Replaying Persona 3's INFAMOUS Expansion in 2024
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- čas přidán 1. 02. 2024
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One of the first videos I ever made was a really long analysis on Persona 3 FES for the PlayStation 2. It was the first video of mine to really garner some attention and I’m proud of it. However in over the past four years, this video has begun to show its age a bit. Not just in the sense that I’ve improved as a writer and reviewer, but also in how my relationship with this game has changed. Over the past few years, I have replayed Persona 3 quite a few times, and every time I complete it, I find more and more to appreciate about the game. It’s still not enough for it to become my favorite, but it’s certainly better than I initially gave the game credit for. My appreciation for Persona 3 has grown quite significantly. I’ve grown accustomed to all of the game’s weird quirks and am able to accept the game for what it is. However the same cannot be said about the game’s epilogue. In retrospect, it’s funny how little people have actually experienced Persona 3 the answer since it’s something that’s advertised to the player immediately upon starting the game up. It’s frequently featured in the FES exclusive opening, right on the title screen, and is highlighted on the back of the box.
For such a heavily touted feature for this version of the game, you’d be hard-pressed to find many people that have actually played it. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if this is due to the rather infamous reputation the answer has garnered itself over the years. Longtime viewers might remember that I myself partook in a good ol thrashing on this piece of content. However, unlike the journey, the answer was something that I never revisited after my original video. It just left such a bad taste in my mouth both gameplay and narrative-wise that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. After making that video I had no intentions of ever going back to it. But the thing is, a lot can change in 4 years. I’ve found myself growing much fonder of the journey, part of me began to wonder if I would end up enjoying the answer more if I gave it another shot. Since Reload is just around the corner and I’ve once again found myself in that Persona 3 mood, I figured now would be the perfect time to dive head-first into the abyss of time and give this infamous epilogue a more fresh and mature look. So for today’s video, we’re going to find out if I was wrong about Persona 3 The Answer.
Replaying Persona 3's INFAMOUS Expansion in 2024. In this Persona 3 The Answer Review, Persona 3 The Answer Analysis, Persona 3 The Answer Critique, I will be giving a deep dive into Persona 3 The Answer to see if it's worth playing in 2024. I made a video on Persona 3 The Answer in the past but it does not hold up. My opinions on Persona 3 The Answer have shifted in 2024 so in this Persona 3 The Answer Review, Persona 3 The Answer Analysis, Persona 3 The Answer Critique, we'll be giving Persona 3 The Answer another look to see if you should play Persona 3 The Answer in 2024. Persona 3 The Answer is a rather infamous part of Persona 3 and a lot of people are worried it won't be in Persona 3 Reload. Maybe Persona 3 Reload will include Persona 3 The Answer but only time will tell. This Persona 3 The Answer Review is the best video by Nam's Compendium. - Hry
This video was written and recorded before the release of Persona 3 Reload and potential DLC for The Answer.
Cant wait to watch the vid. Love your stuff man. I wanna play Reload but idk. I hear the localization team might've butchered this one judgin by the awful reputation of the lady at the helm and I'd hate to see one of my fav games be ruined before my very eyes so I might sit this one out or at least wait till some reviews. Either way keep the good uploads comin!
@@CBman110376 hours in and localization is fine so far.
@@CBman11037I watched the end credits, and I couldn’t find her name in them, so I don’t know if Atlus threw her out due to some of her attempts to alter dialogue, or if they used the threat of AI against her.
@@oriongear2499Oh thats cool to hear. I hope they got rid of her. Shes a disrespect to the medium and it sucks to see devs cave in to pressure. AI ain't the future but its so sad that its better than what we have now
@@CBman11037who was trying to butcher the dialogue? And whoever it is got thrown out?
The Answer is just the ghost of the protagonist giving his friends an early April Fools prank.
If they add the answer as dlc, Nam might have to review it for a third time. And I'm here for it
they are
good news
They've confirmed it as dlc. Hopefully it's gonna be better this time.
@@urobolossit's confirmed? And yeah, hopefully they actually make it good
WAIT IT'S FOR REAL??? I THOUGHT THEY WON'T MAKE IT AS A DLC?????
26:10 - For anyone unfamiliar with how the P3 Hero Shadow-Cognition thing/???? boss fight works, his gimmick is that he has the Wild Card like the real deal and uses it to cycle through the S.E.E.S. Personas currently in your party at certain HP thresholds. Basically he’s the epitome of “stop hitting yourself,” so you’re heavily encouraged to bring party members that aren’t immune to their own element for maximum punishment.
Also, unused voice lines for this boss fight indicate that the fake protag was supposed to start off easy with the first form Personas and then evolve them after he starts getting serious.
Are you sure? I'm pretty sure vanilla 3 and 4 and 5 also have lines for the protagonist saying the names of unusable personas in the files.
Hopefully this idea gets reused in Reload
@@skunthundler Yes, I’m sure. Because, in this fight specifically, your party has voicelines where they respond to the imposter protag using their own Personas against them. In the game proper, they only react to the evolved Personas since that’s what the boss phases use. The unused boss lines have party members react to their old defaults.
It's also worth noting ???? doesn't copy Metis's persona iirc
Makoto summoned his final persona and that was HEAVENS DOOR.
I hate to be that guy, but the original Persona 3 opening heavily foreshadows the protaganist's fate, and even explicitly states it several times over. It's not ambiguous, nor is it left open to interpretation, it is at the forefront of the narrative. If it wasn't known that Makoto would in fact die at the end, finishing the game, and rewatching the opening re-contextualizes that idea, affirming that outright.
Remember you are mortal.
I was a teen playing the game so this shit flew over my dumbass head. Nowadays I find myself really vibing with what the story of the game tells me more than I did as a kid.
