Tartarus? Sounds like toothpaste!
– Junpei Iori when first entering the dorm.
My first review after my hiatus is by far one of my favourite series of all time, Persona 3. This time, I shall be reviewing the PSP version which whilst having been downgraded in some areas, has also been updated in terms of other factors. The primary feature, which is featured on the cover is the brand new female protagonist, the second time in the entire Persona series that there has been a female protagonist. Whilst the male protagonist storyline is also featured, this review will essentially be catering to the female storyline improvements, since I havent played through the male P3P storyline yet.
A teenager who was orphaned as a young child returns to the city of his/her childhood. Shortly after transferring to Gakkoukan High School, he/she is attacked by Shadows – creatures that feed on the minds of their victims. The assault awakens his.her Persona, Orpheus, his/her only chance at defeating these creatures of the night. He/She soon discovers that he/she shares this special ability with other students at their new school. From them, they learn of the Dark Hour, a hidden time that exists between one day and the next, swarming with Shadows. He/She joins the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (SEES), and with their new friends, confronts this evil threat.
The storyline of the game essentially follows the same storyline as the previous versions of the game on the Playstation 2 however the female protagonist route has a few modifications such as:
- New Social Links to replace the ones of the male protagonist.
- The ability to form a social link with every single party member. These can at a few moments within the storyline, alter the outcome of the story.
- The ability to date the male Velvet Room assistant (Non-social link but still weird)
- A certain Persona 4 crossover with one of the playable character in that game seen and another character mentioned. Both characters are non-playable however.
These add a freshness to the overall good storyline of the game. The main aspect would be the new social links, which differ from male to female protagonist as follows:
Fool: SEES —> SEES
Magician: Kenji —> Junpei
Priestess: Fuuka
Empress: Mitsuru
Emperor: Hidetoshi
Hierophant: Book store owners
Lovers: Yukari
Chariot: Kazushi —>Rio (New Character)
Justice: Chihiro —> Ken
Hermit: Maya *Coff* —> Saori (New Character)
Fortune: Keisuke —> Ryoji
Strength: Yuko —> Koromaru
Hanged Man: Maiko
Death: Pharos
Temperance: Bebe
Devil: Tanaka —> Tanaka
Tower: Mutatsu —> Mutatsu
Star: Mamoru —> Akihiko
Moon: Nozomi —>Shinjiro
Sun: Akinari —> Akinari
Judgement: Nyx Annihilation Team
The added social links do add a bit of variety to them, however certain ones require a very strict policy to finish their social links on time and essentially, every time you get a chance to level up their links, you must do it else you will not be able to max it, thus ruining the added benefits of maxing them. The new social links are very so-so, and whilst some are good such as the Fortune one due to getting to bully them and convince them to aid at the dorm, other characters such as Koromaru which basically consists of taking him for walks.
The graphics system within the game has changed considerably. No longer are you made to walk the long tiring corridors of the building, instead to accomodate to the PSP’s lesser UMD disk size, you now have a graphical interfact as seen above which require you to move around a cursor to select people within the buildings. Essentially all the area designs are exactly the same as the PS2 with the exception of the faculty office corridor which they flipped the rooms over, most likely to annoy the people who played the prior games, asked to go to the office and then try and break into the library.
Tartarus exploration has not changed at all, with the 3D exploration and battle system remaining the same, althrough maybe at a lesser quality to the PS2 games. Character designs are well detailed and the use of additional costume designs add to the diversity and appeal of the characters.
Battles in the game use the same graphic styles as the tartarus exploration and are in full 3D. The interface is overall the same, but the graphics for the all-out-attack changed to make them more like the Persona 4 style, just in the original blue style.
All social links and interactions between characters will take place on a visual novel style environment, therefore character portraits will replace 3D models and backdrops will be used instead of 3D environments. On the most part, this is only a minor hinderance however there were a few times where I felt the text that detailed the actions of the character were vague and would have been more understandable and interesting to read with 3D.
Music in the game consists of both old tracks from the previous games, as well as new tracks, primarily for the female protagonist route. For example, the new battle song “Wiping All Out” replaces “Mass Destruction” in the female path whilst “Mass Destruction” remains the primary battle theme for the male character. Other music changes occur for the during the day environments with different music replacing the old vocal music for it. This does add a variety and encourage one to play both storylines to listen to the different music tracks however I didnt feel that the new songs lived up to the original songs and unlike songs like Mass Destruction, didnt give me the feeling of wanting to sing the lyrics of the song out loud whilst playing. The new opening theme is titled Soul Phase and can be seen in the video above. It is placed on a rotation with Burn My Dread from the original Persona 3 game.
