For those who have already played Persona 3 on the Playstation 2, its younger brother, recently released on the PSP, will be a nice blast from the past. With a new female character story arc and the ability to fight with all your party members, it puts a nice new coat of paint on an already great game, but doesn’t exactly warrant a purchase.
However, for those who have never experienced this game, “Persona 3 Portable†is not only worth buying, it may in fact be a reason to buy the console. Armed with an excellent story, compelling characters, solid graphics, a tremendous score and unparalleled playability [for anything on the system] it’s easily one of the best RPGs on the system to date.
Like all amazing works of art, “Persona 3 Portable†is a hard game to stick into a genre. Playing like a combination of Pokemon, a classic dungeon crawler, Sims, Bully, and something like Final Fantasy with extra Japanese flavor, it’s able to squeeze a little bit of everything into itself, creating a delightful concoction of gaming goodness. While many of the turn-based battles in the game can be fought with the characters themselves, you have the option and sometimes the need [and often, urge] to fight with your Persona, a character that you unleash with your mind to take out deadly shadows, which are creatures out to end humanity as we know it.
Much like Pokemon, Persona have their own strengths and weaknesses. As you continue to play the game, you’ll be able to carry more and more, switching them in and out of battles. With so many cool ones to collect, fuse and level up, the game’s playability is nearly limitless. This makes for strategic fun that is just as addictive as Nintendo’s trademark game.
However, unlike Pokemon, you can boost your Persona’s abilities by hanging out with different type of people, putting the focus more on the characters in the game and not their cool fighting partners. Your main character is just a young student who gets mixed up in this occult-themed story that will suck you in like a sinkhole. When that isn’t happening though, you’ll have to go to school, and even make time for friends. Each Persona belongs to a class and so do all the people you come into contact with. Find a match and spend time with that person and your Persona will be boosted during battle.
This element not only adds to the cool story, it places a focus on establishing relationships and building and preparing for something huge-like the end of the world, which is indeed coming, in the game’s world. That is, unless you and your friends can stop it.
It also helps round the game out and hide some of the weaker elements, such as repetitive dungeons and fights. Even though there are a million things to do in this game and not enough time to do them, you’ll find fighting boring because the battle system is often predictable [unless you’re in an epic boss fight, those are a ton of fun and require a nice blend of strategy and power]. The same thing goes for wandering the massive dungeon during the dark hour [when the shadows come out and attach and humans are locked up in caskets- don’t ask], which in spite of some changes, look exactly the same throughout. While it’s not even close to being a detriment to the game, it’s the one element that should have been fixed and holds the game back from being perfect.
Well, that and extra quirky Japanese characters that only open-minded gamers and anime fans will truly connect with.
Overall, however, with so many objectives and gameplay that sucks you in, “Persona 3 Portable†is a title on the PSP that will be remembered long after its release for it’s depth and overall charm.
Not an easy task for a game featuring an androgynous emo kid as it’s main character, but this title gets it done, and then some.
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