For almost three years I've been a bystander to the Persona series, wanting to invest in the franchise, but I for personal reasons I never got the opportunity to. Skip to 2022 and I have a neat little system I'm totally not addicted to called the PSP. I then realize this was my opportunity to finally play a game in the series, and so I picked Persona 3 Portable. After a MONTH of play time, literally making sure I played at least one hour per day, I had finished the game. And Persona 3 was.... an experience, to say the least.
One thing I can definitely say I like is P3's story and themes. P3 is a game about depression, and dealing with loss. The way we should live our lives is to cherish the bonds we make and accept the reality of life to the very end. It's a touching subject matter, one that I think is overall handed well. I think introducing the social link system helps with this, it makes the relationships we create feel more important.
Plot wise the game takes quite a while to get going after the protagonist's awakening. However, once the story picks up after a few months I'd say it's overall consistently paced at keeping the plot moving. Especially the latter half of the game is filled with so much dread that is being combated by your determination and resolve. It is hard to elaborate on this stuff without spoiling, so perhaps play the game yourself.
The original Persona 3 is a 2006 ass 2006 video game in many ways, and I mean that in a good way. This is somewhat still in portable but definitely not as much. Whether it be from the emo aesthetics, the very simple but striking HUD and UI, or even just the dialogue in some cases, it is indeed a game from it's time. P3 being dated in this aspect doesn't necessarily bother me too much, I feel the game being an earnest representation of its era has a certain charm to it. Once again I'd like to bring up the UI, it's very simple and clean, and for me personally it just screams 2006... but I might be crazy.
My problem with P3 was the gameplay loop, good lord. Tartarus is EXTREMELY REPETITIVE and I started feeling this by the second block. It got to a point where I just turned on video essays during my sessions so I didn't go insane from the music (which is a good ost btw, but hearing it that much can drive me mad). The floors are completely RNG, which can lead to samey or archaic floor layouts, and with 265 of them it is enough to feel exhausted when doing a session. I don't CARE if that's the developer's intention, if it's not enjoyable to the point of making me want to quit playing, you're doing something wrong.
The other part of the gameplay loop is okay, it's essentially just the social links. I'm not gonna elaborate on these much for the sake of spoiler free, but I do recommend Akanari's s link! The Innocent Sin online one is also great >_>
The presentation is kinda blegh, on PSP specifically. While FES is a fantastic looking game, portable... looks kinda ass I gotta say. The backgrounds for the 2D segments look sort of poor quality imo, and the map screens with the small character sprites look worse. Tartarus is still in 3D, but damn the UI for battles looks so less cooler in Portable, and generally FES bodies this game visually sadly. Portable isn't necessarily ugly, but it could've looked better even for the system.
So did I like Persona 3? Kinda. It's one of those cases where I liked everything except the gameplay part. Persona 3 is a wonderful and striking piece of art, but as a game it falters in many aspects, tie that with the bloated length and you have a very hit or miss game for many. I don't regret playing this game, in fact I'm very glad I finally got to experience the series after all these years. But aside from doing an FES party members mod playthrough in maybe 5 years, there is no way in hell I'm gonna replay this game, period.