Persona 3 is a Masterpiece Still Worth Playing

you've probably already heard a persona right it's basically inescapable at this point persona is everywhere i mean just joker himself the protagonist the fifth game has been in a dozen gotcha games gone his own anime and been turned into a fairy in a sonic game so you probably want to know what all the fuss is about right well if you're in that boat you're [ __ ] lying almost everyone knows what a persona is at this point and i'm sick and tired of every video i say about persona starting with if you've been living under a rock persona's part jrpg and part dating sim where you manage your time and [ __ ] off i'm not doing that [ __ ] this is my video and i'm not going to do that i ended up doing just that didn't i [ __ ] me you read the title you know what this video is about let's talk about persona 3. oh yeah also it doesn't really matter if you don't even know what a personae is or if you've played all the other games in the series because the purpose of this video is very simple it's to convince you to try the game by sucking its [ __ ] for 30 minutes straight so that also includes explaining all the basic baby's first persona game stuff so if that sounds enjoyable let's get to it so let's start off with the basics shall we what is a persona well a persona is okay i'm kidding let's do that later for now let's talk about plot and if you're asking yourself what i'm talking about plot instead of gameplay and this you know game we're gonna get to that in due time but for now just trust me there's a reason why i'm not talking about it now anyways the game starts off with a message basically saying that time delivers us all to the same end and that the player has one year to do all they can setting the tone forwards to come and letting you know from the beginning that your time in game is limited gameplay and story wise this theme of time and how limited and precious it is is pretty much baked into every aspect of the game from its characters to its plot to its imagery and most importantly to its gameplay that gameplay being around time management and forming bonds with those around you with the limited time you have and that successful marriage of gameplay and storytelling is already pretty [ __ ] impressive being that it's something most games don't even try to achieve that message fades into a pretty sick anime cut scene that introduces us to four important characters yukari takeba mitsuru kirijo pharos and our main man monado anime jesus [ __ ] it we'll just call him three kun for now the cutscene also shows three kun on his way to his new dorm because you see he's a transfer student and is coming to live in this storm so you might be asking what about us they're [ __ ] dead they died in a car crash 10 years prior to the game's events if you're shocked by this you better get used to it because everyone has a dead pair in this game it's kind of a thing actually also on the way to the dorm time stops the sky turns green a huge tower appears and everyone turns into coffins so three queen reacts like anyone would and is upset that his blood plug mp3 stopped working just a regular tuesday i guess after that he reaches the dorm and meets the aforementioned pharaohs who says please sign your name there and three queen is like sure random kid in prison clothing who just teleported in front of me i will sign this contract and after the player chooses three kim's name pharos disappears into the dark and a very distressed yukari shows up and almost pulls a [ __ ] gun on him just a regular tuesday i guess okay so jokes aside the characterization of three kun being this unaware depressed and generally uncaring individual is perfect for this game and that's because aside from the fact that it's pretty funny it's also the perfect reflection of the type of people who would buy an anime jrpg with visual novel elements and because of that it connects better with the people playing and makes three kum's arc which i won't spoil hit that much harder and of course i'm not saying you need to be the same sad sack of a human being as treykun to connect with him you can be a perfectly fine well-adjusted adult and still enjoy his story and that's because i'm 99 sure no matter who you are you've had your depressed angsty teen face you remember right that time in your life where for some reason you decided that having human relationships was just not worth it so you just kept yourself wallowing your own sadness constantly saying stuff like my life sucks and continually denying that all you really need is a real friend yeah me neither so before you carry good [ __ ] youth on ice three queen we're introduced to mitsuru which saves us we're also introduced to our room in which we sleep in and then the next day we go to school where you're bound to be lost for about an hour seriously just go here and here don't make the same mistakes i did and after that we're introduced to a few more classmates your homeroom teacher and it's like that for a few days until uh-oh turns out that thing that happened before happens every midnight and it's called a dark hour a literal extra hour in the day and while it's happening an ordinary person transmogrifies into a coffin and is oblivious to all that occurs but there's a chance that if you're special and you have a thing called the potential you can see it but if you don't have it you'll get [ __ ] by being shadows and then wake up after the fact with a disease called apathy syndrome which causes people to lose their will to live and basically become zombies that don't do anything oh yeah and also the people