Yesterday Amazon had said my copy was coming today instead of Friday for about an hour before changing back to Friday @Pizzamorg ... They raised my hopes and then dashed them brilliantly
I read a couple of reviews. The one from Polygon made me roll my eyes though from saying how the presentation is too bright and colourful... And they then say they only played Portable which easily has the worst presentation of any of the versions of P3
Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
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"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"
Praying that by some miracle it wasn't wrong @HallowMoonshadow and it arrives early! I also read a couple of reviews where the people just moaned about all the things that make a Persona game a Persona game, like it is okay if its not for you, but you wouldn't mark the sky down for being blue. And I get it, you can't just put a fanboy of the series on the review cause you aren't going to get any real value, but it seems likewise as problematic to put someone on the review that doesn't like the genre to begin with.
Praying that by some miracle it wasn't wrong HallowMoonshadow and it arrives early! I also read a couple of reviews where the people just moaned about all the things that make a Persona game a Persona game, like it is okay if its not for you, but you wouldn't mark the sky down for being blue. And I get it, you can't just put a fanboy of the series on the review cause you aren't going to get any real value, but it seems likewise as problematic to put someone on the review that doesn't like the genre to begin with.
Sadly my copy didn't show up early yesterday. Gonna have to wait like everyone else for Friday!
And yeah it's a fine line to cross when writing a review as you're never gonna get someone who's truly objective. They're always gonna have a bias swinging one way or the other.
Trust me I've tried with the dumb reviews I occasionally write in the review thread here. My Star Ocean 4 review is savage and some VERY poor soul no doubt hails it as their favourite game
The best thing to do is read a number of reviews and see where the common criticisms lie between all of 'em to get a more accurate picture.
And don't get me wrong, Reload DOES seem to have some lighting problems in certain areas. The dorm in particular looking off and flat... I just found it a bit funny that the Polygon reviewer cited Persona 3 Portable as their only frame of reference. And it was probably the port that came out last year with the dodgy AI upscaling too
Sadly my copy didn't show up early yesterday. Gonna have to wait like everyone else for Friday!
Dang it! Well not too long to wait, now.
Also, another interesting trend I am seeing in the reviews is the polarising response to Tartarus design. Obviously I cannot say for certain as I haven't played P3 yet, but at least for me personally, one of the weakest and most frustrating aspects to Persona 5 for me was the puzzle element to every Palace. I just wanted to keep progressing forwards, so constantly having these massive roadblocks put in front of me where I usually had to find X themed item three times and do a bunch of backtracking and ghost chasing just felt like infuriatingly unnecessary padding. I've bounced off of I think two SMT games for exactly the same reason. However, in some reviews, it seems like some people really miss that stuff, but I honestly couldn't be happier at the reports that this has all been removed, so the dungeon is more of a straight crawl of exploration and battling.
So I've forgot to say this the past couple of times but I love the shadow Sae pic @Pizzamorg.
And I actually liked Tartarus for what it is myself. As nice as Palaces are as an expanded concept from the P4 dungeons... I hated exploring them myself.
Now it probably doesn't help the Palaces that I don't personally like a lot of things about Persona 5 anyway... But still I never found them particularly revolutionary.
But funnily enough I also hated mementos too despite it not being far off from Tartarus or P4's dungeons. Granted I've only played vanilla P5 and not royal. The awful droning music probably didn't help
Thank you @HallowMoonshadow! Didn't expect Sae's Shadow to slay quite like she did 😂
Played a few hours, feel like it makes a somewhat mixed first impression. Out of the three Persona games I've played, I feel like it has the weakest opening. Persona 5 opens hype as hell, and Persona 4 really engages you straight away with your new country life and the murder mystery. This has some really striking visuals, but just all moves at quite an odd pace, with your protagonist weirdly unphased by things and the game spending to me more time on the things that don't matter versus what does.
That said, there are a bunch of positives. The "Persona 5ificaiton" of combat is excellent, it is gonna be tough going back to Persona 4 once again, as I just think the Persona 5/Reload combat model is so much better. It also helps that it looks absolutely incredible.
