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One of the greatest RPGs of all time in the palm of your hands! Featuring the unprecedented addition of a new female player-controlled protagonist who offers players a fresh new perspective for one of gaming’s most inventive narratives, in addition to numerous additional improvements and enhancements, SMT: Persona 3 Portable promises to bring one of the highest‐rated RPGs of all time to PSP(PlayStation Portable) system in its grandest iteration yet!

User Reviews about Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable

This review is just as much about the game as it is Amazon.com's amazing customer service.

The game is an excellent remake / expansion of the original Playstation 2 version (Persona 3 and Persona 3: FES). P3:P has a lot of excellent additions to compliment the already outstanding gameplay. More things to do in Tartarus, simplified navigation, and the game retains it's voice overs for a majority of the game.

Navigation has been simplified via a controllable crosshair that you move around the top-down in game environment instead of the controllable avatar that you are able to move around. Pressing the right shoulder buttons highlights all of the interactive objects and people around and the Square button allows you to select your destination from a pop-up menu instead of having to walk there, making navigation faster and less of a hassle.

It's pretty amazing that certain things were not sacrificed during the port to ensure the quality and experience of the original game remains the same. As a fan of the Anime cutscenes from the Playstation 2 version, I am sad that they were cut from this version and replaced by in-game engine cutscenes and panning still shots. But this is an understandable sacrifice considering this is a hand-held system with less capability than a home-console. Sacrifices like this are unavoidable though.

Overall, i'd give this game a 5/5 and a 90 / 100 for a more accurate scoring. The fact that Atlus was able to keep a majority of the game in-tact to retain the experience for a portable counterpart to an amazing JRPG is nothing short of amazing. If you enjoy dating-sims, equipment forging, capturing of Persona's (imagine Pokemon), and top notch turn based combat, than you'll enjoy this game for countless hours. Replayability is also high considering your social-links, romantic relations with in-game characters and the addition of another Gender.

A review of Amazon's amazing Customer Service: After waiting 30 days for a copy of this game that I pre-ordered to keep myself entertained while deployed, I contacted Customer Service and notified them of my problem. Within a few hours, a customer service representative shipped out a no-hassle replacement copy including the promised hat that comes with pre-ordering the game which came within 2 weeks after it was shipped. The item came on the exact date that the rep told me it would. Kudo's to Amazon on the oustanding job. You know your in good hands with Amazon. -- Excellent PS2 Remake ("port")

Well, I've been playing video games since the days of the Commodore 64 and while I like many different genres, I prefer RPGs. And yes, Final Fantasy VII is still my all time favorite. That being said, sometimes that familiar formula of running around on a world map and discovering new towns and talking to every single person there...it can get a little stale. So, I was looking for something fresh and unusual. Watching the gameplay walkthrough video for Persona 3 Portable helped me make my decision to buy this game and I think it's a great representation of what you can expect from it. Now, down to pros and cons...

PROS:

- Unique and addictive gameplay (I loved the system of fusing your Persona cards)

- Likeable characters and touching storylines

- This is a really long game. I spent 100 hours on it but I'm a bit slow so it may
take less time for others, obviously.

- I loved the little touches of modern Japanese culture.

- Quick battle intros

- The card shuffle at the end of some battles where you can win a new Persona,
money, HP or EXP

- Being able to turn off the voice acting. I prefer to read the dialogue.

- Some may not like this but for once, I enjoyed not having to run my character
around everywhere (except when you are in the dungeon)

- When you've finished the game, you have the option of playing again and keeping
your money and level (you don't get to keep your Personas or equipment)

- Since I'm a female, I like playing as one.

CONS:

- Not enough variety with the music. The first time I heard the dorm music, I
started searching the menu for a way to turn it off. It was absurd. After awhile
though, I quit struggling and I eventually found myself sort of dancing along to
it.

- The final boss felt a bit long to me but maybe I should have leveled up more.

- Some of the enemies can do an instant death spell on you...I hate instant death.

- I do wish you could go into more places rather than just seeing a pre-rendered
background while they are talking.

- While the enemies are very unique, there's alot of palette-swapping and the
dungeon levels can get pretty redundant.


I'm sure I could find other things to pick at. No game is perfect (I'm thinking of Sephiroth's two minute summon). For me though, the pros completely outweigh the cons. It's been a long time since I've had so much fun playing a game. Who knew that going back to high school would be so entertaining? This one is going on my all-time favorites list.




-- A New Kind of RPG

Like my title implys this game is only for people who like rpgs. this is my favorite game on the psp and is even in my top 5 games the only reason i say this game is a little worse then the original ps2 version is that you don't walk around the city and it takes out the awesome anime cut scenes that looked really good the game takes place in it is in a visual novel style that is a little weird but you get used to it and it helps move the game along a little faster which is what portable games are supposed to do right? the battle system is awesome you always control your main character and you can set your team to either use AI or you can control them yourself which is an improvement from the ps2 version also your main character can be a girl or boy an if your a gamer like me you like to make the main character a representation of yourself so this works for girl gamers although there are a couple of instances where characters will say him or he when there talking about you. the main focus of this game is personas there are more then 200 to collect im on my second play through and have about 60 or 70 percent of them. the story is very good when you play a game from atlus (which is the company that makes this game) your in for a good story -- if you like rpgs dont even read this review just go order this game

Love this one, very grounbreaking, buy this one, dont pirate it, is a very good one. -- P3P Awesome

Something that I want to add: If you're interested in getting more into Persona as far as 3 and onwards goes, I suggest doing in order:
** P3 FES - P3P lacks the cutscenes, main character viewing and actions. Something I really liked when I did P3P first and then tried FES. I also noticed early on in FES are a few character reactions that are not present in P3P. Example at the beginning with the MC, Yukari, and Junpei. Shortly after your arrival, Yukari asks you not to talk about "Last night," as in Dark Hour events with other people. Junpei hears the "last night" comment and is shocked (courtesy of a short little pop up image of his surprised face), thinking you scored with Yukari already. You also have "Journey" and "Answer" story arcs to start playing at.

** P3 Portable - The main draw for me is a chance to try the Female MC / Main Character. The UI in alot of ways is smoother and more useful than P3 / P3 FES. Example is that viewing status of party members can be done simply by scrolling L & R in the "status" menu. In P3 FES, you'd have to talk to Mitsuru or speak to that specific character to check their status or even equip them. Going to and from spots at the Town Map and within the locations themselves is quicker, smoother. But I'll say again, not having the small characters moving around / doing things as part of events and the lack of the cutscenes is a sore point though.

** P4 - I have P4 but I will get into that AFTER P3 FES and P3P.

The reason why I suggest doing the games in that order is greatly due to the UI and game updates and design. P3 came out first, then P3 FES, then P4, and then P3P. The UI / Menu system changes and improves as the games rolled out. If you played in a different order like I did (P3P first, then P3 FES), then the UI in the older games felt clumsier and a hindrance after playing the more tweaked ones of the later games.

I miss alot of things that the PS2 versions of P3 FES did compared to P3P, but when you consider what they've been able to do with a portable system, P3P is a good buy, IMO. I wonder what they would've been able to do with the game additions of P3P onto the full console version like FES... -- Good purchase for P3 on the go