The Persona series of games is always praised for its ways of storytelling, character development, and very tight and fun battle systems. Persona 3 FES is considered the definitive way to play Persona 3, and as stated before, lives up to its name as being a Persona game. With its super engaging story, very in-depth and personal characters, and its very fun gameplay... that last point however I'll get to soon...
To start things off, what I really did like about Persona 3 FES was the story. This game's story compared to the other entries is really something all right. The plot twists were surprising and fun, the different motivations that drive each character, I found it to be great, even for a game that come out in 2006. Also, I really liked each character in the game. P4 and P5 have some characters that I'm not a fan of, but Persona 3's cast surprised me. I found each one of the main cast be lovable and unique in their own ways. Finally, it wouldn't be a Persona game without its music, and MAN the soundtrack is amazing like always! The hip-hop and rap feel with this game gives the music a very timeless feel. Listening to the soundtrack in 2020, the whole OST still feels as though it came out recently, and not something stuck in 2006.
Now onto my complains, and BOY do I have some. First off, I must preface that a lot of my complaints of the game are things I can't really complain about, since a lot of them get fixed in the later Persona games, like P4G and P5R, so I'll try to focus solely on the game specific complaints here.
Obviously, the biggest problem of the game is that you cannot control your party members. To be fair, I would say 70% of the time, the computer would use the correct move I wanted them to use, and/ or heal me at the proper time. But that other 30%, man sometimes it can feel like the computer makes dumb decisions all the time. Of course, the whole joke of Mitsuru charming the enemy instead of attacking or healing is the definition of computers making dumb decisions in this game. My other big problem is that this game's difficulty is pretty rough. This problem can be subjective, but for me personally, I found the difficulty to be unfair at times. Bosses can be grueling depending on who you have on your team. Without going into any spoilers, the final boss, no joke, is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my gaming career. I am so grateful I was able to beat it, and it will forever be my greatest gaming accomplishment. Anyway, back to the difficulty, even basic enemies can be a pain. If an enemy were to get an advantage on you, and they're packing four or five enemies in the battle, with magic spells that hit your whole party? Better hope you saved recently then. Of course, one could counteract this argument of the game being too hard, by saying that you can just level grind. While yes that solves the issue, that would arise another issue, that of being too grind-heavy, which yes, it was fairly grindy, but again, that is just me.
Finally, this last complaint isn't specific to FES, but Persona 3 as a whole. This is more so a rant than an actual review too. In case you don't know, there are two enhanced version of the original Persona 3. There is Persona 3 FES, and Persona 3 Portable. It's great how there are options for your enjoyment of P3, but there's a catch: the content is very different between the two versions. FES has a 3D world to explore, in addition to cutscenes, but lack the ability to control party members. Portable lacks the 3D environment and cutscenes, and is instead formatted like a visual novel to compensate for the weaker technology of the PSP. However, Tartarus is still a 3D environment, you can control your party members, and pick between a male and female option. Again, it's great to have options, but to be frank, Atlus really needs to release a brand new, complete Persona 3 enhancement version, one with the narrative of FES, the gameplay of Portable, and the looks of Dancing in Moonlight. Please Atlus!
Now I did just ramble on and on about the main problems with Persona 3 FES, and I could list more and more, but I should stress the fact that I did really enjoy this game. However, the problems I had really did a number on my overall feelings towards it. Definitely a great Persona game and one I recommend, just go into the game with a different mindset. What I mean is, if you have played Persona 4 or Persona 5 before Persona 3, expect a very different, but enjoyable experience.