I disagree
Except some people would STILL deny it. A story has to hit you over the head without any sort of ambiguity whatsoever when it comes to MC death, having to be extremely blunt that any dancing around it will still have some believe that Makoto lived.
Rewatched, yeah I can see the heavy implications and it definitely refers, but I still see that some would still be a HEAVY amount of denial. So, the Answer *flat out telling you Makoto is dead* , is still gonna shock some people. On top of that, for the few who did get it, they see how the group took Makoto's death and yeah, that's gonna shock the rest.
@Manavine Dude. NONE of the Persona games are subtle with their themes. Persona 4 literally beats you over the head with Kanji NOT being gay and Naoto not being Trans but people to THIS day argue otherwise. Gamers are STUPID and specially Persona Fans.
OK, assuming Portable HD's male route ending dialogue (the version I played last year) and visuals are remotely similar to the original PS2 release (visual novel stylistic/budgetary differences aside) I think interpreting that ending as ambiguous is actually kinda insane given Igor's spiel before the final battle ("you choose thy fate of your own free will?", roughly paraphrasing that but you know what I mean) and the clear Greek tragedy stuff baked into the character design. Like I'm not usually one to write off alternate interpretations but it felt pretty clear in that game.
The lyrics of the ending song are all about how Makoto is dead and Aigis is sad about that. There's no ambiguity. But it's in Japanese, to be fair...
@@kasunex1772Yeah. I don’t think the fact that it never came with English Subs for the lyrics really helped with letting the first time P3P player know that Makoto is truly dead.
A PSP umd could hold at most 1.8 gigabytes is probably why they have visual novel stuff instead of full 3d environments and animated cutscenes not a lack of budget
@@catantcha99 to add to that, they had a choice on P3P of having fully interactive enviornments and anime cutscenes or having full voice acting during the major cutscenes as the UMD didn't have enough space to accomadate both. They chose the full voice acting.
That 'blink and you miss it' detail...
Is that the fact that the final attack takes 100% of your health to use?
I...
I never fucking realized that
And I played P3 on release, and replayed it many times
I wanted to add a bit to people's views on this. P3 and FES were made when Atlus were more widely known for difficult rpg games. Viewing answers after playing smt3 really makes the game make more sense in combat. Heavily planning for every fight is a SMT main style and can catcg people off guard.
The answer wasn't challenging, just very grindy and bosses are cheap
@@gejamugamlatsoomanam7716again. It's the way SMT is. That series makes you do the work and use every tool.
@@AproximalI don't remember SMT4 of 5 being this cheap
@@ForrestFox626 5 was. 4 was more a soft ramp till later.
@@gejamugamlatsoomanam7716That's how mainline SMT is bud.
Have seen any Nocturne death copilation videos? And that's one of the easy ones.
The reason Mitsuru stood by Yukari’s side is because after her father’s dead she had given up completely, lost all hope and Yukari was the one who pulled her out of that.
In a way Yukari saved her life and to Mitsuru she is repaying that favor, even if she doesn’t agree with her, the only thing she can do is stand by Yukari’s side because it’s now Yukari who is at their lowest point.
She didn't seem "lost" at all in the scenes of the end tho, she was determined to fight Nyx, not just "yeah whatever just kill everyone idc anymore".
Idk tho, that still feels way too force for me
Yukari helped Mitsuru by talking senses into her
I'm pretty sure if Mitsuru wanted to repay the favor, she should be doing that instead of blindly following Yukari
thats Yukari's entire character in relation to the MC though, feeling too forced@@duythuchoang5095
@@duythuchoang5095To be fair, everyone dogpiles on Yukari for wanting to mess with the past. She was grieving, which is why she wasn't herself. She was in denial, trying to move forward with the future despite deep down wanting to badly see the MC. And when everyone dogpiles on you, naturally, you get more defensive and stick to your guns. That's why Yukari seemed so different. She was grieving. The writer(s) wrote her extremely realistic.
@@duythuchoang5095 Yeah but it's different when Yukari actually has the option to save the person she cares about. Telling her to just keep moving forward isn't going to convince her unless she understood why Makoto did what he did.
shout outs to the answer for making junpei more useful
Huh? I thought he was pretty good in p3p. He's not the best one, but I did think he was still useful. Can you explain in more detail?
@@Hyp3rSonicwho was your team when you played?
@@Hyp3rSonicIn the Answer; Junpei, Koromaru, and Mitsuru have 40 extra stat points given to them (equivalent to 13 levels).
Additionally, Ken, and I think Junpei, learn their skills earlier than before (Also Junpei starts with Spring of Life).
Koromaru also has his fear inducing skills changed to (Ma)Sukukaja. (This carried over to Portable as well)
@@nickhalfmann8397it would usually be either Junpei, Mitsuru and Aigis, or Akihiko, Mitsuru and Aigis, or Junpei, Yukari and Mitsuru/Akihiko. Sometimes it would be Shinji, Aigis and and Mitsuru/Akihiko or Koromaru. I used Ken the least, but I still think he's decent! I like using everyone in rpgs. And, I would sometimes mix it up by using either Shinji, Aigis and Koromaru/Mitsuru or Junpei, Yukari and Aigis, and even Junpei, Mitsuru and Shinji/Koromaru, or Akihiko, Shinji and Junpei/Aigis
@@armormakesyeah... I rarely use status ailments. Good that they changed that for p3p
I do hope the answer gets a remake, where they fix up the dialogue, or pace the story better. Because the theme is a very good one. Where the fact that a lot of the repetitive actions or keeping to one area is a result of the characters refusing to move on. Just isolating themselves from the outside, for the story to end with them leaving their dorm.
