#PERSONA 3 COMPENDIUM FULL#

Everyone either has an opinion on world events - typically revolving around anything from major plot points to class trips - or, like most people, are too concerned with their own small world to care about anything else.

The central element of repetition can only do so much if the people living in the game world aren't interesting fortunately, that’s far from the case. The NPC town inhabitants also appear every single day, and it’s with them that Persona 3’s localization shines brightest. This isn’t limited to the main characters, either. The longer you live with these people, the more they become your friends. You see their reactions to story developments or watch them all pull together when someone needs it. The standard RPG approach is to focus the plot on one individual at a time, but in P3 you can visit with everyone every day. The day-to-day format of the game means you see each and every one of your teammates struggling not just with their inability to save everybody or grow stronger but also with their grades, their homework, their love lives.

#PERSONA 3 COMPENDIUM FULL#

Chrono Trigger took the optional cutscenes from the second half of Final Fantasy VI and fleshed them out into full-fledged character-specific side quests, and P3 is essentially an entire game full of such scenes. From Junpei the hilarious loser to Ken the outcast younger student to Koromaru the dog, P3’s stable of main characters is every bit as likable. Chrono Trigger’s heroes spring to mind as one of the main reasons the game is so well loved. Not to deny the main cast its importance. Both approaches have the same effect, though: endearing the player not to any one character, but to the world itself. Chrono Trigger repeats and varies its locations across a number of time periods Persona 3 shows the actual process of change, with a small town that gradually transforms as seasons change, giving citizens something new to say on a daily basis. Interestingly, both games employ the same technique to give their worlds character: repetition of environments. Each day you’ll walk to class (including catching up on student gossip on everything from recent strange occurrences to cute boys), attend school all day (which may teach you actual, historical facts that show up on tests later), and then choose from a variety of afternoon and evening activities. But the similarities go much deeper.įor starters, both games have a unique setting that offers a fresh perspective on the genre - if Chrono Trigger is 'that time traveling RPG,' then Persona 3 is 'that RPG where you go to school every day.' Naturally, as a high school student, you can’t simply shrug off your daily school activities or social life simply because you want to save the world. Things like how both RPGs are late arrivals in their respective systems’ lifespans, how they share memorable soundtracks, how they didn’t sell as many copies as they should have - a subjective comparison, but both should have been huge given their level of quality. The more obvious assets to the analogy are easy enough to pick out. Let’s start this off with a bang: Persona 3 is the PS2’s Chrono Trigger.

Persona 3 compendium