OPINION: How Do Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden Stack Up After Playing Persona 5?

Image: Persona 3 Portable via Atlas USA

 

For modern consoles, the Persona family grows by two with the release of Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden in a few days — two much-loved games that have been sorely missed on consoles over the last decade. Though with Persona 5 having been released (and re-released) in the time since Persona 3 and Persona 4 were the latest games around, how do the two elder games measure up next to their younger sibling?

 

Thanks to a code from Altus USA, I got the chance over the holiday break to play as much Persona as I physically could: maxing out social links, saving people from shadows and playing through as much of two school years as possible. Coming from nearly 500 hours and four playthroughs of Persona 5, I was ready to get my shadow kicking butt going!

 

How Do Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden Look on Modern Consoles?

 

Image: Persona 3 Portable via Atlas USA

 

As I played through Persona 4 Golden and Person 3 Portable it was clear that Altus did a really great job bringing the two games onto modern consoles. The character art looks great in HD and the combat mechanics 100 percent stand the test of time, though I was missing some of Persona 5’s quality-of-life updates, like the Baton Pass. It’s just a shame how frustratingly dull Persona 3 Portable’s gameplay and graphics are, especially when compared to Persona 4 Golden and super especially when played on a PlayStation 5.

 

Other than the character portraits, Persona 3 and Persona 4’s 3D models look upscaled, untouched from their original resolutions on the PSP and PS Vita, with in-game images teetering on the edge of looking kind of muddy. 

 

Image: Persona 3 Portable via Atlas USA

 

If you’ve seen anything from Portable, you’d know that the entire social aspect of the game (and in my opinion the best part of the Persona series) is basically just a click-and-point adventure. These kinds of games rely on their art to be visually appealing enough to be engaging, but Persona 3’s doesn’t look great, nor is it very fun to play on a controller — it feels like it’d be perfect for a touchscreen or a mouse. 

 

Persona 4 Golden’s graphics are less of a bother as the game is fully 3D and walkable, like all other mainline Persona games. Persona 5 players will feel at home in Inaba and have a great time meeting the inhabitants while growing some veggies. Sure Golden could have used a bit of visual upgrade but the story and gameplay more than make up for the graphics.

 

Crawling Through the Remastered Persona Dungeons

 

Image: Persona 4 Golden via Atlas USA

 

Unlike Persona 5, the dungeons in Portable and Golden are incredibly linear with no hint of puzzles or set pieces and very repetitive designs. When you’re going through the same halls over and over again, hour after hour, repeatedly facing the same monsters, it can get hard to stay engaged. Golden thankfully has Inaba to wander about in and enjoy, while Portable just has menus. 

 

It also doesn’t help that Portable’s Tartarus is basically Mementos from Persona 5 but that’s the entire game. Mementos being my least favorite part of Persona 5 made going through Tartarus more of a chore than fun. Midnight Channel in Persona 4 is much the same but at least each area is themed.

 

Image: Persona 4 Golden via Atlas USA

 

Back on the PSP, Persona 3 Portable would have been revolutionary. With such a great story that leans heavily into wonderfully edgy themes and characters, the only issue is that it's bogged down by its presentation, aspects which Golden overcomes by being more on par with its console counterparts. It doesn’t help the fact that a certain section of Golden shows how Portable could look in a proper remastered form.

 

That’s a tough pill to swallow when Persona 3 FES is right there, begging to be remastered. FES has movement options for the social aspects and it has the anime cutscenes that are missing from Portable. I would argue that FES would need combat updates and the female route added.

 

Summoning Up Persona 3 and Persona 4

 

Image: Persona 4 Golden via Atlas USA

 

As a remaster of the original games, Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden nail it completely. These are perfectly faithful ports of the older games that run beautifully on modern consoles. Portable doesn’t need a remaster though, it needs a remake, and adding in quick save doesn’t make up for that — not that I used the feature on PlayStation 5, maybe Switch and Steam Deck players would get more use out of it.

 

With both remastered games coming out at the same time, I can’t actively suggest Persona 3 Portable to those who are looking for more Persona after starting with 5 like I did. Persona 4 Golden is … as they say, Golden and such a joy to play — 10/10 would take Marie on all the outings. 

 

Image: Persona 4 Golden via Atlas USA

 

Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden launch on Xbox Series consoles (as well as Game Pass), Xbox One, Windows PC, Steam (for Portable), PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch on January 19. 

 

PlayStation 4 code was provided by Altus USA and played on PlayStation 5.

 

 

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Daryl Harding is a Senior Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs a YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza, and posts photos of his travels on Instagram. The best part of each game was the dog persona user and the fox friend!

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