Persona 3 Portable Review !!

General Info :

- Release Date(s) - in order -

- Japan - November 1st 2009

- North Amerca - July 6th 2010

- Europe - April 29 2011.

Available on : PSP ( PlayStation Portable ) and PSVita as Digital Release.

Developer : Atlus

Rating : Rated M for Mature 

The Shin Megami Tensei / Persona series is a phenomena that needs little introduction.

Back in the days, most JRPGs could have been labelled to all feel the same, you'd have a bunch of heroes going to save the day from whatever threat there was. You'd have a character who you can look up to and admire, someone truly badass, but rarely had we seen a JRPG where YOU are the main character, literally. Right off the bat the game lets you chose the gender you want to play as, and not long after, your name. Instantly the game gets the player involved into the story, you already feel like you belong in this universe, like everyone is conscious about your existence and not the one of a predetermined character that everyone else will experience in the exact same way.

Imagine a JRPG Where your choices and responses to the world surrounding you could affect social links and events in the game, where you are free to decide how you want to spend your time after a day in a virtual school. Would you like to go to the cafe and meet some new people ? Hopefully establishing new links or forming more social skills ? Would you rather take the offer of one of your friends to go watch a movie  to form stronger bonds with that character ? Or maybe you're more studious and would rather go to your dorm and study until midnight to increase your academics ? Waiting for that famous moment when the clocks tics and the biggest feature of the game takes place : The Dark Hour.

The Dark Hour is a phenomena that occurs at midnight, an anomaly that serves as the 25th hour of the day. In the Persona universe, the ones who can invoke a Persona can experience the dark hour while normal humans will turn into coffins and have absolutely no idea whatsoever that the 'dark hour' has happened. Meanwhile, entities known as 'Shadows' will awake and attempt to reach for the humans inside their coffins so that they can feed from psyches and turning them into 'Lost ones' in the process.

The Dark Hour is known to drain your stamina while you play, stay too long in Tartarus and you and your friends will be exhausted the next day at school, you might want to sleep during class but you also want to keep good grades. But let's keep on topic here and leave good grades out of this.

Tartarus is a giant tower with an obscure history that appears during the dark hour, this is what almost every single battle will take place. Every night you will go with your group of friends and explore the tower as much as possible. This is when we fall into the category of 'Dungeon Crawling'.

It is the perfect time to grow your characters, find items, level up, you know the drill. Except this game does it in a very interesting manner, considering your can give orders to your party to split up in search of items, stick together or put enemies in priority. Don't let your partners stray too far as you could end up cornered by enemies, forced to fight alone.

The game gives you its share of advantages though. Outside of battles when an enemy is spotted you can go ahead and deliver the first hit before it does, therefore giving you a much better start. If taking your time through every single battle isn't your style, there's a 'Rush' option you can activate by pressing Triangle that will pretty much do the battle for you at a fun speed, you can just sit back and watch the show, be careful as Rush does not guarantee you a victory, it only makes things much faster.

However the game's cool features are far from over. The title 'Persona' isn't there to simply look good, it actually is part of the game, part of you, specifically.

A Persona in the game, is an incarnation of an individual's personality, note that only Evokers can use their Persona. During the game it can also be referred to as a 'mask'. These Personas will assist you in battle and prove to be quite useful. You can have more than one, you can fuse them, level them up, pretty much give it the same growth as your give yourself during the game. Many people considered it be like 'Pokémon training' and it is somehow comparable.

The music is stylish and excellent. It is unique and fits the mood constantly throughout the game. Not a single time have I uttered ' Oh gosh, not that song again ' or ' I hate that song '.  The entire soundtrack feels like a gift and should be missed by no one, specially JRPG fans. It can get repetitive at times, but it's nothing soul crushing.  Note that the voice acting is also quite good, no character feels out of place with his or her voice, increasing the immersion even more.

The anime-style graphics are quite enjoyable, the game's art style is well applied to the 3D models and nothing seems or feels out of place, it's a well crafted universe with believable environments and characters.

The controls are very, very simple and intuitive, they are responsive and cause no issue, the camera never gets in the way and navigation is very easy, even if this is a portable version of a PlayStation 2 game.

Note that I do not speak about the story in this review, because each player makes his / her own story by playing, yes there is a main journey to be played through, but that's something everyone should experience for themselves without being told anything about it at the exception of the insane amount of freedom you have. If you play as the male character and have already played the PS2 version of Persona 3, you should know what to expect, however the game allows you to play as a female character which gives you a completely new perspective on the game and it's one of the key features for this portable edition of Persona 3.

Persona 3 Portable offers a long and interesting journey full of possibilities to the player, filled with a lovingly crafted universe, soundtrack, characters and combat system. The game can sometimes feel 'infinite' due to how many possibilities you have as a player, therefore creating an immense replay value. Also keep in mind there are various difficulty settings.

I personally would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys RPGs, JRPGs or wants to give a shot to the genre, Persona 3 Portable is a great place to start and is sure to be a memorable journey, your journey.

Score : 8.9 / 10 - I've never played an RPG so inspiring, unique and immersive on a portable device, too bad you can't have a huge impact on your character's design via a very detailed customization system or anything of sorts. The game can also appear to be repetitive after a while but if you love what you're playing it shouldn't bother you. The game kicks ass.