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Persona 3 Portable |OT|: Mixing Things Up for Third Trimester

Holmes

Member
Loved my import version. Will enjoy playing it in English! I'm sure Atlus USA wants to keep its streak though, and the game'll be a week or two late in Canada.
 

mileS

Member
Holmes said:
Loved my import version. Will enjoy playing it in English! I'm sure Atlus USA wants to keep its streak though, and the game'll be a week or two late in Canada.

Don't scare me like that! If its not up on PSN by the 6th I'm going to cry...
 

Volcynika

Member
mileS said:
Don't scare me like that! If its not up on PSN by the 6th I'm going to cry...

Well since you're in NA, this should apply to you

"a) Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable, Atlus’s upcoming handheld RPG epic, is right around the corner, releasing in stores and via PlayStation Network on July 6th."
 

Minamu

Member
Holmes said:
Loved my import version. Will enjoy playing it in English! I'm sure Atlus USA wants to keep its streak though, and the game'll be a week or two late in Canada.
Guess from where I preordered? :(
 

Wizpig

Member
Yeah, about preordering... I live in Europe, is VGPlus.ca the only option?

Do you guys feel to recommend some other shop?
 
Mr_Brit said:
No thanks Atlus. You could at least have kept all the cutscenes and original gameplay and not turned it into a slimline point and click experience. I'd be all over this if it was a true Persona 3 portable. The original game wasn't exactly pushing the PS2 to its limits so I'm sure that they could have replicated the game almost completely on the PSP.

...

It's not like there was actually any relevant form of exploration in the original game outside of Tartarus.

Wizpig: I don't think there are better options than vgp.ca.
 

Wizpig

Member
Holy Order Sol said:
...

It's not like there was actually any relevant form of exploration in the original game outside of Tartarus.

Wizpig: I don't think there are better options than vgp.ca.
Unfortunately, I agree with Mr_Brit: the only reason they did this to P3 is because this is supposed to be portable, but come on, it's a Ps2 porting...!
It's not like having or not having exploration in school makes it more or less portable and "on the go": it just makes it inferior to FES.
As for the cutscenes, I can understand the PSP limits. maybe. or maybe not.
But no exploration was clearly a (bad) game design choice.

This makes me sad because I do have FES, but I don't really want to play on the Ps2 right now: a portable console is perfect for summer.

Oh and thanks for the answer.
 

Niblet

Member
Game will be bought even though my psp died Q_Q but when a new one is bought I will gloriously head through tartarus again and this time I get to pick a stud to woo me. Cant wait.
 
My PSP is acting iffy, and the guys at my Canadian EB had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the hat. Looks like I'm sailin for dissapointment :lol

Oh well. Worst case I'll just have to get a new PSP. There's no way to transfer ownership of UMDs into digital downloads, right?
 

Yaweee

Member
Wizpig said:
Unfortunately, I agree with Mr_Brit: the only reason they did this to P3 is because this is supposed to be portable, but come on, it's a Ps2 porting...!
It's not like having or not having exploration in school makes it more or less portable and "on the go": it just makes it inferior to FES.
As for the cutscenes, I can understand the PSP limits. maybe. or maybe not.
But no exploration was clearly a (bad) game design choice.
.

No, it makes it twice as fast as FES. Shorter load times and faster movement speed.

Also, I don't see how what is in P3P constitutes "no exploration" compared to the PS2 versions. Everything that was there before is still there, and you still have to move over to them to talk/use them. You're just an icon rather than a 3D model, so it is kind of like many of the older SMT games.
 
So... I'm late to this party, I like in PAL-lands and I'd like to get the hat and stuff... pre-ordering on vgp.ca will suffice?

If not, where?
 
Wizpig said:
Unfortunately, I agree with Mr_Brit: the only reason they did this to P3 is because this is supposed to be portable, but come on, it's a Ps2 porting...!
It's not like having or not having exploration in school makes it more or less portable and "on the go": it just makes it inferior to FES.
As for the cutscenes, I can understand the PSP limits. maybe. or maybe not.
But no exploration was clearly a (bad) game design choice.
I'm not trying to single you out or anything, but...

