#was gonna write about what I'd like to see in the remake buuuuut it's late here so you'll have to wait for another day

[frauleinandry]

finished persona 3 portable... as expected the ending killed me asdfghk... I’ll talk more under the cut, but ultimately, I really had a good time! it had its faults, of course - some characters and the lore in particular could have been developed a lot more, and obviously parts of the gameplay were dated - but it hit all the right emotional beats, and I think that’s the most important thing here. probably a 7/10 experience, and I’d be very excited to see a remake of it.

I’ll speak about gameplay first, since that’s obviously the weakest thing. there were a couple of bosses which were pretty memorable, like the wheel of fortune/strength battle, and the first part of the nyx avatar fight (where their arcana keeps changing), but ultimately, most of the gameplay was kind of a slog. given how old the game is though, I was sort of expecting that, and therefore wasn’t disappointed. not being able to choose the specific skills your persona inherited though was particularly annoying asdfghjkl

onto the plot/characters, while there were obvious faults, the way the theme of endings/death was implemented was fantastic. I think this shone through in particular during the social links - while some of the school ones were a bit boring sans saori’s, the rest of them really hammered home the game’s central theme. I think this is why I dramatically prefer the social links in P5 and P3 over the ones I’d done in P4 - they really resonate with the story a lot more.

I liked most of the members of SEES, even if I’m not quite as attached to them as I am the phantom thieves. junpei, yukari, and akihiko were great, and I don’t have any fuuka criticisms, even if I’m less attached to her. ken is an interesting character on paper, but I wished they fleshed out his revenge murder/suicide scheme a bit more. koromaru is cute, and while his general concept is a bit silly, the fact that he’s literally Just A Dog means that he doesn’t embrace some of the tedious tropes teddie/morgana do. 

ironically enough, given I thought they’d probably be my favs, I found aigis and mitsuru to be the weakest playable characters. while aigis gets a lot of very good development near the end of the game, I wish her opening up to the team/becoming more human was a bit more gradual, y’know? like, the fight with ryoji/death should have been the turning point in her development, not its start. meanwhile, I think mitsuru is really hurt by her confidant being so late game, in conjunction with her being pretty sidelined during the ken/shinjiro arc, even though the events there should have affected her nearly as much as akihiko. 

speaking of shinjiro, him, ryoji, ikutsuki, mitsuru’s dad, and the non-chidori members of strega each suffer from a terminal lack of screen time/development. while shinjiro’s social link was cute, he really doesn’t do much otherwise except get murdered - fuck, I never even used him in tartarus since he was way overleveled compared to my team. meanwhile, while ikutsuki and strega are interesting on paper, ikutsuki’s whole deal is super rushed, and strega’s whole schtick is all over the place. on the other hand, while I get why ryoji only appears when he does, I think him being around for an extra month really would have given his character a bit of an extra punch. 

in fact, the lore in general is pretty underdeveloped, and I think it’s the main thing they should flesh out more if/when they remake this game. while I know FES’ postgame gives it a bit more depth, that’s sort of like slapping a bandage over a leaky hole. 

still, like I said before, despite its faults, most of the emotional beats resonated with me. when the game wanted me to feel happy, I felt happy, and when it wanted me to feel sad, it punched me in the guts without hesitation.