All my worst thoughts strike at the ungodly hour after midnight. It’s quiet, and the sounds that I don’t usually notice grow louder, and I’m keenly aware that there are shadow-like figures in the room without light. Anxiety can swirl at times thanks to strange piles of clothes and blanketless feet. Sometimes it’s a little too dark, and the eerie abyss of the dark bedroom is full of existential horror.
need to know
what is that? A port of Persona 3’s PSP release that includes a new protagonist, changes to the combat system, and a shift to visual novel-style gameplay.
Expected payment: $20
Developer: atlas
the publisher: Sega
Review date: Intel Core i7 – 10700k CPU, 64GB RAM, GeForce RTX 3080, Steam Deck
Multiplayer? No
Outside: January 19th
Link: Official site
Persona 3 Portable’s frustrating cast has to share its midnight terrors with me, but they have more supernatural fears. It’s a reminder of what’s missing. Persona 3 starts the clock before we know what the countdown will be. It takes him a year to decide who or what his racing opponent is.
Persona 3 shares most of the social RPG traits I loved in Persona 4 and Persona 5. There are daily studies, flirting, exams, and other worries of school life. At night, the focus shifts to the dungeons surrounding the mysterious labyrinth of Tartarus. Along the way you’ll do the usual persona gathering and shadow slaying, desperately searching for an all-powerful big bad guy to torture the city during the dark hours of the night. and are divided on changes to Persona 3 FES on PlayStation 2, a sort of “director’s cut” version of the game. Excellent in some ways, questionable in others.
With Portable, Atlus streamlined its approach by replacing most of the 3D environments with a 2D point-and-click system and removing animated video cutscenes. Events unfold through in-game models, text, and static artwork. Think of it more like a visual novel. Also, the long epilogue added in FES will be removed, but the female protagonist route will be added.
While all of these differences are the same, the Persona 3 Portable PC release adds quality of life tweaks, remastered graphics, and a Japanese voiceover option.
terribly good
Portable’s PSP origins have become clear with age. Some scenes work just fine without the original animation, others fall a little short, but the setting remains as spooky as it was years ago. These highs and lows begin early on when the protagonist summons his persona for the first time by pressing a gun-like evoker to his temple. The momentary tension that was once emphasized in anime cutscenes cannot be conveyed by in-game models alone. There isn’t much animation in the original, but this is one of the few moments where its absence hurts.
I found that choosing the female route changed some friendships and everyday interactions for the better.
I miss those sequences, but the world’s struggles with discomfort and mortality are manifest in the writing and art. 3 stylishly harnesses the unease of the universe. Smudged layers of green, blue, and yellow blanket the world in shades of unease, and the way Tartarus towers above everything establishes its terrifying scale. The shadows that inhabit the massive dungeon are all things of unnatural shape and movement. Their creepy distortions keep me from getting bored climbing hellish structures, even when I get caught in a comical tag-team game.
I default to Portable’s female protagonist primarily due to some social link changes that have been made since the male version and some new musical tastes. Her iconic blue-bob counterpart is the guy referenced in more Persona 3-related spin-offs, and the game has a character selection that claims his arc is a better first experience. There are some odd moments. Neither path needs context from spin-offs or his FES-exclusive epilogue to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.
Portable also cleans up writes in some areas. We found that choosing the female route turned some friendships and daily interactions into something better. Links are available, but friendship options with other high school girls in your party will still be maintained. Knowing a character like Junpei, the resident tough-guy nuisance, makes his mouthy babble all the more sympathetic. Critical Story His beats keep the theme for both protagonists, but I think Turning Her points becomes more substantial after developing relationships with the crew.
it’s a long way
The looming Hell Tower that rips through the city skyline absolutely dominates, but it adds hours of never-ending still-there grind
Persona 3’s art direction, casting, and constant reflections on horror make it one of Atlus’ best work, but its repetitive dungeon crawling isn’t. You have the option to visit Tartarus most nights, but the skyscraper-like dungeons aren’t as dynamic as those found in Persona 4 and Persona 5. It’s an absolute rule, but it actually adds hours of endless “still there” journeys.
Fighting hurts and helps. Portable is definitely a better version of Persona 3’s combat system. On the PlayStation 2, you could only control the actions of the main character, and the AI commanded everyone else. On portable, the player can control the entire party, so the game no longer feels unnecessarily punitive thanks to AI fools. It has always been one of my biggest complaints about his FES. I silently prayed that Mitsuru would heal me, only to see Mitsuru drive me to death.
It wouldn’t be a Persona without a collection of terrifying and sometimes adorable demons to summon along the way. Merging personas excites the part of my brain that loves nasty Excel spreadsheets, but how that information is packaged makes a world of difference. I have a huge love for completing Persona Compendium with every possible demon combination, but I like playing and experimenting with more complex recipes to look for specific skills and creatures. .
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It’s not entirely fair, but it’s hard not to compare P3P’s devilish recipe to its modern successor. The fifth game simplified his three-way fusion and more and paced its options, but Portable dumped a list on the table and managed to piece them all together in Guess Who’s convoluted game. increase. Sometimes I would pay more attention, diligently searching for the critters I needed, but more often than not it would do the same thing as opening the fridge at night and grabbing a handful of shredded cheese. I don’t know if it satisfies the requirements, but it would be troublesome to cook other things.
This combat feels like a draft of a later Persona, but I still appreciate the turn-based combos present throughout the series. , then analyze and exploit the weaknesses of those elements. Even after all these years, I still haven’t learned my lesson and occasionally try to brute force my way through. Punish your actions and wipe out the entire party if you don’t apply thoughtful strategy. I lament how it drags on.
drag and click
Pivoting from the Portable’s 3D overworld to a 2D environment remains one of the more controversial options, but looking back, it’s been nearly 70 hours of navigating the same few small “open” maps. I’m stuck in. Take accelerated point-and-click movements. You say point and click, but that’s not entirely accurate either. Not customizing controls can be as boring as it looks. Instead of hovering over a target and left-clicking, imagine your mouse emulating an analog stick. On the world map, you have to slide your PSP-era cursor from point A to point B to select it. If you can move faster and the cursor doesn’t have much distance to move, a simple double-click seemed to work. Not. We recommend connecting a controller or using the Steam Deck.
The PC version’s configuration options offer a wealth of remappable schemes and other settings, and have worked consistently well with my setup. On my desktop, I played fullscreen at 3840×2160 at 120 FPS and had no issues with the rest of the Persona 3 Portable set high. The game is almost as old as its high school protagonist, but it’s reassuring that it hasn’t painstakingly added troubleshooting.
Portable looks great most of the time, but some environments and models did better than others in the remastering process. Backgrounds with more lighting effects were affected the most, adding grain to the art of messy layers are added. It’s not devastating, and the gentrified makeover is still a huge improvement.
the end is coming
I’m relieved to revisit Persona 3 Portable via the PC port and realize that my fascination with the world isn’t just about childhood feelings. . It’s one of those feelings of pain and anxiety in your chest. Otherworldly grievances flow everywhere in the best possible way, whether it’s the haunting ticks of Dark Hour or conversations with restless classmates.
Portable may not be at the top of its class in terms of outdated systems and dungeon crawling, but its cast and tone easily make up for some of its shortcomings. If you allow Persona 3’s a bit of monotony, it offers an unavoidable terror steeped in a twisted style that’s decidedly different from the games that followed.