Maybe the fact that Tatsumi Port Island never really clicked with me so I don't care about no longer getting to explore it has something to do with it (and as I've said in the past, if they make a P4P and give it this exact treatment, I probably will not play it because that, to me, would rip out a lot of the charm of Inaba), but this is the most petty argument I have ever read. We've spent years criticizing companies for lazily porting PS2 games to the PSP without taking the time to design it with the handheld in mind, and rightfully so. Even if you ignore the graphics not being as good on PSP or the lack of a second stick or any of the other technological differences between the two, there's a bigger divide between the two platforms: a handheld game should be a game designed to be played on a handheld. The fact that I can put it in sleep mode does not change the fact that the best handheld games are designed to be played in short bursts (but can also accommodate marathon sessions) and are as pick-up-and-playable as possible. For better or for worse (and believe me, I'm not sure it is for the better), Atlus went the extra mile and completely redesigned the game with the PSP in mind, and then some. And now you're criticizing them for not just putting the game as it was on consoles on PSP?

Guess what: if you want to play a console game, go play it on consoles and stop whining.
 

Drame

Member
lostinblue said:
So... I'm late to this party, I like in PAL-lands and I'd like to get the hat and stuff... pre-ordering on vgp.ca will suffice?

If not, where?
VG+ will do just fine, but I pre-ordered my copy from Axelmusic as it was a few euros cheaper there.
 
I AM JOHN! said:
I'm not trying to single you out or anything, but...

Maybe the fact that Tatsumi Port Island never really clicked with me so I don't care about no longer getting to explore it has something to do with it (and as I've said in the past, if they make a P4P and give it this exact treatment, I probably will not play it because that, to me, would rip out a lot of the charm of Inaba), but this is the most petty argument I have ever read. We've spent years criticizing companies for lazily porting PS2 games to the PSP without taking the time to design it with the handheld in mind, and rightfully so. Even if you ignore the graphics not being as good on PSP or the lack of a second stick or any of the other technological differences between the two, there's a bigger divide between the two platforms: a handheld game should be a game designed to be played on a handheld. The fact that I can put it in sleep mode does not change the fact that the best handheld games are designed to be played in short bursts (but can also accommodate marathon sessions) and are as pick-up-and-playable as possible. For better or for worse (and believe me, I'm not sure it is for the better), Atlus went the extra mile and completely redesigned the game with the PSP in mind, and then some. And now you're criticizing them for not just putting the game as it was on consoles on PSP?

Guess what: if you want to play a console game, go play it on consoles and stop whining.

Taking away all the in-engine cutscenes and anime cutscenes was totally unecessary. They had a lot of leftover space on the UMD.
 
Unknown Soldier said:
Taking away all the in-engine cutscenes and anime cutscenes was totally unecessary. They had a lot of leftover space on the UMD.
I don't disagree (though I can see why they got rid of the anime cutscenes at least, since having them for regular P3 but not Girl's Side would just make them look bad). Complaining about taking out exploration, however, is still beyond petty.
 

graywolf323

Member
Dedication Through Light said:
lol, would FedEx actually deliver on Monday (tomorrow?). Looking at the tracking, they didnt take 4th off work at all.

nope all the delivery services have off the 5th

http://www.accuracyproject.org/shippingholidays.html

Unknown Soldier said:
Taking away all the in-engine cutscenes and anime cutscenes was totally unecessary. They had a lot of leftover space on the UMD.

this is sounding less and less like the the best version of Persona 3 :-(
 

tokkun

Member
Unknown Soldier said:
Taking away all the in-engine cutscenes and anime cutscenes was totally unecessary. They had a lot of leftover space on the UMD.

Yeah, it's an unfortunate decision. Granted the anime scenes in P3 are a bit inconsistent in quality, but the scene at the beginning with Yukari and the Evoker has is just so much better in the original than in the P3P version.

Minamu said:
One day away from the release, and it's not leaked online yet? I'm impressed :D Pirates love Atlus too?

