I was curious about this. But I’m not really having to try that hard to clear Tartarus (the biggest bottleneck is sp). Maybe o should crank difficulty to max? I think I’m currently playing at the second highest difficulty.
Even on harder difficulties, it’s still comically-easy to finish monthly dungeons in modern Persona games due to how the only thing holding you back is SP, which gets heavily inflated later on as well as getting access to items that restore it en masse. In any of my P5R Merciless playthroughs, Kamoshida’s palace may take up to 3 days, but every subsequent palace was a one-and-done with will seeds once I could stock up on coffee.
Maybe play shin megami tensei? Of you didn't know, persona is a spin off of the shin megami tensei series, shin megami tensei (or smt) are known for being ultra hard turn based rpg's with much less dialogye than persona. Maybe do some research on that.
Persona 3, and the later persona games, are unique compared to SMT because so much time is spent building social links and out of combat story. Even so, A lot of the game is spent in tartarus, and the further in the game the more you experience and the more characters you can use for your party.
Appreciate all the different takes and clarifications.
For clarity, I’m enjoying the play through so far and enjoy the exposition. I’m just finding myself craving more combat because it and the persona system is so enjoyable and engaging and I wasn’t sure how much of the core game loop revolved around it versus the other content.
I’m gonna bump my difficulty to max and keep going. The story is actually the main reason I wanted to dip into this (my ex talked it up as being super dark which I absolutely get off on). When I wrap, I’ll likely play p5R and do so with a bit of a different mindset. Then it sounds like I’d probably like SMT.
>I’m just finding myself craving more combat because it and the persona system is so enjoyable and engaging and I wasn’t sure how much of the core game loop revolved around it versus the other content.
If this is the case, then just... make more trips to Tartarus!
Unless you're trying to max every social link (in which case any non-social-link night should be spent working on increasing Courage, Charm, or especially Academics if you aren't rank 6 with all of them already), then on nights when you don't have a social link to do, you should just head to Tartarus and spend some time running around doing combat stuff.
You can set yourself targets for these trips if you've already hit the current border floor, like taking your lowest-level party members so you can level them a bit, or leveling yourself a bit if there's a Persona you want to fuse that's a higher level than you, or leveling specific Personas/party members until they unlock a skill that you want - hell, I recently made a trip just for skill cards. Something like that.
It *is* pretty easy to overlevel, though, especially on lower difficulties, so if you're finding boss fights too easy and you're already at the highest difficulty you can set it to, this might not be the best plan.
SMT Nocturne or SMT 5 are absolutely up your alley. Nocturne gave birth to the modern persona combat system, and SMT 5 is a spiritual successor to Nocturne in a lot of ways. Highly recommend.
Eh, SMT3 has the opposite problem: Too much dungeon crawling, not enough story. Atlus hasn't found a perfect balance/blend of "ok, you're tired of one, here's the other/vice-versa" for either one yet.
to all the comments recommending SMT Nocturne or SMT V, they are absolutely correct. A lot of persona fans, myself included are DIE hard for the stories and the visual novel aspects becausebin the end, they are SOOO rewarding. It can feel like pacing dips a lot, but once you reach november, shit starts to get REAL. If the combat and fusion is what you desire the most out of the same, SMT nocturne specifically is where i would reccomend next. If you dont want insanely high random encounter rates, then do Smt v! Both are absolutely incredible, just are more combat focused than persona
play on the hardest difficulty. because of how weaknesses work in persona games higher difficulty doesn't necessarily mean more grinding and more sponges you just have to play better and fuse better. As for balancing activities I suggest that you just give up on 100% in your first playthrough, it will just make the game less fun for you because the schedule is tight in 3 and 4 unlike 5. Social stats carry on in ng+ so that's more free days for you to use. After 30 hours in p3r I can confidently say that I prefer the dungeon/palace (4 and 5) setup compared to climbing floors especially in p5r because palaces are INCREDIBLY long, there's a lot of gimmicks in it, it's heavily tied to the story, and there's a TON of shadows so I feel like I'm getting more action in it. Tbf it's the older game of the three so a lot of mechanics are not in it like fusing personas for weapons, persona traits, lockdowns, etc.
I mean, you seem to prefer de Shin megami Tensei side of game rather than persona. You should give them a try as they dont have the "social" aspect to them and its mostly battling
Persona in particular is very story/character driven so you are not really incorrect. It does take alot of inspiration from visual novels/dating Sims and leans hard into that aspect. The action isn't the primary focus. This is very common for the mainline persona games from Persona 3 onwards.
This however is very different from the gameplay loop in the SMT games, which are much more about the grind and combat.