I would prefer if it was in the base $70 game
Sure, the theme of what happens in The Answer is good, I like what happens after Makoto's death and how everyone deals with it, I can even excuse Yukari's choice to go back in the past. But the gameplay has got to be one of the worst things that ever happened in the Persona franchise
@@ForrestFox626No complaining especially if you still bought the game
It's in Datamined Files of Reload and Leaked by Midori, who so far has a perfect track record on her leaks
@@Joker3180Z Good thing I haven't then
So glad you made this follow up
I was watching the original video the other day shaking my head
Why, it is still mostly the same.
I really liked the Answer’s story, even if I wasn’t a fan of the combat and gameplay. It portrays grief and the variety of ways people react to it so heartbreakingly realistically. As someone who has lost someone they loved so dearly, I really felt for the characters and their struggles. So when people say stuff about it like, “The characters were out of character, Yukari was being annoying, etc” it really annoys me because that was the entire point of the story.
I assume that these reactions were from people who never really dealt with the death of a close one.
IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS
IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS! 🗣🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Mad respect to you for the Yukari portion
There's no ambiguity about Makoto being dead in the og P3. The final scene is maybe midly ambiguous, but the evidence across the game is overwhelming, and the final nail is the ending song being explicitly about Aigis' sorrow at Makoto's passing.
Thr Final Scene is all that matters
Agreed. It’s pretty clear you die even in p3p without a cut scene.
I already largely detest ATLUS for their writing decisions; if they ever went back and allowed the P3 protag to canonically come back that'd be the last straw.
@@DylanReid-vw2qvwhere the hell did this come from, chill he's not coming back lmao
@@toz_lmao I should've clarified my writing issues aren't P3 or even P3R, more the stuff in P5.
I know there is little chance of him coming back, but given P3 is gonna have a lot of new interest again I don't doubt ATLUS will be finding ways to milk it again. The ending of The Answer is pretty ambiguous with his future and I worry they'll find a way to ruin it :I
To be honest the whole yukari wanting to go back would have made more sense story wise, if instead of a massive fight between them all, it's just yukari and aigis having a big 1v1. At least then it would mean we wouldn't have to beat up a fucking dog.
No i 100% understand why Mitsuru stood by Yukari because its not about her being correct its that everyone shut her down pretty harshly and made any resolutions through dialouge pretty hard when basically no one was willing to hear her out the battle royale wasn't the best story option i just understand why basically Yukari's only close friend stood by her because its not about the logic its about being a shoulder for her to lean on and to let emotions cool
Definitely. And Mitsuru protecting Yukari and standing by her doesn't necessarily mean she's going to just let her go through with using the key either.
One criticism I hear that makes a good point is within the cutscenes showing a flash back to several of your characters. We get a good scene with Yukari and Mitsuru as well as Ken, but seeing Akihiko and Junpei's past doesn't help build show their awakening to their personas.
Despite Answers mix gameplay or certain story aspect, I still appreciate the Final Bosses design.
The Answer wasn't played by many in big part because the game wasn't marketed at all back then and only available in japanese and english. Back then I was a teen and barely spoke english and never heard about the game.
The franchise has gotten famous also in big part because of localisation. It's not just because the answer was weird.
Also some people only played vanilla which didn’t have it or Portable which axed it
@@DigitalStarrytrue!
@@DigitalStarryI just the the Answer was unnecessary
Yeah, P3 was overall the first big success of the franchise in the West at all. The first two games were messy, first one received shitty localization on PS1, second one didn't receive one I think at all (official), 2s sequel did receive it etc.
For English tho, I was born in the early 90s and as a kid I played most games in English, because console games were never localized, only PC ones, in my language. I still have no idea how I managed to beat many of them, but I'm sure they contributed to me speaking English easily later in school and now as an adult.
And also played many JRPGs on PS1 in English only.
I think Yukari's response makes sense because she is the Lover's arcana. It is irrational, but I think that's the point and I believe is a part of the reverse Lover's arcana theme where the love becomes obsession when it is lost -- which like you said, many of us have probably encountered in our lives.
The one thing I remember about The Answer was how oppresive the atmosphere was. It's like P3's depressive december vibe but on crack. Plus the grind is just so big. But the story is pretty good, so I never regretted one bit playing it.
You should have because it’s a waste of time. If an expansion being cutscenes is a genuine improvement, then that’s when you know it’s garbage. The atmosphere dies pretty quickly in, so even that good part is basically deleted.
@@egbertmilton4003quit yappin
@@egbertmilton4003reading your stupid comment was a waste of time.
@@egbertmilton4003facts. The gameplay is so bad
@@rafaelploumis8682for bringing up the flaws of The Answer? That's a good thing. The gameplay is bad. The story and characters may be good, but it doesn't make up for the gameplay. Why did they remove the compedium, among other things. Imo, its bad. Also, there was no reason to call them stupid.
dude, i finished a persona 3 video essay, and i was like “i wonder if nam uploaded his relook at the answer?” and it wasn’t there, but when i looked back here it is lol
Awesome video. I'm really liking the new scenes in Reload so far. I'm hoping for a reload version of the Answer as a DLC or something, there's definitely potential there.
I used to rather blithely defend The Answer on almost every aspect of its design (though no one can really argue in favor of the forced conflict imo)...
Then I saw a curious little game shockingly very similar in general premise and tone for a completely different RPG series... but actually did it good.
Anyone looking for a "The Answer" type game or story that's almost perfect, look no further than The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd.
Though, I highly recommend playing through Trails in the Sky First and Second Chapters before hitting Sky the Third because this series is VERY expansive, thorough, and tightly-woven in its story telling, and there's a lot of friends you'll want to meet before playing what is essentially the epilogue of the story arc..
I cannot agree more with this; the Trails series is incredible. In my opinion, the third game of the Sky trilogy is the weakest, probably due to my not being a huge fan of the 'grindy' dungeon crawler type gameplay. However, the extra characterization through the doors is amazing, and the game is worth playing for Star Door 15 alone.
