Platform: PSP/PSP Go Developer: Atlus
Publisher: Atlus USA
# of Players: 1
Official Site
Rating: M (Mature)
Score: A
Not surprisingly, one of the best PS2 RPGs of recent years ends up as one of the best PSP RPGs to date. Persona 3 Portable not only raises the bar for these types of ports, it sets plenty of standards for portable games on its own merits. Of course, you'd expect no less from Atlus these days, right? Granted, the Shin Megami Tensei series has been pretty much critic-proof from the very beginning and Persona 3's excellently addictive mature plot and gameplay are as perfect a fit as they were back in 2007. Once you're hooked into the world and its engaging characters, it's easy to be swept up for countless hours trying for those perfect Social Links, tacking some tough enemies or shopping for the best gear for your party members.
In case you somehow missed the boat for Persona 3, P3 FES or even Persona 4, P3P is a great starting point for those new to the franchise. The plot features your avatar as a transfer student to Gekkoukan High School who, during the opening sequence, finds out that the world changes at midnight into quite a nightmarish place. With humans frozen in place in coffins, soul hungry creatures feeding on them and a general air of not so niceness oozing throughout every crack in the sidewalk, the game sets up the strangeness right from the start. The Dark Hour, as it's called, is only viewable to demons or those humans immune to being coffin-ized. While ignorance is indeed bliss, it soon turns out that the fate of the entire world is at stake thanks to unseen (yet familiar) forces that desire this darkness to overwhelm everything.
You end up joining a small group of other Gekkoukan students along with a few adult assistants in a secret organization called SEES (Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad) who also have the power to see and battle the demons using Personas, sort of inner spirit summoned creatures based on mythological beings. There's a whole lot more to the story, but it'll be up to you to discover all the dramatic twists and turns P3P holds. P3P keeps the original tale intact (sorry, no FES post-game grindfest here) and adds a lot more content for well over 100 hours of gameplay. Yes, that's a long time to play a single game, but P3 has a way of pulling you in and keeping you playing "just one more hour...". Just think of any post-midnight sessions as confirming that the Dark Hour isn't actually real in your own world and you'll be fine.
In the original game, you could only play as a male character, but this time out, you can choose a male or female avatar. In one of many great touches, your choice greatly affects everything you do throughout the game (Social Links included) as well as the menus and interface. Previous P3 players will be thrilled to have control over all their party members in battles (as in Persona 4), experience the new part-time jobs and see how quickly the game flows thanks to super fast load times and faster navigation through the game's environments. New players will see that P3P has a lot more going for it than many other JRPG's on the market for any platform, hands-down.
The sheer amount of stuff to do in the game is staggering and finding a perfect flow through each day can be daunting even if you're paying attention to your calendar. While parts of your day are structured (your school day is an important part of the game), during afternoons and evenings you'll have the opportunity to make new friends as you try and raise your Social Link levels. There are athletic clubs to join, a mall, movie theater, a number of restaurants and other locations to visit. Being able to work a part-time job this time out is quite cool, particularly as you can earn some decent money and add points to certain skills in the process.
As for the midnight dungeon crawling, the massive, multi-level Tartarus is where the bulk of exploration and combat takes place and while the random dungeon design isn't the most visually innovative, hoofing it as far as you can becomes an obsession. You'll have to monitor not only the usual stuff such as spell or item usage, you'll also have to make sure your party members don't become sick or tired during extended dungeon sessions. If your character becomes ill or tired, it can affect your performance at school for the next few days which can have a negative effect on potential S-Links. Sick party members can't (or really shouldn't) visit Tartarus until they're well-rested and sometimes you have to go there as part of the plot.
Granted, you can lug whomever you wish into battle and you can swap out ill party members for others once you have more teammates. However, you'll find that managing everyone's well-being makes for a much smoother game experience. As in the PS2 version, you'll have cool weapons and gear to buy for your guys and gals that get better as the games goes on, but you can also score great gear through other means. the post-battle cards roulette is here, you can net rare gear in Tartarus by running into certain monsters. P3P also allows you to control party members in battle, an excellent change from the original that allows for more tactical combat when needed.
In the randomly generated dungeons, while you can reach the exit to the next level of some floors quickly, there's yet another nice yet nasty risk versus rewards element in exploring every square inch of Tartarus. Spending too much time on a floor will cause Death to make an entrance in order to hunt your party down. The best thing to do when this happens is run like hell to the exit, but as you level up and gain more powerful Personas, it's possible to actually face the reaper and live to tell the tale. You can "cheat" and look at a walk-through on the Internet in order to blow your way past some bosses, but the REAL test here is how well you do on your own during the limited time you have in Tartarus.
In the move to the PSP, a few major and minor changes were made that only players of P2 FES will really notice (and in turn, be a little ticked off about). The biggest change is the entire extra FES epilogue getting the axe. New players won't miss it at all, as as someone who played the original and FES, I can safely say that I'm not missing it this time around either. Given that the FES epilogue was basically an excuse to grind away against tougher demons with selected party members in a fairly gloomy scenario that took place after the endgame, I'm actually glad to see it wasn't added to the PSP version.
The anime cinemas from the original have been removed in favor of more straightforward storytelling, but the game still retains its massive emotional impact without them. Finally, the formerly 3D map environments and interior locations outside of Tartarus are now 2D areas where you use the PSP analog button to direct where you're headed. This actually speeds up the game quite a bit, as you're no longer running around from place to place and sitting through loading screens (even though the load times here are super swift).
In addition to the great visuals and presentation, the excellent soundtrack has a way of growing on you even if you don't like it at first. I still recall being thrown off by the J-Pop theme song in the PS2 original and not liking the modernization of what I thought was a series that did just fine by being just where it needed to be in terms of visuals and sound. However, any grumpiness I was feeling melted away as time spent with the game turned into a near-obsession. Everything clicks here just as well as in the PS2 version and you'd best keep that battery charger handy, as the game will keep you up 'til the wee hours and then some.
I really have no complaints about P3P at all, other than a tiny caveat to new players who might want to set an alarm of some kind to go off after about three or four hours. Once you dive into this world of high-school kids, demons, death and deception, you'll be hooked in and wanting to play in your sleep. And when you're all done, you'll want to start over from the beginning as another character and try for any Social Links you missed or anything else you didn't uncover. P3p is an instant classic, one of the best JRPGs on any platform and in its new portable form, one of the best PSP games of 2010, if not to date. Drop everything and grab this at retail or as a download, set aside some quality time and prepare to be floored by a truly amazing experience.
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