Why are you even keeping track of this...?
 
tokkun said:
Yeah, it's an unfortunate decision. Granted the anime scenes in P3 are a bit inconsistent in quality, but the scene at the beginning with Yukari and the Evoker has is just so much better in the original than in the P3P version.

Holy shit YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!

Does Pharos even appear in the P3P version?
 
Snapshot King said:
My PSP is acting iffy, and the guys at my Canadian EB had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the hat. Looks like I'm sailin for dissapointment :lol

Of course not, if you take them how can they put them up on eBay? :lol
 

depward

Member
I AM JOHN! said:
I'm not trying to single you out or anything, but...

Maybe the fact that Tatsumi Port Island never really clicked with me so I don't care about no longer getting to explore it has something to do with it (and as I've said in the past, if they make a P4P and give it this exact treatment, I probably will not play it because that, to me, would rip out a lot of the charm of Inaba), but this is the most petty argument I have ever read. We've spent years criticizing companies for lazily porting PS2 games to the PSP without taking the time to design it with the handheld in mind, and rightfully so. Even if you ignore the graphics not being as good on PSP or the lack of a second stick or any of the other technological differences between the two, there's a bigger divide between the two platforms: a handheld game should be a game designed to be played on a handheld. The fact that I can put it in sleep mode does not change the fact that the best handheld games are designed to be played in short bursts (but can also accommodate marathon sessions) and are as pick-up-and-playable as possible. For better or for worse (and believe me, I'm not sure it is for the better), Atlus went the extra mile and completely redesigned the game with the PSP in mind, and then some. And now you're criticizing them for not just putting the game as it was on consoles on PSP?

Guess what: if you want to play a console game, go play it on consoles and stop whining.

I am in agreement with this.
 
I don't like how they've simplified the physical attacks. Between that and having the party members manually controllable, I think it really changes the feel of the game, and in a way that personally doesn't sit well with me. Why does P3 have to be P4? Is there a setting I can change to get my Pierce/Slash/Smash back?
 
Segata Sanshiro said:
I don't like how they've simplified the physical attacks. Between that and having the party members manually controllable, I think it really changes the feel of the game, and in a way that personally doesn't sit well with me. Why does P3 have to be P4? Is there a setting I can change to get my Pierce/Slash/Smash back?

They probably realized it'd have to go once they made it so the MC can only use one weapon.
 
Fimbulvetr said:
They probably realized it'd have to go once they made it so the MC can only use one weapon.
whaa

Okay, didn't know that. Yeesh. You guys that haven't played P3 before are going to have a great time with this game, even if it's stripped down a bit, but the more I hear, the less I want it.
 
Holmes said:
Loved my import version. Will enjoy playing it in English! I'm sure Atlus USA wants to keep its streak though, and the game'll be a week or two late in Canada.
Argh, forgot about that. I didn't get Persona PSP until a week and a half after release. However, Strange Journey was available day one, but at Future Shop and HMV, so hopefully they'll be carrying it in the event EB is late again.

Snapshot King said:
My PSP is acting iffy, and the guys at my Canadian EB had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the hat. Looks like I'm sailin for dissapointment :lol
It is listed as a preorder bonus on their site, so while Canada doesn't normally get too many of these bonuses, if you preordered it, you should get it.
 
Segata Sanshiro said:
whaa

Okay, didn't know that. Yeesh. You guys that haven't played P3 before are going to have a great time with this game, even if it's stripped down a bit, but the more I hear, the less I want it.


Either they wanted to streamline it or they couldn't fit it but the MC can only use 1h-Swords now.

The FemC uses a Naginata instead.
 

tokkun

Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
whaa

Okay, didn't know that. Yeesh. You guys that haven't played P3 before are going to have a great time with this game, even if it's stripped down a bit, but the more I hear, the less I want it.