If you ever do play the Sky trilogy, I highly recommend continuing on to the Crossbell duology, From Zero and To Azure. They are my favorites in the series.
currently watching through Cold Steel 2
I'll actually play them eventually, perhaps when other projects slow down or something.
I think that Yukari is the most fleshed out character in both Persona 3 and the Answer, followed by Aigis.
However... why does Aigis fight all of the teams if it's a battle royale? Why is it brought up like it is? Why the dumb torch "they may die" thing?
I think the core structure is good. The ideas about grief are fantasic. Yukari and Aigis are great in it.
But... I think Remake could/should add content to line things up way better than OG, and alter a couple points to make it REALLY good.
edit: Also, I'll always love Yukari's prickly and kinda shitty aspects. I like that almost all of P3 characters are flawed in a very noticeable way.
I view it like this. Aigis is supposed to be the leader, therefore it's her responsibility to put the others in line first. Aigis wasn't leading at all, she was letting the other members run wild which is partially the cause of the schism; she didn't have a definite answer that could make either Yukari or Akihiko back down. She quite frankly looked indecisive and weak. Enough to the point that even Junpei pointed it out. Aigis getting the first crack at everyone leaves no room for the dispute of her leadership.
I didn't think about it like that until I watched One Piece oddly enough. In Water 7/Marineford, both Zorro and Sanji had their opinions on how Usopp was acting, but since Luffy was captain the responsibility fell on him to deal with it and set an example for the rest of the crew.
honestly i always liked The Answer, the difficulty was def a bit rough but man am i a sucker for suffering. i had a lot more free time when i last played it, maybe id find it too tedious nowadays.
You would absolutely find it tedious, because now, you actually have some taste on good game design.
@@egbertmilton4003👍
It is tedious! The gameplay is that bad
Don't you mean teddie-ous
Aight I'll see myself out
@egbertmilton4003 it has decent enough design. otherwise, its over a decade old, questionable drsign is a giveb. the design is made to accomplish a goal, and it does so. its a game youre supposed to play one time, to expand on the story, and not really return to it. by definition, its okay design, just not design you personally like
I thought it was pretty clear that mitsuru didn't actually agree with yukari, she just sided with her to soften the blow when she eventually lost.
you know, so she didn't have to get dogpiled by all of her best friends.
it's also worth mentioning that yes, yukari's plan goes against the narrative and wouldn't work based on the lore, which makes her seem dumb and emotional.
but the characters don't know that. as far as everyone there knows it's risky but it can totally work.
Thank you for coming back to look at this Nam it's nice to see you genuinely take a step back and look at the game for better and worse. The biggest issue I had with your analysis originally was it had a lot of presumption most especially with the insinuation that the protagonist could be "bought back" which is something this story really doesn't imply at all as it only suggests they could alleviate the burden on his soul. I do agree with you about Erebus as context of this story he feels like a Final Fantasy final boss which is usually a physical manifestation of the stories core themes which granted this series does all the time but I think may/may not have been needed in the sense that... I think lore wise it works as Erebus and Nyx are legitimate primordial forces but might be worth waiting to see what Reload's own tweaking of the story adds because it most definitely sets-up the answer and the Abyss of Time.
I think this is a great retrospective. You've not dived into this one with any sort of bias against the Answer nor have you given a free pass for it's legitimate shortcomings. I'm hoping Reload takes the opportunity to really flesh out the details and tie the story much more cohesively.
I was never a massive fan of The Answer but I think its far from bad, it just felt more unneeded
I actually agree that this expansion wasn't rly needed imo
And people tell me that Persona Fans have ZERO Media Literacy. Case in point. Here
@@ZX-Gear It’s just my opinion. I didn’t find it added much that wasn’t already inferred in the original game with a few small exceptions. Disagree if you want, jumping straight into calling someone you don’t know media illiterate is more telling of the sort of person you are tho… it’s unneeded
@Ziroikabi Dude. I see you and some other dude talk shit about The Answer anyways. FAFO
@@ZX-Gear Are you okay lmao? I literally said it’s not bad. Just that in my personal opinion it wasn’t really needed. That is not shit talking… You are actually delusional but go off I guess…
As I'm watching this video, Atlus announce the P3R Answer DLC lol
I love the drama near the end. I hope they make an Answer expansion in Reload.
Isn't it confirmed it will be DLC?
@@Tony_409I would honestly take any sort of leaks with a grain of salt, even if the leaker is known to be correct most of the time.
They could fix it, like separate ways
@@moister3727What do you mean by fix it? I don’t buy the separate ways dlc but all I thought they did was cut out the Leon segments from the original and repackage them as Ada segments than charge more money.
@@ryanator7935 From the og I mean. Hey, The Answer was the same, repacking most of what was already avaible for a seemingly new story that continued from the original.
Shouldn't be that hard if they so it right.
Yeah I didn’t know that Makoto dies till after I beat Persona 3 Reload and did some research.
Nah I don't agree that his death was up in the air. Some people may have misinterpreted it because it doesn't straight up tell you "YEAH HE'S DEAD LOL" and anime fans aren't exactly known for their perception of subtlety, but if you just paid attention you'd know. It's not a retroactive piece of knowledge.
Using all your HP for the final skill and the game CONSTANTLY beating you over the head with messages of memento mori isn't a "blink and you miss it detail".
goat video again, hope you enjoy reload
Ooooh excited about this one!
currently I have played and beaten every Persona game (1-5) and P3 is definitely my favourite (beat FES and P3P). I havent been able to play P3R as of yet, but i have it and that time will come.
