Persona 3:FES on the PSN.

[Jiro]

I'll definitely have to pick this up since my copy went AWOL!

[Mirage]

Yeah, well, it's on the NA PSN only. Those mother smurfers.

[Hollycat]

So, I've never played persona before, is it full control/ active battle (see kh) or is it a party battle like ff?

[Mirage]

It's a strict turn based battle system, with AI control over three out of four party members. The developers stopped being retarded around the time of the PSP version, and let you control all four manually.

[Wolf Kanno]

It's a strict turn based battle system, with AI control over three out of four party members. The developers stopped being retarded around the time of the PSP version, and let you control all four manually.

Except the A.I. is actually really good.

For HP: It works like FFXIII's system where encountering a new enemy, if you have your navigator scan the enemy for you, the party A.I. will know exactly what to do. Despite this, you can still give orders to your party or individuals, like telling them to concentrate on healing, or exploiting enemy weakness, or even prioritize a specific target. The scanning option also has the amusing side effect of helping you in boss battles, because the game won't reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a boss to the player, but the A.I. party will know, so it saves you from doing a silly physical attack that will backfire and kill your party instead. It a clever elements that makes the game far more noob friendly than P4.

The A.I. party also served a story purpose because the designers wanted the player to really feel like the other characters were their own people. This is the reason why in the console versions, you have to actually give your party members equipment by talking to them in dungeons, instead of just opening the menu screen and fiddling (you can still do fiddle afterwards if they try to equip something you don't want them to) it's little touches like this that make the game pretty interesting as the gameplay and story overlap. I dare say the A.I. in this game is actually one of the best in the genre outside of using Gambits. Despite that, all the real action comes from your main and fully controllable main character who gets more options than the basic party anyway and is the one who sets the pace and strategy of battle anyway.

[NeoCracker]

I'm with Wolf.

While I feel they should give you more tactics options early on, I also feel the set up does a great job at giving you more of a command role over the party. You actually get a lot of control over the other members without controlling them directly.

Mind you, Its a set up I wouldn't enjoy a lot of games to implement. I loved P4 gives you full control over the party for example. Put it's a fun and effective way to spice up the game play.

[Depression Moon]

YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

[Mirage]

It's a strict turn based battle system, with AI control over three out of four party members. The developers stopped being retarded around the time of the PSP version, and let you control all four manually.

Except the A.I. is actually really good.

For HP: It works like FFXIII's system where encountering a new enemy, if you have your navigator scan the enemy for you, the party A.I. will know exactly what to do. Despite this, you can still give orders to your party or individuals, like telling them to concentrate on healing, or exploiting enemy weakness, or even prioritize a specific target. The scanning option also has the amusing side effect of helping you in boss battles, because the game won't reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a boss to the player, but the A.I. party will know, so it saves you from doing a silly physical attack that will backfire and kill your party instead. It a clever elements that makes the game far more noob friendly than P4.

The A.I. party also served a story purpose because the designers wanted the player to really feel like the other characters were their own people. This is the reason why in the console versions, you have to actually give your party members equipment by talking to them in dungeons, instead of just opening the menu screen and fiddling (you can still do fiddle afterwards if they try to equip something you don't want them to) it's little touches like this that make the game pretty interesting as the gameplay and story overlap. I dare say the A.I. in this game is actually one of the best in the genre outside of using Gambits. Despite that, all the real action comes from your main and fully controllable main character who gets more options than the basic party anyway and is the one who sets the pace and strategy of battle anyway.

I didn't think I would ever see someone defending "talk to character to change gear", but here we are. Developers can use AI to make me feel like the characters are real people when I can talk to these "real persons" and plan an elaborate strategy with them. Until then, screw that tit.

If the AI was so good, why did they change it to manual control in Portable and P4?

