- This is the first Shin Megami Tensei game I have ever completed, and it is my impression that this is one of the lower-commitment / less-brutal ones.
- Total completion time was almost exactly 100 hours. That feels about right; I donât think any of that number represents e.g. leaving it running overnight or some such thing.
- Only âThe Journeyâ is covered by this review. I did not even attempt to play âThe Answer.â Maybe I will someday, but the main campaign feels so all-encompassing and so overwhelming that at this point Iâm mostly glad to be out of it.
- Which is not to say that this is in any way a bad game. I liked it a lot, and I now totally understand that feeling people talk about where, when itâs over, you just want to go back into Persona world and hang out with your friends. The characters are all very well developed and obviously you get lots of time with them
- The gameplay loop is actually extremely simple, but maybe Iâm only saying this because there are entire sections of it which I never engaged with.
- For example, I never used weapon fusion to make anything good.
- I also did not spend a lot of time on the mechanics of fusing monsters. Iâd pull up to Elizabeth every few levels, fuse some higher level monsters, and leave it at that. I never went deep on finding âthe best recipesâ or trying to get a whole bunch of killer attacks on one monster.
- I wasnât even purposely trying to avoid engaging with the fusion system; I just happened to make some good ones by about halfway through the game and never really needed anything better. (This is playing on Normal mode)
- For the record, those were:
- Surt (Ragnarok + Fire Amp + Fire Boost is a killer; itâs hard to beat in terms of pure damage dealt)
- Odin (Thunder Reign + Spell Master takes care of a LOT)
- Alice (Die for me!)
- Daisoujou (Samsara)
- Lilim (Very early in the game, I figured out how to fuse her with 1 each of the major elemental spells, so this was the best walking-around monster for the entire game. You can almost always âAll-Out Attackâ any opposing party with this. When you canât, switch to either Alice or Daisoujou)
- The Tartarus bosses make it really fun to try and find a party / Persona combination which covers weaknesses and can still hit in every situation. This is not always easy and P3FES is in no way a âpush X to winâ game. Especially some of the late game bosses. You actually have to think about how to approach them.
- Something else I was not familiar with before playing this game was how legendary the soundtracks are. That status is SO so deserved, the music in this game is like nothing else. Sometimes when Iâm playing RPGâs and they get grindy I will throw on something else like an audiobook or whatever, but I never did this with P3. The soundtrack (and the entire rest of the sound design, character voices etc) deserves all the hype it gets
- Speaking of soundtrack, a pro tip is: when youâre in Tartarus, ask Fuuka to change the BGM for you.
- Bottom line: P3:FES is great, I do recommend it, and while I will not be covering this on here (because retro only) I have it on good authority that the Reload version is also worth it, though itâs not an exact remake of the original.
ă”ăŒăăŁăł CLASSIC VIDYA REVIEW
Persona 3: FES
(Completed on 28 Sep 2025)
ă”ăŒăăŁăł CLASSIC VIDYA REVIEW
Ninja Gaiden Sigma
(Completed on 31 Mar 2025)
- It is kinda unbelievable that this is a 21 year old game.
- I had no frame of reference at all for whatâs going on here, other than Ninja Gaiden on the NES (also reviewed on this site!)
- Mainly, I know I want to play the 2nd one of these, but I figured it would be best to start with the first game first. They all come in 1 package anyway.
- On the Switch, load times are pretty brutal (especially when walking around large areas like in the city) but this game has been released a million times on a million platforms so if you donât care about playing handheld, youâre sure to find it elsewhere
- If your only frame of reference is the 1st Ninja Gaiden game on NES, thereâs lots here for you! It has obnoxious enemy placement! It has slippery platforming! There are even areas where you can âwalk enemies off the screenâ to despawn them, just like the original! You wouldnât necessarily think all this stuff could translate from 2D to 3D, but it does!
- I played on Normal mode, never caved and dropped down to Ninja Dog, and I think thatâs probably as good as I can do without hundreds of hours of practice. âHardâ or âVery Hardâ would be awful, however, âNormalâ is not quite as brutal as the original on NES.
- I am unsure as to âthe loreâ on which of the 3D Ninja Gaiden games people like, and which versions of them are supposed to be âthe best.â Theyâve been remade about a billion times and for every platform under the sun
- This game does a great job of capturing that same feeling that the NES games used to give; some areas are extremely annoying until you learn how to do it; some areas are genuinely difficult and demanding that you execute. But once you are through it you feel like youâve accomplished something and you know you could do it again, but better next time.
- The combat in this game is THE ENTIRE thing. Some areas want you to do these little Legend of Zelda style puzzles to advance to the next room in a dungeon or whatever, but that stuff is honestly pointless. You donât care about anything other than the combat.
- The world does feel big and fleshed-out though. The combat encounters seem to happen all over the place and you can use the entire world to move around them. Itâs not like Bayonetta 1 where every combat encounter is in its own little arena.
- Once again if you like these kind of games, you know you like these kind of games. I loved it so much, when I finished my first play-through, I immediately started another one just so I could be in those early levels and see how much better Iâd got at the game.
ă”ăŒăăŁăł CLASSIC VIDYA REVIEW
Adverntures of Lolo
(Completed on 2 Oct 2025)
- The perfect little palate-cleanser puzzle game after spending months on something as big and involved as Persona 3
- Not too easy, not too hard, would recommend to people of any skill level
- The entire soundtrack is 1 song and I have to admit it does get annoying after a while. Find something else to listen to while playing.
- Made by HAL, so thereâs a certain bar of quality that is guaranteed
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ă”ăŒăăŁăł CLASSIC VIDYA REVIEW
Donkey Kong Country Returns HD
(Completed on 6 Feb 2025)
- Once again, never played the original non-HD version; this was my first time through what now amounts to a âclassicâ game
- It isâŠ. fine, but they almost shouldnât call these âDonky Kong Countryâ games. There are several hallmarks of all 3 DKC games which are missing. The worlds do not feel expansive or covered in secrets at all, the way DKC2 and DKC 3 do. Everything you could possibly have to do is all laid out in front of you. Thereâs no Krematoa-equivalent.
- There is a final, secret world, but unlocking it is all-or-nothing; you canât partially visit or come in through a bunch of little side doors scattered all over the place.
- Also no animal friends besides Rambi
- Even the soundtrack doesnât really have the juice. There are good arrangements of good songs but nothing can really match a SNES sound chip cranking out those David Wise originals
- Even though I donât think itâs a real Donkey Kong Country game, it still is not bad. The level designs are fun and the difficulty curve is fair, to maybe leaning a LITTLE on the easy side.
- I also could not see anywhere that the HD upgrade went clearly and severely wrong. The game looks good and you donât have any weird artifacts that you sometimes see on âHD upgradesâ like texture resolution mismatches
- Overall, probably worth it if you didnât play this game in itsâ day, but if you did, I donât see what would be the point.
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