YOU WERE LOOKING FOR: Persona 3 The Journey The Answer
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Share on Reddit It was easier for me to walk away from Persona 3 than I expected. The game about nine friends and a dog—which celebrates its tenth anniversary in the States this year—follows a similar arc to most role-playing games. That means the gang of plucky young people ultimately saves the world. Yet its 21st century characters and setting made Persona 3 far more relatable and endearing to me than the high-flying heroes of Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger. It helps, too, that this was the series' first game to sport a now-signature blend of dating sim and turn-based dungeon crawling. Playing Persona 3, I felt I was experiencing the first game designed to let me take my time.
Whether that meant meeting up with a friend for kendo practice or hanging out with a couple of elderly used booksellers, there was nearly always something more digestible, recognizable, and less world-shatteringly urgent to do than fighting gods and monsters. It's the kind of stuff that let me inhabit a game's world for a bit rather than simply tour through it. By the end of the game, I was nearly as attached to the city of Iwatodai and its inhabitants as I've ever been to a real place. The downside is that this made it that much harder to eventually say goodbye to those virtual sights I saw and friends I made along the way. What made that goodbye easier was a special, quiet message before the closing credits—one that reminds me how to accept the end of comfort and friendship even today. The one, true ending Sure, it was a heart-wrenching lesson. The weight of time spent with people—even fictional ones—makes us feel comfortable around them.
Dependent, even. You wonder what the hell you even did with yourself without that routine. That's how it felt for me nearly finishing Persona 3 a decade ago, anyway. Yet Persona 3's ending does something that I've seen replicated, but never quite matched, in its sequels. It made me feel good about that loss and the anxiety over what to do next that came with it. Advertisement Spoiler warning for a decade-old game. Reader beware. The final boss fight with that world-eating monster drained him of his strength, leaving him just enough to reach graduation before expiring.
I no longer knew what to do with my life now that the game I relied on to ceaselessly soak up my free time for weeks was suddenly finished. More than that, though, I knew the fictitious connections I forged were canonically over, as well. This realization caused me to lose it a bit at first. I felt emptied out in the same way I did after bittersweet finales from games like Shadow of the Colossus and Final Fantasy X before.
These were games that filled the vacuum of childhood free time with escapism, but also structure, objectives, and familiarity. I put a lot of myself perhaps too much into vicarious, fantastical stories. When those stories ended, I cried. I got quiet. I tried to force myself to find some other pillar on which my day-to-day life could lean. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized Persona 3 specifically told me not to do that. Ripples in the water During the conclusion, the protagonist a mostly silent tool that let me embody my vision of that virtual school life lies in the arms of a teammate who helped him save the world. In the distance, you can hear the rest of his close-knit squad rushing to see him, having just recalled his existence after their memories had been wiped by the final boss.
Instead, he just peacefully drifts away in calm acceptance after being assured that, yes, he has impacted those friends and their lives. In the end, there's no time for apologies. Growing up and now continuing to live in a college town, my own friendships have been fleeting. Those I grew up with have mostly moved on. Those I met later went back to where they came from. I've heard others talk about lifelong friends they've known since grade school. My mom, for instance, still vacations with her childhood neighbor every year.
Advertisement By contrast, I hear my oldest childhood friend lives in New York these days. The kid who lived across the street from me, who used to play "ditch" with me and my brother it's, uh, like hide-and-seek but at night , got a job in California. My besty throughout high school and college, who introduced me to my favorite authors and dated my first girlfriend's best friend I didn't quite understand it at the time, but a decade later I see that Persona 3 prepared me for the pain these transient relationships would bring later in life. The comfort of routine and familiarity are a big part of friendship. Relying on an engrossing game can be as comforting as someone who is always there for you. That resulting distress doesn't make the hours, days, or years you spent with absent friends or absent games any less of a tangible part of your life. My now-absent childhood friends might be gone, but the authors they introduced me to which put me on the path toward writing for a living or their crucially timed openness with me which led me to recognize things like my own sexuality are still with me.
These aren't just memories. They're demonstrable elements of my everyday life that affect everything from how I think to how I earn my rent. We are all connected Perhaps it's a bit cheesy of Persona 3 to call its main campaign "The Journey," then. It might as well turn a character to the camera to say "It's the journey and not the destination, man. There is no shining, permanent fixture marking the time the characters spent together. The player character himself is impermanent, just like me, just like all of us. Sometimes social media helps by letting me peek in on a filtered few friends around the world. Sometimes it doesn't. I watched as the game's protagonist—a version of me, in a way—was satisfied enough by their friends' affirmations to peacefully let his final ending wash over him. Today, I often look back at that solid, simple moment where a game showed me that, while the comfort of friendship may be fleeting, it's not wasted.
