When you wrote this cute little guide of yours did you actually bother reading what the author wrote in the article? The gameplay is both easy and bland. That's the issue with this game. Not its supposed difficulty or whatever. The "gameplay" (such as it is) boils down to hitting enemies for their weakness and then killing them off while they are down. I'm sorry but its not rocket science. The bosses are not particularly exciting compared to some of the games I played. Just as the author wrote - they are either really piss easy or a match of attrition. And I totally agree with the author that both of those options are boring.
It doesn't actually HAVE a learning curve unlike what little self praising pricks like to believe (Praising yourself for being a "hard" game isn't a good idea really). You just half read half skip the boring dialogues (because teenage angsty drama is for angsty teenagers) and just grind the identical tartarus dungeon again and again. For literal hundreds of hours. Its not hard. Its kinda really simple in fact.
Possibly two years late here but honestly? Its a game that makes me skip through terrible dialogue options with shit characters (which is a chore and nothing else) while I grind identical mobs on identical levels of identical dungeon for 300 hours. The plot is... the same old plot i've seen about 300 times in various animes and mangas over the decades. Emo teenagers saving the world because of reasons. I'm also very sorry if you feel that choosing one of 3 identical clubs which give you same interactions with two identical people is a choice because that's pretty much the extent of your choices in this game.
Combat is literally the most mindless of all the jrpgs i played. Exploit weakness, kill enemy. Repeat x times. The work you mentioned must be the effort required to stay awake doing it.
Well, I'm a bit late to the party, but personally I love Persona 3. It's a different type of RPG--really, it's an RPG mixed with a simulation. Which, honestly, is why I love it. The plot is good and I love interacting with the characters. I'm not a huge fan of the way Tartarus is designed--it's too big. I personally am more interested in the story than running around a dungeon for hours on end.
I actually played Persona 4 first. I played it on my ex's PS Vita, and loved it so much I bought not only the game, but my own Vita. I think P4 is better--it's multiple dungeons instead of one giant one, and you can build relationships with more characters. It's a bit heavier on the simulation than P3, though. It also has multiple endings--none of which involve the effective death of the main character, thank you very much.
I tried Persona 2, which doesn't have the social links, and the gameplay is different. I didn't like it at all. It was like an entirely different game.
I agree, Tartarus was such a turn off. I was so disappointed when I open Persona 3 Director Edition that I got as a gift and first, saw that the characters now were teenagers and looked like generic anime teens. The story was transposed to some teenager drama with dating. The battle system suffered and became easier and more boring, with many of the nice innovative things from Persona 1 and 2 taken away :( Where is monster bargaining? No Tarot cards obtained trough this to create the personas? And you only control your own character and can't work as a team to fight the battles? -.- Even though is turn based? I would understand if like Star Ocean you have real time battles moving around the field etc, you can't really control all characters simultaneously, but on a turn based RPG with slow developing battles?!
The most disappointing and half assed thing was the dungeon. Seriously? Same dungeon with same looks for the whole game with randomized crap levels? It screams half-assing and uninspired dungeon design to me.
I simply couldn't take it and gave up on the game. Shallow story and shallow badly developed dungeon with a slow paced battle system with not much complexity that gets boring and extremely repetitive in a bad way (there is just so much you can see of the Tartarus after sometime)... couldn't finish this game.
Good thing Bionic Commando has those enjoyable, interactive loading screens... Because you sure are going to see them A LOT due to how easy it is to die in this game !
"If I were to make an exhaustive list of my all-time favorite games"
Chrono Trigger
Suikoden II
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy X
If there's something I hate about video games, it's repetition, and Odin Sphere has it in spades.
I can take it that you hate P3, the points you raised are valid, except maybe for boss battles, but the Odin Sphere hate isn't even nit-picking, it's just plain hipocrisy. All of your favorite games up there have waaaay more repetition than OS, in every minor and maor arcana instead of just spades. The item management and exp vs alchemy part of the game is an added challenge, you're supposed to make these choices instead of say, having 99 of every item like in say, any of your favorite games. And boss battles made you kite for 10 minutes? You just plain suck! I' not even good at it and didn't find that an issue. Finally, it's you that don't have the attention span to care for the characters or plot, it isn't the game's fault.
If you think P3 & OS suck, well, you simply dont understand nothing of JRPG.
I suggest you to play some cod, ac or, maybe the best idea, just kill yourself.
But from an objective point of view, there's not much to be added.
I never really got the hang of the shifty controls. Try to hit a speedpad slightly to your right, turn right, end up drifting far to the left, miss pad...