Vocals are mostly the same for the previous game, however within party members social links, there were cases where they used vocals, but this was primarily for the max social link scenarios. None of the non-party social links had any voice overs at all. A number of the new non-social link scenes also had voice overs and always referred to the female protagonist as a “her’ not a “him”, showing that they re-recorded a number of scenes.
Gameplay is, essentially the same as the other games, form social links, crawl the dungeon, gotta catch em’ all Personas AND save the world from shadows. I shall split up my gameplay review into these four categories!
Social Links
As stated above in regards to the storyline, social links are now slightly different for the female protagonist with brand new social link characters for clubs, modified social links to suit the female protagonist (The dating system seems to be out but most of the school-based males will admit their love to you) and being able to interact with all members of SEES as social links, which is done both at school and at the dorm, with some characters such as Ken and Shinjiro breaking their normal personalities and funnily/annoyingly taking ages just to admit their evident love for the main character. There is no battle benefits for individual social links, however as the FOOL link levels up, benefits will come from that in replacement of the additional tactics. Male social links remain the same however.
As a female, you can choose who you want to be Igor’s assistant in the velvet room, the original Elizabeth or the male counterpart Theodore. Interactions with Theodore seem to be more interesting than Elizabeth however some things seem just plain creepy with him, but it is a nice change. The three personality trait (Knowledge, Charm and Courage) have to new means of increasing however are still required for certain social links.
Crawling Tartarus
Tartarus exploration is the same as previous games and over the course of the game, you have to climb 2xx floors over the course of around 9-10 months to reach the top of the tower. The difference however is that to encourage you to not to it all in one night, to have you rescue people who get trapped in the tower over the month. An even bigger aspect into this is that these can include your own social link contacts, meaning that you might not be able to progress a social link unless you rescue them. Not sure what happens if you dont rescue them by the next full moon, since those who are not rescued end up having Apathy Syndrome, but it cannot be beneficial at all. You do get bonuses by rescuing them in forms of cash, items and skill cards. Also unlike prior versions, your main character cannot wield multiple weapons, with the male only being able to wield short swords and the female can only wield naginata weapons.
Gotta Catch em’ All
The means of acquiring Persona’s are the same, you have to either aquire them post-battle or alternatively, fusing them using the Velvet Room. There is a new system however called skill cards where if you are attached to a Persona or feel that they have a flaw in relation to a skill, you can acquire certain skills through quests, rescuing a person etc and then adding them into a skill slot for your Persona. Therefore, it is possible for you to use Orpheus throughout the entire game continuously adding skills to it and upgrading its stats at the arcade in order to yield the ultimate starting persona.
Myself? I got bored with continuously changing Persona’s so I used a Nekomata that has almost near maxed STR and MAG with Maxed AGI. Whilst it is not the strongest, it allowed me to continue through the game comfortably and it had high MAG so all enemies weak to magic feared my Bufudyne! Special personas are still acquirable through the dates with either Elizabeth or Theodore and social link max personas are also present.
Save the World!
Okay, this title is pretty stupid as the overall gameplay is the same, however there are several other added bonuses in the game that make it more fun. First off, the FES exclusive Answer storyline is not included in this game, however the desert of doors does appear in January when Margaret, Elizabeth’s replacement in Persona 4 appears and offers the protagonist the chance to play harder versions of all previous bosses for rewards such as cards and rare items. Unfortunately, this would mean you would have to have levelled up every character to a certain point since you have to use the characters available during the time of the boss, so if you did what I did and drop Junpei after you got Mitsuru, then the first boss might be very hard unless you really boost his equipment. There are a few other bits and pieces that I shall let you find out for yourself.
There is also….a hint at the final few days of the game which indicate a possible HINT to Persona 5, of course…. it might not.
This game is designed to be played through multiple times with new social links to follow through with since on the first playthrough, it is highly unlikely you would complete them all. As well, you can play through the opposite gender allowing at least 2 full length playthroughs available however it can amount into many more if you have the time.
Personally, I have enjoyed Persona 3, Persona 3 FES and there is little doubt in my mind that Persona 3 Portable is a worth addition to the series and I recommend it to EVERYONE!
Overall Score
Graphics: 8
Music: 9
Storyline: 9
Characters: 9
Gameplay: 10
Replayability: 9
Personal Opinion: 10
Total Score: 9/10
This seems to be the end of the Persona 3 francise and I must say, it has been an enjoyable experience in all versions, despite the stress I endured just to get my original copy of Persona 3…..
Since this is a brand new release, there should be no problem in getting a copy, but I suggest a site like Play-Asia or a similar reputable online store if you are in Australia, as this has not, and most probably wont for a while, be released in Australia.
You can find it on Play-Asia here ($AUD 50.73) or you can try hunting around for other sites, but I am considering doing a price comparison for Aussies in future reviews since in the end, we cannot get it in stores over here, alongside most good games.
