Which version of persona 3 should I play?

[Ottservia]

So I’m a relatively new Persona fan after being introduced to the series with 5 then going on to play P4G on the vita and now I wanna get into persona 3. I just don’t know which is the best version to play. FES I heard is the more definitive version with added content but I hear the content can easily be overlooked. Portable has improved gameplay and a Female protagonist at the cost of free roam and has a more VN style presentation so I dunno. Which one should I play for the best Persona 3 experience?

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I think P3P would be ideal if you value the portability, but to me it always sounded more like a remix of the game for veteran players with its female protagonist option. The graphics and sound quality are  worse on that version as well. To me, the ability to control party members would be nice, but has been easy to work around on FES. You won't be too far in the game before unlocking the "knock down" script, where your party members always choose the best move to knock down enemies for an all out attack which is the quickest answer to random battles. The biggest issue is you can only choose their AI setting on the player character's turn, and it's easy to choose your move and forget you were going to modify one of the character's scripts to switch to support mode. If you go through the game with all the party members on "act freely" it sucks, but I think people forget how much control you ultimately have where it matters.

As for the The Answer Epilogue campaign on FES, I wouldn't let that sway your decision. It's a slow grindfest of a mode and you can get all the story from it through a youtube video compilation. Playing The Answer is like playing one of the lesser SMT games, and even if you like Persona 3's battle system, the lack of a persona compendium critically hinders your ability to fuse good personas unless you're willing to hunt down some older ones with the arcana or skills you need, and that can take a half hour with the aid of a guide. Plus the campaign is forced on Hard difficulty for some reason so that really just means more grinding for levels. 

I really wish Atlus could make a version of this game with all the FES and Portable content so that people wouldn't have to choose between two seemingly inferior versions of a decent game. It'd take a lot of work, but the work they already did on Portable feels almost wasted on the PSP's then-aging hardware.

TL;DR Persona 3 FES is the most complete (and canonical last I checked) experience. Portable is more of a remix if you decide you want to play again with some new story elements via the female protagonist.

Edited May 17, 2019 by Glennstavos

[Rose482]

P3P is the only Persona game that I played, and I liked it a lot ^_^ I would say I recommend it, but it is missing few things that you might find value in.

Also this might be an unpopular opinion, but losing the free roam isn't...a big lost, if anything not having to run from place to place can make things a bit faster funny enough.

 

Edit: Also the female protagonist is the BETTER protagonist in Persona 3, there, I said it. 

Edited May 17, 2019 by Rose482

[DemolisherBPB]

1 hour ago, Rose482 said:

Edit: Also the female protagonist is the BETTER protagonist in Persona 3, there, I said it. 

I can agree to this.
I'd lean towards P3P as this way you get all the quality of life changes that 4 added to the series, AOE skills granting 1 more, using a weakness skill on a foe will dizzy them, You can press square to warp around the place, people don't hate you for talking to others, actually controlling other party members. And you get wiping all out which I will say is just better than Mass Destruction.

If you do think you want to play P3 FES, then if your emulating it very legally through playing it on an emulator using the disc in your pc (defiantly what you'd do. I don't know what an ISO is at all! *cough cough*) then look around because online for a 'cheat' to control the other party members, I used it when playing through the answers of FES.

Overall. Play both. P3P is the one I prefer but you'll likely want the full story so you'll have to play FES anyway for the answers.

[Michelaar]

Personally I always enjoyed FES the most out of the three. Portable is also fun though, but I'm just not the biggest fan of it.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

The portable version is probabably a bit easier since everyone can be commanded manually in battles. Otherwise I do know really know about their differences aside of having a female protagonist in portable. I only played the PS2 version for having a PS2 / PS3. 

Edited May 18, 2019 by Rosalina

[henrymidfields]

On 5/18/2019 at 5:49 AM, Rose482 said:

Edit: Also the female protagonist is the BETTER protagonist in Persona 3, there, I said it. 

+1 to that - she was the main reason why I chose P3P. Most important reason: she kicks ass just as much as the male protag (I hope you're actually paying attention to this aformentioned for your next FE Lord, Intelligent Systems!) without any of the excess edginess.

As for the Answer, you can also just look at the Youtube footages if you just want to know how the story goes. I did that because, personally, I don't really want to mess around with the increased difficulty. It would be the most ideal if there was a definitive version that has the FeMC's version of the Answer, though.

Edited May 19, 2019 by henrymidfields

[know_naim]

I second all the P3P replies. FeMC + ability to command everyone is just too good. Also, Persona is a perfect fit for a handheld console.