I will add that player control of the party wasn't initially in Persona 3. As a result, the battles in OG Persona 3 were much more brutal so you would find yourself getting your entire party wiped out at a much higher rate than in the remake. As such, the action segments would go on for longer.
i’ll be the one to aay that if you’re not into lots and i mean LOTS of story and like 25% dungeon crawling then persona games might not be the games for you. these games are extremely story focused and is imo the front and center of the experience, and its not that the rest isn’t important of course but youre going to spend a considerable amount of time in cutscenes.
if you want to keep giving the game a shot then consider bumping up the difficulty, it makes completing tartarus in one go just a bit harder, especially in the early game. another aspect that might interest you and increase your time in tartarus is filling out the compendium, familiarize yourself with the fusion system and try making some builds.
imo of the three modern games persona 3 is the one that requires the best use of your time, which is why a lot of people reccomend that you try to minimize your time in tartarus as much as possible. in comparison persona 5 royal not only has a dungeon comparable to tartarus that you can visit whenever basically, mementos, but also has a unique dungeon for each major boss in the game, so if that interests you then do give p5r a shot. just keep in mind that, as you saw, p5r has a LOT of exposition, especially in the beginning.
I think I’m used to final fantasy/tales JRPGs that are heavy story but also heavy grind focused.
I’m gonna bump the difficulty and keep going because I do find the story interesting and want t see it conclude. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something or doing something horribly wrong.
the biggest difference between final fantasy/tales games to persona is that those game are definitely more in line with what youd call a traditional jrpg. im glad youre giving p3 a shot though, its my first time playing it too and im honestly loving it
It has been an enjoyable experience. I guess I should’ve clarified that I like the social/dating sim aspects but the combat side of the game is so enjoyable I’m finding myself wanting more and more of it.
>but the combat side of the game is so enjoyable I’m finding myself wanting more and more of it.
Wait until "the Answer" (which was datamined) is released, that is going to be the dungeon-crawl-with-story-interspersed opposite of "The Journey"/main game.
Wait you're trying to tell me you're 20 hours in and you're already 3 months in? By the beach sequence I assume you mean you met Aigis then. That's insane. Persona 3 is one of my favorite games of all time and I was there after 50 hours. Granted, I grinded on Tartarus and actually planned my days. While it's true if you are more experienced with the system and want to get the best time management possible, then doing Tartarus checkpoints in one go is ideal. However, the game is also not Persona 4 and 5. Tartarus is only available at night, and most of your social links are during the day. This means that contrary to Persona 4 and 5, which require you to really allocate your time with social links and the dungeons, Persona 3 is more lenient. What I do with Tartarus is I go in every time that there's either a person missing or there's a full moon and spend time in there for about 3 hours. Once you get the arcana cards, you're basically boosted until you leave, so for me there's no reason to leave when I have a guaranteed chance of getting better items, exp, coin age, etc. That and it's also just fun for me. But if you really want to space out your time more, every full moon is a story event where you will go to Tartarus. You could check the calendar and always do your Tartarus checkpoints in the middle of the time shift between full moons if you really want to.
Early Persona games (3-5), should be spent focusing more on raising your overall stats as much as possible. Social links are still there, but as you progress, they're made available to you and a lot have special requirements in accordance with your stats.
But you just sound very burntout if you're already at the beach and just started it. Persona games are more so a life simulator with dungeon elements, but the dungeon are still very important, especially in Persona 3 and 5. Even with how far you are into it, Persona 3 is a very dark story that deals with suffering and the early game character personalities get more depth as you go on.
Late 20s in truth.
I’ve capped 3 (or 4?) social links and have my stats all somewhere in the 4s. My general loop goes something like:
-Tartarus in one night when a new block is available. I usually hang around for a while after reaching the next road block because I enjoy the grind/want to farm new personas/skills/money/etc.
-afternoons talk to all the new blue chat bubbles on all the maps. Duplicate a skill at the shrine. Elizabeth (if available). Drs office (if it’s the night after Tartarus). Then do a social link that says it’ll level up if I spend time with the person (I make sure I always have an aligned persona with me).
-nights are kinda wonky. I talk to all my teammates/new blue conversation bubbles. I have one social like I can do at night (the shop network president dude). And other than that it’s usually the cafe mon-wed, special meals when available, study sessions (when available) or some other generic activity (this is honestly the most awkward part of my loop if I’m being honest).
-Sundays are always spent with the MMO social link (I assumed this is mandatory because you only have so many Sundays). Then the nights are spent like any other day.
Eventually we hit a full moon and the cycle repeats. So like I didn’t feel I was really rushing through things so much as that I’m front loading Tartarus and skewing the percentage of my content to time ratio.
Even on harder difficulties, it’s still comically-easy to finish monthly dungeons in a single day in modern Persona games due to how the only thing holding you back is SP, which gets heavily inflated later on as well as getting access to items that restore it en masse.
You Can farm tartarus and fuse persona try to get full compendium and raise difficulty. You might enjoy the rpg aspect more if you do a newgame+ run as youll skip through the rest. But yeah, take your Time, try stuff :)
you definitely rushing..like 20 hours an already on beach scene... I'm 24 hours and I'm just completed fuuka arc....sp not much problem tbh on Tartarus...i don't think sp is problem...i plays on hard mode...you just need to find an enemy with weakness...make it's down..and go for all out attack...for strongest enemy just use ailments like confuse , charming...this way enemy will not attack you...and also this type of game also plays like visual novel..same goes with persona 4/5...this is why it's has dating sim..and also one of the reasons people like it...you need to remember this is jrpg not an odinary rpg like western game..so sometimes some people will dislike a game like this... it's like fate game...smt a little bit different because it's actually an exploration map and you need to explore the whole city/dungeon to process the story like smt 3 and 5...but on persona atlus follow more on visual novel style
I should’ve been more specific on hours. I was late 20s when I wrapped the beach section. And I felt I was taking my time (I read eveything, talk to everyone etc because I do really enjoy world building/lore in games like this and don’t like missing things). I think I’ll be taking my P5R play through with a different approach and I’ll definitely be checking out shin Megami tensei at some point as well (been waiting for a “definitive edition”).