As for best AI, I don't think it's really on the level of the AI used in Tales of Symphonia (using that game because that's the most recent tales of game I have played), and the battles in that game requires more complex control than P3 as well. That's a game where I could actually rely fully on an AI healer during a boss battle, and it would only very rarely perform actions that were less optimal than what I would have done myself.

[krissy]

should i buy this or ff9
i have played neither but only have 16 bux in my psn account

[Hollycat]

FF9 for sure

[Laddy]

I prefer FF9 but it's a really, really, really damn close and you should gtet both eventually.

[Wolf Kanno]

I didn't think I would ever see someone defending "talk to character to change gear", but here we are. Developers can use AI to make me feel like the characters are real people when I can talk to these "real persons" and plan an elaborate strategy with them. Until then, screw that tit.

I felt it was a neat idea, and as I pointed out, you could still manually go in a set it up as you want, so as far as I'm concerned, no harm, no foul. As for planning strategies with the A.I. you do basically do that since they often are reacting to your decisions, whether it's shouting out commands, or reacting to enemy scans, or even reacting to your last action. So while they don't out right plan with you, I feel the A.I. reacts pretty well to your decisions, and paying attention to your characters actions will allow you to easily predict how the A.I. will react, it really becomes a game of building strategy around manipulation. It's a far cry better than the A.I. of FFXIII.

If the AI was so good, why did they change it to manual control in Portable and P4?

Mostly because people like you bitched and moaned that they wanted to play as everyone despite how limited you're supporting party is. Luckily for these people, the Persona team listens to their fans, but I would like to point out that the A.I. is still in both P4 (It's the default setting actually) and in P3P, so it's not like they abandoned the system either. They just made it accessible for the A.I.-phobic fans.

As for best AI, I don't think it's really on the level of the AI used in Tales of Symphonia (using that game because that's the most recent tales of game I have played), and the battles in that game requires more complex control than P3 as well. That's a game where I could actually rely fully on an AI healer during a boss battle, and it would only very rarely perform actions that were less optimal than what I would have done myself.

I can't really say much on this because I've never played Tales of Symphonia, the Tales franchise has never really impressed me and I found the earlier installments were way too easy. Though it sounds to me like the A.I. falls into "takes care of itself" territory which is what I don't really care for in thew A.I. companion debate. To clarify, I feel the A.I. in P3 is the best because I never felt it hindered me, nor did I feel like I could just hit X and go make a sandwich because the A.I. would do all the rest. So for me, it hits that sweet-spot of being just useful enough to be reliable but not something that undermines my own usefulness in battle. This is mostly due to the Pokemon style design of your party members, so for me, it's a well designed game and they handled the A.I. rather well imho.
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Between P3 and FFIX, I would say get both, but if you had to choose one, I would actually say P3.

[Mirage]

ToS' AI does take care of itself, to a certain degree. You can still jump in and override their actions, and change their routines. There are several behaviours to select from for several aspects of the game, and they can be changed independently. Such as for example you can set their positioning to "do not pursuit", "keep away from the enemy", "keep in melee range", then combine this with targeting settings such as "enemy taking least damage", "enemy taking most damage", "enemy not targeted by anyone else", and "enemy targeted by player". Automatic use of certain spells can be turned on and off at will, and the AI remembers elemental weaknesses. You can also easily change between these tactics during battles. There are a few more settings too, but I can't remember them right now. It has been a while since I played it.

And no, you can't just "set and forget" it, and even if you could, there's a lot more actual player still involved in ToS' fights, considering it is real time, direct control and hitboxes. Not inputing any commands yourself would essentially be like playing with 3 characters instead of 4, which would be suicide in most battles that weren't complete pushovers.

In other news, P3Portable works flawlessly in a PSP emulator now. Maybe that's what I should get.

[Depression Moon]

Between P3 and FFIX, I would say get both, but if you had to choose one, I would actually say P3.

Booooooo!

[Wolf Kanno]

Sorry, but behind Chrono Trigger, P3: FES is probably my second favorite JRPG of all time.