I never said I was a fan of everything Atlus published, I just meant the SMT franchise. As for buying the next one no matter what, I meant Persona 4. Sure P3 had it's flaws, I've already agreed on that tangent, but I have faith that there will be improvements in the next installment.
 
Trying to get me to cop to bieng a fan of everything Atlus has Localized!? Nice try
If I agreed to that , then I would have to stand tall and welcome the flames!
 
And to answer your question choooo, in regards to my first post, if it was set in America I would be an even bigger fan. Even without the anime portraits. I am no japanophile, I drive a jeep wrangler for christ sake. I am a nationalist through and through. I just happen to be a fan of some things japanese. Don't act like your not! As for the crappy American rap battle music, that might have been a dealbreaker

I love this thread. Its a shame I missed it when it was made. Not that it matters, h3at mostly addressed my complaints. Not that it matters, because as Sir Asura said, its already been complained about elsewhere.

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Persona 1 actually had a good battle system, which  is more than P3 can say.
 
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If you're tired of people having  the gall to complain about a crappy game, the logical thing would be to not read their posts. Try it! Your fragile ego will thank you for it!
 
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Liar.

I don't mind the gameplay that much, but the storyline/atmosphere/characters didn't cut it for me. Which is one of the major reasons I play these games. It's not the end of the world for the series....just a slight misfire.

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Then don't buy/play it and get over it.  You can't blame developers for imitating a success, and despite your gripes over Persona 3, from the standpoint of sales, it probably did better than anticipated.  Of course they are going to want to please their growing/new fanbase and squeeze one more title out of a system they already have the junk to develop for (and I'm sure at this point, very cheaply).  It's called making money.  It's also called fan service.  Sorry that it's just a little bit annoying that the "original" Persona fans are being "slighted," but honestly there was a fairly large hiatus between P2 and P3, so I think that gives the developers total reign over what to do, and also what audience to reach.  The Megaten franchise doesn't have to be geared towards just one specific niche of gamers--Persona proves this--and in the end I think it'll benefit the overall picture.
 
Personally, I think the comment about lookalikes/copies of previous characters is HILARIOUS--wtf do you think /every/ character in /any/ game is?  When you start adding on sequels, you're going to get people bitching about "lookalikes."  When you get the same artist doing the same series/project over and over again, eventually things are going to look very similar--especially in situations where games are being developed quickly in succession after one another like Persona 3 and Persona 4.  
 
For all you know, the dating sim could be slightly improved--for instance you choose who to be "romantic" with, so you won't have a harem of women most likely.  In other words, a new dose of realism.  
 
Also, Meguro pleases a lot of people.  You can't expect him to be canned when the majority of people playing this franchise has no issue with the work he produces.  Fuck, it's not like you're dealing with Motoi Sakuraba (Notable for his work on the Tales of... series), who might as well never compose a "new" piece of music in his life because it all sounds the same.  Meguro most likely achieves what is intended for these games--you can't deny that a lot of his tunes are catchy, please a jpoppy audience, and fit the "world" in question.  I enjoyed a lot of the work done in DDS and Nocturne.  His music is really appropriate for what he's trying to accompany in each game's world, so expect annoying shit for a high school.
 
Honestly H3at, I'd like to know what franchises you enjoy other than megaten.  I can't think of any rpg series that isn't more or less a rehash of its predecessors.  Persona 4 is giving enough new to be distinguishable from Persona 3, and sorry, but it wouldn't really make sense for the game to pick up this many new players and then go LOL Persona 2 is how this series should be.  In a lot of ways, if you're talking about a broken battle system, BTW, Persona 2 comes up in my mind.  We're talking slow, frequent, cumbersome battles.  Persona 3's system totally works, it's just easier than press turn, and perhaps not suitable for the more "hard core" gamers out there.  But who the fuck would pick up a game that's a high school simulator expecting it to be hard core?  Case closed in my opinion.

Actually H3at it's clear that you're just being a self-indulgent whiner.   I know perfectly well what I am talking about.
 
BTW, there is nothing hardcore about P3's battle system or dungeons--reread what I wrote.  It's obviously easy to sneak up on shadows and it's obviously easy to beat battle after battle with mulit-hit elemental attacks.  No. Duh.
 