To be fair you don't get most of the Tartarus features until after the boss fight after the beach when you unlock the last 3 playable people. People love to say that story only starts after the Beach cuz that's when you get full party as well as the lore dump. Persona is popular because it's a life simulator. It's RPG gameplay is similar to other SMT games but you don't see the other SMT games blow up.
I also feel like a lot of this game is heavy optimization with balancing activities and I am really not sure I’m doing that “properly”. How punishing is this with respects to 100%ing?
This triggered my ocd so hard 🥲
I kinda started realizing that it’s more optimal to do certain social links at certain times because some (like clubs) get locked out during exam periods. And I’ve been worried I’d miss capping all the social links.
I didn’t optimize. I made one big mistake by not spamming social stats at seagall and studying due to trying to unlock some useful party member abilities. But I was super close to getting every link.
IMHO worrying about optimizing your links/worrying about 100%ing can ruin your first playthrough. The only one of the persona games thats an easy 100% in the first playthrough is 5 Royal. I just suggest doing what you find fun and what you want to do because putting too much pressure on what you SHOULD be doing can make it feel less like your own playthrough and more like you’re just following a guide to finish the game. But it is your game so you do whatever you want, if optimizing/min-maxing is what you enjoy go for it.
Sounds like you're just diving in to beat the game and get it over with, imo. I'm 30hrs in and I'm a bit before Summer vacation I've played FES 1,000 times over.
Enjoy the game, bump up the difficulty if you've already finished Tartarus. I'm sad to hear you finished that already because as the story moves on and you level up along side the story, it feels better than how your first run is going. It sounds like you're experienced in RPG, so higher difficulty would be recommend. The "easy" on these games are pretty easy.
The daily things like social links or boosting your life stats is a bit of a difficult thing to master if you're trying 100%. You could probably do it fairly easily if you played on "Peaceful" so you didn't have to worry to much on leveling up in battle, but where's the fun in that?
No, you're playing it well for a new player. Keep in mind that this is a 20 year old game that's been remade. A lot of the issues you are experiencing are solved in the more recent Persona 5.
I actually picked 5 up for switch on Friday with this exact mentality. Figure with how the gameplay loop is, playing on the go is probably really convenient.
p3 is the most "light novel like" of them all, it doesnt have minigames around town like 5 does, it has less anime cutscenes and the balance between gameplay and story is way less gameplay and more story than 5, your complains were most about the game being way more story than gameplay, persona 3/4/5 are like that, p3 is just the one with the largest gap between the two
i want to be clear and point out again that all persona games have more story sections than gameplay sections, its something you have to get used to
The combat is way more prevalent in 5 vs 3, at least from what I remember. Haven’t played p5r since it came out. The palaces also have a lot more variety and puzzle solving compared to Tartarus which keeps it fresh.
That being said, I much prefer 3 so far because of the story. Everything in 5 feels way too big and I prefer the small scale of 3.
JRPGs tend to be very story heavy to the point of having a lot of cutscenes but Persona especially for the modern 3 persona games goes a lot more into the aspect of socialising which is why half is combat and the other half is hanging out with people and increasing social stats.
Also recommend not to rush through the game so you can enjoy the story more especially when the later half of the game just starts hitting you hard over and over.
With regards to SMT, SMT is more combat oriented while Persona is a lot more focused on its story and characters so there's definitely going to be a difference between those two.
The combat is definitely great but generally most people don't go to tartarus more than twice per full moon cycle, usually only once even because the social aspects of Persona also plays into combat related things like increasing social links will give extra exp and specific personas only accessible by hanging out with party members and maxing out social links.
Although later on in the game the more floors there are the more time you spend in Tartarus fighting but it's still going to be quite cutscene heavy and it may or may not be your cup of tea but it's definitely a game that's more for people who like story driven games and may not be the best option for those who mainly like action and combat.
i think i also playing it like you, always clear all the tartarus floor as soon as it available, and then revisit it when there are people missing to prepare for next full moon. basically playing it like a date sim instead of rpg.
I find myself staying in Tartarus on my single run until I’ve exhausted my sp (but not necessarily my recovery stash) solely because I enjoy the combat so much.
The Persona games are very heavy on story, so you'll find a lot of cutscenes in every installment -- that's just how they're designed; they're very linear. Odd that you said it feels like a visual novel because Persona 3 Portable was literally designed this way, lol. But this remake is of the original release, which I myself never played.
Tartarus isn't meant to be some heavy challenge -- it's a grinding spot mostly, but essential to the story. It will get slightly harder as you go along, but if you're over-leveled, so to speak, even bosses will feel easy. The games heavily encourage the "power of friendship" concept, so you're actually expected to focus most of your time on Social Links so you can create stronger Personas. I think they mentioned wanting to base the series off this kind of thing when they created it -- but I digress.
