As I mentioned in the previous post, I went a little crazy and bought four video games in the span of three or so days. I got started on one of them right away and the title that attracted me the most was… Persona 3 FES.
After doing some research online, I found out that Persona 3 FES is an add-on/director’s cut of the Persona 3 game with some new additions from the original game (speaking of which, I’ll have to get a hold of Persona 3 sometime soon… maybe after a few paychecks).
Persona 3 FES follows the story of a young high school senior in a fictional city in Japan (referred to as ‘The Protagonist’) who transfers to the city’s high school and moves into the local dormitory whose inhabitants are part of the group known as SEES (short for Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, which our main character becomes a part of). SEES is a group of students who investigate events that happen during a time of day known as the Dark Hour, the ’25th Hour of the Day’ in which only a few people (including those in SEES) experience while everyone else sleeps in coffins and have no memory of the extra hour. Strange monsters called Shadows come out during this time and seek humans and attack their minds and it’s up to SEES to figure out the true motive of these monsters.
Each SEES member has the power to call their own Persona (a manifestation/2nd self) to fight these monsters. The most striking thing about the game is how a character calls forth their Persona; they hold a gun-like object to their head called an Evoker and shoot. You first see this in the opening animated sequence when one of the main characters, Yukari, holds her Evoker to her head and prepares to shoot. It’s a little shocking each time a character calls their Persona but you do get used to it after a while…
What’s great about Persona 3 FES is that it follows the course of a regular school year in Japan (meaning school on Saturdays!). You start in April and end in March. When not fighting off monsters, the characters are regular old high school students, studying for exams and participating in clubs and activities. Throughout the game, you get the chance to meet different people and build relationships with them. Each person you meet creates something called a Social Link and each Link has an affinity with one of the several categories of Personas called Arcana. It’s a good idea to figure out which person has the Social Link for the Persona(s) you tend to use more often so that you can build stronger relationships with them and in turn be able to discover stronger Personas.
It’ll be a while before I finish the game. There’s actually two parts to the game, The Journey and The Answer. I’m going to assume that The Answer is meant to be played after going through the game one time. Huh.. this will take longer than I thought, but it’ll all be worth it!!
As always, let me know of any other games you think I should check out and I’ll look into it as soon as I can.. =D