I played and beat P3 The Answer last summer, and while it absolutely was a grindfest, i liked it for that, and honestly the story beats, while minimal, were striking I felt, especially toward the end. Its no secret that Yukari is my fave, and I actually really appreciated the depth she was given toward the end. Shes a complex character, with deep seated reasons for her decisions, that of course wont make sense unless you take the time to dig and learn and understand why. Girl got trauma, and she deals with it in her own way.
Im honestly glad you made this 4years later reconsideration, because in my mind now, P3 isnt a fully complete experience without The Answer.
My guy replayed the answer. What a legend.
It's so weird to hear you talk about having to fiddle with the tactics menu because I'm pretty sure I just left them on the default setting, or sometimes on "knock down" and for the most part just let them do whatever they wanted and didn't have issues 😂
So glad you view The Answer under a more positive note. You were WAY too harsh last time, you were too unfair towards the Answer, and in a way, made it even more infamous. I mean, if you google "P3 The Answer", your freaking thumbnail "Why It Sucks" is the 2nd or 3rd image popping up!!!
The Answer certainly has its flaws, but so does the Journey, and people tend to overlook that. The Answer is essential for the plot of P3 and the characters' development. Its an essential epilogue for the full experience of P3. And its themes are great and as important as the Journey's. Yes, the gameplay is hard and unfair at times, but the narrative is solid. And regarding the end where they discovered Makoto's sacrifice, the intention was not to retcon anything. It was to show the magnitude of his sacrifice, he sacrificed not just his life, but afterlife as well, his soul is trapped. So many idiots think that the Answer sets up for Makoto's resurrection, when in the beginning its stated that his body is rotting 6 feet under. At best all we can hope is for SEES and Elisabeth to succeed and free his soul one day, to allow him to move on to the Afterlife.
People are hating the Answer way too much, its absurd. They are even against it being remade, when remaking it should be asked by every fan. Imagine the Answer with Reload's awesome gameplay, difficulty options AND the Compendium. And maybe improved writing, especially for the conflict part. It'll be awesome!!!
I'm so glad Atlus has decided to remake it as post launch DLC... at least according to Midori's leaks.
Considering Makoto didn't just die, he died randomly in perfect health after the conflict. That would make you have a need to know why, then topped with a dungeon appearing connecting to the reason for his death. It wasn't just 'person dies of natural causes, learn to accept and move on with life' scenario.
idk about perfect health considering everyone was saying he looked like shit in the last few days
@@oogaboogie Because he looked tired to them, which he was in more sense than they knew. Thus why when Agus told him to rest...well, it was a long one. But other than that, dying isn't an illness, most people compare it to being tired and sleep is called death in certain instances.
That's true. I'm not sure about original, but in Reload it is clearly shown that you cast the Great Seal spell that costs Makoto all of his HP, kinda foreshadowing the cost.
Great videos. I watched both old and new. Good to see how much your video editing improved, and it's interesting how your opinion changed and matured along the years. I would love to know your expectations for the upcoming Answer DLC. What are your hopes for it and what you would want them to change about it (aside from the obvious, like the lack of a compendium). Maybe your could even turn this into its own video, if you're not too busy with other projects...
Persona 3 Reload Day 🎉
I have been playing P3 myself lately....I still need to get through the answer though eventually too lol
While they're were always game play issues, it was very interesting to follow the character that we got connected to as they struggle through their grief and the different effects it has on each character.
Im curious if they will finish off the storyline that was introduced in Persona 4. They said that elizabeth left to find a way to free the mc from the seal. This storyline combined with all the “messiah” stuff that the mc has makes me think that there was a plan to bring them back at some point but atlus decided to go a different direction or just wanted to focus on other things. I like the original end of the game but I could see atlus exploring that elizabeth cliffhanger storyline more in the remake + dlc/extentions. Especially since it sold so well.
i liked the answer
i just wished they let us have a compendium and fuse Athena
I have not played the answer but you worded yourself well and I think you made valid points on all of the story beats you describe. I probably never will play the answer as I believe there is a sort of magic in choosing to end something. In that sense I like your analysis of the opening segment being some form of monkey's paw, be careful what you wish for indeed.
I honestly believe that it would have been better if the team split up and all went their separate ways. Would have been more interesting and a unique story especially if they never forgave each other.
I agree. I feel like SEES eventually got fond of each other, but in difference to the Investigation Team and the Phantom Thieves, they weren't really friends (with some exceptions), so it wouldn't be unrealistic a ending like that.
@@roseintheheart I would say that that's the case with the original P3 cast but in P3R, they actually genuinely hang out with each other and supported one another through tough times. But that suggestion would make for a more interesting dynamic.
I think anyone who was surprised to find out the protagonist ended up dying was probably not paying enough attention to the original game. The final attack costs all of your health to use, the song at the end has a melancholic feel, the opening repeatedly references the fact that you are only mortal at the end of the day and death is inevitable. Death is everywhere in the game.
On top of that, if someone got genuinely upset that the answer “killed the mc”, they were probably either on some hard level of copium, or really bad at thinking at all about the media they consume, with them only getting the things explicitly told to them.
It feels like the only thing they could have done is put a Game Over screen- only instead of one asking to restart, its just a Game Over screen. After all... its accurate. The game is over. You won, didn't you?
I never played the answer. But I am playing FES right now planning to play the answer later. I was curious about why people dislike the answer so much... and when you stated that the answer reveals that the leader died... I was confused because.. Wasn't it clear?
Like it was clear that we die at the end. The roof moment waas the last moment of the protagonist.
I remember playing FES and beating it fully when I was in highschool, had to use a guide to max out all the social links. Seriously, there was so little leeway, I think you essentially had like 2 weeks worth of mistakes to max all the social links. Then I stopped playing it when I got to the Answer. I think it was partly from the burnout from playing the base game, but I also remember it being significantly harder. I think it was mostly harder due to losing the MC and their op abilities and being forced to play with a wonky AI and not being able to switch my persona on the fly.
