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Easy and Normal are it. I don't think even SMT veterans are simply going to breeze through the game on Normal, though. Not to mention that every thing points to it being long. On average, a month of time has taken me 6 to 10 hours, I would say, excluding dying and restarting. If it keeps up that pace we're probably talking a good 70+ hours.

In Normal if you die, that's it. You have to reload a save. I believe Easy allows you to continue up to 10 times over the course of the game without reloading, but I've not personally played it.

As for liking it, it's certainly better than Devil Summoner and DDS. I liked both of those games to a degree (DDS moreso than Devil Summoner, but both were pretty average), but Persona 3 is just far superior to them. Based on my playtime, I'd say it's one of the best RPGs on the system altogether. It's pretty different from other games throughout the franchise, including previous Persona titles, but that's just it... it's different. Some people might take this to be a bad thing, but I think most of the changes work out very well (I think anyone is going to miss the demon conversations, though... as they were always the most developed in this series). I don't even have many complaints about the AI, as much as it surprises me.

Difficulty?

Normal is manageable. It's not as hard as Nocturne by a long shot and I think the One More Turn system is a bit more forgivable just by its nature.

I've died several times. There are situations where I found myself simply having the wrong Persona equipped, get ambushed by an enemy and they just take care of your weakness over and over again. If your main character is knocked down when his turn comes up, you can't make any new decisions... I've been completely screwed this way a few times now. You might also find yourself slightly unprepared for bosses, but it's mostly a matter of leveling up yourself and figuring out which Persona to use.

Status effect spells cannot be stacked either. So if you use some random -kaja spell, it'll last three rounds and the disappear. This eases up things a bit too.

It's harder than maybe the average mainstream RPG, I suppose. I don't want to give the impression that it's not challenging, either (getting some of the Requests taken care of help bump this up a bit). So far I'd basically just say it's middle of the road.

I should note that I meant that Fes wouldn't be included with the release there... whether or not it might come out later is anyone's guess, but again, it is dependent on whether or not it actually comes out in the US.

I want to know if the only way to earn new Personas, is after battle. Or is like other Persona games, that Igor exchange them to you for tarot cards?

Both. You start out with one, so essentially gaining them through Shuffle is the only way to expand your deck at first. This essentially replaces having to talk to enemies in order to gain Tarot cards, such as in Persona 2.

You can then fuse together 2 or more Personae when you're in the Velvet Room

Will you send me your review copy? :PP

And seriously - are there any connections with past Persona games storywise? For example - is Igor refering to heroes of past Persona games when he says to silent protagonist on his first visit in Velvet Room about not seeing guests for a long time?

No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 :rambo:

Anyway... I've not seen any real connections. [SPOILER]You could construe that Igor is referring to them specifically, but I really can not say at this point. There is that MMORPG that makes some references to older titles, but obviously it's just for fun.[/SPOILER]

I figured I'd make this thread to answer general questions about the game. I'm finding that a lot of people still have things they want to know that remain unanswered by others.

So if there's something you want to know about the game, how it works, general tips or whatever else, just ask them here. I'll answer them the best I can.

Gamespot's product listing for Persona 3 now includes a very small image of the final package you will receive when you pick up the game. Looks pretty nice when it's all together.

Thanks to NotMSRP for posting this image on NeoGAF.

There's a few points to be made.

For one, Fes hasn't been announced for anywhere but Japan. I imagine there's some chance of it coming out here eventually, but how high or low that is I could not tell you. So to ask if it'll show up in Europe is just something completely impossible to answer.

As you said, Persona 3 is supposedly showing up in Europe. Most places claim KOEI will be handling that. The thing is, much like other SMT releases there, I'm willing to bet they're simply taking Atlus USA's translation, altering some things and switching it over to PAL standards.

Basically, this means that even if Fes does get translated for the US, I would not expect it to be part of any release in Europe whatsoever. You also have to remember that both Atlus and KOEI are far from the juggernaut Square-Enix is... :corkysm17

I looked through my art books and the Persona Guidance book, but couldn't seem to find an image of the guy. There's two pages on the Snow Queen quest in the book, but the images are lacking. I've personally never seen him.

There's several demons across the games that are extremely sexual, though. Several that have extremely obvious penis designs (one of which is basically a giant green one in a chariot) and some of the female variety. The most interesting of which has at least a dozen breasts all over its body. Weird stuff.

I've been hearing random good things about this game ever since it was released, but I was wondering if anyone here has ever played it and what their thoughts were on the game.

Thanks!

I've also read that the story is pretty dull. I'm still going to give it a rent through Gamefly.

There are times when you have to do certain things during the Dark Hour, but for the most part how you want to climb it is up to you. If you go one night and want to just level up and do the same floors over and over it's up to you. If you go and change your mind, you can just leave. Tartarus isn't really forced upon you, but obviously you do have to go at certain points to advance the story.

The game is still playable.

Here's the play guide Tony put together;
http://www.digitaldevildb.com/games/shin_megami_tensei_online_imagine/guide_part1.php

Bear in mind this is based upon the beta, so some of the specifics might be different. Someone did just resign up for it the other day, though, so I'm assuming every thing is pretty similar. For example, that beta image I use to show people where to go would no longer exist and I know you know longer have to make your own screenshot folder.

Does P3 have a lot of fun factor? Of course in your opinion, what are the negative things of the game?

Well, personally I think it's incredibly addicting. It's been very fun so far, but I can't really say what every one else would think about it. Negatively, I honestly don't know. It's not perfect, but I'd have to really think about it. Sometimes I wish the various little school and social related things you could do were a bit deeper, but it's not a major issue.

I've honestly not even really minded the AI, which I thought would be my biggest complaint. As soon as a character sees an attack doesn't work, he/she says something about it and doesn't use it anymore. They make a point to use things that take advantage of weaknesses, etc. You also learn more tactics to give them as the game goes on.

The quests in the book are, from what I glanced at, just from Elizabeth. Obviously this ignores the main game and any social climbing, which I suppose could be considered a quest as well. There's not really any shortage of things to do.

Also, believe it or not, the game only uses 65kb to save.

Yeah. At least with Atlus, you get a small white cardboard sleeve and the disc is inside. The disc is silver and has very simple printing on it. It says "not for sale" or something to that effect all over it.

With Devil Summoner there was actually a PDF of the manual available on their site for the press. I've not seen anything like that for this game, but honestly, I don't feel it's very necessary since the game explains every thing to you when it needs to.

Is the one up at gamevideos 640?

They have a 100MB limit, so the one there is 320x240.