4.5/5 ★ – Hootus900's review of Persona 3 Portable.

My persona 3 bias is really showing today haha. This is by far my favorite of the 3 modern persona games, and this review marks my second of many more play throughs in my lifetime. First I want to talk about the characters. While I think it’s a definitive fact that the team chemistry is the best in persona 4 (don’t even try to argue, the phantom thieves are suuuper bland), I feel this game really nailed it in terms of the members of SEES really feeling like they have an identity outside of the main group. What I especially loved is that we get to see them question the objectives and other characters choices within mandatory story cutscenes. I really liked the second half of the game, where significant moments happen to each character and those events trigger the evolution of their personas, rather than locking them behind slink progression. This really sets them apart and gives them more character moments, without even having to dive into their social links. That brings me to my next topic, THE SOCIAL LINKS! They are so incredible in this game. While I was playing, I never wanted to skip dialogue on a single one, which is a big contrast from 4 and 5 for me. Whether it was a kindergarten student trying to deal with her parent’s divorce, a monk getting drunk and missing his wife and son, or a man trying to find the meaning of life while death is knocking at his doorstep. They were all incredibly well done and should’ve set the standard for the further games to build upon and become better over time, which I’ve felt the opposite has happened. I know some people are put off by the “edgy” or dark tone of this game, but to me it felt like a breath of fresh air after playing 5 and 4. It gives this game its own identity, and also just really well goes with its story and themes. 4 did a really good job with having a shockingly dark story while keeping the presentation mostly upbeat and happy go lucky, so having a game be mostly serious and devoid of constant humor isn’t that big a deal to me. As far as the story goes, I thought it flowed really well. I liked having the main objectives happen every month, as it felt like there wasn’t really much downtime in between main story beats. For example, in 4 or 5 after changing a heart or rescuing a kidnapped victim, it felt like you just have a ton of time to kill and not much to look forward to, especially if you’re like me and get it done as soon as possible. Then there’s usually a week or two break after the deadline, then rinse and repeat throughout the game. Again, I’m really pleased with having them monthly. My favorite part of the game has got to be around the end of November and beginning of December. Without getting into spoilers, the plot reveal around that time really impacts the characters and makes them question everything that has happened for the entire game, as well as how to handle the rest of the game’s story. This creates a complete tonal shift for the final month or so, and I thought it was excellently done. The music that plays replaces the fun and upbeat tunes with a dreadful melody that is just as hopeful as it is reminding you of the inevitable fate that awaits. I’ve already wrote an essay on why I love this game, so now I’ll get into the nitpicks and objectively bad parts of this game. First, the 264 floored elephant in the room. Tartarus starts off as a really fun way to grind levels without it being directly tied directly to main story beats. As the game goes on it gets a bit tedious to do, but once you hit block 5 it gets unforgivably dull. I found myself opting to run past shadows just to get to the very top so I could be good and done with the scaling parts. This made me severely lower leveled in the endgame, but in my opinion it was worth it, as I ended up finishing the game about 30-40 hours underneath the regular amount I’ve heard it takes people to finish this game. The next issue for me, which is specific to this version, is the 2D presentation. I understand that this was necessary for the psp version, but I really wished that Atlus had ported FES at least, but kept the hugely important feature to control your party and the femc. It strips this game down to the barebones nature which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, however it was off putting enough that when I first tried playing this on my vita I decided to just pick up a ps3 to play FES instead. I think it’s definitely time for P3 remake, but I know I’d just pour my soul into this game all over again if they did. Last couple of nitpicks are femc and nyx. When starting a new save they ask if you want the boy or girl, and they say that the girl option is “recommend for p3 veterans”. I avoided this when I originally started this on my vita, but upon coming back for a second play through I opted to go with the girl and found there were no differences other than very specific dialogue changes and new romance options. As for nyx, anyone who has played this game knows why it sucks so bad. I have so many other words for this game and there’s plenty of oxygen for me to waste, but I shall leave it here for now. This version may be the best way to experience P3 without “the answer”, but I can’t help but dream for a day that we get a definitive edition/remake.