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Atlus started celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Persona series this September, and will continue to make announcements through Fall of 2022. While the first few announcements were relatively light - new pieces of merchandise like clothing, and a $400 vinyl box set of remastered soundtracks for every mainline entry - December 9 saw the first major announcement take place at The Game Awards, a remaster of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax coming in early 2022.

Interestingly, this news was leaked by blogger Zippo back in July, who accurately predicted the remaster. Of course, Ultimax was noticeably absent from modern platforms, not even being backwards compatible on the Xbox One as its predecessor was, so it could be considered an obvious prediction. Regardless, he predicted that only Ultimax would be coming, rather than both Arena titles, and the release would be next year.

On the night of The Game Awards, Zippo posted again, first gloating about his proven prediction, then casually mentioning "Oh, and Persona 3 Portable is getting a remaster. Multiplatform."

This release would be significant as fans have been clamoring for a Persona 3 Portable release for years, and Atlus has hardly acknowledged the game since its release in 2009. Despite missing the visual flair and explorable 3D environments outside of dungeons of the console release, Portable is often considered the best way to play Persona 3 due to the ability to control each party member, plus the addition of an alternate protagonist who alters much of the game's dialogue and story events, something no other Persona game has featured.

Source

 

[jt_1258]

to be honest I would settle for just the original game but with actually being able to control what my allies do...what a shame such a great thing is locked behind the psp release of the game

 

[ZeroFX]

The portable? Sheesh.
Inb4 personaFs flood the thread.

 

[Cris1997XX]

i wholeheartedly agree, merge the two's main appeals (FemMC and The Answer) at best, at least let us control our party at worst. after playing p4g i struggle going back to FES without using that controllable party cheat/patch

I dunno about merging FES and Portable. They'd need to spend a lot of time and money retrofitting FeMC in all the FES-exclusive content (Worst example being The Answer), it's probably not worth it to them

 

[Cris1997XX]

Not really.

It would make some sense for them to port it on certain consoles though. The Switch, for example, would actually be a prime target, due to it being a handheld.

FES, however, would be better for PC in the marketing sense since we all know what the heck the audience will say.

It wouldn't make THAT MUCH sense, honestly. The Switch might be a handheld (Okay, a hybrid console), but it's still leagues better than the PSP. Much more storage for games, way more powerful hardware, more buttons and a better control layout overall

 

[McPringles]

Interestingly, this news was leaked by blogger Zippo back in July, who accurately predicted the remaster. Of course, Ultimax was noticeably absent from modern platforms, not even being backwards compatible on the Xbox One as its predecessor was, so it could be considered an obvious prediction. Regardless, he predicted that only Ultimax would be coming, rather than both Arena titles, and the release would be next year.

It's not really a hard prediction - ArcSys loves porting their titles to as many systems as they feasibly can, and there's no reason to port Arena when Ultimax is basically an upgraded version, complete with Arena's story mode as DLC. Saying it's coming 'next year' is always vague enough to cover a lot of ground even if it never happens at all. You could probably crawl through message boards and tweets and find someone predicting it'll get a PC/Vita/Switch/next-gen/whatever-the-fuck "next year" for every year since its original release.

I already doubt we'll see any sort of Persona 3 remaster in the near future, but I imagine Portable would be more difficult to do just because it's harder to remaster low-res 2D images, unless they were drawn at a high enough resolution originally to look good on consoles. And unless they go all-out and port the FeMC stuff into an FES remaster, complete with a new version of The Answer, there's always going to be a large portion of the fanbase complaining that they remastered one version over the other.

 

[Cris1997XX]

Does anyone actually want a port of P3P specifically?
I'd think everyone would prefer a definitive edition, merging the original features of P3P into a remaster of P3FES and maybe throwing some new QoL features on top.

Persona 4 got its own in the form of Persona 4 Golden, the same goes for Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal.
Why not just do the same with P3?

I'd understand if we were talking about P1 and P2 (even then, they do have the code of the PSP versions so they could port those if they wanted to) because they're just not as popular worldwide, but to port the arguably weaker version of P3 sounds like a weird move.
Then again, ATLUS seem to often take the weirdest decisions, so I guess it's not that far-fetched to think they'd be willing to do something like this at all.

"Why not just do the same with P3?" Because Persona 4 hasn't gotten a highly cut down release for a weaker console that reads 1.8GB discs, same for P5 (Which would've probably been ported to PS Vita like Catherine Full Body, had Atlus been crazy enough)

 

[Randy Steele]

P3P has a better battle system and the female MC story is much better than The answer storyline and content from FES but it just makes no sense to re-release P3P with all of it's lack of being able to explore Iwatodai with your character and it's visual novel style aspects left in tact.
It worked extreamly well for a handheld system like the psp back in the day (especially because I played p3p before p3/fes) but it just feels a bit lazy to remaster that version specifically.
Meh, well atleast it's something. I wasn't expecting a full on modern remake but I was atleast hoping on a definitive version in HD that had all the best aspects of all versions.

 

[Guacaholey]

Not really.

It would make some sense for them to port it on certain consoles though. The Switch, for example, would actually be a prime target, due to it being a handheld.

FES, however, would be better for PC in the marketing sense since we all know what the heck the audience will say.

FES makes more sense in general. Throw the P3P updates in there and release it for modern consoles. Not too big of a deal breaker for me since I have the PS2 classics version of P3 FES, but they should definitely do the full thing story-wise.

