4.5/5 ★ – DarrensTrashBag's review of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES.

Persona 3 has an incredible story, interesting characters, engaging social links, but dated gameplay. This could be because I played through 4 and 5 but the choices in game design is very questionable. Only controlling one party member is such a stupid decision, it only has been working in RPGs for the past twenty years then. Instant kill skills not working 100% on enemies weak to that element. Tartarus is not that fun to go through as much as the TV world and the Palaces / Mementos. Last thing that sucks is that the game forces the player to be in a relationship with any girl after ranking their social link to a specific level, and is different for each social link. The stuff that is good is the story, even though not much happens for two months after Makoto awakens to his persona but the major plot points are very great and the twists are amazing, these moments are what kept me interested enough to keep plaything through. The social links contain some of the best in the series (Not Nozomi). Akinari, Tanaka, Mutatsu, and Chihiro. The SEES members are also very great characters except Fuuka, however I prefer the The Investigation Team and the Phantom Thieves characters better. The Answer has terrible gameplay (but a good final boss), Idiotic direction choice, and harmed the likability of one of the characters. However, the flashback scenes are really good and what they did with Aigis enhances her already great character. TL;DR: Stuck with it because of the story, satisfied after beating it. Overall a very good game with some shortcomings that are fixed with future persona games. Harder persona basically. The Answer is fine but has some stupid moments. 88/100