Guys check it out I'm playing PERSONA 3 PORTABLE

I started playing Persona 3 Portable today. I got to the first save point and quit.

I chose the female character and "hard" difficulty because I am wanting to get the most out of this game the first time through. I may regret both of these decisions later, but I'll burn those bridges when I come to them.

The game began with a girl attempting suicide with a gun. I can't honestly say this is a spoiler because it's in the first fifteen seconds of the game. I promise that if I talk about game details aside from that I will mark them with spoilers, in case people actually want to play this.

I named my character Azurath Zynthos because I didn't want to name her something like SUMMER BLOOMINGDALE and also because I feel as though my in-game character's name is directly related to my own personality, so if I named her something actually very feminine that would make me a queer

considering restarting and naming her something pretty like Juni

Within the first five minutes of gameplay I signed my soul away with some unknown contract, befriended a suicidal girl and got hit on by a guy with the same Voice Actor as Edward Elric (Full Metal Alchemist). So far this game makes me feel like I'm playing an anime based on high school. I hated high school. As far as actual game-play, I haven't done anything besides get in touch with my feminine side.

I'm kind of disappointed that the girl attempting suicide was not my character. It would be interesting to play a game as a suicidal character. Oh well.

I'll keep you guys posted-ish more or less every now and then about the game, and once I get far enough in I'll make a pseudoreview of it and give it an arbitrary score.

What I've got from the game so far:

My character, along with at least some (possibly most or even all) of the students, can summon a Persona to fight battles for them. It's a projection of one's psyche, and strengthens with your in-game social bonds.

I've never played a Persona game before, and this is actually a pretty clever way to put relationship building into a game and make it matter. This game has actually captured me, thus far. I already feel almost emotionally tied to some of the characters and the game has barley started.

Anyway, the Persona itself is summoned by (kind-of spoilers):

Spoiler:

I'm not a fan of JRPG games in general, and I especially find it hard to get into games that throw me back into a school setting, but this game just does things right.

I first heard about the Persona series on another forum (selectbutton.net) but that forum is full of pretentious cave dwelling manchildren who still play NES games because "today's games suck" or something like that so I never looked into the game because I felt it had the same stigma as they do: Washed up, old fashioned, worthless and boringly cliche.

It's not. I haven't played much into the game but I recommend it. It's a turn based game, and it has roots pretty heavily in the "traditional RPG" genre but it is definitely a game all its own. Try it.

Once I play a good hour or two of the game and get a better grasp of the game's mechanics and story, I'll make another post. That may be my final post.



edit:
I noticed an error in the game recently. One of the female characters was referring to me (my character) and she said "he" and "him" out loud but the text said "she" and "her." This is most likely due to the fact that in the original Persona 3 there was not a female player character. This mistake appears to be somewhat isolated, though, because in the following sentence she said "us second year girls have to stick together" referring to both her and my character in the correct gender in both voice and text.

I have a weird love / hate relationship with the Persona games.

I love how weird and original they are. The stories are always odd in that uniquely Japanese way that doesn't give a shit if you're following its logic or not.

The hate ? Sometimes they get really bogged down in the talky / relationship stuff. They are VERY grindy, the dungeons can get a bit repetitive and boring.

But worst of all (be wary of this, art) is that sometimes the game will straight-up fuck you. The save points are pretty far apart, so you might be an hour's play or more in when this happens. Like a lot of RPGs the game works on a strong / weak elemental system. Water beats fire, fire beats air or whatever. If you hit an enemy with their weak element, you get a bonus turn, and vice versa. So sometimes you will come across a perfect storm, where you have the wrong type of persona equipped and an enemy gets first strike. If they have your opposing element, this will do serious damage AND give the enemy another turn. You can honesty get into a fight where you literally don't even get to take a turn before being wiped out. When this happens you may well smash your controller or PSP.

I got the portable version. I almost vinished the original P3 so I might give it a go as the girl character to see if it's much different.

From what I've read it's not incredibly different story-wise but a lot of mechanics have been added and some of the annoying BS from the original P3 was taken out.

Allies can now take fatal blows for the main character. Or, well, that's what I keep reading. I have yet to try it out.

BRB putting on my lip gloss and playing persona 3.



Edit: I've made it into Tartarus.

I am quite liking this "beat the living hell out of everyone" move I've been given.


if you use a SUPER EFFECTIVE attack (like using ember on an oddish) it knocks that enemy down and you get another turn and if you knock every enemy down you can use the "beat the living hell out of everyone" attack and DESTROY them.

I still don't actually understand the narrative of this game from what I've read.

art wrote:

if you use a SUPER EFFECTIVE attack (like using ember on an oddish) it knocks that enemy down and you get another turn and if you knock every enemy down you can use the "beat the living hell out of everyone" attack and DESTROY them.

Yes, the gang bang attack. Raunchy.

Now you see what I mean though, because enemies, although they can;t do the gamg bang move, can still pull a super effective attack on youo and ruin your day.

Oh and Pig Testes, even when you play the game you only really understand about 75% of what's going on. The rest you just have to accept. JAPAN !

Sauteed Pig Testicles wrote:

I still don't actually understand the narrative of this game from what I've read.

Nor does anyone who has ever played it, I think.

Payed the first Persona on PS1.
It fucked my brains out.
Eh...what can you say. It's Japan.

I really love it though. It's not just Japan, it's because the creator of the game is bonkers. But that's alright, a lot of important game developers are nutters.

I love games that are a little but out-there. Metal Gear Solid is another game that makes absolutely no sense until you've beat it something like seventeen times. The Katamari game series never makes sense. Even games like F.E.A.R. 2 have incredibly nutso plots. I like that.

Some games, though, just straight up cross the line. Eternal Sonata, for instance. Once you tell me that the entirety of the game is a dying musician's coma dream, I lose interest in the story fast

art wrote:

Some games, though, just straight up cross the line. Eternal Sonata, for instance. Once you tell me that the entirety of the game is a dying musician's coma dream, I lose interest in the story fast

Plus, it sucked ass.

Funny you should mention this, because I'm re-playing some of the Xenosaga series from PS2. Specifically number II right now. And the story is just nucking futs.

It makes sense in its own way, but you really have to focus on it. It makes these huge logical leaps and constantly refers to concepts that it hasn't really explained to you. It kind of just assumes you're OK with everything. It's good in a way, it's nice not to be talked down to or suffer through reams of exposition. But man, sometimes it's hard to know quite what the hell is going on.

Uberman, I feel we have somewhat similar taste in games. Do you use gamerDNA at all? If you do I can rub my gamerDNA up against your gamerDNA and see if they like eachother.

http://radonschism.gamerdna.com/

This is fairly incomplete, by the way. I have a short memory. Over the course of the next 24 hours I'm going to try to fill it up.



Back to P3P: I can tell this game is going to be one I will get addicted to. I'm not very far into it at all... I only play a half hour per day or so. But I ache to play it every waking moment. This game... is my one true love ):

I'm looking at that site now. It's odd - kind of like Facebook for games. It'll take me ages to fill in all my games preferences.

Anyway back to Persona 3 Portable.

My party is full of pussyfoot whiners. They get tired after like three levels of exploration. DUMB DUMB DUMB.

I would enjoy the day more if I could do more than one thing per day ):

Adding a bit more to Uberman saying the game fucks you, the final boss can make a party member heal itself to full health. So take a 45 minute boss fight and just double it everytime it does this. The people will stop getting fatigued so quickly as they level up. Also expect cheap deaths will make you rage. Grind early and it won't be so bad later. Just my two cents.