All three of us had a fantastic time creating this, I hope you guys enjoy it.

I will definitly be listening to this soon.
...and then I'll buy the game.
...and then I'll curse you all because I will ignore the rest of my life.

Seriously, that's my one big reason for not picking up this game, because I keep on hearing how fantastic it is and how engrossing it is. I don't have time right now for something of that magnitude.

On that note, should I pick up Persona 3: FES or wait for Persona 4?

FES came out here recently which is funny considering the regular P3 came out after FES was released in the US...

Hmm, that's a tough one. I can't judge the merits of Persona 4 yet (obviously), and Persona 3 is pretty damn awesome as it is. If you plan on buying new, I guess go with Persona 4. It's only 35 bucks through Amazon and they hook you up with a 100 page art book and a sound track. P3FES is 30 bucks new with no bonuses.

Used, with an Edge card and coupon (as Jason mentions in the discussion), you can probably grab P3FES as low as 16 bucks. In that case, I think the choice is obvious. In either case I'd say get both as they are both awesome and amazing. After finishing one you'll probably be thirsty for more.

What's this save file glitch that I'm supposed to be careful with?

On occasion, when you are in the process of saving your game, you will get a save failed message. It doesn't really look any different than a success message. When that happens, if you were overwriting a file, it corrupts that save. So naturally I was working off of one save file when, bam, save failed screen happened, I didn't notice, shut off the game since I "saved" it, next day, no save file.

I suggest keeping like three working save files that you save in a progression. If your save fails, just make sure to go back into the save menu and save over the now vacant spot your game save once existed in.

Notes for next time:

1). Sit farther from the mic
2). Don't stretch words
3). Don't say "yes" "exactly" and every other transition word I overused so much
4). Don't drink beer while recording
5). Don't let Jason join
6). Don't let Nick edit the recording

:P

This is a cool idea, and I'm looking forward to hearing it.  May be a while, as I have about 15 other podcasts to catch up on this week.

I've never even heard of this series.

It's about becoming AN HERO.

GoldenPhoenix, you can currently buy Persona 3 FES from Amazon with the (FES version) soundtrack and artbook for only $23.01.  If you like RPGs (and strange ones in particular) and own a PS2 or backwards-compatible PS3, you're not going to find a better deal for the game than that and you are commanded to pick it up.  ^_-

Incidentally, I'm curious if you guys will do a Persona 4 podcast.  Playing through 4, I really have mixed feelings about some of the changes they've made from 3 FES (I'd detail them, but I've seen from experience that that takes up half a screen of text) but I do think I like it better than 3 FES.  I'm curious what your thoughts on the game are.

broodwars, we will be doing a follow up to this podcast about 4. I imagine sometime around the end of this month we'll be able to put it together, mostly because of scheduling. We'll keep everyone posted about when we are going to record.

My wife and I started playing last night, and I'm not sure we got deep enough into it to really make any calls on the changes just yet. However, I do find the story intriguing thus far and the voice acting and characters are absolutely phenomenal.

Also wanted to mention that the save game glitch present in FES is still present in 4 as it happened to me the second time I went to save my game! Not sure how that one didn't get fixed...

Just an update since we are all Persona fans here: today after 6 months of off-and-on play, I finally finished the Journey.  Because I took down the Reaper fairly early in January, I had the whole last month to utterly abuse Monad to level-grind out any remaining difficulty the game had, and the final boss was a complete pushover against my level 99 party (MC, Yukari, Junpei, Akihiko),  Hell, just for grins and to give the game the middle finger for all the cheap moves various bosses had used on me the entire game, I pulled out the Armageddon Fusion Skill against the final boss's final form even though I didn't need it.  I spent a great deal of time that final month getting things set up for a New Game + if I ever chose to pursue it, maing out cash; buying bonus sets of equipment for all my characters; maxing out as many remaining social links as I could; and fusing as many of the higher level Personas as I could while I still had social link bonuses.

Overall, I really enjoyed the Journey, although I feel that the game is too restricting when it comes to the Social Links: you have to follow a very specific path through the game if you want to max them all out, and towards the end of the game all the micro-management I was doing (though not following said path) was really taking its toll and getting tedious.  The whole game in general relies too much on repetition and cheap spells/Tartarus boss encounters to hinder your progress, though that's greatly mitigated in the game's final 3rd when YOU are the ones wielding the cheap spells.  The monthly boss battles, though, where very enjoyable, creative, and suitably epic.  And the soundtrack kicks ass, although I wish there was more musical variety (which would be corrected in Persona 4) and that new music was more frequently introduced to old areas to minimize repetition.  I also wonder just what possessed the folks at Atlus to make the "ending" the Journey has.  It's not an "ending" at all, but a glorified "To be Continued" for the Answer (which in the original Persona 3 release didn't exist), and a drawn-out and tedious affair at that.  When I beat the final boss, I'm ready for the game to end.  So when the game DOESN'T end when I beat the final boss, I start getting irritated.  I also feel that the game's relatively low budget really shows in the game's last 3rd, as aside from the animated FMVs (which have varying animation quality) there really isn't anything particularly interesting or spectacular happening on-screen, which is a problem when we're talking about Armaggedon.

Anyway, I've already started up a new game on the Answer, and although I don't care for the constant dungeon crawling it is kind of nice not to have the micromanagement of the Social Links (they are what made the Journey so interesting, but it is a nice change to not have to worry about them).  It's hard to come from the Journey to the Answer and see your characters suck as much as they do in the Answer at the beginning, though.  My characters have missed more than they've hit  so far, and getting new Personas is really a chore.

I think when I've finished the Answer, I'm going to put off starting a Persona 4 game aside (my save game is only a few hours in) for a long while just to get the Persona fatigue out of my system.

I just did purchase Persona 3 FES from Amazon all because of Mr. Jack. Which why I hate him. Not only did he talk me into buying Persona 4 when I promised I'd cut down on my game buying but now he talked me into getting ANOTHER one. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

After getting so drawn in to the entire Persona 3 universe I simply couldn't wait to get into Persona 4, and honestly I wish I had waited just a tiny bit longer.

I felt the same way with the ending of Persona 3, it just leaves you hanging and dangles "the answer" in your face knowing you're eventually going to play it since you already sold your soul for it. Perhaps I'm even a bit ashamed to admit I felt sad after I completed the Journey, which is probably why it took me quite a while to truly immerse myself in Persona 4.

Every review states Persona 4 is more of the same...blah blah blah. And all I want to know, is who on Earth is reviewing that game? Did they play either of them? I won't say much else since there's another time and podcast for that discussion, but as a word of advice, definitely put something else between 3 and 4.

Some little humor for Persona 3 fans