Where's the beef?

User Rating: 7 | Persona 3: Fes PS2
By cog77 | Review Date:
Like a steak with too much bone, this game has such promise but really seems content to float along the surface of it's premise. The game itself doesn't break any new ground or challenge any of the conventions of the JRPG genre and while the premise and the story are good, the game itself seems content to rest upon those laurels rather than following up with a truly stellar game. Pretty much anything you see in this game can be found elsewhere, even if the package as a whole seems unique because of the combination. The interactions, the social links, the town itself, everything in this game seems like it has more depth than it does. And yes that means the story too. The storyline seems to progress regardless of your actions. I hadn't switched personas in battle and then Mitsuru references my ability to do so. Huh?

Making the main character as a passive entity that you simply guide through all these events rather than a character that has its own thoughts and words seems like an odd choice for a game that purports to be story driven. You go through one crazy ass event to another without so much as a blink of character development. Sure the characters around you develop in your presence, but you stay absolutely the same. No matter what. You're like some sociopathic school kid who experiences all these things without a palpable effect on your own self.

Another flaw is the level design in Tarturus. I mean come on. I'm at about level 57 (just beat the intrepid knight( and all I can ask is why the heck didn't you spend more time on the designs? It's the same freaking map, the same freaking enemies from one block to the next. Would it have killed you to add more variation?

Depth? Right. No matter what club you join, it's the same freaking two people. I suppose they didn't want people complaining that they couldn't establish all the social links in one game. Wouldn't that have been more realistic to a life, especially one in school. You can't be friends with everyone, afterall

It's the little things that add up. Don't get me wrong, this is a good game. It's worth a buy if you have even a general like for RPGs and Japanese-centric ones at that. But the game falls so short on pretty much every aspect that I can't help but wonder where all the fervor is coming from.

Anyhow, just my thoughts so far.

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