Persona 3: The Answer was a murky point in my history with Atlus’ series of RPGs spun out of the SMT franchise. A playable side-story available if you purchased the “FES” edition of Persona 3 (which also comes with a lot of tweaks, additions and improvements to the original story), it was the one game that I refused to commit any time to. It’s telling that I was able to play through the (even more archaic) first and second games before wanting to revisit The Answer – but without knowing where my contempt comes from it’s hard to see what the problem is.
Persona 3: The Answer – the roots of identity
The original version of Persona 3 (referred to in FES as “Persona 3: The Journey”) was notable for radically reinventing the spin-off series. With its introduction of calendar events, social links, character attributes that are improved over the course of the game, a new elemental weakness system and simplified battle options (there’s no grid position management, and you won’t be negotiating with your enemies), The Journey laid down the foundations for the next Persona RPGs and gave them a fresh new identity. They’re games that break up the long-term goals of dungeon crawling with snappy character interactions and indulgent school term activities, and so you often feel like there’s always something different you can do on each day of the in-game calendar. And this is why it’s kind of disappointing that Persona 3: The Answer forgets so much of that established identity.
One fundamental aspect of the premise behind The Answer is that time is stuck in a loop where the same day repeats itself, and the main cast are trapped within the dorm – the only other locations available are Paulownia Mall (a hub for item and equipment shopping), the Velvet Room (a staple of the series, this location allows players to essentially craft a new persona) and the Desert of Doors (where the dungeon crawling takes place.) This reduces the scale established in The Journey down to a pure dungeon crawl, and so already a large part of what made the original game so special is lost. Persona 3: The Answer is an expansion pack for people who only enjoyed the exploration of Tartarus and the full moon dungeons in P3, and if you’re expecting anything else then you’ll be disappointed. And that might not be so bad on its own – after all, fans were able to work their way through P3’s dungeons – if not for the fact that The Answer’s dungeon crawl is built different.
Making the grind work
On the surface, you’re doing exactly the same thing that you did in The Journey – finding a door to the next floor of a dungeon, battling Shadows and using the elemental weakness system to your advantage, trying to get useful bonuses in Shuffle Time and opening chests for loot. Eventually you run into a boss, defeat it, and receive an extra cutscene or some new dialogue that propels the narrative forward… before moving on to a brand new bit of dungeon crawling. The process is business as usual, then, but the individual steps have had some tweaks. Elemental weaknesses are present on certain bosses, but many of the bosses have a high chance of evading the element. Certain bosses explicitly target the elemental weaknesses of allies (and some elements instantly KO a party member, so you either leave them on the ground or get stuck in a loop of reviving.) And don’t forget that this isn’t Persona 3 Portable, so you don’t have direct control over your allies. Bosses can enrage the party and then set up barriers that reflect damage so that enraged allies effectively KO themselves, or encounters will leave your healers charmed and supporting the enemy. One recurring gimmick to get used to is when a boss will seem “do-able” on its own but then spawns two or three adds that only exist to ruin your fun. You can keep destroying them, but the main boss will just spawn them again, so it’s a test of patience.
I absolutely respect this kind of design as a way of challenging a player’s mastery of the battle mechanics, but in practice it makes a lot of the encounters somewhat tedious, especially when coupled with the occasionally gormless AI of your allies. However, I did discover one or two things that made battles a little more palatable. For instance, if enemies in a boss encounter were repeatedly evading the element that would knock them down, or absorbing other elements, I’d simply stop trying and instead use high-damage physical attack skills. If my party AI is being moronic in the regular battles, I would try and charm the enemies (a skill named Sexy Dance casts charm on every enemy on the field; it’s not a 100% success rate but if it lands the enemy will attack other enemies and support your party) so that they would be moronic as well. The attack barriers that kill enraged allies? Sometimes the enemy doesn’t put them up in time and instead eats tons of damage. And occasionally it’s as simple as gaining more levels and better gear.
Persona 3: The Answer – what can be done?
When I say that Persona 3: The Answer needs work, I’m addressing the player as well as the game. The player needs to make an effort so that the battles can work for them, and the game could be tuned to be a little less tedious. Newer games have already introduced welcome features to speed up gameplay a little – whether it’s unlocking a skill in Persona 5 that allows you to instantly defeat low-level enemies in one strike, or the excellent suite of custom difficulty options in Persona 4 Golden that allow you to independently tweak things like the amount of EXP and/or money earned from battles. If that risks the game feeling like too short of an experience, then perhaps that sheds a light on The Answer’s tendency to pad out its hour count (my last save was at a little under 27 hours.) And if there’s no way to improve The Answer without enraging one part of the community, then perhaps it’s better for the side-story to remain a relic of the series’ history.
Persona 3: The Answer is exclusively available as part of Persona 3 FES – you can read more about this release of the game on Atlus’ website.
