Games

[icycalm]

http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?t=2975
http://insomnia.ac/reviews/playstation2/persona3/

Note that the original review thread is required reading for whoever wants to post in this thread (only the comments, not the original review).

Note also that this is the first reader review I am publishing, so take it with a grain of salt. All the fagotry and pretentiousness of the original review aside (which I have edited out in the published version), the dude DOES seem to know what he is talking about. However, he has only made a couple of posts in this forum, and I do not know him from elsewhere, so I really can't vouch for him or his review. There is a possibility that he is just some dude who read my RPG article and decided to go off on the first game he came across. It COULD be that Persona 3 is worth two stars -- perhaps even three, so I'll try it when I get the chance and see what's up. Still, if all he says is true, and it may very well be, then yeah, in that case the game obviously sucks.

Enough disclaimering though. Whoever has played the game and is not an animu kid is welcome to give us their impressions.


P.S. This thread should also be used for comments on Persona 3: FES, and of course Persona 3 Portable.

[icycalm]

Also, thanks to my buddy Kurt Kulata for the screens. Kurt, my man, could you possible snap a shot of the start screen?

[icycalm]

For perspective:

Aggregate scores
Aggregator Score
Metacritic 86/100 (52 reviews) (Org.)
89/100 (25 reviews) (FES)

Review scores
Publication Score
1UP.com A- (Org.)
A (FES)
Famitsu 33/40 (Org.)
32/40 (PSP)
Game Informer 8.5/10 (FES)
GameSpot 8.5/10 (Org.)
8.5/10 (FES)
GameSpy 4.5/5 stars (Org.)
4.5/5 stars (FES)
GamesRadar 9/10 (Org.)
GameTrailers 9/10 (Org.)
IGN 8.3 (Org.)
8.8 (FES)
Play Magazine 9.5/10 (Org.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_3

[icycalm]

Despite all this, the developers still decided to assign Fuuka a supportive role in all battles. Her role consists of constantly exclaiming motivational cheers and battle information, such as how many enemies are present/left/downed, with the most unbearable shrillness.

This needs to be checked against the Japanese version. The reviewer probably played the US version, and the "unbearable shrillness" could easily be a result of shoddy dubbing.

[aaden]

Fuuka babbles constantly in battle in both versions. I did not find her particularly shrill in the dub version, but her voice actor's performance is definitely nothing special. Her Japanese voice actor is significantly quieter and uses a softer voice than her English counterpart. In fact her Japanese voice actor is Mamiko Noto who is known for being typecast as quiet characters because of her soft voice.

The real reason Fuuka's "battle assistance" is so annoying is that she says the same stuff over and over like a broken record and there is NO way at all to disable her commentary short of just muting the volume.

It would not be so bad if she offered actually useful information... but she just doesn't. Everything she says during battle is obvious if you are even paying the slightest attention to the game.

[FallingUp]

There are three enemies!

In any case,

Although allies do have generalized commands they will obey, they aren't the least bit reliable. Once an ally has downed an enemy, for instance, they will not continue on with the rest unless specifically commanded to do so, something which has to be done at the start of every round.

There is a menu option to force tactics to persist between battles. I suspect many people miss this, since the system menu is hidden behind layers of other stuff, but it's there.

[icycalm]

I banned the reviewer because of this comment:

he tore up my persona review but wound up posting it to the frontpage because, quote, 'he seems to know what he's talking about,' unquote. woot.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... t370346134

This, AFTER he had thanked me profusely for helping him turn his review from an absurdly childish piece of shit to something actually worth reading. And he STILL does not understand that I did not "tear up" his review so much as the fagotisticly bullshit way in which it was written. Ungrateful little bitch.

Also, I had told you FROM THE BEGINNING that I would be posting it when I got around to properly editing it. It's all in the fucking thread you spastic imbecile! The "but" in the above quote doesn't make any sense!

he's banned me three times already for demonstrating insufficient rigor in my discussion of v. games. and twice more for fuckups in the casual chat section.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... t370345909

Can you please stop registering on my website? Do you not have even an ounce of dignity on you, you worthless sack of shit and bones?

[icycalm]

Also, what the fuck is this random comment out of nowhere supposed to be mean:

There are three enemies!

[Gnarf]

Probably an example of the kind of information you get from Fuuka. Like, responding to the last paragraph in the post before that.

[Vert1]

Persona 3 is no more than a collection of cursorily designed mini-games ineptly grafted onto a shoddy dungeon crawler."

Having played through most of Persona 3, the only mini-game is the card game at the end of battle. It may look cool as a header, but it doesn't describe Persona 3.

