Persona 3R was truly an experience for me. I started playing it during a rather busy period of my life, and it took over a year to complete. The game itself is quite slow-paced, and I’m a meticulous player, so our pairing was destined to last an eternity.
Sometimes this game is a frustrating experience. And I don't smear myself in ♥♥♥♥ and say how much I love that it's sLowBurnIng. Tartarus is a boring unchallenging (hard mode is no help) grind. Design of levels is meeeh, assets are reused 100 times. Even though music is awesome, I wish there were more memorable boss soundtracks. I get that it is meant to be grinding. No training or studying in real life is interesting, all is grind, but you could have made exploring at least a little rewarding. Or add challenge, make it harder.
Dialogue... Is other topic. I really enjoyed the way Persona is written. But sometimes you find yourself wanting to skip certain dialogues: words that feel valuable when you hear them for the first time, making you slow down and try to commit them to memory, start to feel like tedious moralizing by the tenth time you hear them.
And my favorite part—some dialogue just doesn't translate well to the game format. For instance, something happens in the story, and every single character says "Junpei." You could have just written, "Everyone sighed and looked at Junpei," or something like that. But no. I have to listen to every character say his name: "Junpei..." "Oh, Junpei..." "Mhm... Junpei..." "Junpei!!" It doesn't add depth; it’s just infuriating—especially when it happens repeatedly without actually contributing anything.
And Social Links concept overall is quite controversial. Yes, it is beautiful that social connections with people make you stronger, but it forces you to be hypocritical ass-licker or you won't get those juicy Persona bonuses.
But ultimately, I don't even know if there's any point in talking about how good this game is; it has been praised time and time again. It is poetic, fragile, it feels deeply personal. I worship every thing that i don't hate, I worship music, character design, interface, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, koromaru, cinematics and every goosebump that this game has given me. I really liked how the little things are cherished in this game. Every little action is a step. Every step is a process. Even though the theme of this game is not at all new - the fear of death, the loss of loved ones, being lost in the face of existential questions and accepting that some things just need to be accepted, it is never trivial. Quite a feeling, finishing it.
