17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Remember: Google is your friend., September 12, 2007
This review is from: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Official Strategy Guide (Paperback)
This guide is great for helping you get through the day to day basics of the game, from detailed social link quests, to quiz and test answers. It includes a complete list for items, personas, beastiary, and skills. However, even with 3 authors and 2 editors, this guide is not without its flaws. You will still find yourself scavenging internet forums and blogs for more answers 10% of the time.
First of all, rather than a detailed persona fusion guide, they provide you with a chart that reads like a spreadsheet, which merely lists arcana types. Its design is not its downfall. Rather, it's the specific data (or lack thereof) that makes this chart unappealing. Basically, it shows you what the resulting arcana type of your perona will be when fusing this type of arcana with that type of arcana. (eg., If you fuse a persona of the moon arcana with that of an empress arcana, the end result will be a persona of the lovers arcana). This is a minor help at best. A better chart would tell you the exact persona you would create when fusing other specific personas togeather. Sure, you are provided with a complete list of personas in this book. There's just no specifics on how to create them. With as much detail that went into the rest of this guide, I really feel Double Jump sort of "double jumped" over this one. Ironic, no?
Speaking of specific details, this brings me to my second point: Requests! Most of these are accurate. Most meaning less than 100%, which I find odd due to the fact I had to pay 100% of the sticker price for this thing. It's not like I found it in the discount bin or anything of the sort. Some of the requests require you to create certain personas with a specific ability. These can be rather difficult to create. While this guide does provide in great detail the steps required to do so, I have found one request so far that this guide is entirely incorrect on. And that is quest #23, Create Orthrus with Dodge Slash. Their fusion recipe was wrong. Completing this quest opens up quest #29. So, off to the internet I went, searching for an answer the guide should have provided. It's a sad day when you have to resort to using white-out in a strategy guide to make a correction. Did I mention that I paid full price for this guide?
Last and least, this guide still contains its share of typos and misspellings. Considering the things I mentioned above, this should come as no surprise. Nor does it impede you from using and understanding what they are telling you. Hell, if you can read through the horrible grammar on internet forums and understand what people are saying, then this book should be no trouble at all.
Overall, this guide was worth the $19.99 I spent on it. But, the $19.99 plus tax was pushing it. Get the guide. It will help. While it's quicker to find most of your answers in the book, it will not prevent you from digging around the internet for more. They should have slapped the "Mature" rating on this guide as it will "create adult language".
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28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Definately not DoubleJump's best, July 18, 2007
This review is from: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Official Strategy Guide (Paperback)
DoubleJump has become renowned for its in-depth detail into all the charts and tables that it puts into its guides. Especially for the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. While it does those things well, it has been at the expense of the basics.
The guide is a treasure trove of information for all your demon fusions, items, spells, bestiary, and so on so forth. Everything down to all the optional sidequests and Social Link system. It lists all the events that can be taken during the day to increase specific stat levels and has recommendations on how to build up your character. The only problem though, is they left out anything about actually how the game itself is played.
It has pretty much become a player's guide convention that you start with the preface and then go either into the character introductions or basic gameplay controls features. DoubleJump seems to have skipped over these two sections entirely. While they do say how the game is divided between the day time and night time, they give no information as to how the game itself flows. Same goes for the characters and background story. They refer to all the characters by name in the guide, but without a reference pic to know who they are talking about, if you forget a name, you may get frustrated wondering who they are talking about. Granted this isn't the biggest deal since the good walkthrough and item infos are all present, but it still feels like the guide is incomplete.
Despite the plethora of information that DoubleJump is providing. They have overlooked some basic info that is in all guides. And while not integral to the guide, it doesn't feel right. Definately a step back from the amazing Nocturne and Disgaea guides, but substantial for what it will mostly be used for.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
caution, August 11, 2008
This review is from: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Official Strategy Guide (Paperback)
This is a good product , but be cautious , if you have Persona 3 FES ,this book is different. It will help but some of the game play has changed.
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