I legit never understood the hate that this epilogue had when I played through it. I heard from everyone that it was bad, but not wanting to risk spoiling myself I never look into why, so I decided to play it myself with no expectations. Thankfully I played through this game blind and was not spoiled to Makoto's passing. I learned that he died from the intro of this epilogue in fact. Although some aspects feel too long form or a couple of the aspects like the whole game's party fighting each other could feel forced I feel like the scenes that shine really do truly shine. The emotional highs of The Answer has some of the best that the Persona franchise has to offer. That does not mean that the gameplay can feel like it drags on too long and that the pacing in the middle could have been handled better.
I am really hoping that Reload get DLC so that they can revisit this. You kept on saying that The Answer never fully delivered on it's cool premise. I mostly agree with you here, but that's were a remake of this could rectify that. A remake of The Answer could be every bit as good as the main game while also being completely different in terms of its progression.
I don't really think that will be the case if they remaked the Answer. The premise seems cool but if you really think about it, you are paying X amounts of dollars for a combat DLC with a sprinkle of story. Personally, the slice of life is much better and gave persona it's identity. The Answer is just persona trying to be Persona 1 again
I love how, if people stop wishing for the fall, Makoto comes back to life.
Because that will never happen.
Unless you chose the Maruki ending, I guess lmao
I did, in fact!
I dealt with some of the answers problems with mods. They have a mod to add the compendium back to velvet room, and add healing spots to the save points before boss fights. It does make it a lot more convenient and it helped me get through it, but I wish it could've just had some of this stuff included.
pcsx2 with mods is great tho yall!!
My favorite part was just seeing Mitsuru and Akihiko join S.E.E.S because I always wanted see how the orignal S.E.E.S trio had to handle the dark hour. Would have been nice to get Shinjiro perspective, but considering where he ended up it speaks for itself.
Second favorite would be the rest of the team being able to enter the velvet room like classic series before it became a protag only with P4 & P5. Do hope we can get back to that and party members changing persona again.
6:26 I know that all too well
Honestly, the correct way to experience the answer is to look at the story cutscenes in a CZcams video, you remove the bad gameplay parts and don't have to wait for the cutscenes to appear
I've always been a fan of The Answer because I like the dungeon crawling but can pass on the social sim parts.
The Dodge/Evade passives on bosses can go though.
8:45 Because it is.
Probably the best look at the Answer I've seen on youtube. A lot of the time it's just black or white pure hate or pure adoratuon (usually hate though), but you managed to accurately describe my experience with it and give good praises and critique where it deserves.
Now that Reload is pretty much confirmed to have it later down the line, I hope the critique gets adressed.
With the potential new remake of The Answer as DLC, I wonder, what would be the exact actions to improve it, and if they're going to keep the story untouched. Gameplay wise, I'm expecting a solid improvement with just adding some quality of life changes, balancing the difficulty so it adapts to the modern combat system while still being very challenging, and also maybe they could make exploring the dungeons more engaging, but story wise, I haven't really heard a clear consensus on the problems and what solutions it could have, mainly because it's not the most wide known piece of storytelling in the series. The most that I've heard was people disliking Yukari's actions, but I agree with this video that her actions in the game makes sense and add to her character.
I'm just a little worried that there's not enough clear feedback for the developers to see, so either they keep it mostly intact, wich it wouldn't be the end of the world, or they do bad changes where it didn't need it and it ends up being more of a mess.
To make it better, Just make Yukari more emotional during this time. It would better convey what is going with her during this time. The problem is that they went with subtelty and it just became too subtle
@@muchluck7981 If we're getting to a point in the franchise where character development is "too subtle" for Persona fans than I'm severely worried over the writing in future entries.
@@chronica6457 I do understand what they were going with Yukari during the Answer but unfortunately for most people, it's not really stated in your face
I actually enjoyed and loved FES and the epilogue.
I actually liked how hard the answer was. Although i admit im kinda into dofficult turn based games.
I also played FES immediately after I finished Nocturne twice, so i may have just been craving more of that style of gameplay. Still if the Answer dlc leaks are true, i hope Atlus does something to make the abyss more unique as a dungeon. Kinda like the Dark Arisen expansion for Dragons Dogma.
Yeah I think people might get pissed if they don't balance out The Answer for the DLC. Like they bought DLC which was way too hard/tedious to complete.
@kosmosXcannon regardless of how hard they make the answer, I just hope they put a lot more effort into it then last time.
The Answer was only released independently in Japan, where it was called Episode Aigis. In the West though, the only way you could play The Answer was to buy FES.
30:10 I can see where you’re coming from, but I want to give my perspective on Mitsuru and Yukari teaming up on the battle royal:
Yukari is alone in the argument that proceeds the fight, the others are either staunchly against going to the past, (Like Ken and Akihiko) or indecisive (Like Aigis).
Being Yukari in that moment, feeling that no one sees your side, not even the ones you trust, regardless of objectivity, can be damaging. Mitsuru’s decision to join Yukari, while it does go against common sense, is what Mitsuru considers the best way to tell Yukari, while she’s in that state, “You are not alone. I do understand.” If Mitsuru wasn’t there to support Yukari, I genuinely believe Yukari wouldn’t have come out the other end a better person.
