My Life @ Gekkokan: Diving into Persona 3 FES

Last summer, I bought an RPG buy the name of Persona 3. I may have even blogged about it at the time, but I don't remember. I played the Playstation 2 title quite a bit that August, but once school started back up, I fell out of habit and never could quite pick the game back up. Plus, there was always the possibility that Atlus (the developer) would release P3 FES: an upgraded version of the original game. Well, last month they did, and in the last few weeks I've been playing it a considerable amount. This won't be a review (I'll like write one later), but more like thoughts I had while playing the game.

The Three Month Mark

Last time, I only played about 3 months worth of the game (Persona 3 takes place over a 12-month school year), so my first goal was to reach my old point in the game. Tonight I reached this goal.

• FES lets you import some of the data from the original game when you start, including your Persona compendium and personal stats like Charm, Courage, and Academics. I was over half way leveled with these three skills in Persona 3, so as a result I've managed to max out two of them already.
• Leveling up your social links is different the second time through. I've been playing much more efficiently. I'm likely going to have one of my relationahips maxed-out by the end of the month (in the game).
• I love the dating aspect of the game. Currently, I'm dating the School Treasurer, but I've also got the Track Team coach fawning over me. I understand that there's a funny event later in the game if you level up multiple relationships with girls, so I'm working hard to earn it.
• Atlus (the developer) nerfed a couple aspects of the game that irritated me at first. For example, you can no longer power-level in the main dungeon the night before the full moon. (Typically, you are forced to quit because your party gets fatigued; in P3, this didn't happen the night before a full moon.) Also, There's less insentive to level up academics by donating to the local shinto shrine. These haven't proved too detrimental however.
• Being told that I needed to be a badass (see image above) was one of the funniest things I've seen in a game (note: "Badass" is the highest rank for the Courage stat).
  
• The music is still AWESOME!
• Similarly, Bebe - a French exchange student who speaks with an accent (e.g., the = "ze") and randomly speaks Japanese - is still one of my favorite characters.
• I sometimes wish I wasn't playing an RPG and that instead the social aspect of Persona 3 was the entire game. It's very addictive.

I'll update more after I delve further into the game.