I personally am not going to miss the different physical attack types. On the other hand, I'm probably the only one who wishes that they didn't give the option for manual control of the other party members. :lol
 
See, the part that is stupid to me is that because they didn't want to create new content for the female MC, they TOOK AWAY content from the canonical male MC. The anime cutscenes, the in-engine cutscenes, the different weapon types. What was the point of taking away content? Just leave it in and explain the female MC is a "side-story" and some content is different when you pick the character. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
 

DR2K

Banned
Unknown Soldier said:
See, the part that is stupid to me is that because they didn't want to create new content for the female MC, they TOOK AWAY content from the canonical male MC. The anime cutscenes, the in-engine cutscenes, the different weapon types. What was the point of taking away content? Just leave it in and explain the female MC is a "side-story" and some content is different when you pick the character. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I would prefer the presentation be consistent as would any rational developer.
 

tokkun

Member
Unknown Soldier said:
See, the part that is stupid to me is that because they didn't want to create new content for the female MC, they TOOK AWAY content from the canonical male MC. The anime cutscenes, the in-engine cutscenes, the different weapon types. What was the point of taking away content? Just leave it in and explain the female MC is a "side-story" and some content is different when you pick the character. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The point of taking away weapon attack types was that it was annoying as fuck to get into a boss battle only to find out that they were strong against everything but Strike and not have a Strike character in your party.
 
tokkun said:
The point of taking away weapon attack types was that it was annoying as fuck to get into a boss battle only to find out that they were strong against everything but Strike and not have a Strike character in your party.
By that logic, they should probably do away with magic types, too.
 
tokkun said:
The point of taking away weapon attack types was that it was annoying as fuck to get into a boss battle only to find out that they were strong against everything but Strike and not have a Strike character in your party.

I brought Akihiko, Junpei, and Ken to fight a boss weak against Ice.

They should just do away with party members and instead add one that has every kind of attack ever.
 

Jerk

Banned
While I am glad that my first foray into P3 will not be AI driven, I do not like the sound of a simple weapon system.

Will this take much away from the experience?
 
Jerk 2.0 said:
While I am glad that my first foray into P3 will not be AI driven, I do not like the sound of a simple weapon system.

Will this take much away from the experience?
If you haven't played P3 before, I doubt it will bother you much, and might actually curb the sometimes too-high challenge somewhat. Do not let us oldies dissuade you from getting and playing this game, I'm sure you will enjoy it. :)
 

tokkun

Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
By that logic, they should probably do away with magic types, too.

Elemental affinities were omnipresent in the game, since almost every enemy had them, so you had to organize your party and persona selection around covering the elements. Removing magic types would significantly change the feel of the battle system.

Physical attack types on the other hand didn't serve any purpose in 95% of battles, so it wasn't worth organizing your party around them (not to mention that having to cover all elements and all attack types and have a healer would limit you to some fairly rigid party choices). Removing attack types makes no different to the way the vast majority of battles play out and allows you to use more varied combinations of party members without worrying that you will run into some rare enemy that can only be damaged by Pierce.
 

Jerk

Banned
Segata Sanshiro said:
If you haven't played P3 before, I doubt it will bother you much, and might actually curb the sometimes too-high challenge somewhat. Do not let us oldies dissuade you from getting and playing this game, I'm sure you will enjoy it. :)

I dunno, I very much like a challenge. One of my biggest issues with SJ and P4 (and Nocturne as well I suppose) was that those games lost every vestige of difficulty around 1/4 of the way through.

While Nocturne and P4 were fantastic games beyond the difficulty, SJ lost its luster after I no longer feared the dungeons (never finished that game).

Perhaps I should play the original first...
 
tokkun said:
Elemental affinities were omnipresent in the game, since almost every enemy had them, so you had to organize your party and persona selection around covering the elements. Removing magic types would significantly change the feel of the battle system.

Physical attack types on the other hand didn't serve any purpose in 95% of battles, so it wasn't worth organizing your party around them (not to mention that having to cover all elements and all attack types and have a healer would limit you to some fairly rigid party choices). Removing attack types makes no different to the way the vast majority of battles play out and allows you to use more varied combinations of party members without worrying that you will run into some rare enemy that can only be damaged by Pierce.
It was just as much a part of my strategy to have demons to cover slash/smash/pierce as it was to cover ice/wind/fire/elec/light/dark. Most of the time, enemies had multiple weaknesses including a melee weakness and an elemental weakness. That you happened to choose to go after their elemental weakness 95% of the time isn't good support for elemental weaknesses being better or more important than melee weaknesses.
 

tokkun

Member
Jerk 2.0 said:
I dunno, I very much like a challenge. One of my biggest issues with SJ and P4 (and Nocturne as well I suppose) was that those games lost every vestige of difficulty around 1/4 of the way through.