that live in three kun's dorm are watching him sleep with some high-tech [ __ ] because they think he has the potential and they're doing that because they're part of a secret shadow execution organization called seas which is an acronym for you already lost aren't you don't worry it's not that important all you need to know is that shadow's bad every midnight shadow show up so sees kill shadow and sieze is looking at you taking a nap to see if you can join in got it alright so during one of the team's breach of privacy sessions the dorm is attacked by two big [ __ ] shadows so three cone and yukari run to the rooftop and while the rest of the team handles the first one the second one is already on the [ __ ] rooftop and since yukari is too much of a [ __ ] to fight it i guess i gotta do it myself personnel so after yukari [ __ ] out we're given a gun and what do we do with that gun shoot ourselves in the head of course so we can summon a manifestation of our inner psyche called uh wait for it persona all right good job incredible amazing senpai [Applause] do it again and with a persona we can finally kill these [ __ ] okay so how exactly do you kill shadows well first you cycle over to the scale option and no it's a stern based rpg look it's not that bad persona smt games are usually cut above the rest when it comes to turn based rpgs and trust me when i say this the later persona franchise has some of the best games to start with in this genre since they're all really easy don't require that much grinding and most importantly they're fun so don't dismiss the game just because it's turn based alright so how does the combat actually work well it's pretty standard for the most part you choose the options and the characters go bing bang boom so if you have any knowledge on the genre you know what's up except for two mechanics which are exclusive to the persona series and one which is exclusive only to this game so let's talk about them mechanic one fall out attacks so the all-out attack system is the simplest one just attack the enemies until you find their elemental weakness or just scan them to do the same thing so that once you do you can exploit that weakness to deal extra damage knock them down and get an extra turn and once you do that to all the enemies well [Music] no i'm just kidding the persona 3 version is kind of lame i mean it's still satisfying it's just no persona 5 you know oh yeah and make sure you use an attack the last enemy is weak to and don't just use a regular one and expect it to work just because the enemy died seriously i've seen so many people complain about all our attacks being inconsistent in all the games well they're not you're just being [ __ ] stupid mechanic too a personal system think pokemon but with a bit more stuff to manage wait it's like pokemon yes but aren't personas the manifestation of your inner psyche yes wouldn't having multiple personas make no sense then well yeah except not really since our boy 3 kun is special in the sense that he's a wild card which means unlike these losers he can capture and summon multiple personas to use in battle you can also fuse these personas to make stronger ones and with the help of friendship i mean social links your fuse personas will become even stronger how do you capture personas then well it's very simple it's in a shuffle card game that is so incredibly easy you can only lose at it if you have the mental capacity of a five-year-old look i admit it it's a pretty [ __ ] system especially if you're coming from the other persona games since this is pretty much the worst one out of all of them but then again it's super hard to [ __ ] this one up so at least it's not going to frustrate you but sadly i can't say the same for the third mechanic third it's your party members i don't even this is such a [ __ ] mechanic dude [ __ ] off this is the absolute worst one you can't control your party members wait scratch that you can control your party members but it's through a shitty tactics menu i know i know it sucks it really does but this is not why i recommend this game the combat is good but it's not flawless if you want to play a turn-based rpg with deep and engaging combat just pick up a copy of nocturne or something because what you are here for is not the combat alright so with that being said holy [ __ ] is this mechanic bad like i get it you wanted to have the characters feel like real people okay so i kinda went to a blind rage when talking about this so no we're just gonna skip ahead i hope you don't mind it's gonna be really quick okay it's not gonna be a bother at all just just jesus christ i'm so annoying why the [ __ ] are you putting yourself through this it's not even that big of a deal like yeah sure limits the amount of strategies you can have in combat but there's a mod that fixes it the portable version of the game fixes it too and like why would i even put this in a video recommending the game what the [ __ ] is wrong with me such a long rant too whatever we're back find all right that's enough complaining except not really since the dungeon crawling success okay i'm kidding i don't actually think tartarus which is the main dungeon in this game is that bad i mean the dungeon crawling itself is a bit repetitive with you just going into what are essentially the same floors lay it differently with a new coat of paint over and over with no actual design cohesion but the actual sense of progression you get while going through tartarus is pretty satisfying and makes the final battle on the last floor that much more climactic plus just having every side quest on the same dungeon