The best Persona story is still as strong as ever, even if the gameplay hasn’t aged the best.
What They Say:
If I say there’s an hour “hidden” between one day and the next… would you believe me? Master the power of the heart, Persona, and uncover the tragic truth of the Dark Hour.
Content:
Persona 3 Portable is one of the most important games for me. It was the only Persona game I ever played while myself being a kid in school like the main characters and it was formative in my entire career, including starting a thriving Persona fan site.
Playing it well over a decade later was an experience I have been looking forward to for so long. In the end, Persona 3 Portable on Nintendo Switch made me fall in love with the game once again, but while acknowledging the caveats involved with it.
Persona 3 Portable is, by and large, the exact same game you played back in the day on the PSP. The graphics are smoothed out (for the most part), the frame rate is buttery smooth in Tartarus, and the 2D visual novel-style art looks fantastic now.
But outside of these minor changes and some extra adjustments to the settings and the like, Persona 3 Portable is pretty much the JRPG it was back then. It revolutionized the Persona series, bringing the school life sim meets turn-based Persona battles to a handheld system.
You play as an orphan (boy or girl) who moves into a dorm and is eventually recruited into a team that can explore the mysterious Dark Hour, a time that exists in the middle of the night that most people are unaware of.
The story is the best in the series, even after Persona 5 Royal’s masterful fixes, with a grim and surprising tale of trauma, death, depression, and hopelessness. It holds nothing back in its story, with characters dying and twists happening often.
This is also one of the few Persona games that adequately explores the idea of an evil Persona team and love in a serious manner. It was a pleasure playing this game so long after I played it the first time back in the early 2010s since I could almost feel like I was experiencing the twists for the first time again.
The story is helped by the best cast in the Persona series by a long shot. Sure, I love the Phantom Thieves as much as anyone and, sure, Goro Akechi might be the best overall Persona character, but Persona 3 Portable is like having an entire cast of nothing but standout characters.
Every single person is worth hanging out with and getting to know on a deeper level from the charismatic lover boy Junpei to the mysterious android shadow killer Aigis to the ice queen Mitsuru and so many more.
Better yet, I played as a female this time around and enjoyed the game even more than before as I was able to experience the better set of social links and side characters. But this is sort of where Persona 3 Portable reminds me of its flaws.
For one, it is painful that Persona 3 Portable gates so many of its characters and content behind which gender you play as. Both have solid reasons to play them, so it is a shame that you don’t have both. Plus, there is the fact that this doesn’t include the wonderful FES content like full-on exploration outside of dungeons and the epilogue episode featuring a playable Aigis.
Hot off of replaying Persona 5 Royal and Persona 4 Golden, I couldn’t help but constantly wish I could just fully control the main character outside of battles and dungeons. Once I was able to ignore this gripe, I enjoyed my time with each slow and relaxing day where there aren’t too many activities and people to hang out with.
Even exploring the singular dungeon of Tartarus was surprisingly cathartic and fun due to its simplistic nature. Sure, I would only want to explore it in 30-minute chunks due to its repetitive randomly generated floors of the same enemies and chests, but I surprisingly enjoyed that time.
The combat in Persona 3 Portable follows the press turn system that the series is known for these days and it still holds up so well today. Being able to control the party members, examine the enemies for weaknesses, and exploit those weaknesses for extra turns is as thrilling as ever.
I even appreciated as a long-time fan now that the difficulty in Persona 3 Portable is immense. Even on the standard difficulty, Persona 3 Portable can feel more challenging in some of the boss fights and even larger chunks of exploration than playing 4 and 5 on higher difficulty levels.
While I still wish this was a full-on remake with all of the Persona 3 content wrapped in one, this reminds me why this is still one of my favorite games of all time.
In Summary:
Persona 3 Portable remains one of my favorite games of all time even after all these years. This game was instrumental in my entire career and it reminded me why in replaying it. The story is the best in the Persona series with its grim nature, the characters are overall the strongest cast in the franchise, and the combat remains surprisingly tight (even if I wish there was a speed-up function).
Even with the flaws that stand out today in Persona 3 Portable like the repetitive exploration, lack of player control outside of Tartarus, and the gated content across genders or straight-up missing from FES, I still adore Persona 3 Portable. Just be careful if you’re new to this game as it has its somewhat outdated gameplay issues.
Grade: B+
Developer: P-Studio, Atlus
Publisher: Atlus, Sega
Age Rating: 17+
Release Date: January 19, 2023
MSRP: $19.99
Platform: Switch (reviewed), PlayStation, Xbox, PC
This review was done with a review copy provided by the publisher. We are grateful for their continued support.
