Developer: Atlus
Publisher: Sega
Available On: PC, PSP, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S
Reviewed on Xbox Series S
While the original version of Persona 3 was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2007, Persona 3 Portable is a stripped-down version that was designed for the PlayStation Portable in 2010. Removing key features like animated cutscenes and the ability to walk around the environments was seen as a massive downgrade by fans of the original release, but since this is the first time Persona 3 has been made available in over a decade, I’ll take whichever version I can get. That being said, while it’s exciting to see a game that’s been stranded on older hardware finally get a modern release, it’s impossible to not feel its age creeping in. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a very enjoyable game, but if you’re coming into it after only playing the more recent Persona 5/Royal, or preparing to experience this type of game for the first time, then there are a few things you should be aware of.
For starters, strap yourself in because this game is a massive time commitment. While the completion time will be slightly different depending on which difficulty is selected and how much you decide to see and do, I played on Normal and did just about everything in the game (minus some optional and extremely difficult fights) and clocked in nearly 90 hours. Persona 3 Portable simulates an entire year of life as a Japanese high school student, allowing you to live out every day as you see fit, with only a few minor exceptions. You can attend classes, build friendships and romantic relationships, pursue part-time jobs, and even unwind after a long day with a trip to the arcade. There’s a lot to see and do and while it can occasionally be overwhelming, you’re never penalized for prioritizing one activity or friendship over another, giving you the freedom to engage with whatever draws your attention the most.
As you live out your days as a student, you must also keep an immense secret. When you first arrive in this new town you experience a strange phenomenon that happens at midnight called the Dark Hour. When the clock strikes midnight the entire town is transformed into a realm of blood and secrets overrun by deadly creatures called Shadows. Upon your arrival, you meet a group of teenagers who have the power of Persona, the ability to summon a defender based on their inner selves to combat the Shadows. You discover you have this ability as well and join up with them, forming a secret group determined to protect the town. As you can already expect, these teenagers are also your classmates and you’re all tasked with balancing your daily social/academic life with your secret role as Persona users. I really don’t want to spoil anything here, but suffice it to say the story twists and turns and recontextualizes itself constantly, often in ways that I never saw coming. This is a very dark, emotional, and shocking story with a final act that’s one of the most morally complex this medium has ever offered.
It’s important to note that, for the most part, this game doesn’t feature traditional movement, at least not when out exploring the town and school. Since this is the re-release of the Portable version, the movement style has changed from using a thumbstick to move your character, to using a cursor to select which room, area, or character you interact with. It essentially plays out like a more interactive visual novel than your typical JRPG, a fact that many fans of the original PS2 version dislike about this particular release. Personally, I didn’t think it was that bad, and thanks to a helpful list you can pull up at the touch of a button, getting around the town and school is super easy and intuitive. At the same time, it definitely feels like a product of its time and despite releasing on modern platforms, some of the backgrounds still look like low-res PSP graphics.
Thankfully, despite the awkward traversal system, the world manages to still feel alive, largely due to its characters. Each location in the game (school, mall, shrine, etc.) features a small handful of characters that make the world feel a little more lived in. One of the ways it achieves this is by changing their dialogue constantly throughout the course of the game to reflect the changes in the storyline and the way they affect the world. None of these conversations are necessarily crucial to the plot, but they do give you the incentive to slow down and revisit areas to gain a better understanding of where people are emotionally and mentally with some of the bigger changes happening around them.
Of course, the most important part of exploring and living out your year is forming bonds with people. Known as “Social Links”, these connections allow you to meet certain individuals and help them grow as people, achieve their goals, and even form romantic ties. The best Social Links are easily your teammates, all of which I love deeply, even if some of them start off a little weaker than others. This probably won’t mean much if you haven’t played Persona 5, but I think this cast is far stronger and fleshed out with more in-depth personalities and motivations. The other Social Links are also a treat. For example, there’s an old man wasting his time at a bar regretting decisions he’s made about his family. Spending time with him allows you to learn more about his personality and his past and attempt to find a way to help him overcome his failures as a husband and father. There’s also a slimy TV salesman looking for a protege, an old couple who run a bookstore and have a tragic past, and several fellow students struggling with the daily pressures of school. Altogether there are more than 20 Social Links to form, although it’s worth mentioning that it’s incredibly difficult to max out all of them. While it technically can be done, it would mean following an online guide to the letter and removing any sense of choice, which isn’t how I would recommend playing.