 

[Lunos]

"Why not just do the same with P3?" Because Persona 4 hasn't gotten a highly cut down release for a weaker console that reads 1.8GB discs, same for P5 (Which would've probably been ported to PS Vita like Catherine Full Body, had Atlus been crazy enough)

What does that have to do with anything?
The 2 versions of P3 still have pros and cons each, and compared to P4 and P5, there's still no definitive edition of that game.
It doesn't matter if P4 got a PSP version or not. I don't understand what do you mean by that.
The fact of the matter is that ATLUS definitely has the money, the artists and the source code of the 2 versions at their disposal to do a definitive edition of P3.

 

[Cris1997XX]

What does that have to do with anything?
What I said is that they made a definitive edition for P4 and P5 because they could. Are you implying that they couldn't do the same with P3, even though they definitely have the money, artists and the source code of the 2 versions at their disposal to do it?

Persona 3 is still a game from 2006, there's a small chance they might've lost the source code -Like with SMT: Nocturne, and you know how that remaster turned out-. They've also shown that they don't have as much interest as reiterating on the game like P4, which was THE most popular Persona game before P5 came out and a sort of cash cow. There is also the problem of re-hiring the voice actors behind the character roster. As far as I know, many of the English VAs had their careers tainted because of some stupid controversy that I won't really go into (One example is Vic Mignogna). That's why the P3 cast has mostly completely different voices in Persona Q and Q2

 

[frecklebars]

Been looking for an excuse to get into Persona, is this a good way to start with the series? (I only have a switch, 3ds and pc, no sony stuff where the actual games are)

 

[MarkDarkness]

They will do anything to delay releasing PS5 on PC, huh...

 

[MarkDarkness]

Been looking for an excuse to get into Persona, is this a good way to start with the series? (I only have a switch, 3ds and pc, no sony stuff where the actual games are)

Yes, it is THE place to start.

 

[RichardTheKing]

Despite missing the visual flair and explorable 3D environments outside of dungeons of the console release

Which is why I never wanted Portable, but rather FES. I've seen controllable-party mods for FES, so that shouldn't be too hard to officially add, and who cares about feMC? She's never been important, which is why neither P4G nor P5R added their own.

 

[Cris1997XX]

Which is why I never wanted Portable, but rather FES. I've seen controllable-party mods for FES, so that shouldn't be too hard to officially add, and who cares about feMC? She's never been important, which is why neither P4G nor P5R added their own.

FACTS. FeMC was a nice bonus, yeah, but nobody really gave a shit about her (At least she appears in Persona Q2, heh...). FES is easily the best version thanks to the 3D environments, anime cutscenes and higher quality audio. It has flaws like the non-controllable party, but using one of those hacks on emulator is easy AF

 

[RichardTheKing]

FACTS. FeMC was a nice bonus, yeah, but nobody really gave a shit about her (At least she appears in Persona Q2, heh...). FES is easily the best version thanks to the 3D environments, anime cutscenes and higher quality audio. It has flaws like the non-controllable party, but using one of those hacks on emulator is easy AF

...And PQ2 wasn't translated due to the 3DS reaching end-of-life, and I think PQ not selling as many copies as hoped, so...yeah, screw feMC.

FES also has that "Answer" story, which is far from fantastic, but at least it's something 'new' - and all it needs to be decent is to have the Compendium added back in (since, for some reason, it's absent for Aigis).

Oh, and FES as a whole also needs the modernised fusion system - that is to say, the player gets to choose which skills to carry over. That was in P4G and P5/R, but not yet in P3.

 

[Cris1997XX]

...And PQ2 wasn't translated due to the 3DS reaching end-of-life, and I think PQ not selling as many copies as hoped, so...yeah, screw feMC.

FES also has that "Answer" story, which is far from fantastic, but at least it's something 'new' - and all it needs to be decent is to have the Compendium added back in (since, for some reason, it's absent for Aigis).

Oh, and FES as a whole also needs the modernised fusion system - that is to say, the player gets to choose which skills to carry over. That was in P4G and P5/R, but not yet in P3.

PQ2 WAS translated and released in the west, I assume you meant "dubbed". Anyway, my opinion on The Answer soured after watching videos about it. It's just a mediocre fan fiction a Minato fanboy working at Atlus decided to add in the game lmfao. I just want to visit those nostalgic 3D environments in high definition, possibly with a new coat of paint

 

[RichardTheKing]

PQ2 WAS translated and released in the west, I assume you meant "dubbed". Anyway, my opinion on The Answer soured after watching videos about it. It's just a mediocre fan fiction a Minato fanboy working at Atlus decided to add in the game lmfao. I just want to visit those nostalgic 3D environments in high definition, possibly with a new coat of paint

My bad - I did indeed mean "dubbed". The VA wasn't translated, is what I meant!

And yeah, 3D environments will always be superior to 2D, for this franchise (not true for, say, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - the DS games look so much better than the 3DS games, or the Switch remake - but Persona IS 3D).

 

[Cris1997XX]

My bad - I did indeed mean "dubbed". The VA wasn't translated, is what I meant!

And yeah, 3D environments will always be superior to 2D, for this franchise (not true for, say, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - the DS games look so much better than the 3DS games, or the Switch remake - but Persona IS 3D).

The 2D-visual novel style worked well for P3 Portable because it was...well, their only choice on PSP. It was naturally underpowered compared to the PS2, and the fact that you'd run those games on a (Rechargeable) battery means the hardware needed to consume as less energy as possible. As much as UMDs were a huge improvement over DS cartridges, they were still too small for some game genres -dual layer DVDs were a staggering 8.5GB!- Persona 3 Portable was kind of a miracle, but I highly doubt P4 would've been feasible at all

 

[Justinde75]

Very disappointed its not FES. No The Answer, no 3D overworld and cutscenes and no possible controllable party members in FES without cheats.

And no I don't care about fem mc

I'd much rather have everything else FES has