Persona 3 portable

[kyuusei]

Gen beat me to it. But yeah. them being male in the girl's version just sounds ludicrous.

108k? Not bad for the first two or three days.

[Gen Eric Gui]

You know, it just occurred to me, but if Minato is restricted to 1-h swords, then Mitsuru just fell from "worst ally" to "worstest ally".  Not only does she have the worst spell selection and the fewest damage types, but now she has to compete directly with Minato for her weapons, and is more than likely just going to get his hand-me-downs since having Minato properly equipped is more important than anything.

Wow, way to completely screw her over.

[Robert Boyd]

Since when was Mitsuru the worst ally? She's the strongest magical attacker in the game outside of the main character. I would think P3P only makes her stronger because she won't waste time on pointless spells now.

[Gen Eric Gui]

Haha, I forgot about the manual control.  I guess that does make her significantly more useful now, doesn't it? 

Still doesn't change the fact that, skill-wise, she's the worst character though.  The only thing she's good at, the MC is already better at, and you're better off using that party slot for something that the MC would be wasting his turns doing, like healing, Mudo/Hama, or buffing/debuffing, then for more damage(Especially given that raw damage doesn't mean crap, since 99% of normal enemies in the game can be killed with Team-up Attacks, and the 1% that can't you already have Minato to deal with).  Pretty much the only time I would advocate putting her in the group over others is during the Stasis Giant fight, where high-powered ice skills are the only thing that even hurt them(And especially in FES, where Null Slash and Gloves doesn't auto-win the fight for you).  Mitsuru simply offers the worst support to the MC in the game, and since all the most effective strategies revolve around that, she's the worst.

[Ryos]

There are so many 1h swords in the game that having Mitsuru isn't that big of a liability.  Unless you go for the new hardest difficulty...

[Gen Eric Gui]

Unless they added a bunch more, there's the same amount of 1-H swords as there are other weapons.  I'm more concerned that it makes Slash type completely redundant, and Strike type that much rarer and more important to have.  Akihiko was already the conerstone of the group, and now he's even more important.  I'd say that, without MC's ability to use free Strike damage, he's now tied for most powerful ally with Koromaru.

[Dizzy]

Overall, is the female side of the game is overall good, or there is a lot to bitch about?

Gamers will always find something to bitch about, even if it is great. The game hasn't even been out, what, 3 days, and I've heard so much whining about shit that people haven't even witnessed/tried themselves yet...

... and with that out of my system, I can't wait to give this version a shot. Girls with Naginatas are hot. It's why I like NGS2's Momiji so much. :P

[KillerArmoire]

RE: Watered down MCs.

Well considering that you can directly control your entire party, the need for a jack-of-all-trades MC shouldn't be nearly as great in this version.

[kyuusei]

I almost exclusively gave Minato 2h swords in P3. I'm gonna miss equipping him with those. :P

RE: Watered down MCs.

Well considering that you can directly control your entire party, the need for a jack-of-all-trades MC shouldn't be nearly as great in this version.

Pretty much what I was thinking. :P

[Gen Eric Gui]

While that's true, assuming they haven't messed with the skills, Minato would still be much more capable of dealing extreme damage, which is what you really wanted him doing in the original anyway.  It's just slightly more reliable and cost-efficient to rely on allies for weakness hits now.

Minato is still ludicrously strong, the game just doesn't hinge entirely on him anymore.

[kyuusei]

So long as he isn't as bad as Souji (P4). :P Who was still pretty decent, but I like strong MCs. :P

[Gen Eric Gui]

Well, Souji was still significantly stronger then the rest of his group, it's just that since they didn't have a lot of the necessary support spells, Souji was forced into that role as opposed to dealing damage.  His teacup-sized SP pool didn't really help things either.

I do believe he's the best Physical attacker since Hitoshura though, so that's something.

[Lucca]

So.

I just came back from Japan (and I'm so jet lagged it's not funny), but I took a leap and bought Persona 3 portable.

I'm not very far in it at all (though amusingly 2 other people were playing it on the return flight home), but I'll tell you my impressions so far.

I decided to play as the girl. Her color scheme is VERY PINK, and she has her own main map theme music and battle music. Both are actually pretty good. The anime cutscenes are gone, and replaced by admittedly good looking stills. A bit of a disappointment, but understandable considering the format. Most scenes are voiced, though. I thought I wouldn't like the point and click aspects of the maps outside Tartarus, but you're able to navigate through the game a lot faster since there's no real walking required. Tartarus and the battles look pretty much the same. Maybe even slightly smoother this time around. I got an absolute kick out of the female PC kicking the stuffing out of shadows WITH A MOP.

Overall, it seems to be pretty decent so far. Unfortunately all of the answers for tests/questions in class, etc, seems to be in Kanji, which is way harder for me to translate. If anyone can find a walkthrough for this game, I'd appreciate it.

PS - Mitsuru...sucks? Lies! She was my best magic caster outside of the main PC. She utterly SCREWED the final boss over with mindcharge/bufudyne.

[Dincrest]

I didn't trust Mitsuru on anything other than Full Assault.

[Gen Eric Gui]

She was my best magic caster outside of the main PC.

Nobody said otherwise.  But the fact of the matter is, raw damage doesn't give you as much of an advantage in battle in P3 as does other forms of support, which is why other characters are better.  Mitsuru ONLY has high powered magic and healing going for her, while every other character has multiple other forms of support that Mitsuru can't provide.  Plus, in the old AI-controlled combat, you couldn't really trust her to not randomly start casting Tentarafoo, which generally put you at a disadvantage.