is pretty nice and the progression of go up a few floors get a checkpoint kill a boss go up a few more floors get a checkpoint kill a boss get a barrier yay you did it you get the next few days until the full moon to do anything you want is pretty satisfying once you get in the groove and besides combat dungeon crawling is only like one third of the gameplay and since shadows only appear at night what do you do during the day [Applause] well so when you wake up after a long night of shadow killing you have to go to school of course but after that you are free to do whatever you want around the city be it hanging around with your friends going to the arcade or buying girls from the local police station you know the usual stuff and by doing all of those things you get certain bonuses be the stat increase to your persona items just to increase to your character or the one you're going to do the most social links a social link is a very literal presentation of your bond with another person it's represented by a tare card and its correspondent arcana which changes from person to person to level up a social link you simply hang around with the person who responded to the social link you want to level and [Music] that animation plays every time you level up a social link by the way so get used to it that aside this mechanic is amazing and genuinely one of the main reasons you should play not only this game but the entire persona franchise and that's because every time a social link gets stronger all the personas you have to see more khan as the social link get an experience boost the higher the level of social link the better the boost pair that would affect the leveling up personas the conventional way is really [ __ ] slow and you have players spending most of the in-game days just leveling social links and you think that'd be bad but since the writing of most social links especially in this game are so good it turns what would be a pretty boring mechanic into a great way to develop a [ __ ] on our characters and tell some truly phenomenal stories alongside gameplay and to show you that i have to talk about one of my favorite video game characters period that being the toaster wife who we all know and love i guess i guess is a robot created by the kirijo group to kill shadows she was programmed to do that and only that but the best way to kill shadows is with a persona and you can't have a persona if you don't have a human brain so they put one in there and wiped all the memories or she just has a mechanical one it's not really stated which one it is i don't know if it's purposeful or not but whichever one it is it doesn't really matter because the only thing that's in her mind right now is protect humans and exterminate all shadows so when you find iges she's staring at the ocean looking for the person she says she needs to stay by the side of and protect at all times and ta-da turns out that person is you and she joins the party for the rest of the entire game and you know she's your standard funny robot she says funny robot lines she talks in a robotic tone and of course she kills a [ __ ] ton of shadows but the question remains if she's only programmed to kill shadows and protect all humans why does she want to stay by three coincide in specific well towards the end of the game in a cutscene which i'll try not to spoil it's revealed that the reason she wants to protect three kuna so much is because in the night three kun's parents died she was fighting an extremely strong shadow so strong in fact she was unable to defeat it so instead she sealed the shadow away inside of you of course stuff happens and later on in the game the shadow is out again and she tries to eliminate it only to be defeated and almost killed but when you and the others find her she says i know why i wanted to be by your side i'm sorry i failed [Music] i'm sorry and after she's repaired and returned to the group she says this why why did i come back here [Music] my mission is to protect humanity from shadows but now i know that i can't defeat them so then why am i here i'm useless i cannot even shed a tear for you all i'm a machine a machine that was created to protect humans from shadows but i can't fulfill that mission with the powers i was given so then what is my purpose now could someone please tell me in not being able to do the one thing she was created for in her eyes she lost all meaning but with the help of the others she realizes her own worth as a person and not as a robot designed to do only one thing and failing that thing doesn't mean she's worthless she realizes that to live is to decide your own purpose in life and if what was chosen doesn't work out you need to make changes adapt and keep going no matter what happens and that the people closest to you will help you achieve that goal no matter what it is you choose and with that she says i know what my purpose is i'm a machine a machine who is here to live and the one who has given me this new purpose is me and it is from that moment on that i guess starts to become more human is voice becomes gradually less robotic and close to the very end of the game her line stops sounding robotic at all and she starts sounding basically human i mean even before the moment she returns that change is still happening for example this is what she says when she's defeated by the strong shadow i mentioned before i am sorry i have failed a machine is worthless if it cannot fulfill its purpose i'm sorry i'm afraid even during battle hairlines change from but this transition has realized best in what has to be one of my favorite social links in