[icycalm]

The original review had "cursorily-designed simulations", but from what I understand about the game there are no simulations either -- so I substituted mini-games.

I'll edit the line appropriately when I play the game and see what's up with this -- and with everything else mentioned so far.

[DeadAurum]

I've spent a lot of time examining this, so here are my thoughts:

Even before and in-between classes you'll have to subject yourself to brief conversations that really contribute nothing. And though I had initially thought I would be free from these constant interruptions while dungeon crawling, I soon discovered that this aspect of the game had also received the general nerfing treatment.

There are none of those "constant interruptions" while dungeon crawling. Also, the bolded part makes no sense.

The developers simply failed to recognize that these uninspired enemy designs, as commonplace as they have been for years, were never excusable to begin with.

The enemies in Persona 3 have never been commonplace in MegaTen games. Nor does he mention that the main MegaTen enemies are the personas here–for they are well-designed.

And his view on the writing and characters (mostly from the second paragraph) is pretentious bullshit. Especially when compared to other JRPGs, I think the writing in P3 is generally believable, if a little fantastic.

During these conversations, which soon become therapy sessions

Stuff like this is downright wrong. Therapy sessions as a way to describe reading characters' monologues? The characters' problems are only a fraction of what they have to say. Note that almost all of these social link activities are optional, and that you can skip text line-by-line if it's that terrible.

The allies, basically, at the height of their utility are a sort of punching bag which allow you to preserve the protagonist's health.

That would only hold true if the reviewer didn't know shit about using the Tactics menu. That, or excessive exaggeration.

So first off, all of the main points are hit–basically, that many of the game's characteristics are shallow and over-stretched. However, it stands that you can play the game at a faster pace–I have read in some places that the game can be completed within 50 hours (this may take a handful of knowledge to accomplish this going into one's first playthrough, though). And with cutting it that short, some of the criticism about this in the review doesn't stand so strong:

So until the prescribed day arrives you have to return to the mundanities of evening events, where you can opt to raise the protagonist's charm, courage and academic stats by visiting coffee shops, karaoke, arcades, and so on.

All of this is completely optional. As is building most of the relationships in the game. Quite a few hours can be saved by skipping this (Note that skipping all of them would probably make the game impossibly hard, although I didn't play the game that way so I could be wrong). But the review contradicts this by arguing that the player shouldn't skip them:

It just isn't worth it, and while skipping all daily events certainly shortens the downtime, this comes at the expense of acquiring stronger personas.

This basically implies that overall, most of the optional parts should be endured (ie., in the case that you dislike them) because the personas and stat bonuses from doing so are worth that much time. Which implies that the game would be too hard without wasting time like this. But wait, he criticizes the difficulty in these two places:

I found every moment playing this game to be unbelievably boring, and I attribute this not only to its shallowness and lack of difficulty

First, the idea of disorientating the player within a dungeon is ruined when the game, along with the lack of difficulty (the dungeon is not the least bit intimidating) and the ease of accessing teleportation devices, arbitrarily prevents deeper exploration.

So I'll summarize this problem of the review: one of his biggest problems with the game is obviously the pace, but it's his own fault that he decided to waste time in the long run. He pretends that the player shouldn't skip any social links possible simply because the exclusive personas and stat gains are worth that much. And what value do they have at all if the game is already easy? Shouldn't the player create challenge rather than insulate it? His arguments don't mesh.

Despite the impression this review gives, Persona 3 can play much better than it would seem. From my own experience, I still encountered many problems mentioned in the review. The constant loading and generally poor pacing, the shallow battle system included–still, it didn't feel like a complete waste of time (or maybe I'm really patient).

-------

And on FES: FES makes very minor changes to the original game–instead of trying to improve or revise anything, there are a few more text-based "activities," script enhancements, and new personas. This only makes the game a fraction of a percent better, if anything. Though the interesting part is the addition of a new "Episode" separate from the main game, adding tidbits of story (it spoils some stuff from the main game) and nothing else but dungeon crawling. I didn't finish it, but it's supposed to last around 30 hours. Nothing from the main game carries over, and this mode is selectable from the beginning.

The new episode is harder than the main game, and since there are many less personas to acquire, the developer made the bosses more well-suited to the player's party–unless the party is under-leveled, the player should have all of the tools necessary to win. Basically, the difficulty curve is fine-tuned to a very noticeable degree. It isn't as easy to perform the overpowered all-out attacks, so using a better variety of moves is encouraged.

[icycalm]

I banned you because you are a fucking imbecile. First off, in your initial post regarding this review you said that "you really liked it", and you could find almost nothing wrong with it -- indeed, you even went as far as to point out even MORE stuff that was wrong with the game:

http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?p=10951#10951

Then, your latest comments clearly demonstrate that you are autistic.