If you brought back Persona 2 today, people would bitch about a lot of things.  The battles aren't outrageously long, but they are long.  The menus are cumbersome.  You do get used to it, but let's face it, compared to RPGs today, most gamers won't dig it.  It's DATED.  The undersea dungeon still makes me feel fatigued--it sucked playing through that ugly, monotonous, beast.  Frequent random encounters = annoying
 
The funniest thing about all these people bitching about a "dumbied down" battle system is that basically that was the INTENT of the designers.  They needed to make a quick battle system to counteract the slow rest of the game.  It's a system of balances, and actually, it was designed to be abused.  The whole idea of "ONE MORE" is so that you can abuse your opponent and visa versa.  My complaint would be that this system is too black and white--you're either too easily screwed or you can go through the whole game relatively unchallenged.  Then again, why do you think the Tartarus Guardian fights were fairly challenging in comparison to even story-based bosses?  They were put there as roadblocks for you to deal with.  Oh, but you read FAQs on gameFAQs and knew which boss had a proclivity to which status ailment, so nevermind. Most people wouldn't use status skills, as Mitsuru is the only one who spams them and there's a small chance she's always with you and a small chance you'll do what?  Cast pulinpa on a boss?  There's little precedent in RPGs for that, so who would assume to do it?  So yeah, not every battle is exactly engaging, but the hardest foes made the battle system a challenge.  If you think the people designing it didn't think that it would work the way it does, then you're downright out of your mind.
 
Oh boo hoo, we lost the contact system.  You know what, get over it again.  The contact system was hilarious.  Most of the dialog between demons and players was complete gibberish.  Not only that, but it eventually boiled down to an incredibly easy, albeit incredibly time-wasting, convention in the game.  
 
Now back to Meguro--I'd ask you to listen to the Persona 2 soundtrack and tell me that everything there is just easy-listening.  Honestly, there's about as much garbage there as there is in any video game.  What do you expect?  When has the expectation for video game music been that it must be track after track of masterpieces?  Really, if that's your sentiment, then I must think the only thing you listen to is your collection of video game music bought off of otaku.com, but oh no, you're not a weeaboo, playing this high school dating simulation jrpg, my mistake.  
 
BTW, I actually didn't enjoy Persona 3 as much as I enjoyed its predecessors.  Would I still recommend the game to my friends?  Yes.  Why?  Because I've noticed that to a large number of people unfamiliar with Megaten, this game IS a huge challenge and IS really engaging.  It's a good way to introduce people to a franchise.  It's a good way to branch out to slightly different audiences.
 
The Persona franchise in itself was basically dead when Persona 3 was announced.  You should be grateful that Atlus even picked it up again.  Plenty of game series that I feel deserve attention have instead been retired.  It's perfectly acceptable then, in my mind, to try something new to revitilize a series.  You sit on a title for 7+ years and what do you think happens to your fanbase?  They aren't going to be fresh up with Persona 2 and earlier.  You need to bring something completely new to the table--those who are still piqued by the game will come play and those newcomers without ridiculous preconceptions will get hooked.  
 
When you call Persona 3 a generic piece of shit, how many games have you personally played that are similar to it?  Just wondering?  It is a lot more shallow than its siblings, but on the US Market, I can't think of many things we've seen that are similar.  Persona 3 took a new direction, it was juggling a lot, it dropped a few things, but it tried out a lot of other stuff.   Atlus strove to find a new direction; it did; it worked, and now why would you expect them to not use it again?
 
Things that we're going to see changed in Persona 4:
 
Control over all party members
More control over social links
No more monotonous dungeons
Puzzles in dungeons
Deeper fusion system
Weather system
 
Already it sounds like Atlus is capitalizing on success.
 
Really, I don't even need to waste my time countering each of your points.  Let me just boil it down for you.  If you're done with the Persona series, then be done with it and don't trash it--because what are you expecting?  Most people here, as I said in my very first post in this thread, have heard everything you have to offer and more eloquently I may add.  Second, there are, I'm assuming, at MEGATEN HAVEN, of all places, a good number of people who appreciate P3 for what it is.  So what do you want, a fruitless argument from them?  Nothing's going to change your sentiment--that's why you need to get over it or just not overtly bring it up because what are we supposed to say?  How are we supposed to make things better

I doubt it was purely Kaneko's decision--I'm sure a higher power decided, or he was being used elsewhere, etc.  I mean, it's not like they got a new person to work on the game; Soejima did a lot of work on the previous Persona titles. Technically Kaneko still has a big hand in the game as all the older character models based off his designs are STILL being used.  I bet they wanted Soejima's softer style to help reiterate the "new vibe" for the series.  Personally, I think some of his designs are actually quite good.  All of the Personae he designed are in my opinion much more intelligent than Kaneko's ideas.  I mean... let's compare Orpheus to say P2's Helios?  
 
Kaneko would just like make a bondage high school.  Soejima has both a whimsical and a grounded side to him that works with what Persona 3 was trying to incorporate--a simulation of reality and a fantasy.
 
As for an anniversary edition--in an ideal world sure, but in our world that would probably just mean getting the really ridiculous US localization of the first persona, which talking about dumbied down.......