the entire game where because she decided to live and is becoming more human she starts to question various aspects of life from the necessity of having strong bonds and people that care and love you to trying to understand mortality and the fact that all people eventually pass away but all this is framed from the perspective of a robot who can't die of natural causes so she has to come to terms with the fact that everyone she loves will die before her and even then she's able to find solace in that making it her new purpose in life to protect the one she loves to the best of her ability promising to never leave them behind and never wasting a single moment without them and even though she's a robot there's something to take from her character into our own lives it is the fact we are mortal and that the ones we love will pass away that makes life so precious and because it's so precious we should spend every moment of it with the ones we love for it's one of the great joys of life and practically necessary to live a good one it's me i wrote that quote it's michael and you know what's really nice aside from the fact that her story and almost every other social link story links back to one of the main themes of the game that being time and how limited and precious it is it also plays really well into three coon's characterization i mentioned before how he is a unaware depressed and generally uncaring individual that really just wants to be alone and that goes literally against all that iges and the rest of the crew learn throughout the game basically forcing him and in turn forcing the player to learn that [ __ ] you know and it hits hard i mean this whole game hits hard especially in the second half where friends because but what he didn't know is that he did it by accident because he couldn't so he's taking but the thing is though so what is doing is pointless and when realizes it it's too late and it's so [ __ ] sad spoilers aside there's stuff like the dorm which is basically where you return to after every day of school and boy this is the least appreciated feature this game has letting you have little snippets of dialogue from your party members every time something important or unimportant happens does wonders to develop them and make them feel like real actual people and above all other things this is the reason i love this game the characters feel like real people with real problems and despite the absurd situation they find themselves in you can still relate to their struggles and not many games manage to do that you know but anyways if this game only had incredible characters with phenomenally executed arcs it might be one of my favorites but it wouldn't be on my top three fortunately this game has way more going for it actually and one of those things is that this game has some really good music [Music] feeling happy that is the track that plays when you're wandering around the city during the day and it's really [ __ ] catchy but another thing that is cool about this track is that when you enter a store in polonian mall a remix of it plays and it's so funky [Music] but if that ain't your style the psp version of this game has an alternate track that plays in the female round of the game when you walk around the city and it's also really catchy [Music] oh [ __ ] did i mention there's a female route in the psp re-release of this game because there is it substitutes a few social links with brand new ones that are pretty good and it's an overall great experience i just don't recommend it as your first experience with the games as it changes a few things in the plot and the results are questionable but whatever what matters right now is that this version has an alternate soundtrack and the battle theme for it is so good been a little while but i'm still battling moving fast while you just pedal in no time for me no tangling hit you in a spot with no [Music] angles [Music] and speaking of battle themes holy [ __ ] [ __ ] there's a reason the main battle theme for this game is its most popular [ __ ] track [Music] destruction anyways did you know that the final boss theme for this game is really good because it's really good [Music] [Music] oh yeah and a cool thing about this track is that further into it they remix the velvet room theme which is the song that you've been hearing every time you went to fuse your personas not only in this game but the previous three and the two that come after so hearing a version of it in the final battle has this air of conclusiveness like it's the big epic conclusion to all these games and it's so [ __ ] sick [Music] ah [Music] is this segment getting too long i guess there's only so many ways i can color track good i'm not done though because this game's most iconic song plays before it even begins i'm talking about the base games opening burn my dread [Music] and like it isn't even the fact that the song is catchy and somber that makes it so good to me is the fact that the lyrics fit the game's theme so well i mean it talks a lot about the theme of time that i talk so much about but it focuses mainly on this game's other theme which goes hand in hand with time that theme being as i said before this game loves to merge gameplay and storytelling and it does that with a theme of death beautifully while almost always being related to time in some manner for example when you spend too much time exploring a floor in tartarus literal death comes and unless you're at the end game you won't survive but it's not always exclusive to gameplay an example of it being tied to the plot is the fact that as i said before everyone is a