When gamifying the experience of dating, you run into some hurdles that come across as insensitive or off-putting. It’s no secret that Persona occupies a typically male perspective, so much so that it verges into the misogynistic and homophobic at times. Portable also does not adapt FES’s additional scenario, “The Answer.” All this would be enough for me to whole-heartedly discourage people from playing Portable over FES if the opportunity to play as the female protagonist wasn’t a different and, at times, better experience than playing as its male protagonist. Portable looks great and has a lot of added bells and whistles, but also lacks the free-roaming exploration of the original (instead replacing it with point-and-click area maps, which, while superficial, does cheapen the game’s setting to a degree) and anime cutscenes, replacing these moments with in-engine visual novel segments. Many might balk at the idea of purchasing and playing what is, at its core, the same game three times, but FES and Portable have enough differences to make it difficult to recommend one over the other. Of course, Portable’s most notable changes revolve around its new female protagonist, the game’s major selling point as an essential part of the Persona 3 experience. It’s balanced to be an overall less frustrating experience with a little less friction both in combat and in the game’s life simulation segments. A “Defend” command was added, and party members can jump in to save you from a killing blow depending on their affinity for you. Portable allows full control over your party as is the norm now, and removes the ability for you to reverse all but one of your Social Links. Released for the PSP about a year after 4, Portable includes a lot of the features and tweaks from 4. 3’s story takes a while to build up steam, and the gameplay itself can be punishing and grindy where later entries allow you to stroll through at an even pace.Īll these factors serve to contextualize why Atlus decided they would rerelease Persona 3 Portable over FES this year. Other than that, 3’s gameplay-somewhat of a bridge between the series’ dungeon-crawling origins and the efficient, elegant rock-paper-scissors simulator it is now-can be alienating for players looking for an immediately streamlined experience. As someone who started out with 3, I’ve always liked the inclusion of keeping your party members as AI units and have continued to do it since there’s something freeing about not having to micromanage your entire party, many of which are only able to fulfill a couple roles in any given battle anyway. In its original incarnation-as well as its enhanced remake, FES-the party members are solely controlled by AI, requiring an extra level of strategy with giving them commands that you can bypass in Persona 4 and 5. Occasionally, fans of the series whose first experience was with Persona 5 have some difficulty with Persona 3 even if they do manage to get their hands on a copy. Its sequel, Eternal Punishment, was released with some similar alterations to Revelations, making it a rather neutered and incomplete experience.įunny enough, these days even Persona 3 has fallen into (relative) obscurity when compared to its successors, mostly due to lack of availability-the last opportunity to purchase the game was back on the PlayStation 3, where it can still be downloaded. The Persona 2 duology failed to launch because Innocent Sin’s “controversial” storyline led to hand-wringing over how it would be received in America. Revelations: Persona, the series’ maiden voyage and the first Megami Tensei game to receive a localization, failed to make a splash in the west because of heavy edits made to the script, cut content, abundance of text, and crunchy gameplay. At one point, it was something of an in-joke that the Persona series began at 3. Persona 5 has become almost synonymous with sales, quickly becoming the Megami Tensei franchise’s most successful title and being at least partially responsible for the attention given to Shin Megami Tensei V, the latest installment of Persona’s mother series which has always been a bit more niche outside of Japan.īefore Persona 5 stole the hearts of the entire gaming community, and before even Persona 4 became an essential PS2 experience in the console’s twilight days (and the primary reason many purchased a Vita), Persona 3 brought the series to new critical and mechanical heights, forging the calendar-based flow and life simulation elements the series is known for. It took time to reach that point, though with each entry in the series, it attained more and more acclaim within the gaming world’s consciousness. Now decades old, the Persona franchise is one of the most recognizable JRPGs around the globe.
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