I’m back at it in Da’at. I played base SMTV and I’m playing Vengeance on a PS5.
I’m enjoying it but the game is definitely too big. Lots of Unreal Engine landscape tool and samey battles. The standard mobs have become mundane; figure out their weakness then press turn the heck out of them. I had a great time on the first new boss though. There are four sexy demon ladies (they’re on the front cover) and the first one gave me a couple of game overs before I got it right. She was fun. My protag build wasn’t right for her so it was fun switching his role to buff/debuff and getting the right party composition.
Love the vibe of the game. The music and sound design is out of this world and the new music has really freshened it up.
The game could definitely do with being smaller but there sure is a lot of game to bang around in and explore geographically and mechanically.
Played a lot of SMTVV over the weekend. I’ve bumped it down to Safety difficulty to just cruise and soak in the exploration and vibes. I know that isn’t the bets way to get the full experience, but honestly, the press turn system really isn’t holding up against 1000s of grunt enemies in a 100 hour game for me.
I’m enjoying the new content. The new boss designs are cool, there’s more story and I’m in a new area. I didn’t realise it had a big new area but it does and it looks really nice.
The new side bosses are cool and I’m rocking quite the party now thanks to playing on easy.
Finished SMTVV Canon of Vengeance and got the law ending. I liked that you don’t get a choice on endings, it is a culmination of the choices you have made through the game rather than pick an ending.
It took me about 55 hours on Safety, and I did all the side stuff you can do in that route bar the Amalgam trophy. I really enjoyed using the trophies as a checklist of things to do.
The character models in this game are spectacular. I loved soaking in the luxury of them. The music is incredible and the Vengeance remixes and new tracks are wonderful.
Have they fixed the difficulty curve in SMTVV compared with SMTV? I had huge trouble in the end game playing SMTV, I ended up switching the difficulty to get through it and see the ending.
I’m what I’d call a mild smt-boy. I’ve finished SMT4 and Strange Journey on the normal mode, so I think I know what’s up? I’d be keen to play SMTV again if the difficulty is better managed. It felt like the original game had a huge gulf between easy and normal mode.
They fixed level scaling, so you’re no longer at a tremendous disadvantage if you’re below the enemy’s level. There’s probably changes to difficulty beyond that, but that was the big one.
Ah yep, that was exactly my issue. I remember now, I was a good 10 levels below the level needed/expected in the end game. But levelling up enough to get more powerful demons would have taken several hours of grinding, to which I answered, no. It basically felt like punishment for being good at the early game. I did my usual thing and squeaked through by abusing the press turns.
So if I’m level 60 and a boss is level 70 normally, will they be level 60? I couldn’t find any of this info in any patch notes or information materials.
If the scaling is fixed maybe I’ll give this game another shot (after the REFANTAZIO!). I was really hoping to fall in love with it like I did with SMT4. I loved the vibe.
I can relate to the frustration, I like to play RPGs under leveled and it was a big annoyance to me in vanilla smt v.
No, the levels of enemies don’t fluctuate. The formulas in the game that incorporate level have been tapered down so that character level isn’t the be all end all stat. Like in vanilla smt v if you were a single level below the enemy’s you would basically never crit, do heavily reduced damage compared to if you were at the enemy’s level and your evasion/accuracy would also take a big dip. Now you can comfortably play under leveled(to a point. No FFVI single digit levels type stuff though) as long as you use sound strategy.
Vengeance has so many small tweaks that just make the overall experience much better. One thing I did remember is there are demon traits now that effectively power crept things to make the game a good bit easier overall.
Ooooh I see. No wonder I was getting annoyed. I always play under level in these kinds of games, not on purpose really, it just pans out that way by stooging the enemies with press turn as much as possible. I just couldn’t understand how I was getting so absolutely owned toward the end of the game even though I was using the systems.
Makes me way more keen on playing this again. I’m seeing there is a totally new story mode that can be chosen from the get go too. Thanks for the info :)
I found the change in a list of 50 changes Atlus released in a YouTube video for those interested:
The damage adjustment by level difference was changed to be more moderate compared to the previous version. Depending on tactics, it has been made easier to defeat stronger opponents.
It’s much better than in vanilla SMTV. In the original I barely scraped a win against the boss at the end of the first area after hours of grinding and optimising my team to even stand a chance on Hard mode. On Vengeance I won first time on Hard with just the demons I had there and then.
the level scaling is fixed in vengeance but it should also be noted that the fastest way to gain levels in both the original and vengeance is to do all the sidequests. Random battles give next to nothing for exp even when you’re not overleveled.
The penalty only occurred if you were 10+ levels under the enemy and it didn’t affect evasion/accuracy [source: low-level runs of SMT V]
Well, I’ve come to share that I just finished Persona 3 for the first time!
