Well, it’s been quite a year so far for Remasters and Remakes, eh? From Metroid Prime to Resident Evil 4, there’s been no shortage of game augmentation, and that snowball doesn’t look to slow its roll anytime soon. In fact, it’s shaping up to a full-blown blue Persona 3 shaped avalanche. According to some leaked 3D gameplay footage (which has already been taken down as of this writing) and hot, juicy conjecture from reputable gaming site Gematsu, we may be in store for what looks like the biggest shakeup for the Persona series since…OK, since the last shake up just a few months ago.
The word on the digital streets is that Atlus has not only been sneakily working on a Persona 3 Remake, but it's been doing it for years under our very noses! Now, understand that none of this has been officially confirmed…but it doesn’t hurt to hypothesize, does it?
Why, it seems like only yesterday that I was knee-deep in Shadows, girlfriends, and bowls of Hagakure ramen in Atlus’ excellent Persona 3 Portable remaster. My thoughts mirror the same love that we at DualShockers have for Persona 3, especially our Mohamed Hassan, who has poignant insight for days. Clearly, the bar couldn't possibly be raised any higher, could it? The thought of a remake simultaneously fills me to the brim with excitement while conversely producing a smidgen of apprehension. What new state-of-the-art additions will they include? But more importantly, what will they toss away?
Ask any fan, and they'll tell you that Persona 3 was the one that broke the mold and set the series on the inevitable course to Persona 5 Royal, which, regrettably, I haven’t played yet (I know, right?). That being said, Persona 3 has plenty to love on its own, and it maintains a, shall we say, more subdued mood than its flashier siblings. By no means is it a bummer, but the storyline keeps death and loss in the forefront. It’s a weightier plot that perhaps warrants the game’s blue motif. However, apart from the general theme, there are two disparate elements in the Persona 3 world that only a Remake could decisively and successfully merge into canon.
Years after Persona 3’s initial release in 2006, an epilogue titled The Answer was included, granting eager players 30 more hours of gameplay connected to the plight of the battle android Aigis. It wasn’t just a reunion with the old gang, but an eloquent way to tie up loose ends left over from the first run-through of Persona 3. However, for some odd reason, Atlus didn’t include The Answer in the Persona 3 Portable Remaster. Bizarre indeed. Moving ahead to 2023, the P3P Remaster gives you the option to play as Kotone Shiomi, a.k.a FeMC, a progressive female protagonist absent in the game’s original run, who opened up a world of possibilities previously unheard of, most notably seen in the game’s inverted social links.
The Answer and Kotone Shiomi exist separately from each other, and yet both are still a crucial part of the Persona 3 experience, albeit making their respective debuts years apart. Should a Remake truly take place, the expectation would be to bring these stray elements into the fold for what feels like a truly complete version of the game.
Turning to graphics, the stolen moments of the video reel, especially Yukari’s action sequences, make it clear that Atlus’ plans involve breaking Persona 3 directly out of its 2D confines and into the wide world of 3D. Now, I may not have played Persona 5, but I sure as hell have seen the gameplay, and my, how far the series has come! According to some trusted experts here at DualShockers, Persona 5 is apparently the quintessential Persona installment — a perfect JRPG — with a fine-tuned balance of memorable dungeon crawling, social links, and overall gameplay. On account of Persona 5's success, Atlus may be attempting to yank Persona 3 from its restrictive boundaries and give it new life through the same 3D filters that made Persona 5 a smash. Again, basic speculation.
OK, now that the easiest and most concrete aspects of a Persona 3 Remake are out of the way, it’s time to flail around into the ether for a bit. Reddit and Twitter have come alive with hopes and wishes for what we’d like to see take place, but based on what we know about the game itself, here’s what a potential Remake could entail.
For one, it may mean a diminishing or complete reconfiguring of the objectively arduous dungeon-crawling in Persona 3’s Tartarus. Clearly, Atlus understood that a little change in scenery goes a long way by including ten separate dungeons of varying styles and bosses in Persona 4 (but it could still give us more room to explore!) that actually do wonders compared to Persona 3. Again, I haven't played Persona 5, but I have spent hours, maybe days, slogging through Persona 3’s high school-turned-monotonous-monster-tower Tartarus. Perhaps a 3D facelift and series of studio tweaks could somehow make the game's dungeon-crawling either cooler, or at the very least, tolerable.
Apart from Persona 3’s dungeons, relationships are a tad bit problematic. The requirements to earn Social Links seem egregiously short compared to latter entries, and sadly, they don't exactly go that deep. Truth be told, it was fairly easy to manipulate the system and win peers over to my side — especially female colleagues — with the bare minimum of effort. A remake could boost the criteria needed to earn Arcanas, as well as possibly create a more challenging gauntlet of dialogue and tasks to go through in order to win the trust/love of fellow compatriots.
Whatever the outcome, I, along with thousands, nay, millions of passionate gamers, will more than likely happily lap up the latest iteration of Persona 3 without too much pushback or rioting in the streets. At the end of the day, it personally doesn’t really matter what Atlus comes up with, just as long as the Persona 3 soundtrack stays the same and I can still find a place at Iwatodai Station’s Beef Bowl joint.