Quote Originally Posted by Mirage View Post
P3 is far from flawless. I think it leaves too much to depend on luck, rather than stats and tactics. A more customizable AI would be good, or just like they're doing in P4, let all characters be controllable. I died a lot of times in P3 just because the AI didn't do the smart thing, of while i was waiting for my turn so i could issue them new commands. Oh also, last boss that can charm you and make you use diarahan, that's just a huge smurf you right in the face from the developers.
Don't play much from these guys do you? P3, hell MegaTen in general is far more heavily strategy based than other JRPGs or RPGs in general. Its about exploiting weaknesses and making sure you have a large enough variety of Persona's to counter most threats. Yes Random encounters are a bitch but since when was it written that they shouldn't be? I actually enjoy the fact that I need to be careful with even minor encounters.

I'm playing through New Game+ right now and I've dragged Lv. 6 characters into the high level optional dungeon. A dungeon that kicked my ass when my party was 60+ and I'm still able to win battles with my low level party by just exploiting the right weaknesses and being careful not to use All out Attack when I know it will kill me later.

The A.I. is pretty smart if you use the Tactics correctly. It may not be the Gambit system nor is it controllable characters but its sure a hell of a lot better than say KH... Besides, I actually quite likes inability to control the party as it added greater risk and it made changing up your party more important.

Then there's also the stupid idea of making it an automatic game over when the main character dies, rather than letting the AI controlled characters try to use a life recovery item or magic. I've entered a battle in great condition, without being ambushed, and see the main character die from two critical/weakness hits from two enemies. There's no way to stop that from happening other than being insanely overleveled, and that's just poor game design.
Its annoying but it also keeps you on your toes and it makes every decision important in the game (hey, just like the theme of the game!) Honestly though, I found the main character tends to always be the last alive and due to experience with the MegaTen series, I make sure my default Persona when traveling is resistant to Hama or Mudo. Btw, levels don't really help as much as your type of Persona. Even if you have a level 60 demon with high physical stats, it can still be taken down by a low level magic user exploiting his weakness (or spamming Almighty...) hence the strategy element involved. One has to look at more than just stats or skills or weaknesses. You have to balance the whole package.

I guess its hard for me to understand your complaints cause I actually don't mind seeing the Game Over screen every once and awhile, It means the developers are actually doing their job. The only time I ever died consistently was my own fault cause I used a party configuration that just didn't work and I refused to change. Most often its cause I got attached to a Persona that became obsolete to what I needed. If the enemy beats me fairly, I don't have issues (and in MegaTen, instant death magic is fair) so its hard for me to say the game is cheap or unfair. Just my opinion though...