Really? What kind of joy does it give to master such a stupid control? Bah!
I didn't say there's a flaw with the control, just that it's irregular and wierd without any obvious reason. It's a RARE breed, that's for sure. 6/10 is good!
This is probably my favorite PS3 game of all time. There are many, many great games on the PS3, but this is the one I will always come back to no matter what - except I just bought it on Steam so I can enjoy it anywhere in the world I happen to be and can download and play it for an hour or two. Sadly, the sequel isn't as good - tons of more content, but at the expense of really powerful characters and story. It's a fun game. I enjoyed it very much, but it paled in comparison to the original. I'm hoping Steam ports over both VC2 and VC3, though. Here's hoping.
I know this post was written quite some time ago, but I would just like to give my two cents in response to this. I played and really liked both Persona 2 games (besides the insanely high encounter rate). The fusions spells, demon negotiation, all the different areas to explore, they were kick ass games. But man, Persona 3? I bought 3 and 4 to add to my PS2 RPG collection and have logged about 60 hours into Persona 3. I actually don't mind grinding, Tartarus isn't the part that really bothered me. What bothered me was the feeling of being totally trapped all the time and having to wait for such long periods of time to progress the story. I don't mind having a long drawn out story, but I DO mind the "press x continuously and needlessly travel to the same areas over and over again" formula. This game gives you no freedom of exploration whatsoever, so why do I have to watch multiple loading screens and my characters little pin traveling to the mall every single time I want to go there? Perhaps these gripes are a bit over-stated. I actually did enjoy a lot of the game, but mostly because I am bored at work when I play it and it was the only game I had with me at the time. Yes the choices you make matter and yes the dating sim aspect is pretty decent, but there was never a single time where I had to really think hard about my decisions in battles. No real tactics besides "knock shit down and one shot it". I absolutely love JRPG's and I love the SMT series. Nocturne is fantastic. DDS is fantastic. Persona 3 just felt like I was spending so much time just waiting and I had to ask myself, Why am I doing this? This is a great game for people who love japan and want to feel immersed in the culture, I guess part of the problem for me is that I have already been living in Japan for several years. I live the culture over here every day and this type of fascination isn't really fascinating to me at all. If I want to make social links with characters, I can go out and actually practice speaking japanese with people. It's kinda hard to get immersed in a game that takes place in the place you already live lol. If you want a good RPG, play a tales game. Look the PS1 especially as there are so many Pure GEMS on that system. Valkyrie Profile, Suikoden 2, Tales of Eternia...the list goes on and on. I don't look for a hand holding easy game to play. I just want something that actually gives me some freedom of movement and isn't just a do 3 actions per day simulator with endless loading screens. P3 certainly isn't a bad game. It just isn't really a JRPG in the purest sense of the word. If you like towns, exploration, loot and character customization, and a deep battle system (pretty much what defines the genre) then look elsewhere. and for the record, if any of you FF XIII haters actually finished the game, you would realize that it has an awesome battle system at the very least. The story is kinda meh, but the battle system is deep and complex once you get further than 30 hours in.
I completely agree with everything you wrote in this review. I just dusted this game off after at least 10 or 15 years and I was actually shocked at how horrible it was. The plot is completely incomprehensible and random. I like how you said that the Jackal gets torched by a deus ex machina -- that's spot on. In fact, the entire storyline seems like one deus ex machina after another. That particularly stood out to me when you leave the Sky Garden and, out of nowhere, Neil says that if you fly into the ocean then you can go to Mu, without ever mentioning why you need to go to Mu. And what the f*** was the point of the Mystic Statues? When you turn into Shadow and fly off to fight the comet (pretty lame plot point right there), it's revealed that all you needed to turn into Shadow was both Crystal Rings, which have been in your position since you visited the Gold Ship way back near the beginning of the game. So the majority of the game is just a giant waste of time. Sure, you free some slaves along the way but ... destroying the comet actually changes the course of history and none of that even matters.
P.S. I thought this review was well written. I'm not sure what that Anonymous guy's problem is.
They won't drop it because not only do P3 and P4 make them money, but there is also the fact that P3 and P4 are under different directors and teams than P1 and P2. Katsura Hashino is not Satomi Tadashi.
It's practically a different series starting from P3.
Teen drama crap was kinda present in Innocent Sin as well. Goddamit Lisa and Eikichi :/
You get fatigued slower the higher your level becomes, and the more efficient battles are fought (basically translates to abuse the crap out of OneMore and All Out Attacks).
