Persona3Portable may feel retro in comparison to Persona 5, but the remaster shows just how well the series has evolved.
In 2006, developer Atlus would pave its future with an important game release: Persona 3 for the PlayStation 2. It was a smash-hit, finally taking the JRPG series mainstream in a way that its first two games didn’t. Persona 3 laid the groundwork for what would eventually be Persona 5’s monumental mainstream success and Atlus’ crown jewel.
Retroactive At first glance, Persona 3 Portable can feel like a relic, something emphasized by the way Atlus chose to compress the game onto the PSP. One of its biggest concessions is that it’s presented in a point-and-click visual novel format instead of having a 3D character model able to roam around like in Persona 4 Golden or Persona 5. As such, static sprites are placed in background areas and characters are interacted with via cursor.
Since this is a remaster and hardware limitations weren’t a factor here, I wound up wishing Atlus had taken the extra effort to give players the option to either play in 3D or the point-and-click presentation. Being constrained to the Portable version makes the remaster feel a little dated. While Persona 5‘s similar Social Links rewarded players with major benefits, Persona 3‘s don’t have as strong an incentive. Instead, they’re more worth experiencing just for the stories they reveal, which bring emotional depth to the RPG. For those who love Persona 4 and 5 more for its storytelling than its RPG systems, P3P still holds a special place in the series.
The epilogue’s inclusion and fun factor are divisive among the Persona fan base, but leaving it out still makes Portable feel somewhat incomplete, even if it is widely considered the definitive version of Persona 3.
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