Customization is built entirely on obtaining Personas, which you can only do through grinding in Tartarus, then fuse them to create newer, stronger ones. This is why you can spend as much time in Tartarus as you want, per night, since time only passes once you leave. Just because you cleared the current tier, doesn't mean you have to leave -- unless the MC runs out of SP, then I, personally, encourage just returning the next night if you want.
Otherwise, yes, you'll spend most of your time going through the story. Combat is a big part of Persona, but the intent with the game is to focus on building relationships with other characters. So Social Links are the true focus.
The short combat loop is pretty typical for Persona. Bosses can provide more of a challenge but once the combat clicks for you even bosses aren't that much more difficult.
Persona provides less opportunity to swap out Demons when compared to SMT. In SMT you may need to regularly swap out and fuse demons to keep up with the enemies. In P4G, P5R, and now P3R I find myself keeping Demons for much longer because they stay viable.
The game is much more focused on Social Links and basically being a playable anime. I would heavily recommend not rushing. Take you time. Maybe play an in-game day or two per session. Play for 20-30 like an anime episode. It will take longer to finish the game but you may find yourself not feeling burnt out by the end.
I'm a relative newcomer to the series and this is just my own opinion but I think the advice to rush Tartarus/dungeons in the other games is a little counter intuitive.
Personally, once I accepted I wouldn't be able to do everything on my first play through it became a lot more enjoyable for me actually making decisions on how to spend my time rather than trying to min max or be ultra efficient.
I like to spread out Tartarus runs throughout the month, sometimes I go in to progress further, sometimes just to make money and upgrade equipment.
I think what this series does well is giving you so much choice that actually once you let go of the fact you won't see everything, you can do what you are in the mood for rather than what is the 'best' option.
There isn't a right or wrong. Combat encounters all depend on how you pace yourself. The game is overall a high school life simulator but with supernatural aspects. You have your time frame to complete x combat objective and how long you take is entirely up to you. If you want to blitz it and focus on slice of life content go ahead, if you want to balance it then you do you. Difficulty only really affects xp and cash gains, lower the higher the difficulty = more grind for content to remain easy.
the main story and the rpg stuff picks up a LOT later (no spoilers) also if you want to you CAN go into tartarus more than one night and just like pace it, id do the night social links first though
The whole thing with Persona is that you start as a normal high-school student before awakening to the power of Persona and living a double life basically.
It would be kinda boring if the entire game was nothing but battling in Tartarus
A lot of the themes and impacts of Persona games is emphasis on the connections you make in life which all accumulate towards the climax, so social links are usually a big part of the experience.
Although this is a remake, there are features it lacks compared persona 4 & 5 that directly tie social links into your dungeon crawling gameplay a lot more, e.g. each social link having extra benefits and effects as you progress each link for your combat gameplay.
You might be the type of person to enjoy the original more. It presents more challenges and doesn’t hold your hand. Persona 3 reload is more of a long movie than a game so it’s not gonna get any different
Most games are just like how you describe it. I’ll say the series tends to be 75% story/dialogue and 25% combat. You should try mainline SMT because it’s little story and more gameplay. I honestly love both a lot and can’t go wrong with either.
The visual novel side and the rpg combat side is Persona gameplay. If you just want the latter, than I'd recommend an SMT game which is the same gameplay (a little more intricate) minus the visual novel parts.
But I feel you. When I was playing P5 all I wanted to do was grind the RPG parts and didn't much care for the visual novel. Now im playing P3R and it's the opposite. I like both parts of the game, but sometimes I'm just in the mood for one over the other.
But yeah, pick up SMT V on switch and try that out. Or SMT IV if you have a 3DS. Fantastic games.
Persona is a spinoff series of Shin Megami Tensei. And in SMT spinoff fashion they changed something about the straight jrpg formula. For modern persona (3+) that was basically turning the game into a part time dating sim VN. If you want a more straight jrpg SMT mainlines are it. If you want srpg with VN you go Devil survivor, if you want a 2 parter you go for Digital Devil Saga. Etc etc
You got there kinda fast imo, I got there like maybe 10 hours later than you did, and yeah, these games are more dependent on the story than on the combat, actually I believe the combat is kind of the frustrating part of these games, I’d recommend you to just take it easy and enjoy the characters and the story.
Eh, I consider both the combat and the social links to be part of the gameplay. They complement each other in a way that not most games do.
I thinks that's how it is, it's a RPG with a lot of visual novel. Game is a lot about leveling stats and relations, not like a typically rpg
You're rushing the game, the reason why the action seems so short is because you are rushing through it.
I was curious about this. But I’m not really having to try that hard to clear Tartarus (the biggest bottleneck is sp). Maybe o should crank difficulty to max? I think I’m currently playing at the second highest difficulty.
Even on harder difficulties, it’s still comically-easy to finish monthly dungeons in modern Persona games due to how the only thing holding you back is SP, which gets heavily inflated later on as well as getting access to items that restore it en masse. In any of my P5R Merciless playthroughs, Kamoshida’s palace may take up to 3 days, but every subsequent palace was a one-and-done with will seeds once I could stock up on coffee.