I played through Reload, starting back at release making it all the way to December in-game and then setting it aside when SMTVV dropped. I started chipping away at P3R again about 10 days ago and made it to the end. I have a lot of loose thoughts about the whole experience that I feel like I should toss out into the void here, esp given that a lot of you have more Persona 3 experience than I do and might be able to enlighten a few things for me.
Oh, also I haven’t played The Answer yet, but I’m pretty spoiled on what happens. I’ll get around to it soon but I’m about to leave for a trip and not about to jump in immediately
I’ve played P5, P5R and most of P4G (I set aside a save at like 12/22 or something to start P3R), but overall I’ve become more of a mainline SMT fan over time. I was really looking forward to playing P3 for the first time since it seems like people who gravitate towards the mainline games seem to appreciate P3’s darker themes and more somber tone
Overall, I had a pretty good time with P3R, but I don’t think I was quite as charmed as I was hoping to be. I feel ambivalent about a few of the choices the game makes
A lot of the aesthetic choices wrt this game made me pretty excited to play - I like the islandy/watery vibes, the rap/rock soundtrack, the heavier emphasis on sci fi
Overall I think the music was good an an improvement over the original OST. I don’t like the new opening as much as Burn my Dread (and I’m kinda miffed that that song is so iconic and you hear it only once in Reload), but It’s Going Down Now is a banger, Color Your Night is like the perfect melancholic Persona song, the new chorus on Changing Seasons is a massive improvement… I’m happy with the OST
This is certainly the most streamlined of the three Persona games I’ve played, colored by lots of little things e.g. only three social stats, very few locations - all of which are unlocked at the very beginning, short and simple social links, one dungeon, not many options on how to spend your time, etc. The unintended consequence of this is that P3 is the best-paced game in the series for like 4 months and then just really churns after that. Once you max out your social stats it really feels like the game slows down immensely since you’re not making nearly as many decisions and there’s practically nothing to do at night
The pacing was a real issue toward the end. Between the Hanged Man Arcana boss and Nyx there’s one fake boss fight with Chidori and just a whole lot of nothing… The game also just dumps so many story scenes every single day here and stretches this section out for so long. Also, as one final eff you to the player they don’t let you start the Aigis SL until obscenely late in the story which makes the race to Orpheus Telos really stressful at the very last second
The social links vary WILDLY in terms of quality. A few of them like the Sun social link and Aigis’s really touched me, but on the whole the SLinks are the worst they’ve ever been here. There’s like three different SLinks about uncomfortable age gap relationships(?), a few that are the same conversation but 10x (e.g. Tanaka’s, the Sumo guy), the really gross eating one at the mall, the narc, the annoying doctor dude… Also just like, wayyyy too many people in the cast. That kinda goes against the streamlining point from earlier but, well, allow me this contradiction because I’m right on both fronts. The male party member episodes are fine but meh and I would’ve preferred they kick out a number of the lesser social links for them instead (though I understand why they didn’t want to do this in a remake)
Since I just finished the game I just did the part at the end of every Persona game where you say goodbye to all of your S Links… I remembered a few fondly but overall I would describe the 90(!) minutes it took to do that as unpleasant. I do not like most of these people
I like the party member cast overall. I think the idea of having cliques within the clique (e.g. Mitsuru + Akihiko vs the second-years) is interesting and a unique dynamic (and one that felt true to life). The issue for me though is that the MC is very clearly in the second-year clique which keeps Akihiko and Mitsuru at this weird arms-length distance and I never really felt like they were actually my friends.
I liked Yukari the best. When I think about my favorite scenes from the game (Persona Awakening, Beach, Mitsuru’s awakening in Kyoto, etc) a lot of them feature her very prominently. Also, I decided to keep parity and romance the Lovers Arcana girl after choosing Ann and Rise
I think Ken is great. I’m not sure why everyone hates on the kid so much
Shinji… didn’t really know Shinji. His linked episodes were kinda nice but outside of that he had a bad attitude and was barely around, so…
Love Koromaru down but I am not a fan of his voice sounding like a human doing dog noises
Gameplay wise, something felt kinda off about the party and their builds/abilities. I know they swapped skills around and added theurgies and such but compared to both P4 and P5 the party members felt very inconsequential here. In P5(R), Ann, for example, can keep up with Joker’s damage output but here my MC was outdamaging the other three party members combined. Ken’s theurgy (the one that cops Haru’s ultimate ability) and Yukari’s theurgry (the one that cops Ann’s ultimate ability) were both good + useful but a lot of the times I felt like my party members didn’t have much to do other than throw out some mediocre damage.