The game has other anti-grinding features other than fatigue, such as EXP scaling to level, as well as the Reaper. A good way to gauge whether someone has grinded enough is to compare the levels of the enemies on the highest floors reached for a certain segment of the game to the levels of your party members.
Even then, it's not enough for the MC; you need to actually have good Personas for whatever situation, and grinding EXP for Personas is inefficient and generally not recommended unless they learn good skills in a skillset within a level or two. Fusion is a much more efficient way of levelling Personas due to SLINK EXP bonus (aka the benefit from the actual meat of the game which is the social sim aspect), and they turn out better than shuffle time Personas due to skill inheritence.
Also, the Portable version makes fatigue an even more non-issue due to two things.
1. Tired status only kicks in if the characters say the "I'm tired quote" AND only on the next day. Meaning you could still use them until some other limit (lack of money for healing, no healing items or just plain don't want to grind anymore) in Great/Normal status.
2. Yawn-B-Gones. Doesn't work on sick status but it's very easy to stockpile them. Coupled with this is the fact that party members no longer leave automatically at Tartarus' floor even after getting tired/sick.
I have this picture of Tyris Flare tattooed on my arm, I wondered if there was a fuller version of it available since I wanted to extend it down to the dragon?
Most of MOTHER 3's songs don't appear anywhere else in the series. And you don't even specify why the stuff you correctly remembered was so bad. Which makes me think you haven't actually played the game or you're blinded by nostalgia for Earthbound.
FFXIII is one of those games that is quite easy in the beginning, and then suddenly gets tougher at one point, and that's where the fun begins.
FFXIII has a total of 13 chapters, and I believe that around chapter 9, the game moves on to a more strategic form, rather than just mashing accept.
So the paradigm configuration is really important from there-on, otherwise you're toast once you initiate combat with the tougher enemies.
I really must add this for my post to be complete:
.. .and it DID happen, that epic expedition, only because of the events in Mission 3 it was filled with tension and distress. This is one of the reasons which made Homeworld so unique and truly stand out among the other games.
Totally agree. He's stupid!
You liar! Professor Layton and the unwound future is epic!
You liar! Professor Layton and the unwound future is epic!
Just gonna assume you got to the first boss, was under leveled died and wrote this trash
I mean it's your opinion but its wrong and shit
insult.
When you wrote this cute little guide of yours did you actually bother reading what the author wrote in the article? The gameplay is both easy and bland. That's the issue with this game. Not its supposed difficulty or whatever. The "gameplay" (such as it is) boils down to hitting enemies for their weakness and then killing them off while they are down. I'm sorry but its not rocket science. The bosses are not particularly exciting compared to some of the games I played. Just as the author wrote - they are either really piss easy or a match of attrition. And I totally agree with the author that both of those options are boring.
It doesn't actually HAVE a learning curve unlike what little self praising pricks like to believe (Praising yourself for being a "hard" game isn't a good idea really). You just half read half skip the boring dialogues (because teenage angsty drama is for angsty teenagers) and just grind the identical tartarus dungeon again and again. For literal hundreds of hours. Its not hard. Its kinda really simple in fact.
Oh and the music is awful.
Possibly two years late here but honestly? Its a game that makes me skip through terrible dialogue options with shit characters (which is a chore and nothing else) while I grind identical mobs on identical levels of identical dungeon for 300 hours. The plot is... the same old plot i've seen about 300 times in various animes and mangas over the decades. Emo teenagers saving the world because of reasons. I'm also very sorry if you feel that choosing one of 3 identical clubs which give you same interactions with two identical people is a choice because that's pretty much the extent of your choices in this game.
Combat is literally the most mindless of all the jrpgs i played. Exploit weakness, kill enemy. Repeat x times. The work you mentioned must be the effort required to stay awake doing it.
Really? your grammar clearly shows you are 2 years old
Well, I'm a bit late to the party, but personally I love Persona 3. It's a different type of RPG--really, it's an RPG mixed with a simulation. Which, honestly, is why I love it. The plot is good and I love interacting with the characters. I'm not a huge fan of the way Tartarus is designed--it's too big. I personally am more interested in the story than running around a dungeon for hours on end.
I actually played Persona 4 first. I played it on my ex's PS Vita, and loved it so much I bought not only the game, but my own Vita. I think P4 is better--it's multiple dungeons instead of one giant one, and you can build relationships with more characters. It's a bit heavier on the simulation than P3, though. It also has multiple endings--none of which involve the effective death of the main character, thank you very much.
I tried Persona 2, which doesn't have the social links, and the gameplay is different. I didn't like it at all. It was like an entirely different game.
