Persona 3's The Answer In Retrospective

This blog entry contains spoilers for Persona 3.

Persona 3's story is divided into two parts- The Journey, which is the main game, and The Answer, which is a shorter segment after the main game. The latter was not part of the original game but was released for the FES re-release for the PlayStation 2, but not included for the Portable rerelease for the PlayStation Portable, which will soon be rereleased on other consoles. While many find its exclusion disappointing, I find the Answer to be severely flawed.

The Story

First, let's provide a brief recap of The Journey's ending. On January 31, 2010, the protagonist, along with his team- S.E.E.S.- fights against Nyx, whom the protagonist manages to seal away. In the aftermath of the battle, all the members of S.E.E.S. except Aigis lose their memories of the Dark Hour and drift apart, although they remember their promise to meet on March 5, which is the graduation day. Tragically, the protagonist, who'd been growing weaker in the days leading up to graduation, goes to the roof and passes away in Aigis' arms, although the original game leaves the protagonist's fate somewhat ambiguous.

The Answer begins at the end of March. The surviving members of S.E.E.S. meet up in the dorms but are demoralized by the protagonist's death. At around midnight, Metis, who seems to be an Anti-Shadow Weapon (i.e. robot) like Aigis, attacks the group. During the battle, Aigis finds herself in the Velvet Room, where she learns that the protagonist found "the answer to life," and receives his Wild Card ability (the ability to change Personas). After the battle, S.E.E.S. learns from Metis that they are trapped in a place called the Abyss of Time, where March 31 will repeat endlessly. It's a bit like Groundhog Day except all the members of S.E.E.S. know about the loop and they'll starve to death unless they get supplies. Luckily, the Abyss of Time links to the Paulownia Mall in June of the previous year, allowing them to get supplies, which seems rather contrived. Persona 4 allowed you to leave to get supplies for Yomotsu Hirasaka and the Hollow Forest, but Persona 5 expected the player to prepare prior to entering the final dungeons.

Mitsuru designates Aigis as field leader of S.E.E.S., a position that the protagonist held by virtue of having the Wild Card, and the group sets out to find out why the Abyss of Time came into being, and how they can get out.

Gameplay

The Answer gets off to a relatively strong start, but unfortunately, after the introduction, most of it is dungeon crawling interrupted by flashbacks showing when the members of S.E.E.S. acquired their Personas. By comparison, the Journey has much more variety, alternating between story scenes, Tartarus exploration, and developing stats and Social Links.

Speaking of Social Links, they aren't just there for character development or as a sidequest you can use on your days off. They actually make your Personas stronger by providing an experience boost to fused Personas; a Persona fused with a max-ranked Social Link gains several levels right off the bat, resulting in them getting most if not all of the skills they gain by leveling up. There are no Social Links in The Answer, so all Personas you fuse start at their base level and you'll have to level-grind if you want to strengthen them and learn all their abilities. Considering that the game is designed to encourage you to fuse stronger Personas rather than stick with the ones you initially get, and does so by requiring large amounts of experience for Personas to level up, this isn't a good sign.

Another problem relates to the lack of a Persona Compendium, which allows you to summon Personas you have acquired before and register them to update them. Ordinarily, if you used Persona A and B to make Persona C but still wanted to use Persona A, you could pay to summon it from the Compenndium, with the levels and skills it had at the time you registered it. In The Answer, this is no longer the case, and you must either find it in Shuffle Time(when possible) or fuse it, resulting in a base-level Persona.

S.E.E.S.: Civil War

Unfortunately, while the player sees a little bit about party members' backstories, not much happens during the exploration of the Abyss of Time. In fact, the information on how party members awakened their Personas- for example, after Yukari got a letter from her father and Junpei was in the Paulownia Mall during the Dark Hour- is largely what players know already.

Eventually, the party defeats a Shadow of the protagonist and acquires all eight Keys of Time- one for each member of the group. The keys  not only allow S.E.E.S. to go home, but also to go back to any point in time, so an argument breaks out over how to use them. What follows is a breakdown of each character's position:

1. Aigis is initially undecided, but later chooses to go back to the present.
   
   
2. Akihiko insists on going back to the present.
   
   
3. Fuuka is neutral and initially refuses to choose, but sides with Aigis on Akihiko's recommendation, and later chooses to stand by her.
   
   
4. Junpei also wants to go back to the present but wants the group to agree on their decision.
   
   
5. Ken sides with Akihiko.
   
   
6. Koromaru sides with Junpei
   
   
7. Metis is worried that Aigis will die if she loses her key and only cares about her "sister."
   
   
8. Mitsuru chooses to support Yukari regardless of her own feelings on this matter.
   
   
9. Yukari wants to go back to the past to save the protagonist.

With the group in a deadlock and the Abyss of Time seemingly collapsing(as evidenced by the dorm walls and floor cracking), Yukari forces a resolution by proposing that the group fight each other over what to do with the keys. In theory, the dispute is between four factions- Aigis and Metis(plus Fuuka), Akihiko and Ken, Junpei and Koromaru, and Yukari and Mitsuru- but that doesn't quite work out in practice. Yukari is the only one who actually wants to go back to the past, and the others are undecided/neutral at best or actively opposed at worst. It doesn't help that Junpei is basically on Akihiko's side.