Gameplay[ edit ] The Protagonist gains academic skills by studying in the school library. The upper-right area of the screen indicates the current date, time period, and phase of the moon. Persona 3 combines elements of traditional role-playing games and simulation games. The game follows the protagonist character, balancing their daily life of going to school and building relationships with other people with fighting evil beings known as Shadows during the mysterious Dark Hour. With the exception of scripted events, such as plot progression or special events, the player is free to choose how each day is spent, with most activities causing time to pass on.
The types of activities and characters that can be interacted with vary depending on the day of the week and time of day. Additionally, some activities are limited by the protagonist's three attributes; Academics, Charm, and Courage, which can be built by performing various activities or making certain correct choices. On the day of the full moon, players will participate in a boss battle in order to progress the story.
Whereas each of the game's main characters has their own Persona, some of which change form as the story progresses, the protagonist is capable of wielding multiple Personas, which can be switched between during battles. The Personas that a player can create are limited by the current level of the protagonist. By spending time with these characters, these Social Links increase in rank. When creating a Persona of a particular Arcana, an experience bonus will be granted if that Arcana possesses a Social Link, with greater bonuses awarded depending on the rank. Performing certain activities or carrying a Persona of a respective Arcana can help bring a Social Link closer to increasing in Rank. Maxing out a Social Link gives players the ability to create specific Personas of each Arcana. Conversely, negative actions, such as incorrect dialogue choices or dating multiple characters, can result in a Reversed Social Link, which can prevent players from summoning Personas of that Arcana until fixed.
In the worst-case scenario, a Reversed Social Link can break, effectively removing all Personas of that Arcana from the game. Tartarus and Combat[ edit ] A typical battle in Persona 3. The portraits on the right-hand side of the screen indicate the status of the player's party. Tartarus is the game's main dungeon, which can be visited during the evening, provided the conditions allow it e.
Players will eventually come across boss floors, in which the player must defeat powerful Shadows in order to continue their progress. Additionally, certain floors halt further progress through the tower until the story progresses. Rescuing these civilians safely before a full moon appears grants bonus rewards obtained from the police station. Spending too much time in Tartarus may cause characters to become "Tired" or "Sick", which can affect their performance during battle. Additionally, if the protagonist becomes Tired or Sick, some activities, such as studying at night, may be hampered. Players can recover their status by taking certain items, visiting the infirmary, or going to bed early.
Attacking the Shadow without being noticed will give the player an advantage, whilst the enemy gains an advantage if the player is attacked first. Physical abilities use up HP whilst elemental and support magic use SP. By exploiting an enemy's weakness or performing a critical attack, characters can knock the opponent down, granting that character an extra turn, though enemies can also take advantage of an ally's weakness to gain an additional turn. When a battle is won, players gain experience points which are divided amongst the party members. Earning enough experience allows Personas to increase in level, granting improved stats and new abilities. Raising the protagonist's level will allow higher level Personas to be summoned in the Velvet Room, as well as allow the player to carry more Personas. At the end of certain battles, a minigame known as Shuffle Time may appear, in which players select a card from a set that is shuffled around. These can grant bonuses, such as additional experience points, cash, or restored health, or give the player new Personas.
However, selecting a cursed card will cause an extremely powerful monster, Death or better known as the Reaper, to appear on the current floor. It is an entirely different personality that emerges when a person is confronted with something from outside this world. Main article: List of Persona 3 characters The main character of Persona 3 is a silent protagonist, named by the player at the start of the game. Additional members join SEES over time, all students attending Gekkoukan: Junpei, who had only recently discovered his ability to summon a Persona; Akihiko, whose arm injury prevented him from fighting; and Fuuka, who replaces Mitsuru as the team's support member. After awakening to his Persona ability, the Protagonist is transported to the Velvet Room, which its proprietor, Igor, says is a realm between "dream and reality".
Igor also encourages the Protagonist to meet people and form bonds with them, known as Social Links. According to Igor, the power of his Social Links will determine his potential in combat. After several of these incidents, Mitsuru is forced to reveal to the team the origin of Tartarus and the Dark Hour. Ten years earlier, the Kirijo Group, a research company founded by Mitsuru's grandfather, began amassing and containing Shadows.
They studied and performed experiments on them, in order to harness their power. However, the experiments went awry, allowing the Shadows to escape and assemble into twelve larger creatures. While vacationing in Yakushima , Junpei, Akihiko, and the Protagonist encounter Aigis, who had recently escaped the laboratory where she was kept, despite having been deactivated for years. By destroying the greater Shadows, they have freed parts of a being known as Nyx, which will bring about the end of the world if it is fully restored. Its purpose is to usher Nyx into the world, who will bring about the extinction of all life on Earth.
If they were to kill him, their memories of the Dark Hour and Tartarus would vanish, allowing them to continue life unaware of their impending death. Through encouragement from her friends, however, she gains the resolve to join with SEES as they attempt to fight Nyx. If the protagonist kills him, the game cuts to Graduation Day, with the entirety of SEES barring Aigis losing their memories of the Dark Hour and the Shadows, ending on a dark note as they prepare to celebrate in blissful ignorance until Nyx inevitably brings about The Fall and all of humanity dies.
