A mere review cannot conjure up the raw emotion and feelings this game gave me, therefore I ask the reader to please take my word faithfully. I will do the best to explain what I can without taking away from the experience. This is my first Persona game with no knowledge of the series before playing this game.
The game allows you to choose one of five increasing difficulties, 2 of which are new to this version of Persona. Also new to this version, you can choose your gender which slightly affects the storyline. The game sends you on your way and hopes you enjoy the game. Oh, you have no idea, Atlus.
The story begins with a girl holding what looks like a gun to her head. She's distressed, closing her eyes and telling herself to pull the trigger. She ends up not being able to do it, and the story warps to the main protagonist. You get off a train around midnight and the typical train station transforms into an eerie dark green tinted world before your eyes. The protagonist is surrounded by coffins and blood and what does he do? He sighs and keeps walking.
As you reach your dorm for the first time, a creepy kid appears and asks you to sign a contract in order to proceed. "You will be held responsible for your own actions." Once you do sign it, the boy disappears and the suicidal girl appears. She's about to attack, when another girl comes out to stop her. They're both introduced as Yukari and Mitsuru, respectively. Yukari is still holding her gun, but she insists it's just a toy.
As you time goes on, you're introduced to your school life. You meet your teachers and a few more students, including Akihiko (a mysterious lady-magnet) and Junpei (slacker with jokes). There's nothing too extraordinary happening now, but the whole premise was definitely interesting enough to keep me playing without breaks. Life continues as normal until one night, your dorm is suddenly under attack by shadows in the creepy bloody green atmosphere again. You're trapped against this evil tar-shadow creature coming straight for you. Suddenly, a huge floating figure appears behind you and annihilates the enemy in front of you, before disappearing again. That is a Persona, and you have no idea what just happened because you just passed out.
When you wake up 3 weeks later, you're given a big pill to swallow. You're told that there is an hour hidden in between the moments of midnight that only certain people can experience. Those who cannot experience it turn into a coffin and don't recollect anything. At this hour, there are shadows that feast upon the minds of those not in a coffin. The school that you go to turns into a gloomy tower hoarding tons of those shadows during this hour... And the story only experiences a million more twists and turns from there. By now, I felt as if the story was a little crazy, but definitely exciting enough to make want to venture out for all the answers.
As the year goes on, you meet many new friends and enemies. Some questions get answered, but those answers only lead to more questions, exponentially raising my interest for the game as a whole.
The battle system works very well because of its fluidity and introduction to action, especially compared to other RPGs which can be seen as slow. Allies and enemies have strengths and weaknesses, and it's your job to exploit the enemy's weakness while defending your own. The action is all turn-based. You can either attack, defend, run, use an item, or use your Persona to use a special skill which drains Spirit Points. You level up, upgrade your equipment, and fuse personas to create even stronger ones-- all typical addictive RPG elements any player should be used to.
The greatest thing about this game are the relationships and social links you create with everyone. When you first meet everyone, you draw certain stereotypes. Yukari was the typical popular schoolgirl, Mitsuru was the typical withdrawn genius leader, Junpei was the typical class clown comic relief, Akihiko was the typical mysterous athelete girl-magnet and so on... However, as the story progresses through, every single character opens up a Pandora's box of emotions and ethics. You delve into a world of heart-wrenching stories centralized around death, hatred, family, destiny, love, betrayal, forgiveness and much more. My heart opened up to these
video game characters as they slowly began to trust my character and confide in what felt like my own self. When a character told me she loved me, I believed it. Nearly everyone involved in this universe stirs up extremely strong emotions, good or bad. As the in-game months pass by, the main protagonist transforms into this entity of hope for mankind, while mankind is fighting off being pulled into hopelessness.
Whenever an RPG comes to a close, I always feel a little sad saying goodbye to all the characters, dreading the inevitable credit reel. In this game, I was absolutely devastated. Everyone in the game has evolved so much, and saying goodbye felt genuine. When you realize that these characters are not real, you wonder to yourself. It has been a few days since I've beaten the game, and I just cannot stop thinking or talking about it... Not hard to imagine considering this game has the most emotionally charged endings in any game I've ever played. It might seem pretty sad, but unless you have played this game through, you have no idea. For a portable game to create such turmoil within me and countless others, that has got to be one of the most impressive phenominas I've ever experienced.
My playthrough took 40 hours to finish and I didn't even do nearly half of everything you can do in the game. You have the choice to start a New Game Plus, however I find it extremely difficult to continue mine seeing these wonderful friends of mine start out broken and untrusting of everyone. I highly recommend a New Game Plus though, because not only do you keep your character's stats, but you can go through the whole year again building new relationships and social links, doing events that you missed before, creating new godlike Personas and much more.
The music is absolutely fantastic, with an eccentric mix of angelic hymns and rap. Some of these tracks have never sounded any more majestic. Included below is a sample of the eargasm you are to expect when you play this game.
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For veterans of Persona 3, this game does not come with "The Answer" from the Playstation 2 add-on: Persona 3: FES. From what I've heard, it's an extremely tough grindfest that created mixed opinions. The lack of "The Answer" doesn't add or subtract to my thoughts on the game, but I know that I will be getting a PS2 specifically for this add-on.
This is the best RPG ever. (Dethroning my previous favorite, Mass Effect 2) It goes without saying, but this is also the best PSP game out on the market. I highly recommend treating yourself to an experience that will open your heart and mind to something truly unique.
I feel like even though I gave this game a full score and spent a ton of time creating this review to my liking, haven't given it enough justice for what it is. If you have any questions about this game or anything in general, please reply below and I would be more than happy to answer. Please mark spoilers.
Thank you Atlus for making me truly fall in love with a game.
