Back in 07’ America was surprised by Atlus’s new title, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3. The game was highly rated by fans and websites.  In 08’ the expansion Persona 3 Fes was released which included an upgraded version of the story with a few more personas to fuse, some added characters but that wasn’t all the game had, included was also an extra story that takes place shortly after you beat Persona 3. The Fes story expanded the Persona 3 universe and really gave fans more closure and that was the end of the success of Persona 3 or was it?

Atlus went back and re-did the original Persona which to me was exciting to see the game how it really should have been, and last year announced Persona 3 would be coming back in a new port for PSP. My first thoughts were “Yay! I get to beat the same game for the 3^rd time, hopefully something big and new will make me want to play this game again.” The biggest addition to this port was being able to choose your gender.

Persona 3 Portable begins allowing you select your starting character, the male protagonist or the new female protagonist.

The  game starts as you walk of the train but something off, walking through town the streets are empty there is no power anywhere and random coffins are placed around the city. You finally make it to the dorms where a young boy asks you to sign a contract, after you do so you are greeted by Yukari Takeba and Mitsuru Kirijo who help you settle in, things seem normal until the full moon arrives and Yukari tries to help you escape as Shadows attack and in a last minute “intuition” you take the evoker gun and call out your Persona.

The game focuses on the “Apathy Syndrome,” a condition leaving a person almost mindless and sick, it is unknown to normal people why the Apathy Syndrome exists. Creatures known as “shadows” attack people and the only way to fight the shadows are the special few who can control Personas. Your main character either Male or Female will get pulled into a story no one could ever imagine, and at Persona 3 Portable has 2 styles of gameplay:

1^st You are a student at Gekkoukan High, and you have to deal all the problems a teenager would go through, including your Academics, Courage and Charm which will allow you to talk to different people allowing you to open Social Links which help you level your persona’s and when a Social Link is maxed the highest you are given a chance to fuse the strongest level for the Arcana you Maxed.

At night, the game turns a 180 and becomes a Tim Burton dungeon crawler. The biggest surprise is that Gekkoukan High, where you spent most of the day, turns into the gigantic maze called Tarturus. Being the leader of the S.E.E.S. group you lead the team through each floor taking on bosses to proceed, after each month a new section will unlock until you finally reach the top. You are given the ability to chose when you enter Tartarus with your hectic schedule of hanging out with friends,  studying, or even being lazy and just sleeping, but your teammates also must be able to go since even they want to rest or go out with friends.

Persona 3 Portable is unlike your typical RPG with tons of life simulation which is why it’s so popular. You are free to chose what you do in a normal day and who you hang out with and even who you will date, whereas in the original you only had your male hero who could date a girl, the female hero who can chose who your boyfriend will be. Since I have beaten the game twice, I decided to start as the female hero and see what changes were made in the story, so the rest of the review will be based on the female protagonist point of view. A lot of events are replaced or slightly changed to transition better for the new female lead, Sadly playing the online game of “Innocent Sin Online” is gone, since I guess girls don’t play PC game.

The fighting system is an RPG style mixed with a dungeon crawler and a grindfest. You originally could only control your main character choices of attack, magic, items, persona equipped in battle. Equipping the right Persona is essential in a battle because of type, hitting an opponent with the correct weakness allows for an extra turn and critical damage, on the other hand the same goes true for the enemy. Being hit with your Persona’s weakness does critical damage to you and allows for an extra turn for the enemy. Before in Persona 3 and P3 Fes your teammates where all controlled by the AI and respond based on the command style you gave for each of them. This was often a great annoyance when you needed health or wanted them to use an enemies weakness instead they would use a random status effect skill which more than likely will miss, but in P3P you can toss those worries aside and control each character’s style of fighting. A warning to new players, if your main character dies anytime in battle, it’s game over, you can resurrect your teammates but they can’t resurrect you.

You can customize your weapons and armor, but what is cool about Persona is your equipment does affect your look in the game so you can have your team in bathing suits, tuxedos, dresses, and other outfits hidden within the game. You can also have an army of Persona’s by gaining cards in battle, buying them after registering and fusing them to create even more powerful Persona’s that differ by type, and Arcana. Persona’s can be created by meeting level requirements and some jobs. To create the most powerful ones, like Thanatos, Odin, Orpheus Telos, Thor and Messiah, you will have to max the Social Links so your time must be used wisely.

Persona 3 Portable takes the original and expands it on a whole new level where fans will want to play this all over again by taking some of the popular add-ons from Persona 4. The new female character and allowing to chose between Elizabeth and the Theo as Igor’s helper in the velvet room. The anime cut scenes and other scenes have been removed and changed to allow the new female protagonist to fit in the story easier so everything has been changed to pictures and in game cut scenes, as well as removing the free roaming 3D town maps have been hand drawn and a new menu for easy exploring.

Hardcore fans won’t be disappointed by this port, and fans that never touched Persona 3 or 4 will find a hardcore but silly RPG in Persona 3 that really gives you a bit of everything and giving you plenty of replay value by being able to take on both stories and carry over everything to your new game plus minus social links and levels but save your money because you can buy all your Persona’s you registered in your last play through.

**Written by Chris Del Castillo