The Journey
We agreed on everything about the title – from the soundtrack to the basic game play components and story. Shoji Meguro’s soundtrack deftly mixes multiple musical styles to create one of the most engaging musical experiences in recent memory. The battle theme in particular always left me pumped up and raring to go.
I also appreciated how he handled the music inside Tartarus. You spend a majority of the game within the dungeon’s confines and the music grows and evolves along with you. The theme remains similar throughout, but each section adds something new that adds new life to the basic beat – a stronger bass beat, string instruments, etc. – it sounds more determined as you go, pushing you to reach just one more floor.
The OST seems to get more serious as you venture through game. Songs will often borrow elements from previous songs, and this makes every entry in the soundtrack feel unique, yet familiar at the same time. The happy moments you experienced with your friends earlier are never out of sight or mind and the music reminds you. This paradox really pulls the entire soundtrack into a cohesive whole. Some songs also receive purely instrumental renditions, which, while they again sound familiar, completely change their dynamic within the story. What was once upbeat and cool becomes soft and subtle.
The two tracks here and here are obvious examples, but you can hear more subtle examples of this if you listen to the entire soundtrack. “The Battle for Everyone’s Souls” even includes the beautiful, yet somewhat creepy, operatic sounds of the Velvet Room.
Exploring P3’s world is easy because it’s so readily accessible. It’s simple to identify with and the actions you take within might not radically differ from what you typically do in real life. You might go to the mall, work at a bookstore, hang out at a park with your friends, play a computer game, and slay shadows…well, OK. You probably don’t slay shadows in your free time, but you get the point. You have plenty of choices and none of them are forced upon you.
There’s nothing more satisfying than choosing the right Persona and exploiting an enemy’s weakness. And leveling up your characters and personas to fuse even better personas has the same addictive quality to it that Pokemon does. “Gotta catch ‘em all,” but with Thor and Satan instead of Jigglypuff and Pikachu. And speaking of points and leveling…