Tartarus is also everything I hoped it would be. I look forward to stocking up on SP items and heading back in, armed with maybe a podcast or an audio book and chip away. Not having to have an eye on a guide every step of the way just to work out how I progress forwards.
I will say, I was kind of surprised by how easy the game is on Normal, as Persona 4 and 5 (to a lesser extent) kicked my ass at the beginning, and at least for 5 (never got far enough on 4) I eventually crested some kind of delta point where I became really OP, but it was pretty tough going getting there. I wouldn't say I already feel OP here, but this is definitely the strongest I've felt at the start of a Persona game out of the three I played.
Think I did like 19 floors of Tartarus on my first go, clearing three of the Floor bosses. I could have easily kept going too, but I was running out of SP and while I was getting health items like candy (and the ability top up health with the cards at the end of an encounter), SP items were few and far between and sorta forced my hand to stop. Kind of annoying, but if not for that I feel like I could have ended up clearing Tartarus in one sitting if it remained at this level of difficulty 😂
Talking of audio, the music is absolutely excellent, but oddly mixed. It often isn't blended into a scene, so it blares over everything, also each location or event has a fixed theme, and if it transitions between scenes it will reset the song, even if the location doesn't change, so be prepared to hear the opening 20 or so seconds of songs looped over and over again, turning songs you might like into slightly maddening echoes. I am also not one who generally enjoys dubs, but the dub here is absolutely excellent. Maybe even better than the Japanese cast if I am allowed to say such a thing.
I personally love P3's opening @Pizzamorg and appreciate it's snappy pace even more upon a replay as it really doesn't take long to get going unlike the slog that's P4's opening 3 hours. I remember 5's being rather long too.
As for the MC's behaviour? Well... I think his personality should be pretty obvious to you now. The P3 anime movies (that I watched last night) really flesh him out as a character.
You're finding it easy? Easier then P5 and especially P4G? That's surprising. P4G was ridiculously easy even on normal & I cranked it up to hard not long into it.
Probably doesn't help you're very used to Persona's own brand of turn based combat by now.
Good to hear you're liking the dub. I know it's early hours but how're you feeling about S.E.E.S so far?
I will agree @HallowMoonshadow that I did appreciate how quickly Reload got me into combat. I do think other things suffered as the price for that, which is why I can't really comment on how I feel about the core cast, yet or even really the story. Feel like you only get a very brief introduction for everyone and a very brief introduction to this world, then you are right into clearing Tartarus.
However, I will say the first few party members you get in P4G felt kinda bland to me as well, and the first party member I really liked was Kanji. And although I thought P5's characters grabbed me much earlier, there were some characters I enjoyed early on in that game that I was bordering on not being able to stand by the end cause of how long that game goes on for. I can only prey the opposite happens here, and I warm to them over time and love them by the end.
Probably the characters that made the most amount of impression on me to begin with were Akihiko and Kirijo, mostly on the back of how strong their dub actors are and how much I prefer them to the Japanese dub counterparts.
And yeah, I dunno, in both P5 and especially P4G it felt like my party did next to no damage but everything hit me like a truck. Just getting to the end of a floor in a dungeon felt like this war of attrition. In Reload it all just feels better tuned, I feel like I deal far more damage than I take, even when I am guessing at weaknesses. The Shift (Baton Pass) thing just does so much heavy lifting, too. Plus there are so many sources of healing all the time, I never felt very pressured. I even had some kind of floor event where it was all weak enemies and I was told to just rush them all, so I did.
Fair enough and a valid point @Pizzamorg. I'm very familiar with the cast having played Persona 3 back in the day on the PS2 so... I honestly cannot recall my exact thoughts when I first played it fresh. It has been 16 years after all. Though I do remember having lvl 15~20 persona still by October...
Kanji in P4 is fantastic and utter delight. I'm not the biggest fan of Troy Baker but man he voices Kanji so well. I do like P4's cast as a whole though in general. Not a fan of Chie's voice change in P4G myself but even without that she's a bit eh to me.