I agree, Tartarus was such a turn off. I was so disappointed when I open Persona 3 Director Edition that I got as a gift and first, saw that the characters now were teenagers and looked like generic anime teens. The story was transposed to some teenager drama with dating. The battle system suffered and became easier and more boring, with many of the nice innovative things from Persona 1 and 2 taken away :( Where is monster bargaining? No Tarot cards obtained trough this to create the personas? And you only control your own character and can't work as a team to fight the battles? -.- Even though is turn based? I would understand if like Star Ocean you have real time battles moving around the field etc, you can't really control all characters simultaneously, but on a turn based RPG with slow developing battles?!
The most disappointing and half assed thing was the dungeon. Seriously? Same dungeon with same looks for the whole game with randomized crap levels? It screams half-assing and uninspired dungeon design to me.
I simply couldn't take it and gave up on the game. Shallow story and shallow badly developed dungeon with a slow paced battle system with not much complexity that gets boring and extremely repetitive in a bad way (there is just so much you can see of the Tartarus after sometime)... couldn't finish this game.
Good thing Bionic Commando has those enjoyable, interactive loading screens... Because you sure are going to see them A LOT due to how easy it is to die in this game !
"If I were to make an exhaustive list of my all-time favorite games"
Chrono Trigger
Suikoden II
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy X
If there's something I hate about video games, it's repetition, and Odin Sphere has it in spades.
I can take it that you hate P3, the points you raised are valid, except maybe for boss battles, but the Odin Sphere hate isn't even nit-picking, it's just plain hipocrisy. All of your favorite games up there have waaaay more repetition than OS, in every minor and maor arcana instead of just spades. The item management and exp vs alchemy part of the game is an added challenge, you're supposed to make these choices instead of say, having 99 of every item like in say, any of your favorite games. And boss battles made you kite for 10 minutes? You just plain suck! I' not even good at it and didn't find that an issue. Finally, it's you that don't have the attention span to care for the characters or plot, it isn't the game's fault.
If you think P3 & OS suck, well, you simply dont understand nothing of JRPG.
I suggest you to play some cod, ac or, maybe the best idea, just kill yourself.
Nostalgia can cloud opinions.
But from an objective point of view, there's not much to be added.
I never really got the hang of the shifty controls. Try to hit a speedpad slightly to your right, turn right, end up drifting far to the left, miss pad...
Really? What kind of joy does it give to master such a stupid control? Bah!
I didn't say there's a flaw with the control, just that it's irregular and wierd without any obvious reason. It's a RARE breed, that's for sure. 6/10 is good!
I REALLY LOVE TO PLAY THIS GAME AND ALL THE OTHERS GTA 4&5
This is probably my favorite PS3 game of all time. There are many, many great games on the PS3, but this is the one I will always come back to no matter what - except I just bought it on Steam so I can enjoy it anywhere in the world I happen to be and can download and play it for an hour or two. Sadly, the sequel isn't as good - tons of more content, but at the expense of really powerful characters and story. It's a fun game. I enjoyed it very much, but it paled in comparison to the original. I'm hoping Steam ports over both VC2 and VC3, though. Here's hoping.
I know this post was written quite some time ago, but I would just like to give my two cents in response to this. I played and really liked both Persona 2 games (besides the insanely high encounter rate). The fusions spells, demon negotiation, all the different areas to explore, they were kick ass games. But man, Persona 3? I bought 3 and 4 to add to my PS2 RPG collection and have logged about 60 hours into Persona 3. I actually don't mind grinding, Tartarus isn't the part that really bothered me. What bothered me was the feeling of being totally trapped all the time and having to wait for such long periods of time to progress the story. I don't mind having a long drawn out story, but I DO mind the "press x continuously and needlessly travel to the same areas over and over again" formula. This game gives you no freedom of exploration whatsoever, so why do I have to watch multiple loading screens and my characters little pin traveling to the mall every single time I want to go there? Perhaps these gripes are a bit over-stated. I actually did enjoy a lot of the game, but mostly because I am bored at work when I play it and it was the only game I had with me at the time. Yes the choices you make matter and yes the dating sim aspect is pretty decent, but there was never a single time where I had to really think hard about my decisions in battles. No real tactics besides "knock shit down and one shot it". I absolutely love JRPG's and I love the SMT series. Nocturne is fantastic. DDS is fantastic. Persona 3 just felt like I was spending so much time just waiting and I had to ask myself, Why am I doing this? This is a great game for people who love japan and want to feel immersed in the culture, I guess part of the problem for me is that I have already been living in Japan for several years. I live the culture over here every day and this type of fascination isn't really fascinating to me at all. If I want to make social links with characters, I can go out and actually practice speaking japanese with people. It's kinda hard to get immersed in a game that takes place in the place you already live lol. If you want a good RPG, play a tales game. Look the PS1 especially as there are so many Pure GEMS on that system. Valkyrie Profile, Suikoden 2, Tales of Eternia...the list goes on and on. I don't look for a hand holding easy game to play. I just want something that actually gives me some freedom of movement and isn't just a do 3 actions per day simulator with endless loading screens. P3 certainly isn't a bad game. It just isn't really a JRPG in the purest sense of the word. If you like towns, exploration, loot and character customization, and a deep battle system (pretty much what defines the genre) then look elsewhere. and for the record, if any of you FF XIII haters actually finished the game, you would realize that it has an awesome battle system at the very least. The story is kinda meh, but the battle system is deep and complex once you get further than 30 hours in.
