Persona 3 Portable streamlines everything we got in the original Persona 3, and even adds some new material for familiar fans. With the new option to play as a girl and experience the story from a different perspective Persona 3 Portable has something for everybody, especially for the Japanophile who always wanted to go to high school in Japan. Exams, tennis club, dating, everything — plus killer demons known as Shadows who want to enslave mankind.
As a new male or female recruit in the student-run group trained to combat Shadows you use your Persona power in battle. To summon a Persona is easy: just aim a gun-shaped tool called an Evoker at your head and pull the trigger. Bam! Your inner self appears and does battle for you. You can collect a bunch of these demonic buddies, many of them derived from mythologies around the world. You get Narcissus, Orpheus, some ancient samurai, series mascot Jack Frost, and the provocatively-shaped Mara. I’ll let Google be your guide to that one. (Warning: May not be SFW!)
As you level up you can command Personas with higher levels and fuse them to create stronger Personas with new abilities, or breed your favorite abilities into your new creations. You can store a lot of Personas to use in battle and you can switch them on the fly. Certain Persona also grant you immunities or raised resistances to certain elemental attacks — fire, ice, wind, light, dark, etc. Think of it like Pokemon. Pokemon brought to you by Satan.
It’s not all devilry and penis monsters however. The power of Persona relies on the bonds you build with humans at the school you attend and the surrounding city. These bonds, or Social Links, build over time depending on how much time you spend with the old couple, the tennis club manager, your pervy classmate Junpei or your shy friend girl Fuuka. Max out a Social Link and you gain access to some of the strongest Persona in the game.
Managing time turns out to be the crux of Persona 3 Portable. Instead of traveling around the globe like you would in most JRPGs, Persona 3 Portable has you travel through a standard school year, month by month, day by day. Friends will call you up to hang out — a perfect chance to raise that Social Link rank. But wait, isn’t today the only time I can order from the home shopping network on TV? And tomorrow is the only day the shop has discounts on weapons and armor… Augh! Just like real life!
Everything else I said in my preview holds true. The music’s lovely, the anime-style graphics look nice and crisp and combat’s swift and often challenging. Persona 3 Portable‘s a great game. It’s only problem is, despite all the streamlining and the additions, it’s still basically Persona 3 for PS2. It’s the best version, arguably, but I kind of have Persona 3 fatigue at this point. I don’t have Persona 4 fatigue yet though! Make it happen.