Even before and in-between classes you'll have to subject yourself to brief conversations that really contribute nothing. And though I had initially thought I would be free from these constant interruptions while dungeon crawling, I soon discovered that this aspect of the game had also received the general nerfing treatment.

There are none of those "constant interruptions" while dungeon crawling. Also, the bolded part makes no sense.

THAT'S NOT WHAT HE IS SAYING YOU MORON. HE IS SAYING THAT THERE ARE OTHER KIND OF INTERRUPTIONS -- EQUIVALENT, PERHAPS, BUT NOT EXACTLY THE SAME. AND THE BOLDED PART MAKES PERFECT SENSE IF YOU READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW.

The developers simply failed to recognize that these uninspired enemy designs, as commonplace as they have been for years, were never excusable to begin with.

The enemies in Persona 3 have never been commonplace in MegaTen games.

HE MEANS IN DUNGEON CRAWLERS IN GENERAL, RETARD. LEARN TO FUCKING READ.

Nor does he mention that the main MegaTen enemies are the personas here–for they are well-designed.

I'VE NO IDEA WHAT THIS SENTENCE IS SUPPOSED TO MEAN.

And his view on the writing and characters (mostly from the second paragraph) is pretentious bullshit.

TOO BAD YOU DIDN'T MENTION THIS WHEN YOU SAID THAT YOU "REALLY LIKED THIS REVIEW". IF YOU HAD, PERHAPS YOU WOULDN'T BE BANNED NOW.

Especially when compared to other JRPGs, I think the writing in P3 is generally believable, if a little fantastic.

"GENERALLY BELIEVABLE, IF FANTASTIC." I SHOULD HAVE BANNED YOU SOONER.

During these conversations, which soon become therapy sessions

Stuff like this is downright wrong. Therapy sessions as a way to describe reading characters' monologues?

NO, RETARD, AS A WAY OF DESCRIBING THE MONOLOGUES. LEARN TO FUCKING READ.

The characters' problems are only a fraction of what they have to say. Note that almost all of these social link activities are optional, and that you can skip text line-by-line if it's that terrible.

THANKS FOR BURDENING THE THREAD WITH SOMETHING THAT IS PLAINLY OBVIOUS FROM READING THE REVIEW. I REALLY APPRECIATE IT.

The allies, basically, at the height of their utility are a sort of punching bag which allow you to preserve the protagonist's health.

That would only hold true if the reviewer didn't know shit about using the Tactics menu.

AND SINCE YOU DON'T BOTHER EXPLAINING WHAT THE TACTICS MENU IS AND DOES AND HOW THIS REFUTES HIS STATEMENT, YOU CAN FUCK OFF BACK TO SOME OTHER FORUM WERE PEOPLE ARE ALLOWED TO SCRIBBLE UNSABSTANTIATED BULLSHIT.

So until the prescribed day arrives you have to return to the mundanities of evening events, where you can opt to raise the protagonist's charm, courage and academic stats by visiting coffee shops, karaoke, arcades, and so on.

All of this is completely optional.

AS IF THE REVIEWER HADN'T ALREADY MADE THIS PERFECTLY CLEAR.

FUCK OFF ALREADY YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT.

[icycalm]

Note that his retarded post and my reply will be moved into the casual forum in a couple of days, so as to unburden this thread from all the bullshit.

[El Chaos]

icy, is there any particular reason for the Persona 3 header on the frontpage? It is a 1-star game...

[icycalm]

Well, first off headers on the frontpage represent their series, not the particular installment from which they are taken. For example, since it is impossible to find a suitable image for Super Mario World, I use one for Galaxy 2, etc. It represents the greatness of the entire Mario franchise, even if only a couple of games within it are truly great. So that Persona header represents either the Persona series, or MegaTen as a whole, depending on how you want to see it (even the fighting games, for example).

Then, I will probably be taking down that one-star review of P3 eventually. I think it was a case of someone shitting on the game in order to impress me, which happens now and then. Just dumbasses who think that trashing games is what we do here. I am usually very good at spotting them, but now and again one of them slips through my radar. At one point I was thinking of replacing it with Renegade's reviews (linked below), which are both raving five-star affairs, but I suspect that the truth lies somewhere inbetween these two extremes, so people might have to wait until I get around to trying the game myself to get the final Insomnia verdict. In the meantime, they can read both our current review, and Renegade's, and make up their own minds.

http://scathingaccuracy.com/reviews/180 ... sona-3-fes
http://scathingaccuracy.com/reviews/262 ... 3-portable