Was a fan of Eternal Punishment during the final PS1 days, as well as the SMT games I'd played during the PS2 games. But nothing could prepare me for Persona 3 -- or, rather, how disappointed I was with it, and how much critical praise it got.
See, Persona 2 is one of the greatest RPG's of all time mixing a mature story with interesting characters, amazing music, and fun dungeons. However, Persona 3 mixes a childish story with cliché characters, awful music, and one long and boring dungeon (255 floors of, well, nothing). So, knock off a few points right there. I just don't see how anyone could find dull, lifeless randomly generated dungeons exciting, in any way. There is nothing to this game! Didn't rpgfan.com or rpggamer.com or somebody like that call it "the best rpg on the ps2"? What a joke! ONE DUNGEON.
...Next, knock off a few points for the sheer tedious nature of this entire game. You basically are doing the SAME EXACT THING for 40 hours (don't believe the reviewers that say this game takes 60-80 hours or whatever; they must have talked to every single NPC character 10 different times every single day or something or visited the dungeon until they got tired every night.. why would you do that? Just visit the dungeon the night before the full moon, you never get tired, you can level up a bunch, and that's that. Don't waste your time!). Nothing ever changes. It's just the same grind, with no secrets to find, no new places to explore, and no characters to get attached to. It's as pure a dungeon crawler as a dungeon crawler can be, with a little bit of high school drama thrown in as well...
Yet strangely, it's addicting in spurts, especially the the beginnng. Atlus made a very interesting design choice by removing towns to explore or secrets to find (in other words, IT'S LINEAR): this way, you only focus on the story and battling. However, the story is boring and filled with annoying characters, and the battling is unbalanced. I don't mind not being able to control anyone but the main character, but why are all the other characters so stupid? They'll always cast the wrong spell at the wrong time no matter what you do...
Take a boss battle early in the game where you absolutely MUST kill both bosses at the EXACT SAME TIME or one revives. There is no way to get the other characters to do that. Also, if your character dies, the game ends; pretty frustrating when every single enemy on the last floor uses insta-death spells to your entire party and it usually just kills you. However, as I said, it's addicting to level up for at least the first few hours of the game, and the "character interaction" (i.e. dating) part of the game is pretty fun until you realize how easy it is to make everyone like you (protip: Be nice to 'em. GASP! SHOCK!). Also, speaking of tedium, the music... ugh... it just makes me cringe. Very questionable and repetetive rap and pop songs... might be the worst soundtrack ever.
...This game is not without merit, as the cinemas are actually cool (and I usually hate cinemas in games) and the character design is usually pretty good. There were a few surprisingly plot points that were intriguing and some of the later boss battles are fun (the last boss is somewhat challenging, and pretty damn fun; actually, one of the only points in the game I died from something other than an instant-death spell).
The game goes by quite quickly -- but it leaves you feeling rather unsatisfied. They almost made a great game, but the game just has too many tiny flaws that all come together to make the game unbearable for most of its play-through. As a game, it's a little below mediocre. As a sign of things to hopefully come in the world of RPG's, it's pretty inspiring (that is, if you haven't played THOUSAND ARMS, RHAPSODY, or any of the hundreds of RPG's with dating sim elements from Japan). Someone else can take the advancements put forth here and put them to good use hopefully.
Anywy, I'd HATE to see someone base thier opinion on the SMT games on this one -- this is NOTHING like the other games (except p4). Finally, for those wondering, I dated
Fuuka Yamagishi in the game.
...as for Person 1 and 4, I played through most of P1 (or REVELTATIONS: PERSON as it was called here) and it was.............. okay. Not really worth my time, or yours. Persona 4 seemed to fix some of P3's issues, but what I played of it was incredibly dull and unlikeable. This game is the purest definition of "more of the same" I've ever seen; it looks, sounds, and feels... it IS.. exactly the same, albeit with some color swaps and a setting change. People just blew their LOAD over this game even more than P3, but damn.. Never played FES, but since I didn't like P3 very much, I don't imagine I'd like it.