Perhaps I should play the original first. At least then I would get the Animated cutscenes.

Taking away different attack types will have extremely little impact on difficulty, if any. There are also very few animated cutscenes in the game. You could probably count them on one hand. I don't think those are very compelling reasons in and of themselves.

That said, I think I will probably prefer the PS2 version because I really like the ability to actually run around the school and town rather than using a cursor. If you get the console version, just remember not to play The Answer.

Segata Sanshiro said:
It was just as much a part of my strategy to have demons to cover slash/smash/pierce as it was to cover ice/wind/fire/elec/light/dark. Most of the time, enemies had multiple weaknesses including a melee weakness and an elemental weakness. That you happened to choose to go after their elemental weakness 95% of the time isn't good support for elemental weaknesses being better or more important than melee weaknesses.

I don't have the will to go look at enemy charts on GameFAQs, but I do not recall there being nearly as many enemies with weaknesses to only one type of physical attack than there were with enemies weak to an elemental type.
 
Jerk 2.0 said:
While I am glad that my first foray into P3 will not be AI driven, I do not like the sound of a simple weapon system.

Will this take much away from the experience?

The three physical attack types was one of my pet peeves about the game. It was totally useless right up until you fought a boss that was immune to two of your characters strikes. They turned it into just physical attacks in p4 and it worked much better, just having physical immune bosses. Personally I think your experience'll be improved by the change.
 
Jerk 2.0 said:
I dunno, I very much like a challenge. One of my biggest issues with SJ and P4 (and Nocturne as well I suppose) was that those games lost every vestige of difficulty around 1/4 of the way through.
Playing FES over P3P will not fix that.

And count me with the multiple-physical haters. It was an needless extra layer of complexity whose only purpose was to try and make you not realize that there was way too much crossover between a lot of the party members in terms of skills that made them redundant, and ultimately did not add much of anything since it was rare that enemies were ever null or resistant to a single type of physical and not the others. I can see why people are resistant to this change, t's one of the few changes I have absolutely no issues with.
 

Dresden

Member
Jerk 2.0 said:
I dunno, I very much like a challenge. One of my biggest issues with SJ and P4 (and Nocturne as well I suppose) was that those games lost every vestige of difficulty around 1/4 of the way through.

While Nocturne and P4 were fantastic games beyond the difficulty, SJ lost its luster after I no longer feared the dungeons (never finished that game).

Perhaps I should play the original first...
You crazy chaps with your crazy skills. I found Nocturne difficult for almost the entire way, but I might just be a little bitch.
 
tokkun said:
I don't have the will to go look at enemy charts on GameFAQs, but I do not recall there being nearly as many enemies with weaknesses to only one type of physical attack than there were with enemies weak to an elemental type.

You still have to consider immunities, lack of weakness, and the fact that physical skills have the highest damage potential.

Late in the game more enemies with no weakness begin to appear. Physical attacks work best on these.

Besides, how hard is it to go:

"Oh look, none of my party members can use pierce attacks *equips spear to MC*."

It takes, what, 5 seconds to be completely prepared for the chance that a pierce weak enemy will appear.
 
I AM JOHN! said:
Playing FES over P3P will not fix that.

And count me with the multiple-physical haters. It was an needless extra layer of complexity whose only purpose was to try and make you not realize that there was way too much crossover between a lot of the party members in terms of skills that made them redundant, and ultimately did not add much of anything since it was rare that enemies were ever null or resistant to a single type of physical and not the others. I can see why people are resistant to this change, t's one of the few changes I have absolutely no issues with.
It is most fortuitous for you that every single change they've made with this port makes the game better for you. I wish it were the same for me, this is the first SMT product I won't be buying.
 
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