Earlier this year, I tasked myself with completing as many Final Fantasy games as I could throughout 2023, mainly in an attempt to play some of the classic titles that I missed out on when I was younger. I wasn’t much of a gamer until my early teens, and even then, my obsession with Pokemon meant I missed out on pretty much everything pre-Xbox 360. I’ve made 2023 a year in which I stop fretting over new releases and experience some of the industry’s golden oldies, and my mission started back in January with Persona 3.
Persona 5 Royal is an easy top five pick for me, and I’ve always been tempted to dive back into some of the older titles to see how the series transitioned from moody teens to the flamboyant Phantom Thieves. The Persona 3 Portable remaster felt like a great opportunity to finally tick a game off my list, and I was excited to dive into what some consider the best game in the series. What awaited me was some of the most tedious gameplay, unlikable characters, and frustrating combat I’ve ever experienced in a JRPG.
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Going into Persona 3 Portable when your only prior experience with the series is Persona 5 is rough. Very rough. The colorful and imaginative palaces are gone, replaced by a never-ending labyrinth called Tartarus. I didn’t have my lovable best friends Ryuji and Yusuke to keep me going - instead I had a womanizing dick called Junpei who wouldn’t leave me alone and actively hated me. Even the Social Links were problematic, as the first person I willingly befriended kept eyeing up a teacher.
There was very little to grip me in the game’s first half, and as I continued to crawl through Tartarus, getting my party wiped through no fault of my own, I debated if seeing the game to its end was going to be worth the effort. However, despite my many gripes and half a dozen minor rage quits, I soldiered on with the assurance from total strangers online that the game really picks up at the halfway point. It was only until around the 25 hour mark that I finally began to see what they were talking about.
My dormitory began to fill out with more and more interesting characters - Aegis in particular being a welcome addition - and characters that I disliked began to grow on me as their character arcs continued and they came up against stronger challenges. Tartarus was still a frustrating hellhole full of repetitive boss fights, but it started to provide a refreshing break from the social aspects. It wasn't the retro masterpiece I was expecting going in, but it gradually became more and more tolerable as time went by, with my love for its cast slowly growing in tandem.
In fact, it was enough to carry me towards the game's final few hours, and at this point I was hooked. Each character’s gradual transition from unlikable jerk to valued team member, and the twists and turns the story took, were more than enough to make up for the initial pain of sitting through what was arguably the worst time I’ve had with a game this year. However, it is Persona 3’s ending which solidified its status as an absolute banger. Be warned, we’re heading into spoiler territory.
Not many video game endings have given me pause for thought, and even fewer have had the guts to do what Persona 3 does. Too many JRPGs give you a seemingly insurmountable challenge to overcome, yet you and your entire party come out of the other end unscathed thanks to the power of friendship. Persona 3 has elements of this too, but it sticks to a constant theme throughout its entire runtime - death is inevitable, you can’t prevent it, and you’re going to die. The protagonist slowly passes away in the lap of Aegis on the roof of the school after fulfilling the team’s promise to meet there after defeating Nyx. It isn’t a dramatic or explosive death, it’s an incredibly somber moment that occurs when you’re expecting a happy ending.
It was a fight to get to though. Persona 3 starts out at rock bottom, gradually climbing in quality as the hours roll by. It’s frustrating, boring, and unappealing to begin with, but powering through all of that to reach one of the best endings to a video game I’ve seen for some time gave me an experience I won’t forget for a while. I have my fingers crossed that Persona 4 starts out a little better, though.
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