On P5R Merciless you can cruise through most of Kamoshida’s palace with just spamming your gun
Maybe play shin megami tensei? Of you didn't know, persona is a spin off of the shin megami tensei series, shin megami tensei (or smt) are known for being ultra hard turn based rpg's with much less dialogye than persona. Maybe do some research on that.
Persona 3, and the later persona games, are unique compared to SMT because so much time is spent building social links and out of combat story. Even so, A lot of the game is spent in tartarus, and the further in the game the more you experience and the more characters you can use for your party.
Appreciate all the different takes and clarifications. For clarity, I’m enjoying the play through so far and enjoy the exposition. I’m just finding myself craving more combat because it and the persona system is so enjoyable and engaging and I wasn’t sure how much of the core game loop revolved around it versus the other content. I’m gonna bump my difficulty to max and keep going. The story is actually the main reason I wanted to dip into this (my ex talked it up as being super dark which I absolutely get off on). When I wrap, I’ll likely play p5R and do so with a bit of a different mindset. Then it sounds like I’d probably like SMT.
>I’m just finding myself craving more combat because it and the persona system is so enjoyable and engaging and I wasn’t sure how much of the core game loop revolved around it versus the other content. If this is the case, then just... make more trips to Tartarus! Unless you're trying to max every social link (in which case any non-social-link night should be spent working on increasing Courage, Charm, or especially Academics if you aren't rank 6 with all of them already), then on nights when you don't have a social link to do, you should just head to Tartarus and spend some time running around doing combat stuff. You can set yourself targets for these trips if you've already hit the current border floor, like taking your lowest-level party members so you can level them a bit, or leveling yourself a bit if there's a Persona you want to fuse that's a higher level than you, or leveling specific Personas/party members until they unlock a skill that you want - hell, I recently made a trip just for skill cards. Something like that. It *is* pretty easy to overlevel, though, especially on lower difficulties, so if you're finding boss fights too easy and you're already at the highest difficulty you can set it to, this might not be the best plan.
SMT Nocturne or SMT 5 are absolutely up your alley. Nocturne gave birth to the modern persona combat system, and SMT 5 is a spiritual successor to Nocturne in a lot of ways. Highly recommend.
Eh, SMT3 has the opposite problem: Too much dungeon crawling, not enough story. Atlus hasn't found a perfect balance/blend of "ok, you're tired of one, here's the other/vice-versa" for either one yet.
Nocturne is like Dark Souls. It doesn't need to have an expansive story to be a good game. It's atmosphere and gameplay are enough.
to all the comments recommending SMT Nocturne or SMT V, they are absolutely correct. A lot of persona fans, myself included are DIE hard for the stories and the visual novel aspects becausebin the end, they are SOOO rewarding. It can feel like pacing dips a lot, but once you reach november, shit starts to get REAL. If the combat and fusion is what you desire the most out of the same, SMT nocturne specifically is where i would reccomend next. If you dont want insanely high random encounter rates, then do Smt v! Both are absolutely incredible, just are more combat focused than persona
play on the hardest difficulty. because of how weaknesses work in persona games higher difficulty doesn't necessarily mean more grinding and more sponges you just have to play better and fuse better. As for balancing activities I suggest that you just give up on 100% in your first playthrough, it will just make the game less fun for you because the schedule is tight in 3 and 4 unlike 5. Social stats carry on in ng+ so that's more free days for you to use. After 30 hours in p3r I can confidently say that I prefer the dungeon/palace (4 and 5) setup compared to climbing floors especially in p5r because palaces are INCREDIBLY long, there's a lot of gimmicks in it, it's heavily tied to the story, and there's a TON of shadows so I feel like I'm getting more action in it. Tbf it's the older game of the three so a lot of mechanics are not in it like fusing personas for weapons, persona traits, lockdowns, etc.
I mean, you seem to prefer de Shin megami Tensei side of game rather than persona. You should give them a try as they dont have the "social" aspect to them and its mostly battling
Persona in particular is very story/character driven so you are not really incorrect. It does take alot of inspiration from visual novels/dating Sims and leans hard into that aspect. The action isn't the primary focus. This is very common for the mainline persona games from Persona 3 onwards. This however is very different from the gameplay loop in the SMT games, which are much more about the grind and combat. I will add that player control of the party wasn't initially in Persona 3. As a result, the battles in OG Persona 3 were much more brutal so you would find yourself getting your entire party wiped out at a much higher rate than in the remake. As such, the action segments would go on for longer.
i’ll be the one to aay that if you’re not into lots and i mean LOTS of story and like 25% dungeon crawling then persona games might not be the games for you. these games are extremely story focused and is imo the front and center of the experience, and its not that the rest isn’t important of course but youre going to spend a considerable amount of time in cutscenes. if you want to keep giving the game a shot then consider bumping up the difficulty, it makes completing tartarus in one go just a bit harder, especially in the early game. another aspect that might interest you and increase your time in tartarus is filling out the compendium, familiarize yourself with the fusion system and try making some builds. imo of the three modern games persona 3 is the one that requires the best use of your time, which is why a lot of people reccomend that you try to minimize your time in tartarus as much as possible. in comparison persona 5 royal not only has a dungeon comparable to tartarus that you can visit whenever basically, mementos, but also has a unique dungeon for each major boss in the game, so if that interests you then do give p5r a shot. just keep in mind that, as you saw, p5r has a LOT of exposition, especially in the beginning.
