A truely remarkable RPG
My first review on this site was for Persona 4, one of my favorite titles of all time. Immediately after completing P4, I went and picked up P3P for the PSP. Be warned, because of my nature, I am forced to compare the two games. I'll try and limit it, but you have been warned.
The games exposition in much shorter and to the point than P4s (and it begins) and the plot is somewhat easier to understand. Basically, you're a transfer student to Gekkougan High School, and you discover the "Dark Hour" a 13th hour that happens every day at midnight. Only people who have Personas can witness the Dark Hour, and normal people transmogrify into coffins. The members of your dorm, which so happens to be a HQ for people who have personas, notice you don't transmogrify during the Dark Hour. When a shadow attacks the dorm, you must use your power to fight it. Then you join SEES, a group dedicated to finding out what the Dark Hour is and stopping it. As I said in my P4 review, the plot could get long-winded, and kind of iffy. Persona 3's plot doesn't have that problem, and unlike P4, the plot twists are very unpredictable. Except Persona's traditional, we won! Oh wait, no we didn't, still got half a game to play. However, I found nothing really driving me to the finish, no mystery to really solve, it's all just there for you. This makes the plot drag a bit, and overstay it's welcome. The eventual main antagonist is shallow, and really just appears just for the sake of being a villain. But the ending... I'll admit made me weep a bit. A negative is that this game doesn't contain the P3FES story, something I wanted to play, but oh well.
The original P3's combat was different than this and P4s, you couldn't control you're allies, and you couldn't guard Atlus realized that what they had going for in P4 was good, and completely re-modeled P3 to be like P4. Now you CAN guard and issue direct commands to your allies. A huge plus to P3P if you're deciding between getting this or the PS2 game. Another difference between the PS2 and PSP titles is that on PSP, you can choose the gender of your character. It isn't just a model swap and editing of the dialogue either, choosing the female changes some minor plot details and Social Link stories. Playing as the female is a slightly different way of playing to P3 vets. Social Links play a major part in Persona, as they allow you to create more powerful Personas through fusion of two or more personas. Every social link story has it's respective Arcana and character. The Social Link stories in P4 were all interesting to pay attention to and nice little side plots to distract you from the main picture. Persona 3's... not so much. They're all predictable and, kinda uninteresting.
The graphics are... mediocre. Like in P4, the monsters and personas all look cool and creative. But due to the hardware limitations of the system, they had to go with a cursor that you move around a static image of the area you're in. This doesn't immerse you in the game as well as a character moving around an intractable environment. But don't tell me you couldn't have made the battle graphics better. The PSP has seen some truly gorgeous games, but P3P isn't one of those. The character faces look blocky and kinda creepy...
Well, I compared them less than I thought I would... anyway time for the round-up. P3P is a great, addicting, fun game. The great thing about this game outnumber the bad by a ton. If you're looking for a RPG you can play on the go. P3P is for you.