P5 though? I like Yusuke and futaba from the main cast. That's it. I despise Ryuji in particular and wish I punt the blockhead into the sun. No hate on his voice actor (He's actually really good) but ugh...
Have you heard any of the original dub for P3? I utterly adore Liam O'Brien as Akihiko so... Alejandro Saab has got some pretty big shoes to fill for me personally. Everyone else is honestly pretty similar though.
And my daughter just text me my copy of Reload turned up so... Counting down the hours til I'm free from work!
Personally @HallowMoonshadow I thought Yusuke was just sort of a redundant character and he could have easily been removed from the game and nothing would really change. I have heard that he has a great social link, but I never explored it as nothing interested me about him, and not exploring his link didn't affect the story in any way I noticed.
In terms of Ryuji I think he is fine to begin with, but the fact he is given so many opportunities to grow emotionally and mature and just never takes them really made me tire of him in the end. There was also that wasted moment where they could have raised the stakes by killing him off, but they just undo the moment immediately with a really awful recurring gag, which to me was one of the biggest blunders in that whole story.
I feel like Anne has a sort of weird inverted version of this problem, where it feels like she gets much of the growth and fleshing out Ryuji needs, but most of it is shared with the protagonist/audience but not the wider party, so she sorta just remains this object to everyone else and it just really irritated me.
And its not just because she is a women and the Japanese don't know how to write women, as I think both Haru (despite having the most limited screentime), Makoto and Futaba are all significantly better written, with much more meaningful arcs through the story.
I have not heard the original dub for P3 before, I just YouTubed some clips of the original Akihiko, maybe it is just because I heard Saab before, but I like him more. I dunno, O'Brien just seems to have that generical male dub voice so many dubbers seem to use which is part of why I often don't like dubs, and I feel like there is more uniqueness to Saab's performance (based on limited exposure to both, mind).
Also crossing my fingers for you that time passes for you in work like it does in a Persona game and you'll be playing in a flash!
Fair enough about Yusuke @Pizzamorg. I can't disgree either despite liking him from what I remember.
I don't recall any of the girls being that well written myself. I've never understood the Makoto love personally either.
It's why I finally bought a copy of P5R a few weeks back though as I haven't really played P5 since it released and I wanna give it a second chance at some point and hopefully find some things to like about it.
Finally got my hands on my copy of Reload. Have barely done the intro. Looks really nice even on the PS4. I'm sure there's some lower textures and what not about it but it's certainly not the most graphically intensive game so it still looks good even on lower hardware
Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
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"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"
In fairness @HallowMoonshadow I am sorta comparing the characters within their own context, I am not sure how much scrutiny Haru, Makoto and Futaba would hold up to if you placed them in a different game. But in the context of a game where Ann is basically treated as an object by everyone for the entire runtime of it, even after she reveals herself to be very human to you/the audience and even given the fact that I think she is only 16 years old? Well, let us just say the bar is set almost impossibly low. 😂
Put a few more hours into Reload. Gotta be honest, it still isn't properly clicking with me yet. I got to the end of the Tartarus I was able to access very quickly, and then the game basically just told me to wait for a full moon which was multiple weeks later, so I've just sorta spent two hours working at a coffee shop and not doing a lot else 😂
Also the Train Boss is a concerning difficulty spike early on, being that it has no weaknesses, is on a timer and summons seemingly unlimited reinforcements. I got it on the second go as I wasted my first go on trying to work out what the mechanics were, only to realise it was just a DPS check and go all gas the second time. If they are introducing raw DPS checks like this so early into the game, it kinda makes me nervous as to what they are going to throw in later. Haru's Dad in P5 functioned like this and it was one of the low points of the game for me, but thankfully they only do that once (although knowing that fight is coming really puts me off ever wanting to replay the game, to be honest).
Played a few hours of the game yesterday. First of all, I have to mention that I got a pre-order bonus with the game in the form of Persona 4 Golden BGM DLC set. I was pleasantly surprised by this as P4G is my favourite Persona game. What are the odds that I would get the music for that game with my pre-order of P3R? So awesome! So now I can listen to "Time To Make History" and "Reach Out To The Truth" while in combat, which is especially nice while going through Tartarus and I want to listen to other tunes.