In the end, as someone who played the Answer after your initial video and came out of it thinking, “this isn’t that bad”, I think this is a fair assessment of the Answer, even if I don’t fully agree with some points.
yukari and mitsurus whole thing in persona 3 reload just solidifies how much they grow close to each other. cant wait for this dlc, yukari and aigis are the best
I do hope it comes put as p3r dlc, if only so that they can have another shot at making it good
I'll be real I still think the read on Yukari's character is uncharitable here. I find it a little strange to say she doesn't deal with loss in the same paragraph that you talk about how her father passed away at a young age. Clearly a loss she doesn't have any closure for since it's her entire motivation through most of her character arc, it's no different than any of the losses any of the cast go through during the game. If anything, her lack of closure on her father's death makes her motivations in The Answer, and how quickly she deteriorates, make that much MORE sense because nobody in the party gets closure for Makoto. It splits an old wound wide open and causes her to spiral faster than anyone and she doesn't come out of that if Mitsuru doesn't stand by her. Everyone else in the party immediately slams down on her for it and Mitsuru is the only one who realizes its Yukari's grief talking and not actually her rational self. If you're only thinking logically then yes Mitsuru doesn't make sense, but that isn't how those characters are thinking. That isn't how real friendships are. It's obvious that she disagrees but she stands by her best friend in hopes that she can help bring her down to everyone else's level.
I also just highly dislike the sentiment of Yukari being an unlikable character in general just because (let's be real) she's a female character that causes friction and doesn't shoot rainbows up everyone's ass all day. The tried and true "Yukari is a bitch" discourse that's plagued the character forever. I'm actually having a lot of trouble getting into Reload because it feels as if they're trying to shift how her character is read through the new voice performance since none of her dialogue is really changed. She seems way 'nicer' and it makes her far less impactful, imo. Could just be bias on my part though, since she's my favorite character in P3.
To be honest, the new VA didn't really change my perception on her character very much. Still felt like Yukari at her core. That said, I 100% agree that Nam's read on Yukari here is... odd. A character whose father passed away years ago while the former is still dealing with this.... HAS experienced loss... Is STILL experiencing loss.
A character who lost their dad, Has a shitty relationship with their mother due to their dating ways: Hasn't truly experienced loss
A character who lost their leader in their makeshift family: Grieving because she now experiences loss
That only makes sense if Yukari actually got over her dad's death. She only reconcilled with it in November and even then was still on the road to recover
@@muchluck7981 It's more like she relapsed. She was recovering then got sent back to square one. It's a pretty brutal conga line for both her and Mitsuru. Sure Akihiko lost Shinjiro and Junpei thought Chidori was a goner but none of those events were consecutive like it was for the girls.
You could even argue Yukari never truly moved on, because the moment she learned the truth, the Nyx stuff happened which kept her mind off it.
@@breloompauncher5593 Exactly, Akihiko had more time to recover mentally and by the time december rolled around he was more resolute. Junpei having Chidori come back to him on January was the push he needed to become a better man.
Meanwhile Yukari could only really focus on the task ahead of her and her support pillar was Makoto. When he passed, that pillar collapsed along with him. it was simply put bad comedy what happened to all the girls in persona 3
One thing I see alot of people missing as well is that Yukari only "got her development undone" at the absolute end. Through the rest of the story she's extremely in-character, to the point where it's obvious something's wrong. She spends the entire time saying shit like "Let's keep going" or "No point dwelling on the past" when everyone is reminiscing, which is a direct follow up of her resolution in The Journey of fighting for the future without being hung up on the past, until she's directly confronted with the possibility of the loss she's trying to move on from being undone, which is what spirals everything down
A party of Metis, Junpei, and Ken can handle any boss fight in the game. They cover all 4 elements, you have Junpei's awesome defense buff, and Ken for healing. Additionally, all three of them have useful physical skills, and Ken's light skills can be really nice for dungeon crawling.
so whats the name of the main mall music? "eeee yah" and what my ears hear as "Tripple brown cow"? i wanna know whats actually being said. "Trip around now?"
2:49 He only falls asleep then He only perishes the next day
With the time travel and the shadow, I was so sure they were going to find a way to break him out and break free. I never did like sad endings like this one.
I just fused Odin and spammed whatever his Severe lightning damage with added effect Shocked, then crit, and big ole ball of violence.
i just finshed p3r for the first time without knowing he die and the second i read the text with the last move saying it useds all hp i started crying, i watched the anime after because i thought he didnt die there but no, i went through it again and im just ready for the dlc to come out!
Man i finish the p3p portable never knew about the answer in my psp.
I do still remember that I purchase Both P4 and P3FES on my PS3 via PSN Store yet never been touched and my PS3 dies last year for unknown reason so I use PSP to play Male route but broke it while jailbreaking into Infinity 2.0
I decided to play The Answer again first before watching this video, and just before watching it now I learn The Answer is being remade as DLC for Reload. Well, could've been worse, I could've replayed it just before the DLC came out, but it's months away.
Something I think needs to be said about Mitsuru helping Yukari was that literally everyone was against her.
She was not in an emotionally, much less mentally, stable state, and when everyone gangs up on you, especially when it involves your significant other, it's going to make you irrational. And Mitsuru was trying to make her feel as though someone was on her side, even if she _did_ disagree with her. Mitsuru even says as such after the fight.
Of course Yukari is supposed to sound insane and selfish and irrational: that's the whole point. She's in the stages of Anger and Denial. She was the one who was closest to Makoto, and in more ways than one she literally owes her life to him. Of course she's going to want her boyfriend back: I know I would wany my SO back if they died for no discernable reason.
Not giving Yukari the closure that comes with knowing how and why he died (through the Erebus bossfight) would've left her in possibly an even worse state than what she was in.
That's just My2Cents, though.
You know, regarding the things said in the beginning about how spoiler heavy persona fandom tends to be, i have quite a silly story.
Having never played the original persona 3, and not hearing of the answer until pretty much the lead up to reload's release, i somehow made the connection with the whole door-kun thing being shown in the original persona 3 ending. While finishing p3r this lead me to believe they've changed the ending to be more 'uplifting' or something.
