[Male Protagonist Route Completed]

Here's the deal.
I truly believe Persona 3 is a fantastic unforgettable experience like no other. I believe it has the best storyline of the franchise so far, a great growing cast of characters (represented greatly both in story and gameplay perspectives), fun RPG mechanics and an ingenious calendar system that helped Persona as a whole evolve something of its own identity.

But instead of talking about what makes the fundamentals and the storyline of P3 so masterful (i.e. reserving those for the Remake review), I wanna talk about... the fundamental issues that plague Portable's version of The Journey campaign.

Being sincere, I'm not against the idea of a Persona game presented in a visual novel style, I've been a fan of many visual novel games in the past (including the likes of Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, a little bit of 999), and at first I didn't mind it was presented this way.
The problem however, is that the final result and lost in translation of how certain event scenes got translated into this format.
I get that Portable was made for the PSP originally, but I still couldn't believe they couldn't just add the animated cutscenes from FES as well as, you know, more image stills that represent certain action scenes or give certain atmosphere.
I don't think I need to mention how Makoto Yuki's Persona awakening sucks ass in this version, and how certain daily life sequences feel so empty.
And for this 2023 remaster, it feels like Atlus and P-Studio decided to press the Lazy Switch, cause maaaan, this remaster is.... boooof.
The backgrounds are AI upscaled in the worst way, the audio quality is terrible (it felt like listening an early Professor Layton game on the DS with very crusty audio), and I HATE, ABSOLUTELY HATE, the RNG of heritable skills on the Velvet Room's Persona Fusions. Why couldn't they fix that obvious flaw and let the player choose the skills they want for a better gameplay experience, something that they actually FIXED when they remastered Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne back then. It's asinine.

Portable's advantage is that you can at least control your party members.... and that's about it.

With all honesty, now that Persona 3 Reload exists, there's absolutely no reason to ever return to play this version of P3 ever again.
Well.... at least on the Male Protagonist perspective.
This version's main feature was the Female Protagonist route which definitely deserves its own review for the future.
I'll definitely return to play Portable to experience Kotone Shiomi's route.

But if you honestly wanna experience the best version of P3... it's kinda debatable but... in my viewpoint, maybe Reload will certainly be that.
I'll get to that bridge when it comes, don't you worry baby.

Happy New Years' Eve everyone.
Finally was able to finish the main story of this game.

And... what can I say. This game is a masterpiece. Plain and simple.
Sure, it has some issues in terms of UI and the use of Field Skills, but its pros makes its cons disappear when experiencing.
Fantastic worldbuilding, incredible twists and turns, one of the best cast of main characters and villains. And to believe this game came out on the first year on the Switch and with a small development team, this game is a miracle in how it turned out.
May Xenoblade continue for many eons to come.

Sidenote, I'll also be returning to this game to finish my 100% run in the future.

Euuuuuugh....
I'm sorry everyone. I tried. I tried my hardest to like this. But I just couldn't.
I apprecciate it's growing roster of Pokemon you can play as and still expanding, and I actually really like the concept and gameplay of this "sport" that is set in this game.
But..... I just don't like MOBAs, and this game didn't change my mind about that.
I dislike the microtransactions, the music is generic and boring, the character movement is too slow for my tastes.
I'm even avoiding giving it a rating cause this is obviously not a game for me, and I don't want to take away the enjoyment from people who do enjoy this types of games.

I'm sorry Greninja, my boy. I love that you're in this game, but it's not a very entertaining time for me.

And if you still want an arbitrary rating, uhhhhhm.
It's a Morbius/10.
Okay see ya.