I can understand S.E.E.S. falling apart due to infighting, since the group was less cohesive than the Investigation Team(P4) or the Phantom Thieves(P5). After all, Shinjiro distanced himself from the group for two years, Ken wanted to kill Shinjiro in revenge, and Yukari disliked and distrusted Mitsuru at first. Unfortunately, the conflict comes off as inorganic when Yukari's the primary one instigating it.

Speaking of Yukari, she became rather divisive due to her actions, especially since she doesn't care that going back will force S.E.E.S. to fight Nyx again without any guarantee of victory, thus endangering the entire world. That said, while I'm critical about how the conflict with S.E.E.S. was handled, I can sympathize with her feelings of grief (although Mitsuru and Fuuka, who likely also had feelings for the protagonist, didn't go this far). In fact, it's ironic, in a way- Yukari resented her mother for her inability to move on from Eiichiro Takeba(her husband and Yukari's father's) death, but Yukari herself ends up being no better when the one she loves dies. Of course, Yukari isn't the only one who's lost someone close to her- so have Akihiko, Ken, Junpei, Koromaru and Mitsuru, but all of them sans Mitsuru oppose going back to the past.

The battle format is especially odd. One would imagine that it would be a two-round single elimination tournament, but Aigis and Metis have to defeat each of the teams in turn- first Akihiko's team, then Junpei's team, then Yukari's team. The former two have relatively little basis for wanting to fight Aigis' team- the former because she's undecided and the latter because Junpei thinks Aigis can't defeat Yukari- compared to how they're more strongly opposed to Yukari, likely because things would end once Yukari is defeated.

In the end, Aigis wins and unites the keys into one that only she can use. Yukari doesn't take it well, and finally lets out all her frustration and grief over the protagonist's death, whereupon Mitsuru and Aigis comfort her and bring her to her senses. It's a touching moment, but Mitsuru was responsible for enabling Yukari's behavior by siding with her.

Endgame

Of course, the cast doesn't go back home just yet. Aigis realizes they can use the key to view the moment the protagonist sacrificed himself, which leads to shocking revelations. The first is why the protagonist died- he sacrificed his essence to become the seal for Nyx. The second is what the seal does- it doesn't seal Nyx away, but keeps Nyx from Erebus, humanity's collective desire for death.

A boss battle ensues, and while S.E.E.S. emerges victorious, they realize that humanity will never stop yearning for death. Nevertheless, they try to do what they can to save humanity from its self-destructive desires and choose not to disband just yet. Persona 4, as well as the Arena duology, imply that Elizabeth is trying to find some way to save the protagonist from his fate as a seal, but it appears unlikely that she will ever succeed, as the plotline has not been revisited since then.

As for Yukari, she apologizes to everyone for how she acted and makes amends with Aigis by offering to let Aigis stay with her, but remains somewhat controversial within the fandom, albeit not as hated as she once was. It doesn't help that her change comes near the end of the story, and there is too little time for her to show her change for the better, in large part due to how The Answer takes place over a short period of time, although her appearance in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax a little over two in-universe years later shows that she's moved on.

Conflicts With Portable

As a minor note, there are a number of instances in which Answer potentially contradicts the outcomes of player choice in Portable(which, admittedly, was released later).

1. First and most obviously, the protagonist is referred to with male pronouns.
   
   
2. Aigis is the one who is with the protagonist during his final moments, something Yukari is bitter about. In Portable, it's possible to get your lover(including Yukari) to come to the roof instead on a New Game Plus.
   
   
3. Somewhat related to that, Yukari is the only character who seems to have explicitly romantic feelings for the protagonist.
   
   
4. Shinjiro, like the protagonist, is explicitly dead. In Portable, he can survive if you complete his Social Link.
   
   
5. Likewise, Chidori is dead. Not only can you allow her to survive if you encourage Junpei to keep seeing her, Ultimax implies she may be alive.

With that in mind, one can see why people who prefer Portable may not want The Answer very badly, at least unless Atlus decides to allow it to account for player choices.

Conclusion

All in all, The Answer is a decent concept with a severely flawed execution. It tries to tie up loose ends after the end of The Journey in a mini-adventure, but in the process, ends up biting off more than it can chew, due to having to introduce elements of the story that were never so much as hinted at before and develop characters in a fairly short in-universe amount of time(even counting the time loop). It also ends up sacrificing some gameplay elements that made Persona appealing, such as Social Links- which not only flesh out the side characters but also reward good time management and strengthen your Personas. In short, it's hardly essential for the Persona 3 experience, and while its exclusion from Portable is unfortunate, not much is lost.