I’ve always thought Yukari was so misunderstood to want to bring makoto back and this video perfectly explains why. Her braking point really made my heart drop but in the end the battle Royale fight was kinda weird
This was just made to follow the shiner trope of having the main cast fight another to make it cool battle scenes. I like the plot and the thematic if it but it’s not executed really good imo.
I think it’s not because they knew he died because of good reasons like you said. That they were able to move on. It is because they understand now that Makoto loved them dearly. And would wish for them to live their life fighting.
The #1 thing for me is moving the checkpoints to be after the bosses, rather than before. That’s what made The Answer such a drag for me. I don’t even mind the other brutal cuts made to the flow of gameplay, like no compendium or all enemy encounters being harder, which feature more prominently in this video. I just hated what that one simply change with the checkpoints made me do, which was to find the boss, then go back, heal up, return to the previous checkpoint and then try my hardest to avoid combat as I make a mad dash up however many floors I was set back by doing this. SO boring.
3 years later, still stacking so many Ls. Somehow thinks the ending of 3 was ambiguous, thinks there's no value to seeing the pasts of the SEES members, argues against mixed boss design by suggesting "well most of the enemies present could share a weakness and then one could have none" which leads inevitably to 'let's nuke the adds with screen-wipe attacks and then turn the fight into a handicap match against a single wall', thinks The Answer should have ended after the battle royale - which he disliked - and thereby not addressed the entire point of the game in the process. Christ alive lad, this is like striving to fail. I'm almost impressed.
It´s the Persona 3 Reload launch day, and we´re in the Abyss of Time
I really like the Answer, it totally has some big issues, but I do like it overall~
It's one reason I kinda hope they do remake it to have another crack and smoothing it's rough edges
Lmao I got P3 spoiled for me by some dude on instagram whose whole personality was Roxas from KH. All because I asked an account to be careful of spoilers since P5R was coming out soon. Amazing stuff
Now, it will be available in P3 RELOAD as well.
This aged like wine
That's not what shocked me. What really did it was when I checked my level was LVL 25, can't refuse personas, low exp, hard ass bosses. I ended up getting used to it and had to learn some patience and then it wasn't so bad. I will never play that game again bro.
the answer fan here
I hope they don't remake it.
While I personally love the conflicts between characters as well as the conflict, I feel P3's end itself works; the answer is a really forced extra epilogue. If they do choose to, I hope the abyss is given more variety and that they really work on making the fights against other party members fun. I also hope we get some of the social sim elements that it lacked - since a lot of the The Answer portrayals of characters are pretty lackluster.
I have to wonder if The Answer being made into an Sequel OVA for the Persona 3 movie Quadrilogy would’ve allowed it to be slightly more appreciated by P3 fans.
6:45 you also need to take into account the age of the game and its growing populairty within the fandom. OG Persona 3 was released in the US circa 2006. It's kinda hard to dodge spoilers from an 18 year old game
What's the most interesting is that FES: The Answer foreshadows YEARS in advance, the fact that Shadows are just weird supernatural monsters, they're all uncontrolled personas. This was a huge revelation for me, since even I thought the Shadows were just weird monsters. And this was done YEARS before Persona 4 actually came out and confirmed this as the truth. One could even see Strega being sort of "prototypes" for P4 cast, because they don't have full control, and can only barely hold onto their power.
Unfortunately the whole thing sort of became a ho-hum bit, since Personas only did their whole "I'm out of control" bit during P4 and stopped being berserk in P5. But at the time it was eye-opening. I also know that Reload has Takaya use the infamous line as a wink-and-nod reference to show the foreshadowing even more: "I'm a Shadow, the true self." Implying these were things that DID actually happen even back at that time.
As far as the whole "They don't know he died or why he died" the point was also to show the player too. His death was so heavily foreshadowed by all the imagery and themes in game, but it just looks like he died JUST to stop Nyx. With Metis asking some rather painfully obvious questions: Who stopped Nyx in the past? Why stop Nyx at all if someone had to call her first, etc. And then the subsequent "answer" (Haha) showed that there was a reason. Under normal circumstances I'd agree that everything needed to be explained, but the Answer at the time was basically answering some burning questions while setting up their following game years down the road.
I think a re-release of the Answer with some QoL improvements and some writing touch ups would definitely help though.
I don't think anyone "stopped" Nyx in the past. The tipping point just happened to play out in modern times as all the wishing for death humanity had manifested at that time.
Wait i finished p3 reload and the scene at the end was meant to be understood as makoto dying??? I mean he just lays there all relaxed..
32:09 can’t exactly agree with that. What S.E.E.S needed I think wasn’t a good reason necessarily, rather they needed closure.
I thought Nyx was the goddess of night not death. Thanatos is the god of death right?
8 more months until Falls, you know that means Metaphor: ReFantazio, are you going to talk about Like Persona-Game
5:00 Maybe I just didn't pay attention to the ending, I finished P3P about a week ago, but that was not how I read the ending scene at all. I guess it thematically makes sense, since Makoto having death sealed within him would be destined to die no matter what. And it is a nice detail now, knowing that despite what you do thoughout the game, Makoto is doomed in a sense. But at the same time Persona 3 is also about living your life to the fullest and making the most of what little time you have. It feels wrong in some way to have Makoto be robbed of living life too, especially since they already explored that super well with Akinari Kamiki. Who ended up being my favorite social link too.
I originally understood the ending and the ending song to be that Makoto just falls into a coma and Aigis vows to watch over him forever. And I preferred that to the definitive answer of "oh yeah, he died" simply because it's somehow more poetic and leaves him in a schrödingerian superposition between life and death... after all this is a dude whose primary persona is Thanatos, who kicked the grim reaper's ass before sealing the god of death away. He has already both embodied death and defeated death.