While the social aspect is one of the key components of the game, combat is equally as important. Combat plays out like a traditional turn-based JRPG, where you can attack with a weapon, defend from incoming attacks, use items, or channel your Persona for powerful abilities. You can take up to three teammates with you into battle, and while you only start with two to choose from, you build up a nice little roster as the game progresses and eventually have a nice bit of variation to play around with. What really makes Persona’s combat stand apart from other games in the genre is the Personas themselves. Each teammate can only hold the one Persona that’s unique to them, but your character has the ability to hold on to multiple Personas, allowing you to choose from a wide array of skills and abilities. You gain new Personas as rewards from combat or through a process called Fusion (more on this in a moment) and the thrill of discovering new Personas manages to hit the same thrill level as the Pokemon franchise. However, since some of the Persona designs are a little more, uh, “suggestive”, it’s not quite hitting that “family-friendly” criteria.
One of the more involved aspects of the game is Fusion, which can get admittedly complicated. You can take different Personas in your possession and fuse them together to create a more powerful Persona. Since any previously held Persona can be summoned again later (for a fee), fusing feels heavily encouraged if you want to maintain a competent roster. Unfortunately, there’s just a little too much guesswork for my liking. There are several Personas that can be fused into the same outcome, and I couldn’t figure out any type of formula, rhyme, or reason as to what led to worthwhile fusions, so it felt like I was just randomly selecting from what I had and seeing what I would get. I don’t know if I was just missing something or what, but I ended up keeping a fusion guide bookmarked on my phone and consulting with it frequently. I also found the way skills are passed on in Fusions to be unclear since it seemed like it would randomly pick a skill or two, often focusing on passive skills than active ones.
What really makes combat weird is the way the dungeon works and how the movement inside of it is handled. There’s only one dungeon in the game, Tartarus, and it’s a 264-floor monstrosity that you can only visit at night during the Dark Hour. Progress is sporadically gated, only allowing you to get higher as the game progresses. In theory, it’s a cool idea. Having one central location to return to as it changes over the course of the game sounds awesome, but Tartarus is a complete slog. Each floor is a randomly generated maze of perfectly straight hallways and right angles that simply aren’t fun to explore. Despite being broken up into themed “blocks”, everything just blends together and feels repetitive and uninspired. Movement in Tartarus is also weird because, unlike the exploration in town, you can actually directly move your character. There are some cool ideas here, like the ability to sneak up on an enemy to get an advantage in combat, but for the most part, exploring Tartarus felt like it was part of a completely different game.
On the plus side, despite the issues with Fusion and Tartarus, there’s nothing related to performance to be too worried about. Playing on Xbox Series S saw the game stay locked at a perfectly smooth 60 fps, and while I’ve seen some people complain about shoddy audio, it sounded perfectly fine to me coming out of my TV speakers. The only real problem I faced was while I was still in the opening hours of the game and I had a Social Link completely bug out on me, but since I was still early on I just restarted and rushed back to that point (which didn’t take long). Before you get too concerned, I looked around online and haven’t seen anyone else have that issue, so you’ll probably be fine. I never encountered any other problems with progression or performance after that and it was smooth sailing all the way to the credits.
Before wrapping up, I want to give a small piece of advice on how to approach this game. Simply take your time. While I enjoyed my time with this game, cramming nearly 90 hours into a span of a few weeks did have me feeling fatigued by the end. This is a game that simulates a year of life, and while I’m not saying you should only play one in-game day a day, don’t treat this as something to rush through to get to the next thing. Take your time, get to know the town and characters, build up those Social Links, and don’t feel bad about pulling up a Fusion guide.
FINAL VERDICT
While die-hard fans will tell you this is the inferior version of the game, there’s still a lot to love about Persona 3 Portable. This high school sim/JRPG features a cast of lovable characters, a mature and twisting story, a great town to explore, and an incredibly fun battle system. One of the few areas where the game disappoints is in the Fusion system, which feels obtuse and isn’t explained well. There’s also the recurring Tartarus dungeon that’s cool in theory, but incredibly repetitive in practice. If you’re more familiar with the handcrafted themed dungeons of Persona 5, then this will likely feel like a massive step backward, as will the movement style outside of Tartarus which feels like a more involved visual novel. If you can look past some of these flaws, the strengths of the game come out on top and make this an entertaining and engaging experience well worth taking part in. And who knows? If the interest in this re-release does well, maybe we’ll see the first two games return as well.
– Zack Burrows
Sight-In Games 