![]() ![]() While the shift to something closer to a visual novel is done well, it still feels like something’s missing in this version. Persona 3 Portable did away with the ability to control your character in exploration and cutscenes outside of Tartarus. And its meaning only seems to grow as time and the world go on, especially as today’s news headlines begin to resemble those in the game. A story confronting a subject as cheery as death rarely offers something meaningful without diving into nihilism, which Persona 3 Portable easily could have done. It’s one of those experiences that makes you feel the weight of reality, and you might come out of it with a different outlook than before you went in. Persona 3 Portable is an enduring story about confronting and conquering existential fears and, for god’s sake, not forgetting to live, whatever that may mean to an individual. The human side of the narratives is dynamic, taking some dark routes as characters seek fleeting redemption after tragedy invariably strikes.Įvery new revelation thrown your way hits like a bomb. Persona 3 Portable captures the dark side of high school, which can be just as horrifying as monsters consuming the city. They’re impulsive, they sometimes have embarrassingly bad thoughts, and they wrap up their identities in their extracurricular activities to unhealthy degrees. The high school kids behave as you’d expect high school kids would. I love the rich, horror-tinged atmosphere of the Persona games, and Persona 3 Portable may be the most unrestrained of them all.ĭespite the weirdness of the Shonen-infused story, Persona 3 Portable is lent emotional weight by its characters, who are grounded by contrast. I went to a My Chemical Romance concert last year, so maybe that scene is making a comeback. The aesthetic is a throwback to 2000s emo culture in all of its glory, and glorious it is. After midnight, people transmogrify into coffins while demonic Shadows roam free to turn townspeople into emotional zombies? There must be some odd nightlife in Japan for the writers to have drawn inspiration from. ![]() ![]() Let’s be real the premise of Persona 3 Portable is ridiculous. There are also a few changes to the gameplay that make it a bit easier and more accessible than the original, though there are higher difficulty levels for the experts. A few things were lost from the original and FES releases - most prominently, the excellent anime cutscenes, which were a treat. Still, it’s debatable whether this is the best version of the game. There are some improvements from the PS2 versions in Portable, namely the second path that allows you to play as a female along with the original male protagonist and some visual upgrades. The new release of Persona 3 Portable seems to be a faithful transfer of the game onto modern platforms, but the “portable” aspect doesn’t apply unless you’re playing it on a Switch or a Steam Deck. During the Dark Hour, the time between days, Gekkoukan transforms into Tartarus, a constantly shifting, seemingly endless tower, and it’s up to you and your friends to protect the city, Japan, and the world. In typical Persona fashion, you befriend a group of fellow teens who can summon great power from within themselves, which manifests as their Persona, giving them the ability to fight the demonic Shadows plaguing the town. As a transfer student to this school in Iwatodai, a town built on the artificial Tatsumi Port Island, you come to find many strange things before you even get off the train. Many people remember high school as a form of dungeon, but in Persona 3 Portable, Gekkoukan High is a literal dungeon. Persona 3 Portable was one of several upgraded versions of the original game, and it’s fantastic that Atlus is re-releasing both 3 and 4 on modern platforms to make them playable for those who don’t have a PSP or Vita lying around. The unique hybrid of high-school life-sim and a more traditional JRPG base was first released on the PS2 in 2006 in Japan and in 2007 elsewhere. Obviously, several games came before (more than four, actually), but the series first garnered critical acclaim and a cult following with Persona 3(including several awards from RPGFan). Persona 5 was a major hit and raised the profile of its own series and parent franchise, Shin Megami Tensei, as a whole. ![]()
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