This week, modern Role Series will be completely democratized. Once hardcore PlayStation exclusives, all three modern-day Persona games — which follow a very similar template across the trio — will be available on PlayStation 4 (and 5, via backwards compatibility), Xbox Series, Xbox One, and more. , Switch and PC. It’s a banner day for Japanese RPG fans or anyone curious about JRPGs.
In a sense, the release of these ports is important. persona 4 gold, originally the Vita Definitive Edition of the classic Persona 4, has now undeniably made its way to PC.but Persona 3 Been stuck for years on a PSP or PS2, depending on your allegiance. It’s old hardware, emulation or nothing. Now there’s at least one ideal, legal, and easy way to buy and experience these stories — even if it’s not necessarily an ideal experience.
For Persona 4 Golden, however, this new version is an idealized experience. It’s a great port, like it was back on PC a few years ago. It’s just a matter of taste if you prefer the sleepy-town vibe of Persona 4 or the full-on narrative of Persona 5, but it’s fair to say the two make for a very An exceptional JRPG mix, and has been critically acclaimed in recent years.
The textual and tonal elements of the Persona series are startling in their uniqueness, even if it sometimes causes these games to evoke Western sensitivities now and then. In an era of panic chaos where Final Fantasy was desperately trying to copy Western RPGs and cater to Western tastes, Persona 4 was released as an unabashedly Japanese experience that not only became a hit for nerds, but was able to capitalize on that cult Status went into it and both it and its successors were truly huge successes. Not only are they among the best Japanese cosplayers in recent years; they’re undoubtedly the most important.
Don’t just take my word for it, though. Consider key consensus. Persona 5 Royal has a meta-score average of 95 and is firmly in the top 50 of all time. Persona 4 Gold’s average score was only slightly lower at 93—again, the best of all time.these games are important.
This makes it important that these games port well to new platforms: and they have. At higher resolutions, they’re sharp. Loads faster. The fundamentally untouchable elements hold up well; an engaging and exciting story, likable characters, and an absolutely brilliant musical sequence. Persona 4 has it all. So, to be fair, so is Persona 3 – but it suffers.
When I previously described these games as a duo, I knew it would be slightly offensive. Some people are going to run to the comments and say, actually, you know, the formula that was perfected in Persona 4 and 5 is really solidified in Persona 3 – and they’re right. It’s more of a trilogy, and indeed one of the rare ones where, despite being disconnected narratively, the three games lead clearly from one to the other in terms of mechanics, tone, and worldview. They come in sets. Here, however, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend playing Persona 3 unless you’re already a fan.
I want to be clear, it’s still a pretty good port, given the source material. However, the version of Persona 3 presented here is the PSP version of the game Persona 3 Portable. It’s a version that’s always been slightly compromised, but those compromises were accepted on the PSP because, well, it’s the PSP. Blow it up to the big screen, to a powerful machine, and it feels older and more worn than its 14 years.
On the PSP, Persona 3 emerged from a game of 3D models and scenarios into an experience that largely resembled an adventure game. Dungeon crawling and combat action still take place in full 3D, but story scenes are only played out with portraits, pre-rendered backgrounds, and moving the cursor around static scenes rather than navigating characters in 3D space. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but putting it next to Persona 4 Golden makes it feel older, slower, and less appealing, especially knowing that a full version of Persona 3 exists.
That version came to the PS2 in the form of Persona 3 and the expanded Persona 3 FES, games that were presented in much the same way as Persona 4. They’re not as smooth as the latest work, but there’s a lot of character in these 3D models – something that gets lost in P3P. This was supposed to be a trade-off for porting the game to the PSP–but here, it doesn’t feel right that the Portable is the ported version.
To be fair, Atlus faces an impossible task. Unlike Persona 4, Persona 3 does not have a definitive version. If it ported Persona 3 FES, the female protagonist, new character relationships, and new challenges added for Portable would be skipped. A modern take on Portable, th is edition lacks a full 3D demo, but also includes a wealth of additional content, including the “FES” epilogue chapter, which continues and concludes the main game’s story. Not to mention the age of Persona 3’s development – who knows if Atlus still has the source files. So a choice had to be made; they chose Portable. I see.
However, that doesn’t mean I don’t crave the “real” Persona 3, or more importantly, the “final” version that combines features from both versions. Maybe that’s not possible here – but it does, in my opinion, reduce Persona 3 (which is a great game in its own right) to a tribute to the JRPG and Persona loyalists. Historical curiosity, not a must-play game like its successor. To be fair, many loyal users probably know how to emulate P3 FES anyway.
This is where we are. These are excellent ports, and it still feels really weird to play a Persona game with an Xbox button cue. Both are good showcases of what each game has to offer, and are hard to criticize as ports, at least on the platforms I tested on (Xbox and PC).
What do you recommend? Well, what I’m trying to say is that if you’ve never played any of these games before, you should still go ahead and choose the most streamlined, smoothest, most modern game. That’s Persona 5 Royal. If you’re a fan of Persona 5 and have never experienced the Scooby-Doo-style antics of the quiet town of Inye’s glorious town, Persona 4 Gold is a must-play , which is a really great port. P5’s heist storyline might also be worth checking out to give you the chills – none of that here.
Like I said, Persona 3 is probably more curious than anything else in this form. It’s still a great game, but unlike P5R and P4G, I have a hard time seeing it create new fans for the series in 2023 – but if you’re already stuck with this bug, most of its great story The plot may deepen your appreciation of what the characters are.
Hopefully the inevitable Persona 6 can be released on more platforms and continue to cultivate a wider audience. In terms of growth potential, Persona is probably the most important JRPG series on the planet right now – and these ports are key to that plan.