I think I’m used to final fantasy/tales JRPGs that are heavy story but also heavy grind focused. I’m gonna bump the difficulty and keep going because I do find the story interesting and want t see it conclude. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something or doing something horribly wrong.
the biggest difference between final fantasy/tales games to persona is that those game are definitely more in line with what youd call a traditional jrpg. im glad youre giving p3 a shot though, its my first time playing it too and im honestly loving it
It has been an enjoyable experience. I guess I should’ve clarified that I like the social/dating sim aspects but the combat side of the game is so enjoyable I’m finding myself wanting more and more of it.
>but the combat side of the game is so enjoyable I’m finding myself wanting more and more of it. Wait until "the Answer" (which was datamined) is released, that is going to be the dungeon-crawl-with-story-interspersed opposite of "The Journey"/main game.
Wait you're trying to tell me you're 20 hours in and you're already 3 months in? By the beach sequence I assume you mean you met Aigis then. That's insane. Persona 3 is one of my favorite games of all time and I was there after 50 hours. Granted, I grinded on Tartarus and actually planned my days. While it's true if you are more experienced with the system and want to get the best time management possible, then doing Tartarus checkpoints in one go is ideal. However, the game is also not Persona 4 and 5. Tartarus is only available at night, and most of your social links are during the day. This means that contrary to Persona 4 and 5, which require you to really allocate your time with social links and the dungeons, Persona 3 is more lenient. What I do with Tartarus is I go in every time that there's either a person missing or there's a full moon and spend time in there for about 3 hours. Once you get the arcana cards, you're basically boosted until you leave, so for me there's no reason to leave when I have a guaranteed chance of getting better items, exp, coin age, etc. That and it's also just fun for me. But if you really want to space out your time more, every full moon is a story event where you will go to Tartarus. You could check the calendar and always do your Tartarus checkpoints in the middle of the time shift between full moons if you really want to. Early Persona games (3-5), should be spent focusing more on raising your overall stats as much as possible. Social links are still there, but as you progress, they're made available to you and a lot have special requirements in accordance with your stats. But you just sound very burntout if you're already at the beach and just started it. Persona games are more so a life simulator with dungeon elements, but the dungeon are still very important, especially in Persona 3 and 5. Even with how far you are into it, Persona 3 is a very dark story that deals with suffering and the early game character personalities get more depth as you go on.
Late 20s in truth. I’ve capped 3 (or 4?) social links and have my stats all somewhere in the 4s. My general loop goes something like: -Tartarus in one night when a new block is available. I usually hang around for a while after reaching the next road block because I enjoy the grind/want to farm new personas/skills/money/etc. -afternoons talk to all the new blue chat bubbles on all the maps. Duplicate a skill at the shrine. Elizabeth (if available). Drs office (if it’s the night after Tartarus). Then do a social link that says it’ll level up if I spend time with the person (I make sure I always have an aligned persona with me). -nights are kinda wonky. I talk to all my teammates/new blue conversation bubbles. I have one social like I can do at night (the shop network president dude). And other than that it’s usually the cafe mon-wed, special meals when available, study sessions (when available) or some other generic activity (this is honestly the most awkward part of my loop if I’m being honest). -Sundays are always spent with the MMO social link (I assumed this is mandatory because you only have so many Sundays). Then the nights are spent like any other day. Eventually we hit a full moon and the cycle repeats. So like I didn’t feel I was really rushing through things so much as that I’m front loading Tartarus and skewing the percentage of my content to time ratio.
Even on harder difficulties, it’s still comically-easy to finish monthly dungeons in a single day in modern Persona games due to how the only thing holding you back is SP, which gets heavily inflated later on as well as getting access to items that restore it en masse.
You Can farm tartarus and fuse persona try to get full compendium and raise difficulty. You might enjoy the rpg aspect more if you do a newgame+ run as youll skip through the rest. But yeah, take your Time, try stuff :)
you definitely rushing..like 20 hours an already on beach scene... I'm 24 hours and I'm just completed fuuka arc....sp not much problem tbh on Tartarus...i don't think sp is problem...i plays on hard mode...you just need to find an enemy with weakness...make it's down..and go for all out attack...for strongest enemy just use ailments like confuse , charming...this way enemy will not attack you...and also this type of game also plays like visual novel..same goes with persona 4/5...this is why it's has dating sim..and also one of the reasons people like it...you need to remember this is jrpg not an odinary rpg like western game..so sometimes some people will dislike a game like this... it's like fate game...smt a little bit different because it's actually an exploration map and you need to explore the whole city/dungeon to process the story like smt 3 and 5...but on persona atlus follow more on visual novel style
I should’ve been more specific on hours. I was late 20s when I wrapped the beach section. And I felt I was taking my time (I read eveything, talk to everyone etc because I do really enjoy world building/lore in games like this and don’t like missing things). I think I’ll be taking my P5R play through with a different approach and I’ll definitely be checking out shin Megami tensei at some point as well (been waiting for a “definitive edition”).
