When does this game start?

[PossessingSpirit09]

I'm up to floor 40 in tartarus and akihiko is in my party; and I'm basically halfway through the year (technically halfway through the game if the calender is to be believed from what other players are telling me)

For the record, I have never played Persona 3, but I have played 4 and 5. 4 is my favourite

When does this game hit its stride? Its been basically really dull and boring for the past dozen hours with basically nothing to do but social links, stat raising and reaching the uppermost floor in tartarus you can get;

Please tell me it gets better and more meaningful? I have yet to get any social links with anyone in my party which is uncomfortable difference compared to the other persona games I'm used to

I'm so close to quitting the game out of boredom. I have no idea what I'm doing, and if I'm doing it optimally; and I cannot imagine new game plus this game if it turns out the front part of the game is this boring

[archonsod]

PossessingSpirit09 a écrit :

I'm up to floor 40 in tartarus and akihiko is in my party; and I'm basically halfway through the year (technically halfway through the game if the calender is to be believed from what other players are telling me)

If you're only on floor 40, you've not yet finished the tutorial.

When does this game hit its stride? Its been basically really dull and boring for the past dozen hours with basically nothing to do but social links, stat raising and reaching the uppermost floor in tartarus you can get;

I mean that's basically the game :P

Story wise it starts to pick up the pace as you head into the summer break, which I'd guess is about two months or so from where you're currently at.

Please tell me it gets better and more meaningful? I have yet to get any social links with anyone in my party which is uncomfortable difference compared to the other persona games I'm used to

Not all of the party have social links, and those that do require you to have maximum in an attribute, so as you can imagine they're towards the latter half of the game. There are various hangouts that you'll get, and you're not that far off unlocking various activities you can do with them in the dorm.
Narratively it'll start getting more meaningful as you start to learn what's really going on (I think the beach vacation is the point you'll start getting hints of that). Some people seem to like it, but to my mind it's always been the weakest of the P3 - P5 in that respect; it was the first game to use the formula and as a result the storytelling could generously be described as 'clunky'. There's some minor improvements in P3R, particularly when it comes to the main characters, but there's only so much you can polish a turd.

I'm so close to quitting the game out of boredom. I have no idea what I'm doing, and if I'm doing it optimally

You don't necessarily need to do it optimally, there's nothing really hard locked behind attributes or s-links. Pretty sure in theory you could flunk school, make no friends and still finish the game (albeit you'd be lacking some of the higher level personas and the attributes do feed into things).
For some non-spoiler pointers, the important s-links for you at present would be Hermit (since she's only available one day a week) and those in school (since you'll lose access to most of them during holidays). Try focusing on s-links after school and attributes in the evening. The arcade is the most efficient means of raising attributes (some things you can unlock are on a par with it, albeit much cheaper. They're locked behind attributes though).

[mdesaleah]

Its Persona 3. Its always been very very slow. But it does eventually get going.

4, and 5 have much better overall pacing. And Reload actually does do things to improve it with new scenes that werent there before.

But 3 being a slower game is just something that will always come with 3.

[PossessingSpirit09]

mdesaleah a écrit :

Its Persona 3. Its always been very very slow. But it does eventually get going.

4, and 5 have much better overall pacing. And Reload actually does do things to improve it with new scenes that werent there before.

But 3 being a slower game is just something that will always come with 3.

Ah okay that's understandable; I've never played any iteration of P3 before, so I kinda have different expectations
If its meant or always been this slow I guess that's something I have to get used to

[Yürei]

PossessingSpirit09 a écrit :

mdesaleah a écrit :

Its Persona 3. Its always been very very slow. But it does eventually get going.

4, and 5 have much better overall pacing. And Reload actually does do things to improve it with new scenes that werent there before.

But 3 being a slower game is just something that will always come with 3.

Ah okay that's understandable; I've never played any iteration of P3 before, so I kinda have different expectations
If its meant or always been this slow I guess that's something I have to get used to

Yea, P3 was the first social system. So they were still ironing out the kinks. Its why compared to P4G and P5R, you have a lot less free time to do social links. Its also why there were only 3 social stats.

[SixBread]

Yeah it's gonna take a while, at least P4 and 5 had something happening, between bosses (may not the the best but there's was something to look up for), for me really P3 story starts to hit until November, everything beforehand is just dull and boring,there's little glimpses of great character development and backstories but it's like an hour of good ♥♥♥♥ for every 10 hours, still if you can withstand the game until November, the storr will really payoff, P3 has my favorite end game, but totally understand when people drop the game, from the 110 hours it took me, like 70 were bored in Tartarus and doing repetitive stuff outside

[sybillelzio]

I'm on December and I burnt out already.

As a Persona 5 enjoyer, I think Persona 3 Reload isn't that good. Too little going on and I'm at the point where I don't really care about what gonna happens anymore. Each day you just do the same things over and over again. Currently at Lvl 69. The map/town feels too small compared to Persona 5 and the activities are lacking. The daily mysteries that keep you going on are not there.

