Recently, Atlus has found amazing success in western audiences withPersona 5andPersona 5 Royal. The JRPG’s immense popularity has significantly expanded thePersonafanbase far beyond what it once was, especially in North America. Now,Persona 4 Goldenhas released on PC and is already seeing great success for an eight-year-old game that’s an enhanced handheld version of a 12-year-old game. Many have assumed that aPersona 3 Portableport would come next, butPersona 3would benefit greatly from a remake over an original port.
For the whole series,Persona 3is one of the most important games because of what it started.Persona 3laid the foundation for what would become staples in thePersonafranchise overall. The passing of time with the calendar system, the social simulator aspects and social links, and the critical distance thatPersona 3extended from its parent franchiseShin Megami Tensei. There’s all things that madePersonawhat it is today, but there’s also a lot of growing pains that makePersona 3a tough play for newerPersonafans. Among other factors, there’s a solid argument for whyPersona 3needs a revamp, overhaul, or remake instead of just a straight port.
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Laying the Foundation for Persona
Persona 3was really when the series started toleave itsShin Megami TenseiDNA behind to pursue its own identity. Everything that makesPersonadifferent from other JRPGs started with the foundational changes inPersona 3. Social Links and the character relationships that stemmed from them helped distinguishPersona’s unique character development. The high school setting helped contextualize this, with the school and surrounding areas serving as a social hub for players to discover new friends and colleagues naturally. Social links and confidants would go on to characterizePersonain a way not many other JRPGs were capable of.
Persona 3also leveraged that freedom withthe introduction of the calendar progression system inPersona, forcing players to weigh their options and decide who they wanted to hang out with the most. Time is a complicated beast inPersonagames, as it’s inevitably bringing players closer to the climax of the game regardless if they’re ready or not. It leads players into thinking methodically about what they want to accomplish each week, setting goals for social links, ranking up social stats, or grinding in the dungeon. While time is purposefully problematic inPersona3, time enforces how important each action and interaction players make with the world around them. This is whyPersonais special, and withoutPersona 3’s efforts, those systems may have never existed.
The Demon is in the Details
The truth is thatfans will almost certainly support aPersona 3port on PC, even if it’s completely unchanged from its original releases. But, there’s merit in wanting a remake over a port for a number of reasons. There’s a lot aboutPersona 3’s mechanics that made things unreasonably difficult and were eventually streamlined or improved in future releases. Also for those who have playedPersona 4 Goldenon PC, regardless of how good raising the resolution and anti-aliasing makes the game look, the game was still designed during the PS2 era. Modernizing the graphics to something on par withPersona 3: Dancing in Moonlight’s textures and characters would be an added bonus.
Square Enix has seen great success with itsFinal Fantasy 7 Remake, which was similarly responsible for several core elements of most numberedFinal Fantasygames after that.Final Fantasy 7 Remakevery quickly became the definitive edition of a beloved JRPG by overhauling and modernizing every aspect of the game. The graphical fidelity, combat mechanics, and environmental design were all largely faithful to the original game, but were also remade for modern sensibilities to strike a great balance between nostalgia and practicality.GivingPersona 3the remake treatmentwould not only serve to iron out the kinks, but also add in elements fromPersona 5that helped revolutionizePersonagames.
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Why a Remake Makes Persona 3 Better
In particular, aPersona 3remake could draw a lot of inspiration from whatPersona 4andPersona 5did right. For one thing, the combat inPersona 5was some of the best turn-based combatthat the wholePersonafranchise has produced thus far. Integrating the Baton Pass mechanic alongside 1 More added an element of flexibility that was never too overpowered, especially when many bosses were designed around abusing this mechanic.Persona 3could implement a version of this, or at the very least allow players to choose their actions instead of party members acting freely based on AI.
Rather than specifically choosing what actions party members do on their turn, players would use the “tactics” menu to influence how party members react during battle. While this mechanic itself has persisted throughouteachPersonagame, subsequent mainline gamesgave players the option to deactivate that setting so others could control players independently. Leaving party members up to the will of the game’s artificial intelligence can make combat spotty at best, with party members unpredictably using magic or skills vaguely. Even though changing tactics would influence that decision making, sometimes certain abilities would take precedence and not even make sense.
Especially now thatAtlus has seen the popularity ofPersona 4 Goldenon PC, it’s very likely that more ports to the PC from Atlus are coming, and ifPersona 3is among that bunch, it won’t necessarily be a bad thing. Unfortunately there are just quite a few problematic gameplay mechanics throughoutPersona 3that players simply have no control over, and a remake would do well to put this entry in the franchise on the same level as the more recent ones.
Persona 3is available now on PSP and PS2.