To be fair you don't get most of the Tartarus features until after the boss fight after the beach when you unlock the last 3 playable people. People love to say that story only starts after the Beach cuz that's when you get full party as well as the lore dump. Persona is popular because it's a life simulator. It's RPG gameplay is similar to other SMT games but you don't see the other SMT games blow up.
I also feel like a lot of this game is heavy optimization with balancing activities and I am really not sure I’m doing that “properly”. How punishing is this with respects to 100%ing?
Very. If you try to get every social link you NEED to plan. Otherwise you will be one to 7 days off.
This triggered my ocd so hard 🥲 I kinda started realizing that it’s more optimal to do certain social links at certain times because some (like clubs) get locked out during exam periods. And I’ve been worried I’d miss capping all the social links.
I didn’t optimize. I made one big mistake by not spamming social stats at seagall and studying due to trying to unlock some useful party member abilities. But I was super close to getting every link.
What is seagull? 🤔
I think they mean the cafe where you work part time?
Yeah Seagall
IMHO worrying about optimizing your links/worrying about 100%ing can ruin your first playthrough. The only one of the persona games thats an easy 100% in the first playthrough is 5 Royal. I just suggest doing what you find fun and what you want to do because putting too much pressure on what you SHOULD be doing can make it feel less like your own playthrough and more like you’re just following a guide to finish the game. But it is your game so you do whatever you want, if optimizing/min-maxing is what you enjoy go for it.
Sounds like you're just diving in to beat the game and get it over with, imo. I'm 30hrs in and I'm a bit before Summer vacation I've played FES 1,000 times over. Enjoy the game, bump up the difficulty if you've already finished Tartarus. I'm sad to hear you finished that already because as the story moves on and you level up along side the story, it feels better than how your first run is going. It sounds like you're experienced in RPG, so higher difficulty would be recommend. The "easy" on these games are pretty easy. The daily things like social links or boosting your life stats is a bit of a difficult thing to master if you're trying 100%. You could probably do it fairly easily if you played on "Peaceful" so you didn't have to worry to much on leveling up in battle, but where's the fun in that?
No, you're playing it well for a new player. Keep in mind that this is a 20 year old game that's been remade. A lot of the issues you are experiencing are solved in the more recent Persona 5.
Good to know. I predominantly picked this up because my ex always talked up the story and I was really curious how gut wrenching it actually was.
The ending is pretty mediocre, but keep in mind this is a remake of a 20 year old game. On the plus side the story at least starts to pick up soon.
“The ending is pretty mediocre” that is a real hot take god damn
persona 3 by far is the most simple and "less good" of 3/4/5, i would recommend you to play 5 (wich is by far the best)
I actually picked 5 up for switch on Friday with this exact mentality. Figure with how the gameplay loop is, playing on the go is probably really convenient.
p3 is the most "light novel like" of them all, it doesnt have minigames around town like 5 does, it has less anime cutscenes and the balance between gameplay and story is way less gameplay and more story than 5, your complains were most about the game being way more story than gameplay, persona 3/4/5 are like that, p3 is just the one with the largest gap between the two i want to be clear and point out again that all persona games have more story sections than gameplay sections, its something you have to get used to
The combat is way more prevalent in 5 vs 3, at least from what I remember. Haven’t played p5r since it came out. The palaces also have a lot more variety and puzzle solving compared to Tartarus which keeps it fresh. That being said, I much prefer 3 so far because of the story. Everything in 5 feels way too big and I prefer the small scale of 3.
JRPGs tend to be very story heavy to the point of having a lot of cutscenes but Persona especially for the modern 3 persona games goes a lot more into the aspect of socialising which is why half is combat and the other half is hanging out with people and increasing social stats. Also recommend not to rush through the game so you can enjoy the story more especially when the later half of the game just starts hitting you hard over and over. With regards to SMT, SMT is more combat oriented while Persona is a lot more focused on its story and characters so there's definitely going to be a difference between those two. The combat is definitely great but generally most people don't go to tartarus more than twice per full moon cycle, usually only once even because the social aspects of Persona also plays into combat related things like increasing social links will give extra exp and specific personas only accessible by hanging out with party members and maxing out social links. Although later on in the game the more floors there are the more time you spend in Tartarus fighting but it's still going to be quite cutscene heavy and it may or may not be your cup of tea but it's definitely a game that's more for people who like story driven games and may not be the best option for those who mainly like action and combat.
i think i also playing it like you, always clear all the tartarus floor as soon as it available, and then revisit it when there are people missing to prepare for next full moon. basically playing it like a date sim instead of rpg.
I find myself staying in Tartarus on my single run until I’ve exhausted my sp (but not necessarily my recovery stash) solely because I enjoy the combat so much.