dead parent in this game and that's because everyone in the main cast has or will have an encounter with death and that not only serves to strengthen the game's themes but also to develop the games as characters and seeing how each of them have dealt or will deal with a loved one's passing is [ __ ] heartbreaking this game is always trying to hammer home the fact that death is inevitable and always at your shoulder and that may seem really depressing but what that chorus [Music] is actually trying to say is to take that fear that dread you have of running out of time and having to face death and burn it use it as fuel for your life as motivation to keep going and to make every moment count and that's not depressing at all it's actually really uplifting and what's really beautiful is the way this goes with igis character the robot that is effectively immortal and doesn't have to worry about death and you think that make her have no qualms about wasting time but because she found extreme value in the ones close to her people which are actually mortal it makes her value the time she has with them a whole lot more and she reaches the conclusion that the inherent time limit life has is what motivates us to move forward each day and that's a really good relationship to have with death i mean it's an inevitability so you will have to acknowledge it at some point and when that happens you will be afraid it's impossible not to be but to take that fear and to make it your motivator to not waste a single moment in your life for you and those you love is really beautiful because you only have one life and it's weird scary and no one even knows why we have it but since you only got one don't waste it trying to run away from death face it and use it as fuel to lift your life to the fullest memento mori remember death those are the first words you see in this game's opening and they are the embodiment of its message and hammering that message home is what the last month of this game does wonderfully spoiler warning by the way skip here if you don't want some pretty important late game stuff to get spoiled and keep in mind there's a metric [ __ ] ton of plot details that are left out to make this concise and understandable so don't be mad at me okay so long story short you and your team were put in an ultimatum by the incarnation of death itself and their choices are face an invincible foe and inevitably die in the process or by their own volition forget everything the bonds the lessons they learned and almost everything else that happened this past year and to die with blissful ignorance of the fall the end of all mankind and worst of all they were tricked into causing all this by one of their own who succumbed to pure and utter nihilism and all of this is revealed right after it's discovered that the one objective you had this entire game the thing that you were working towards all this time turned out to be completely and utterly pointless and after it's all revealed to the team they are forced to face the reality of their own death and to make that decision and seeing these characters you spend so much time with built a strong connection with and that were literally your strength to be forced to reckon with not only their fast approaching death but to be forced to decide how they choose to die is [ __ ] heartbreaking i cannot stress enough how [ __ ] helpless and sad you feel just walking around the dorm talking to everyone and listening to their thoughts about their own demise needless to say that the writing here is nothing short of impeccable the situation you and your team find themselves in is absolutely dreadful but what this game will never let you forget is that all dread must be burned i will against all odds your team one by one find the strength to face death in these beautifully written cutscenes that bring all that the character learned and all the connections they've made in their journey and uses them as motivation and reason to fight death with all their will and just as you and your team make their final decision and you start to get ready not just for your last excursion into tartarus but also to spend the last days of your life with the ones you love this song starts playing [Music] and you might be thinking oh that's just great now they're just gonna pull a power out of their ass and save the day just like the anime characters they are this is death we're talking about it's not gonna be that easy and besides i can assure you that the ending of this game brings together all of its themes in an ending sequence that is nothing short of [ __ ] amazing and that will absolutely make you cry your eyes out and that's it those are most of the reasons i mean there's still a few more things to bring up like how shooting yourself to someone your persona is actually a representation of the character's inner struggle to accept death and how their loops back to the main theme of the game but i'll let you figure the rest out for yourselves i don't want to ruin the magic of this game for anybody especially because this is a why you should play not a full game analysis so i hope i convinced you to play it and if not i hope i helped you appreciate this thing that i love so much just a little more you know [Music] yes [Music] is [Music] you

Channel: avampir

Views: 811

Rating: 4.8064518 out of 5

Keywords: gaming, persona, persona 3, persona 3 fes, persona 5, persona 4, shin megami tensei, smt, megami tensei, rpg, jrpg, role playing game, anime, video games, anime games

Id: fMGL1sdNHuA

Length: 34min 51sec (2091 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 13 2021