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quailfence! Thank you,
quailfence!
"That power is called a Persona... It is a manifestation of your psyche. A Persona is a facet of your personality that surfaces as you react to external stimuli... You can think of it as a mask that protects you as you brave many hardships."Blurb: Every night when the clock strikes midnight, a phenomenon known as the Dark Hour occurs. During that time, people turn into coffins, and strange monsters called shadows roam the streets, looking to inflict Apathy Syndrome on their victims. You are an orphan in high school that has just transferred to Gekkoukan High School located on Tatsumi Port Island, and are seemingly one of the few people who are able to exist in this time. You are quickly recruited into a school club called SEES, who use the manifestation of their hearts, known as Persona, in order to fight the shadows. Now you must balance your school life and friendships with hunting shadows and uncovering the mysteries of the Dark Hour.
Why is it worth your time?: It's a beautiful, lovely story about making connections with other people and living life to the fullest. The gameplay, which combines turn-based battles and dungeon crawling with social sim elements, is very fun and engaging. The characters are all very interesting, unique, and well-developed whose individual arcs explore the game's main themes in various interesting ways.
Plural/1+ Tags: abuse: intermediate-focus, copies, fictioneers, nonhumans, the dead, realitymashing, relationships:community, relationships:teamwork, nonswitching, switching, on purpose, possession, setting-specific, spiritual
Content Warnings: General: Death and grief are major themes of this game. In addition, while there is no actual suicide, suicide imagery is a major part of the game: characters pretend to shoot themselves in the head in order to summon their personas. Suicidal thoughts/ideation and depression also come up frequently. Occasional blood. More detailed warnings are spoilers, see comments!
Accessibility Notes: English and Japanese subs and dub. Also subs for Spanish, French, Italian, German, Korean, Simplified and traditional Chinese. Russian and Turkish available for Portable via fan translation. Reload is also officially available in Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish. Also has a manga, four anime movies, and stageplays adapting the story. Let's Plays are available on YouTube. See below for what consoles it's available on.
Misc. Notes (if any): There are four versions of Persona 3: original, FES, Portable, and Reload. Original and FES are available only on PlayStation 2. Portable was originally made for the PlayStation Portable but was eventually ported to PS4, Windows, Xbox one and X/S, and Switch 1. Reload is available for PS4, PS5, Windows, Xbox One and X/S, and the Switch 2. The Persona subreddit has a guide to the differences between the versions
here under the FAQ header. I've copied the relevant bit below to guard against linkrot:
What is the difference between Persona 3 and Persona 3 FES?
FES is Persona 3 with additional content, there is no reason to play Vanilla Persona 3
The big additions are:
A new epilogue chapter, The Answer
More personas
More social links
A new hard mode
New equipment
New quests
Which Version of Persona 3 Should I Play?
Persona 3 FES:
+ The Answer (an additional campaign after the events of Persona 3)
+ Animated Cutscenes
+ 3D-Overworld
- No Party Control Option
- No Female Main Character Route
Persona 3 FES is an updated version of the original vanilla P3 game on PS2. It's the most traditional experience, but lacking in QoL elements that later versions got. What FES has that other versions lack though is "The Answer", an epilogue that takes place after the events of the P3 main story.
Persona 3 Portable:
+ Female Protagonist Campaign with completely different Social Links than the Male Protagonist
+ Control your party member's turn
+ Quality of life additions, including extra difficulty modes Beginner and Maniac
- No "The Answer" epilogue
- No Animated Cutscenes
- No 3D-Overworld
Persona 3 Portable was originally a remake of Persona 3 for the PSP. Later ported to modern consoles in 2022, it features a more visual novel style of presentation to the slice of life aspects, while the dungeon crawling retains the 3D presentation. While the cutscenes were reduced to still images, Portable includes an entirely new route with a Female protagonist to choose from, featuring new slinks and events specifically for the route.
Persona 3 Reload:
+ Overhauled visuals
+ Overhauled combat system (including revamped shuffle time and party control)
+ Animated Cutscenes
+ 3D-Overworld
+ Additional Content
+ "The Answer" epilogue is DLC
- No Female Main Character Route
Persona 3 Reload is a complete remake and reimagining of Persona 3. The game updates the graphics, combat, and retains a lot of the QoL features from modern titles. While intended to be a remake of base Persona 3, it will retains additional content from FES like new S.Links and FES's "The Answer" was added as DLC post launch. Of note, it does not have the additional Female Protagonist route of Portable.
All Versions of the game will give you the full story of Persona 3's main campaign, so feel free to pick the one that most interests you!
(Note from submitter: Something not mentioned in this FAQ is the fact that Reload and the Female MC route of Portable are the only versions that allow you to chose which character(s) to romance. In all other versions of the game your relationship with the romanceable characters automatically turns romantic once your Social Link rank with them is high enough)
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