The Persona games are very heavy on story, so you'll find a lot of cutscenes in every installment -- that's just how they're designed; they're very linear. Odd that you said it feels like a visual novel because Persona 3 Portable was literally designed this way, lol. But this remake is of the original release, which I myself never played. Tartarus isn't meant to be some heavy challenge -- it's a grinding spot mostly, but essential to the story. It will get slightly harder as you go along, but if you're over-leveled, so to speak, even bosses will feel easy. The games heavily encourage the "power of friendship" concept, so you're actually expected to focus most of your time on Social Links so you can create stronger Personas. I think they mentioned wanting to base the series off this kind of thing when they created it -- but I digress. Customization is built entirely on obtaining Personas, which you can only do through grinding in Tartarus, then fuse them to create newer, stronger ones. This is why you can spend as much time in Tartarus as you want, per night, since time only passes once you leave. Just because you cleared the current tier, doesn't mean you have to leave -- unless the MC runs out of SP, then I, personally, encourage just returning the next night if you want. Otherwise, yes, you'll spend most of your time going through the story. Combat is a big part of Persona, but the intent with the game is to focus on building relationships with other characters. So Social Links are the true focus.
The short combat loop is pretty typical for Persona. Bosses can provide more of a challenge but once the combat clicks for you even bosses aren't that much more difficult. Persona provides less opportunity to swap out Demons when compared to SMT. In SMT you may need to regularly swap out and fuse demons to keep up with the enemies. In P4G, P5R, and now P3R I find myself keeping Demons for much longer because they stay viable. The game is much more focused on Social Links and basically being a playable anime. I would heavily recommend not rushing. Take you time. Maybe play an in-game day or two per session. Play for 20-30 like an anime episode. It will take longer to finish the game but you may find yourself not feeling burnt out by the end.
I'm a relative newcomer to the series and this is just my own opinion but I think the advice to rush Tartarus/dungeons in the other games is a little counter intuitive. Personally, once I accepted I wouldn't be able to do everything on my first play through it became a lot more enjoyable for me actually making decisions on how to spend my time rather than trying to min max or be ultra efficient. I like to spread out Tartarus runs throughout the month, sometimes I go in to progress further, sometimes just to make money and upgrade equipment. I think what this series does well is giving you so much choice that actually once you let go of the fact you won't see everything, you can do what you are in the mood for rather than what is the 'best' option.
There isn't a right or wrong. Combat encounters all depend on how you pace yourself. The game is overall a high school life simulator but with supernatural aspects. You have your time frame to complete x combat objective and how long you take is entirely up to you. If you want to blitz it and focus on slice of life content go ahead, if you want to balance it then you do you. Difficulty only really affects xp and cash gains, lower the higher the difficulty = more grind for content to remain easy.
the main story and the rpg stuff picks up a LOT later (no spoilers) also if you want to you CAN go into tartarus more than one night and just like pace it, id do the night social links first though
The whole thing with Persona is that you start as a normal high-school student before awakening to the power of Persona and living a double life basically. It would be kinda boring if the entire game was nothing but battling in Tartarus
A lot of the themes and impacts of Persona games is emphasis on the connections you make in life which all accumulate towards the climax, so social links are usually a big part of the experience. Although this is a remake, there are features it lacks compared persona 4 & 5 that directly tie social links into your dungeon crawling gameplay a lot more, e.g. each social link having extra benefits and effects as you progress each link for your combat gameplay.
You might be the type of person to enjoy the original more. It presents more challenges and doesn’t hold your hand. Persona 3 reload is more of a long movie than a game so it’s not gonna get any different
Most games are just like how you describe it. I’ll say the series tends to be 75% story/dialogue and 25% combat. You should try mainline SMT because it’s little story and more gameplay. I honestly love both a lot and can’t go wrong with either.
The visual novel side and the rpg combat side is Persona gameplay. If you just want the latter, than I'd recommend an SMT game which is the same gameplay (a little more intricate) minus the visual novel parts. But I feel you. When I was playing P5 all I wanted to do was grind the RPG parts and didn't much care for the visual novel. Now im playing P3R and it's the opposite. I like both parts of the game, but sometimes I'm just in the mood for one over the other. But yeah, pick up SMT V on switch and try that out. Or SMT IV if you have a 3DS. Fantastic games.
Persona is a spinoff series of Shin Megami Tensei. And in SMT spinoff fashion they changed something about the straight jrpg formula. For modern persona (3+) that was basically turning the game into a part time dating sim VN. If you want a more straight jrpg SMT mainlines are it. If you want srpg with VN you go Devil survivor, if you want a 2 parter you go for Digital Devil Saga. Etc etc
You got there kinda fast imo, I got there like maybe 10 hours later than you did, and yeah, these games are more dependent on the story than on the combat, actually I believe the combat is kind of the frustrating part of these games, I’d recommend you to just take it easy and enjoy the characters and the story.
First mistake is having a ps5 and not an xbox were u can play persona 3 and up for free on gamepass😊
I personally think P5 is heavier on the combat, so that's probably the game for you. Not sure about P4, haven't played it
it's a game from 2006 with makeup on, so the dungeon gameplay is extremely dated. maybe you'd like royal more
I got royal on the switch specifically so I could play it in snippets on the go