I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on if this remake hit the mark or missed the mark. I’ve seen some comparisons online of various things (the first cutscene in the game seems way better in the OG version; the Persona awakening works better in the original as an anime cutscene; some of the line readings seem better in the original, notably the OG Yukari has a bit of a hater quality to her voice that I kinda like; I just watched the ending scene from the FES version and don’t know why but it hits me way harder than the ending did in Reload even though the dialogue is mostly the same)
The difficulty scaling was OK. I played on Merciless, which I was interested in because neither P4G nor P5R did their highest difficulties well IMO. P3R’s Merciless doesn’t really have any notable features or quirks though. It’s very mild compared to anything mainline SMT. I was hoping for a bit more tbh. I’ve heard some people say they think FES is harder than Nocturne and this was… definitely not. Where was that Table that was supposed to kick my ass?
It’s not the cool choice - certainly not now - but I have to go with P5 as the best of them overall. The Kamoshida arc is the best Persona has ever been - it reminds me of the Twin Peaks pilot, just the right amount of dark + stylized + wtf but filtered through Degrassi’s teen angst. And while the game doesn’t reach that same high again, it keeps the energy and momentum up much better than P3 or P4, only slightly dragging in the summer months. P5 also has the best gameplay. I really liked a lot of the features only present in that title (e.g. palaces, tokyo setting, persona traits, third tier persona skills, more superbosses, the cards and darts minigames, etc.). I like most of the cast as well, so sorry
That “end of the Persona game feeling” can be so brutal. I don’t think this is quite as nice of a feeling as I felt upon beating P5/P5R, which were hopeful but pretty devastating. I think I just feel sad about this one.
Apologies for the word vomit - just trying to work through some thoughts as a P3 first timer and also piece together my feelings on Reload specifically vs the wider Persona 3 umbrella. Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on the game
IMO Reload is good game in isolation, but it kinda misses the mark on what made P3 endearing. That low-fidelity, PS2-era feel gets washed out with the sharp visuals and new gameplay conveniences.
For me, part of P3’s appeal is the urban myths / cryptid stories it takes inspiration from. Reload feels more like porting P3’s story and characters into P5 and it kinda clashes.
A lot of the bolder design choices (like not allowing control of party members) have been sanded down, so it’s more akin to other jrpgs. It’s not like there’s a lot of concrete flaws to point at with Reload though. It’s a well made game, but imo the magic is kinda gone.
I’m not in the know on the urban myths/cryptids but that sounds very interesting!
I think you’re right about the low-fi being endearing/a large part of the charm. Watching the scenes back-to-back from different versions of the game I feel like the low-fi version always evokes more of an emotional response from me even if the newer version looks prettier. Maybe I’m part of the problem since I’ve been averse to trying P3 (well, not that I had any way of playing it before now) because I didn’t want to deal with a lot of the bolder (for better or worse) features from the game like getting sick from Tartarus, party members I can’t control, being forced to date everyone, broken social links, not being able to choose skills during fusion, etc. that were present in the OG version.
I see what happened to the Elizabeth boss fight as a bit of a metaphor for the differences between the games. Watching someone beat that boss on Youtube in like 2008-2010 the videos would be like a half hour long and it would be a true event - like whoever was playing would pop off hard when they won. It used to be a huge accomplishment. And now if you search it on youtube it’s just hundreds of “4 turn kill using all of the DLC” videos that are expensive and shiny and not the same thing at all
I’ve always found this notion to be pretty interesting, because P3 was not designed with the intention that you dated everyone. In modern Persona, it’s expected that you can 100% the game in a single playthrough, but back with P3 it was actually much more faithful to its dating sim roots. It’s nearly impossible to max out every SL in the OG and I’m pretty sure the intention was that you picked a single girl to pursue ala in dating sims.
I think the calendar system in modern Persona has evolved into something of its own, but P3 was much more a genre mix of rpg and dating sim in a true sense.
Maybe it’s my nostalgia speaking, but I think that also reflects on the SLs in P3. Since you couldn’t pursue them all, you were supposed to pick and choose who you wanted to spend time with. If you didn’t like a character, you could simply priotize another link. This reflected the theme of the game that your time in this world is finite, so you have to make the most out of the time you have been given. If you don’t enjoy being with someone, then you shouldn’t spend your precious moments in their company.
In the newer games, you’re probably going to see most of the SL content, so they have to be more broadly appealing.
I can’t stand him because he was very deceptive and went to elaborate lengths to murder a more interesting character, but didn’t put in a fraction of the same effort to figuring out the circumstances of his mother’s death. It’s similar to the dynamic with Akechi in P5 - it makes zero sense that anyone would let them into their ranks because his actions went so far beyond the pale. This is the kind of person that in real life even if you were able to forgive their actions, you would have nothing to do with because they have demonstrated themselves to be beyond untrustworthy. I can’t get behind a character who’s made out to be this pity case when all of their actions I’m unsympathetic to. He acts very pompous at times and has a lot of narc energy in general. His voice was incredibly annoying in original P3.
sorry