Don't get me wrong, P3 is my first Persona game I played way back in 2009 but I stopped playing half game because of P4 released. Played P5 on day 1 and couldn't stop playing everyday for 2 months and almost got platinum on PS4, but this P3R always make me thinking "is next day gonna excite me?" but it really not happened

[ﾏｿｿｿ ₒ❤]

the game started after you press start game at the main menu btw

joke aside, i got into persona from playing P3P. Persona 3 and 4 are my fav, meanwhile 5's setting and writing is just a little bit too edgy for my taste, love interests in P5 is one of the best tho however.

P3 is pretty much shrouded in the big mystery of the Tartarus as the story unfold slowly, unlike P4 and P5 that incidents just conveniently happen one after another.
so if you started with 4 or 5 and play P3, it will feel awfully slow because the writing and story progress is way different for a title that is originally 15+ years old.

it is indeed weird that the social link with your party members start a bit late given how much interaction you had with them and some of them doesn't even have a social link.

Yukari's social link start at near the end of July, meanwhile Kirijou's is around Nov, Fu-ka is mid June and all of them has stat requirement so i guess the stat requirement is the reason why they start late so that you can build up your stats

[archonsod]

ﾏｿｿｿ　ₙ❤ a écrit :

so if you started with 4 or 5 and play P3, it will feel awfully slow because the writing and story progress is way different for a title that is originally 15+ years old.

The story isn't the issue, P4 and P5 are also fairly slow burn. The problem for anyone going backwards is P3 is the bare bones the subsequent games were built on. You only have fairly basic choices for most of the game - work on one of the two or three S-links available to you at that point, go do one of the two or three attribute raising activities for whatever attribute you're working on, or do a Tartarus run. As a result it becomes monotonous because you spend a lot of time simply doing the same thing over and over again.
Compare that to P5R where most of the time you have two possible dungeons to visit, many more s-links available to work on at any given time and a plethora of activities to boost stats and skills. Not only that, but the 'hidden' skills such as your ability to make curry encourages the player to try different activities rather than just hitting the one that gives the most cost effective boost every time. Most of the time you're fundamentally just choosing between the same three options - s-link, attributes or dungeon run - but by giving a greater variety of options (and for that matter, viable options) in how you do it the game creates the illusion of being much more expansive, and as a result has far less times where you feel like you're just spinning your wheels until the next scheduled boss fight/plot exposition.

[Riley]

Factually speaking, Persona 3 isn't any slower than P4 or P5 like some people falsely suggest, you get into the core game play twice as fast as both subsequent games. Both exploring Tartarus and freely spending your time takes less than two hours compared to games like P5 where your being railroaded and hand held for like 6 hours before getting full control if that.

The issue your experiencing is that Persona 3 reload doesn't really update the social experience like its previous games did. While the combat and Tartarus got a decent uplift the social link and spending your time after school has basically been left the same as it was back in 2006. So it can feel a little bare bones if you come from P5 as an example where you feel like theres way more to spend your free time on. The story and everything does get better as you go, you're still early on, however reload is quite faithful to the original in many aspects. Which might turn newer players to the series off.

As an OG P3 player I was a little upset Atlus didn't do more with the game, sure it's faithful but they could've certainly improved parts of the experience, added more scenes, extra social stats or social links to make it more of a P4G or P5R experience rather than a remake with better graphics and not much else. But it is what it is.

[Dank Sidious]

Riley a écrit :

Factually speaking, Persona 3 isn't any slower than P4 or P5 like some people falsely suggest, you get into the core game play twice as fast as both subsequent games. Both exploring Tartarus and freely spending your time takes less than two hours compared to games like P5 where your being railroaded and hand held for like 6 hours before getting full control if that.

The issue your experiencing is that Persona 3 reload doesn't really update the social experience like its previous games did. While the combat and Tartarus got a decent uplift the social link and spending your time after school has basically been left the same as it was back in 2006. So it can feel a little bare bones if you come from P5 as an example where you feel like theres way more to spend your free time on. The story and everything does get better as you go, you're still early on, however reload is quite faithful to the original in many aspects. Which might turn newer players to the series off.

As an OG P3 player I was a little upset Atlus didn't do more with the game, sure it's faithful but they could've certainly improved parts of the experience, added more scenes, extra social stats or social links to make it more of a P4G or P5R experience rather than a remake with better graphics and not much else. But it is what it is.

People are misunderstanding what it means for P3 to start slower. It's not the gameplay that starts slower.

The plot moves slower after the initial premise it takes a long time for anything interesting to happen. Where as both P4 and P5 function in smaller story arcs + a bigger overal plot and those smaller story arcs move and resolve faster than P3 gets seriously going with its own plot.

Persona 3 in particular suffers from the plot being segmented between the horrible Social Sim segments where as P4 and P5 story structure is designed to fit it much better.

So, the real issue is that it takes far longer of total playtime for anything really engaging to start happening in the plot unlike in P4 and P5 that keep your interested with its story arcs. There is some subjectivity to what is engaging to you in the first place, but at least try to think about it from the perspective I'm presenting.