As this is happening, the Protagonist is summoned to the Velvet Room, where Igor reminds him that the power of his Social Links would determine his potential. The Protagonist hears the voices of his friends encouraging him. The strength of his Social Links grants him the power of the "Universe", allowing him to seal away Nyx from humanity. However, Aigis and the Protagonist do remember. On Graduation Day, the two go to the roof of the school, where the members of SEES had promised to meet should they stop Nyx and live to see their graduation. As Mitsuru gives her graduation speech, she and the rest of SEES suddenly regain their memories, and the group rush to the roof to fulfill the promise they all made.
It is here that Aigis thanks the Protagonist for giving her a purpose in life: protecting him. During the opening sequence, it is revealed that the Protagonist has died; [37] the other characters speculate that his death is related to him defeating Nyx. Aigis reveals to the group that she will not be attending school next year. In the midst of fighting Metis to protect her friends, Aigis's Persona, Athena , transforms into Orpheus , the original Persona of the Protagonist.
She also gains the Protagonist's Wild Card ability. The Abyss contains seven doors, the insides of which contain multi-floor dungeons, similar in design to Tartarus; it is in these areas that the game's combat takes place. After seeing several of these flashbacks , the characters discern that the event shown in each door relates to how that person had awakened to their Persona. After defeating it, each of them obtain a key. By combining the keys, they would be able to end the time skip and leave the dorm. After debating on what to do now, they discover a third, new door in the Abyss of Time, which the group uses without the Final Key to travel to the moment the Protagonist sealed Nyx from the world.
The subconscious will of mankind to despair and wish for death constantly rebirths a monster called Erebus that summons Nyx to destroy the world; Metis implies that Erebus's contact with Nyx is what caused the Fall that was prevented by SEES. Distraught over the death of the Protagonist, she no longer wanted to live like a human, and wished to return to being a machine. The ad "contains three important game elements: school, Persona, and friendship. The goal was to make players of the Megami Tensei series feel gratified that they had supported the Persona series. In an interview, Soejima compared the game's aesthetic and style to a fantastical manga , citing its use of mecha-like Persona and Mitsuru's flamboyant styling. Soejima returned to design the character Metis for FES. There were no objections raised among the Persona 3 development team, either.
According to Maragos, their use "[added] so much more meaning to the text". A similar change was Mitsuru's second language: in the original version it was English, but for the localized version her second language was changed to French. This choice was influenced by her cultured appearance. In addition, in-game references to the original Shin Megami Tensei were altered to references to Persona 2. A selection of tracks from the full soundtrack was bundled with the North American release of the game. It contains eleven arrangements of tracks from Persona 3, as well as an extended version of the song "Burn My Dread.
The soundtrack features a high use of vocals, though Meguro did not consider this as special or exceptional. A tune from previous Persona titles he rearranged was "Aria of the Soul", the theme of the Velvet Room. The game's battle theme, "Mass Destruction", was originally just a prototype, but the reception to it was so positive that it went into the final game. The move to the PlayStation 2 allowed for real-time streaming of music. Meguro considers this "the point at which [he] was finally able to express [his] music without making any compromises". He was also worried about the pronunciation of the English lyrics. Released in Japan by Aniplex on May 3, , the soundtrack contained the original score for FES, as well as arrangements of music from earlier games in the Persona series.
The game's original release date was July 24, However, Atlus encountered a problem with the manufacturing of the art book several days before the intended ship date. Instead of shipping the game without the book, the company decided to push its release back three weeks, to August Atlus issued a press release explaining that they were delaying the game so as maintain the quality of the package, which would have been "irreparably compromised" if they had "revise[d] or abandon[ed] the deluxe package.
Gameplay[ edit ] The Protagonist gains academic skills by studying in the school library. The upper-right area of the screen indicates the current date, time period, and phase of the moon. Persona 3 combines elements of traditional role-playing games and simulation games. The game follows the protagonist character, balancing their daily life of going to school and building relationships with other people with fighting evil beings known as Shadows during the mysterious Dark Hour. With the exception of scripted events, such as plot progression or special events, the player is free to choose how each day is spent, with most activities causing time to pass on.
The types of activities and characters that can be interacted with vary depending on the day of the week and time of day. Additionally, some activities are limited by the protagonist's three attributes; Academics, Charm, and Courage, which can be built by performing various activities or making certain correct choices. On the day of the full moon, players will participate in a boss battle in order to progress the story. Whereas each of the game's main characters has their own Persona, some of which change form as the story progresses, the protagonist is capable of wielding multiple Personas, which can be switched between during battles. The Personas that a player can create are limited by the current level of the protagonist. By spending time with these characters, these Social Links increase in rank. When creating a Persona of a particular Arcana, an experience bonus will be granted if that Arcana possesses a Social Link, with greater bonuses awarded depending on the rank.
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