the character moments. Beach scene in P3 was not great and same with the trip to Kyoto.

Overall I see the importance of Persona 3 in the series creation as it was revolutionary and introduced the series most important concepts, but in terms of modern aspect the game is kinda ass.

Also "The Answer" is not worth playing at all unless you like grinding.

6/10

90%PlayStation 2

While it does have its flaws, it's an amazing game. There's just so much to be highlighted, so much going on, such compelling stories, well developed characters, everything.

It made me feel so much. It took me a long time to finish this, so that gave me a lot of time to get involved or endeared with most of the characters to some degree. We all hear constantly about it's portrayal of themes like death, loss and grief, while being able to move on and do the most out of your life, and it's true, but I think it's also about proving how much you would do for your loved ones, even if sometimes they're not the closest to you, or if you're in good terms. It shows just so much maturity.

And then there's ending, the ending is one of the most beautiful things I've seen in a video game, it actually feels like an ending and it left me crying like a baby.

90%Emulated

Eu fiz a ultima luta usando save state pq a maquina é mt burra e ficava gastando movimento atoa, o jogo é mt foda só esse sistema de depender da maquina na luta q estraga o jogo.

90%PlayStation 2

106 hours, only The Journey.

80%PlayStation 2

I have never felt so mixed on a game before. I recommend it, but I didn't particularly love any part. I will do my best to explain.

First up, the aesthetics of the game are spot-on. The music is amazing, although it definitely needed more tracks. You will hear the same 2 soundtracks for a vast majority of the game. The detail in the world is amazing. It's hard to believe this is a PS2 game. With HD textures and widescreen, it basically holds up with modern games as far as I care. The anime cutscenes are really low detail and seem interlaced, and they're not really in my style, but they make up such a small part of the game that it doesn't matter.

The story is good, but not in the traditional sense of story. The overall plot doesn't really matter too much. I could take it or leave it. What P3 focuses on is characters. Despite the focus on individual characters, I disliked a lot of the individual character stories. You connect with almost 20 different characters and learn about their troubled life, but I only legitimately enjoyed a handful of them.

The RPG gameplay is good, but it's too focused on levels and is WAY too swingy. You can be having a good time, going through the dungeons, killing dudes, then all of a sudden, they get a lucky crit on you, then before you can do anything, you're dead. It happened multiple times. The worst was at the final boss, which is over an hour long, and doesn't get challenging until the 45 minute mark. And then you can just get hit with an unavoidable status effect that causes their next attack to hit you for more than your total HP. Boom, dead.

The elephant in the room is the party being AI controlled. I was fine with it for the vast majority of the game, but later on, they get ridiculous. They'll waste turns casting elemental break spells, using weak heal spells at the wrong times, and even using beginner items for ineffective healing. The final boss culimated everything wrong with party controlled AI into one of the most unfun encouners I've ever had. There are so many things that are practically necessary that only the MC can do and no one else for no particular reason.

The worst thing about the RPG gameplay is it only takes up a fraction of the gametime. I'd say out of my 60 hours, 25 of it was spent playing an RPG. The other 35 hours was probably 5 hours for main story, 15 hours of character stories, and 15 hours of repetitive tedium, also known as "life sim". (These numbers are all guesses, but it's what it felt like to me)

The life sim was without a doubt my least favorite part of the game. You're doing the same tasks over and over to raise stats. Study at night to be smarter, sing karaoke to be more courageous, or drink at a coffee shop to be more charismatic. I did that for months of in-game time to grind stats. It was just mindless "press X" stuff. Why does a 60+ hour game need that fluff?

But in the end, the entire package is worth it. With the good and the bad, this game is addicting. You want to keep going. You want to climb higher up the plot's tower. You want to see what the character's stories are. You want to experience the game offers. You're on a countdown, so you never feel like you're stuck in the loop forever. And in the end, I was about to give it a 3/5, but the ending is absolutely beautiful and had me in tears. The ending alone made the frustrating and tedious grind worth it. Just... play Portable instead so you can have the party control and quality of life improvements.

70%PlayStation 2

The story, most of the main characters, and most of the social links are pretty good. The main downside is Tartarus (the dungeon crawling part of the game) is pretty monotonous. Floors are the same randomly generated rooms with barely a visual and musical change for the entire game. I put the game down for a month as the story hit a low point and the dungeons dragged on.

Luckily, the story picked up again and it ended in a satisfying manner which made the whole 100+ hours I put into it worth it.

50%Emulated

I played 4 and 5 previous to completing this game, and tbh I think this one's my least favorite. Could be due to a multitude of factors such as me holding it to unfair expectations because of the amount of people online that said it has the best story, the fact that it's a game from 2007 with some incredibly annoying and outdated mechanics, or the fact that I kinda rushed through it because without stopping to smell the flowers. I love the message and themes, disliked the execution. Characters are meh and forgettable, gameplay is horrible, plot is meh. I'm hoping the rumored remake will fix a lot of these problems and try to make the game and story hold together a little better.

100%PlayStation 2

Probably my favorite JRPG and video game of all time. The game has one of the most immersive and heart wrenching final acts of a video game I've ever experienced and it's story, music and characters still live rent free in my head everyday. The characters are some of my beloved in all of gaming especially Aigis, whom I consider my favorite fictional character of all time.

The game has it's flaws like any other game such as wonky social sim elements (jealousy, forced romance) and not much happening in the first few hours of the game but the sum of its parts greatly outweighs all the negatives I experienced in this game and I have and will continue to replay it time and time again.

90%PlayStation 2

Second playthrough (90%)

100%Emulated

Is it better than P4? Probably not. Is it still good today? Hell yeah.

100%PlayStation 2

I played portable years ago and playing this was just so special. Out of all the persona games I've played, this one hit the hardest.