I don’t think I’ve ever been as torn on a game before as I am with Persona 3 Portable. To sum up the following review in a single sentence, the game’s high points are largely squandered by poorly-paced gameplay segments sandwiched between the actually interesting story beats and plot developments which often seem to come out of nowhere, thus lessening their impact.
Every point of praise I have for the game seems to come with some kind of caveat. Aigis is maybe the best character in the entire series: her whole arc about learning what it is to be human is remarkably well-executed, almost too well-executed. She isn’t introduced until around the halfway mark, but then the entire last quarter of the game practically revolves around her. There were points towards the end of the game where it really felt like Aigis was the main character and that the protagonist was just there as an observer, a sensation which sort of took me out of things a bit, as it felt like the writers couldn’t commit to a decision.
I’ve read a number of reviews that state that the transition from cutscenes to visual novel portraits and narration had a detrimental impact on the understandability of the narrative, but I actually didn’t find that to be the case. Sure, the usage of stills in place of anime cutscenes looked a bit goofy, but I only really felt lost in regards to what was happening at one or two points throughout the game, which I honestly don’t think is too bad, considering how they took an entire JRPG and crammed it into a visual novel. I just think the plot twists aren’t handled well. Hear me out, the game has a number of conceptually strong plot twists, but these twists tend to be rarely foreshadowed and poorly explained—particularly the ending—thereby removing all the oomph a good plot twist should have.
The cast and their dynamic is incredibly strong, albeit different from that of later Persona games, but the line-to-line dialogue is often clunky and felt like it could’ve used one last once-over from the translation team. The soundtrack is good, but there isn’t nearly as much track variety as there is in later Persona games, meaning songs start to feel repetitive fairly quickly. Really the only point of praise I can think of that doesn’t have a double-edge attached to it is Junpei and Chidori’s dynamic—it’s a nice change of pace from the Persona series’ later “best friend” characters (mostly from Yosuke, Ryuji is still great).
Then there’s the gameplay. Now, it’s no secret that when it comes to JRPGs, I prioritize story over gameplay. If the gameplay is unique and creative, that’s an added bonus, but I don’t mind engaging with a somewhat boilerplate combat system as long as the writing is solid. The only time gameplay is going to be detrimental to my assessment of a JRPG is if it’s actively tedious, and to that, all I can say is: Tartarus.
I finally understand all those people who played Phantom Hourglass and said they didn’t like the game because they hated having to explore the Temple of the Ocean King over and over again, because Tartarus is like that but on steroids. Honestly, I think if Tartarus was like, half as long, I would’ve been fine with it. I know that sounds kind of weird, like, “Oh, so 260 floors is too much, but 130 floors isn’t?” But think about it: if Tartarus was only 130 floors, then you’d be playing through roughly the same amount of randomly-generated dungeon as in Persona 4 Golden, which I didn’t find nearly as tedious to play through as Tartarus.
The other thing I hate about Tartarus is the way the bosses are handled. About halfway through Tartarus, the minibosses you have to fight every couple floors just stop having elemental weaknesses. This is a problem because we’re talking about PS2-era Persona: elemental weaknesses are the only combat mechanic. When you take that away, bosses just become giant damage sponges you throw your strongest moves at over and over again until they’re defeated. The only strategy involved is timing your heals right, which hardly makes for engaging combat.
Besides Tartarus, the social sim aspect of the gameplay is rough around the edges too. Even though all three modern Persona games follow the same gameplay loop of boosting your social stats so that you can progress your Social Links, it’s the little details in the presentation that really sell you on it. In Persona 5, there are a bunch of different ways to raise your social stats, and each of those methods come with their own little cutscene or some other added bonus like an item or a minigame to play. In Persona 3 Portable, there really aren’t that many options, because there are only three social stats to raise, so you run out of new things to see very quickly. (Persona 4 doesn’t have a lot of options either, but that at least makes sense because it takes place in a small town.) I’d also be remiss not to mention the fact that all of the Social Links involving your party (besides Aigis) require you to have one of the social stats maxed out, leaving the Social Links for the characters you’re likely most invested in until much later in the game. It’s in that particular aspect of the Social Links that you get the greatest sense that this game is merely the template for Persona moving forward, rather than the series in its most polished iteration.
Ultimately, Persona 3 Portable feels like a game with a lot of good ideas that just never come together. I have my doubts that Tartarus will change to any significant degree, but I think if the remake just makes a few tweaks to the plot to make it a bit smoother, and fleshes out the social sim a bit more, the game could be a lot stronger. Do I think Atlus will do that? Not really, considering their decision not to include FeMC or The Answer in the remake, but I know they’re adding extra side content, so there’s still a chance.
