Atlus annouced today the stateside release of FES on April 22nd. What's even more amazing is that its not just the append disc, but P3 as well for only $30! This should kill some of the price gouging on the original as well as give those who missed out the first time around to grab a copy.

I'm on my second playthrough (and almost done again) and probably will be playing a third time. Can't wait to preorder this one. Atlus is now one of my favorite game publishers. Hell, they're even bringing over R-TYPE TACTICS too.

Anyone going to pick this up?

Heck yeah. I'm gonna go pre order the game tomorrow.

Never played this series before.  Is Persona 3 stand-alone from the other games?

Yeah, let's hear it for depreciation...hip, hip, huuuuaaaahhhh...

Episode Aegis doesn't sound like it's going to add much, and I don't they added a whole lot to the original game, either.

It seems they scratch the whole Social Link concept (essentially a life sim component) in Episode Aegis, which means that'll probably end up being a dungeon crawler. Somehow, I don't really see them adding too much to the plot, either. I don't think I'm going to go get this.

I'll still probably get its respective soundtrack, though! A little shoe-horning oughta help it fit right in with the rest of the Persona 3 tracks!

Yes. Like most other JRPG series the MegaTen games are usually sequels in name only.

Picked up P3:F at Fry's for $25.00 last Thursday and tried it out just yesterday.

I never played through Persona 3 (still sitting sealed on my shelf for some reason...) but I decided to give it a go this weekend via Fes.  I'm about 3 hours in now and it's quite thrilling! 

The obvious plusses are the social links and persona combinations.  I don't know how I'm going to manage all my time though!  I've got Kendo training after school, but Kenji wants to go get some noodles and talk about women, and then Takiyuki isn't feeling the best but Junpei wants to hit up Tartarus tonight.... what's a guy to do?! 

Another one bitten by the P3 bug!

Enjoy the ride.

Definitely enjoying it. I'm playing The Answer episode at the moment (still have to finish a P3 save off) and the difficulty increase is great, feels almost as challenging at times as SMT3.

Are you able to take your levels from The Journey, and import them to The Answer?

Those enemies in the The Answer chapter are TOUGH!

No. The Answer is treated as an entirely different game. You start at level 25 though and most of the Personas and equipment you can buy will be around that point from the Journey episode.

Yep, but I think without the added difficulty it would have been a bit boring though. Some of the differences I've noticed:

Mudo/Hama seems twice as effective on you/half as effective on enemy
Enemies prey on your weakness much more frequently
Half money (or less of it)/shop prices doubled

I've only made it 4hrs into it and through the Cocytus door.

That's a f---ing bitch!

This leads me to the one thing I positively hated about P3 (in fact, the only thing I can think of that I disliked about the game) - the fact that if your main character dies, its instant Game Over. This ridiculous feature should have stayed in SMT3 and not been put in this game. Granted, this game is a lot easier than SMT3 was, and if you play wisely (scan all the enemies, equip good personae, use your brain, etc.), this rarely is a problem, but it still is painful when you've traversed 20 floors in Tartarus and gained lots of experience and some $£@£#%("&(!!!!11 shadow casts a Mudo/Hama and finishes you off just like that.

Seriously, they should have changed this to FES. I don't mean take out the instant-death spells, but rather allow the battle to continue even if the main character dies, the others could either finish the battle off and your character starts off at 1 HP afterwards, or they could've used any of the revival items to wake you up.

Death to instant-death spells!

I'll say; they never want to fuckign work when we, as the players, use them.

Little vaguely-related note, Okage Shadow King had the same, main-character-dies-equals-game-over thing; rules like that always make a game challenging.

But with respects to P3, for the most part, if you get the preemptive strike on your enemy, you get to decimate them without allowing them to move an inch, but if they get the jump on you, you're dead; I always thought that was kind of harsh, too.

I've noticed that a lot of games that allow you to either encounter or avoid the enemy on the map have that problem I stated in the previous paragraph, and it's just annoying as hell. It makes you just want to always get the preemptive strike on the enemy, instead of attempting to bypass the fight altogether, which really negates the option of encountering them on the map in the first place.

Probably the only thing I would have wanted them to add was a way to modify the volume of the audio. I would have loved the ability to turn down the sound effects and voice overs and turn up the music.

So far, I'm enjoying the first few hours of The Answer. The whole plot seems extraneous and unnecessary to me, but I'm enjoying exploring the new dungeons with the old cast.

Yeah, the instant death spells are annoying, but they also help distinguish SMT games from other RPG series.  It adds to the tension that your next battle could your be last, which is extra incentive not to screw up by missing the initiative or equipping the wrong persona.

Plus, you'll eventually get sacrificial dolls to protect you from those one shot death spells.

Yeah, you're completely right. In fact, scratch my initial complaint: I agree that it gives these games a certain edginess which most RPGs lack.