**possession, not position
I completely agree with everything you wrote in this review. I just dusted this game off after at least 10 or 15 years and I was actually shocked at how horrible it was. The plot is completely incomprehensible and random. I like how you said that the Jackal gets torched by a deus ex machina -- that's spot on. In fact, the entire storyline seems like one deus ex machina after another. That particularly stood out to me when you leave the Sky Garden and, out of nowhere, Neil says that if you fly into the ocean then you can go to Mu, without ever mentioning why you need to go to Mu. And what the f*** was the point of the Mystic Statues? When you turn into Shadow and fly off to fight the comet (pretty lame plot point right there), it's revealed that all you needed to turn into Shadow was both Crystal Rings, which have been in your position since you visited the Gold Ship way back near the beginning of the game. So the majority of the game is just a giant waste of time. Sure, you free some slaves along the way but ... destroying the comet actually changes the course of history and none of that even matters.
P.S. I thought this review was well written. I'm not sure what that Anonymous guy's problem is.
They won't drop it because not only do P3 and P4 make them money, but there is also the fact that P3 and P4 are under different directors and teams than P1 and P2. Katsura Hashino is not Satomi Tadashi.
It's practically a different series starting from P3.
Teen drama crap was kinda present in Innocent Sin as well. Goddamit Lisa and Eikichi :/
You get fatigued slower the higher your level becomes, and the more efficient battles are fought (basically translates to abuse the crap out of OneMore and All Out Attacks).
The game has other anti-grinding features other than fatigue, such as EXP scaling to level, as well as the Reaper. A good way to gauge whether someone has grinded enough is to compare the levels of the enemies on the highest floors reached for a certain segment of the game to the levels of your party members.
Even then, it's not enough for the MC; you need to actually have good Personas for whatever situation, and grinding EXP for Personas is inefficient and generally not recommended unless they learn good skills in a skillset within a level or two. Fusion is a much more efficient way of levelling Personas due to SLINK EXP bonus (aka the benefit from the actual meat of the game which is the social sim aspect), and they turn out better than shuffle time Personas due to skill inheritence.
Also, the Portable version makes fatigue an even more non-issue due to two things.
1. Tired status only kicks in if the characters say the "I'm tired quote" AND only on the next day. Meaning you could still use them until some other limit (lack of money for healing, no healing items or just plain don't want to grind anymore) in Great/Normal status.
2. Yawn-B-Gones. Doesn't work on sick status but it's very easy to stockpile them. Coupled with this is the fact that party members no longer leave automatically at Tartarus' floor even after getting tired/sick.
I have this picture of Tyris Flare tattooed on my arm, I wondered if there was a fuller version of it available since I wanted to extend it down to the dragon?
Most of MOTHER 3's songs don't appear anywhere else in the series. And you don't even specify why the stuff you correctly remembered was so bad. Which makes me think you haven't actually played the game or you're blinded by nostalgia for Earthbound.
Earthbound fans need to chill.
FFXIII is one of those games that is quite easy in the beginning, and then suddenly gets tougher at one point, and that's where the fun begins.
FFXIII has a total of 13 chapters, and I believe that around chapter 9, the game moves on to a more strategic form, rather than just mashing accept.
So the paradigm configuration is really important from there-on, otherwise you're toast once you initiate combat with the tougher enemies.
I really must add this for my post to be complete:
.. .and it DID happen, that epic expedition, only because of the events in Mission 3 it was filled with tension and distress. This is one of the reasons which made Homeworld so unique and truly stand out among the other games.