Also, side note because this is really petty, but the magic teacher was super annoying. At first I thought it was funny that magic was a class at the school, but I swear his lectures were way longer than the other teachers’. I know I could’ve just skipped through it, but I like to read through the lectures usually, if only for the fun bits of trivia.
Every point of praise I have for the game seems to come with some kind of caveat. Aigis is maybe the best character in the entire series: her whole arc about learning what it is to be human is remarkably well-executed, almost too well-executed. She isn’t introduced until around the halfway mark, but then the entire last quarter of the game practically revolves around her. There were points towards the end of the game where it really felt like Aigis was the main character and that the protagonist was just there as an observer, a sensation which sort of took me out of things a bit, as it felt like the writers couldn’t commit to a decision.
I’ve read a number of reviews that state that the transition from cutscenes to visual novel portraits and narration had a detrimental impact on the understandability of the narrative, but I actually didn’t find that to be the case. Sure, the usage of stills in place of anime cutscenes looked a bit goofy, but I only really felt lost in regards to what was happening at one or two points throughout the game, which I honestly don’t think is too bad, considering how they took an entire JRPG and crammed it into a visual novel. I just think the plot twists aren’t handled well. Hear me out, the game has a number of conceptually strong plot twists, but these twists tend to be rarely foreshadowed and poorly explained—particularly the ending—thereby removing all the oomph a good plot twist should have.
The cast and their dynamic is incredibly strong, albeit different from that of later Persona games, but the line-to-line dialogue is often clunky and felt like it could’ve used one last once-over from the translation team. The soundtrack is good, but there isn’t nearly as much track variety as there is in later Persona games, meaning songs start to feel repetitive fairly quickly. Really the only point of praise I can think of that doesn’t have a double-edge attached to it is Junpei and Chidori’s dynamic—it’s a nice change of pace from the Persona series’ later “best friend” characters (mostly from Yosuke, Ryuji is still great).
Then there’s the gameplay. Now, it’s no secret that when it comes to JRPGs, I prioritize story over gameplay. If the gameplay is unique and creative, that’s an added bonus, but I don’t mind engaging with a somewhat boilerplate combat system as long as the writing is solid. The only time gameplay is going to be detrimental to my assessment of a JRPG is if it’s actively tedious, and to that, all I can say is: Tartarus.
I finally understand all those people who played Phantom Hourglass and said they didn’t like the game because they hated having to explore the Temple of the Ocean King over and over again, because Tartarus is like that but on steroids. Honestly, I think if Tartarus was like, half as long, I would’ve been fine with it. I know that sounds kind of weird, like, “Oh, so 260 floors is too much, but 130 floors isn’t?” But think about it: if Tartarus was only 130 floors, then you’d be playing through roughly the same amount of randomly-generated dungeon as in Persona 4 Golden, which I didn’t find nearly as tedious to play through as Tartarus.
The other thing I hate about Tartarus is the way the bosses are handled. About halfway through Tartarus, the minibosses you have to fight every couple floors just stop having elemental weaknesses. This is a problem because we’re talking about PS2-era Persona: elemental weaknesses are the only combat mechanic. When you take that away, bosses just become giant damage sponges you throw your strongest moves at over and over again until they’re defeated. The only strategy involved is timing your heals right, which hardly makes for engaging combat.
Besides Tartarus, the social sim aspect of the gameplay is rough around the edges too. Even though all three modern Persona games follow the same gameplay loop of boosting your social stats so that you can progress your Social Links, it’s the little details in the presentation that really sell you on it. In Persona 5, there are a bunch of different ways to raise your social stats, and each of those methods come with their own little cutscene or some other added bonus like an item or a minigame to play. In Persona 3 Portable, there really aren’t that many options, because there are only three social stats to raise, so you run out of new things to see very quickly. (Persona 4 doesn’t have a lot of options either, but that at least makes sense because it takes place in a small town.) I’d also be remiss not to mention the fact that all of the Social Links involving your party (besides Aigis) require you to have one of the social stats maxed out, leaving the Social Links for the characters you’re likely most invested in until much later in the game. It’s in that particular aspect of the Social Links that you get the greatest sense that this game is merely the template for Persona moving forward, rather than the series in its most polished iteration.
Ultimately, Persona 3 Portable feels like a game with a lot of good ideas that just never come together. I have my doubts that Tartarus will change to any significant degree, but I think if the remake just makes a few tweaks to the plot to make it a bit smoother, and fleshes out the social sim a bit more, the game could be a lot stronger. Do I think Atlus will do that? Not really, considering their decision not to include FeMC or The Answer in the remake, but I know they’re adding extra side content, so there’s still a chance.
Also, side note because this is really petty, but the magic teacher was super annoying. At first I thought it was funny that magic was a class at the school, but I swear his lectures were way longer than the other teachers’. I know I could’ve just skipped through it, but I like to read through the lectures usually, if only for the fun bits of trivia.