Speaking of the OST, unfortunately I'm not really liking the remade P3 songs. Lotus Juice is still great, but the female singer in the songs is terrible. It doesn't sound like she's putting in any effort while singing, she is single-handedly ruining the tracks for me. The instrumentals are good but her singing is awful.
Besides that, I'm really enjoying the game so far. This is exactly how Persona 3 should be experienced. The graphics are superb for a Persona game, the presentation is excellent, the cutscenes enhance the experience a lot and the increased amount of voice acting is great. I laughed out loud when I heard the French exchange student talk for the first time. Oh lá lá!
I can't forget to mention how amazing it is to play this game on PlayStation Portal. It's like a completely different experience! The game looks absolutely crisp and vibrant on the smaller screen and it still runs so smooth. This is how Persona games are meant to be experienced, i.e. on a handheld device. That's how I played Persona 4 Golden. Unfortunately, I didn't experience Persona 5 like that and maybe I would've liked it more if I could've played it on a handheld. But yeah, it's an absolute must to have a Portal for Persona 3 Reload.
Speaking of the OST, unfortunately I'm not really liking the remade P3 songs. Lotus Juice is still great, but the female singer in the songs is terrible. It doesn't sound like she's putting in any effort while singing, she is single-handedly ruining the tracks for me. The instrumentals are good but her singing is awful.
Have you heard the new night time track "Colour Your Night"? I think she's really good on that one and I really like the opening theme of Full Moon, Full Life.
I can understand why you're not fond of her. I wouldn't say she's terrible but she certainly lacks a bit of oomph at times for some of the original songs that weren't exactly tailored for her vocal range.
Glad to hear it's hitting for you a bit more then it previously was though!
Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
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"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"
You spent two weeks at a coffee shop? No social links at all? I know Kenji is...definitely a choice for a social link but trust me there are some really good ones too
So like I said before I played vanilla P5 on release and that was it. That was what? Six/Seven years ago now? So I really don't remember him and think Haru's dad functions differently in Royal too? So I can't quite get the comparsion
What I can say though for the original versions of P3? The monorail/Priestess boss had a time limit for 8 minutes(?) when you caught back up with Junpei after he ran off and the train sped up. But she was incredibly easy so it wasn't that tough of a time limit. None of the other bosses had a limit to them either FYI but who knows about Reload?
Also I finally heard more of Saab's Akihiko rather then just the few clips I'd seen in the trailers. Yeah his performance has grown on me quite a bit.
Plus Liam O'Brien voices Officer Kurosawa in Reload! I got so excited when I realised! I thought Tara Platt (Elizabeth) was the only returning person from the original dub!
Some dribs and drabs on the Social Link side @HallowMoonshadow - I was waiting and hoping I would get to spend more time with my actual party, but so far I have only had one chance to hang out with Jinpei and that is it. Although it did give his Persona a permanent stat bump, so that is nice, as the other Social Links so far haven't unlocked any gameplay benefits outside of the exp burst for fusions.
I am almost done with the social link involving those old people in the book shop, I joined the student council but the guy who you form the social link with within that is awful, I got that girl at school to come out of her shell and start hanging out with me and played some online games with that groomer on that MMO (I joke, but its got a very weird dynamic). I also need to buy some kid some food to hang out with them near the temple, but do I wanna hang out with a small child? I ain't so sure.
Also it sounds like the train boss works slightly differently in Reload then.
@HallowMoonshadow Funny you should mention it as I'm listening to it right now. It and "It's going down now" are really good. I'm glad that there are new tracks in the game as well.
I've reached the end of Tartarus for this part. Can I just say how wonderful it is that they've added P5's baton pass mechanic in P3R. I can't understand how I played through Portable without it, it's seriously a staple of this series now.
Also a tip: if you go to the nurse's office the day after going into Tartarus, you will get a drink that increases your courage. Time doesn't pass either.
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