The DEFINITIVE Persona 3 Experience?! | PS2 vs PSP vs Switch Comparison

Persona 3 is one of those weird predicaments where it has no DEFINITIVE port. With the release of Persona 3 Portable HD, that tradition has not changed, but for P3P fans, you are in for a treat!
Today I'm comparing Persona 3 FES, Portable, and Portable HD to see which version is the one that suits your needs!!
[Disclaimer: Since the nature of some shots of P3 depicts a gun to the character's foreheads, I had to blur it to allow the video to be fully monetized. I apologize for the blur, but I have no choice on the matter so monetization can be allowed.]
➤PERSONA 3 UNDUB MOD: gamebanana.com/mods/292547
(ALL GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE RECORDED IN LOSSLESS QUALITY)
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Timestamps
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0:00 - Welcome to Persona 3!
0:25 - Persona 3 FES. What's Actually in FES?
3:26 - Persona 3 Portable: Unintentional 2D Demake
10:08 - P3P HD: An Updated Demake
15:41 - Final Thoughts & Words
#persona3portable #persona3 #gamecomparison

[@christopherstewart8071]

What a amazing review. Haven’t seen your channel before but you most definitely review better then the majority of people I’ve seen

[@Kelphelp]

That means alot thank you so much!! More is always coming soon so keep posted 😊

[@mcfcxx9849]

Like others have said, these videos are of outstanding quality and research that you don't find much out there. I've been subbed a while, but it baffles me that you only have 12k, you deserve much much much more lol. Keep it up.

[@Kelphelp]

That's incredibly kind of you to say, thank you so much for your words! Actually this is exactly why I do these videos because to find out which ports work and don't are always through forums or reddit posts, so I wanted it in one easy to digest video to watch. Feel free to share to others and post around, that's prolly the way these videos get out there. Then again I am terrible at marketing so I have nonidea. But thanks so much for your words!

[@ASockYouLost]

I know a lot of people say that they prefer P3P over FES, but I really enjoyed FES. Playing through Portable on switch and man it just seems dead. I guess I'm not a big fan of the point and click. I do hope (asking for too much) we end up getting just one definitive edition so more people can experience Persona 3 in its best form

[@Kelphelp]

I can wholeheartedly agree with this. I'm in the FES camp and loved my first playthrough, and anything else is just...yea I can't do it. Portable doesn't have the same story beats, it's a muted experience. Imho the best FES experience is undub party mod. Has everything you need to get goinf

[@advmx3]

Thank you for showing P3F and P3P. I think it's important for new players that never played P3 to know that P4G is an evolution of P3F, instead of thinking P3 was always a Visual Novel game. The gameplay on P3P may be better, but graphic-wise? The models are blocky, Tartarus has way fewer glow-ups than the Ps2 version (Which, if you emulate the game, you will see how good these glow-ups are compared to P3P), and the presentation itself, most of the goodness of these games comes from the environment, the interactions with the 3D models. I love that at the start of P3 and P4, you can see your future social links walking around while you walk over the city, it's interesting and makes the world way more alive than, static 2D images that, mostly, are screenshots of the PS2 game instead of actually drawn images. As a Visual novel Enjoyer I can say you this: P3P is the worst Visual Novel I've ever played. And that's a problem.

[@Kelphelp]

Yea honestly P3P in general is not a way to go in any way shape or form to absorb how incredible the story is. I really tried hard to play but absolutely dropped it. Didn't give nowhere near the same feeling as FES

[@advmx3]

@@Kelphelp YES. I tried this on PC but it just don't work. It feels like I'm playing a game with a limitation that is not supposed to be there. It's not justifiable for PC, ps5, Xbox or switch at this point.

[@Kelphelp]

Exactly. The extra FeMC story is a nice addition but not enough to fix any story holes due to lost translation from 3D to 2D.

[@fucksusan.fuckcensorship.874]

I hate it when people think p3p is the "canon" version like nah bro FES is by far the canon version. Sure FeMC is cool addition but portable also felt like a downgrade in many ways. The only improvement was the ability to control other party members but you can literally emulate persona 3 fes and add a single file that lets you play FES with full party control

[@clashdarkogbrawler8385]

Honestly not being able to control them all isn't a problem for me it helps me and the tactics button is just enough

[@Kelphelp]

I mean if it works with you all good right? But it was a HUGE problem for a vast majority of people.

[@kevinkite3418]

@@Kelphelp I feel that people didn't complained about that as much back in the day as after the release of Persona 4. I remember playing FES on 2007~2008 and people mostly saying good things about the game. But sure, it would be much better if you could control party members from the start. I guess they really wanted you to act as a single character and incorporate the protagonist as if he was yourself.

[@Kelphelp]

It wasn't that much of a complaint until recent years which is pretty valid. It is obtuse to not be able to control your party members and yet here we are. Where you actually can. And now that P3 ReLoad is a thing it makes sense how it's gonna work

[@kevinkite3418]

@@Kelphelp I guess controlable party members will be much better this time since for Persona 3 Portable they added the option without redesigning the battles to accommodate that. It made the game easier than the PS2 version.

[@Kelphelp]

Essentially yes, but was artificially difficult because of the lack of player control

[@cooler7208]

After finishing p3p a few days ago I've realised just how much of a let down it is, I thought since it was old that maybe the click and go type of thing was just how it was and that them not having characters and talking was just how it was, but after finishing it and looking around at p3 stuff I realised that I missed out on the cutscenes, the exploration, just the better things, the main thing I love about persona 4 and 5 is how I can just explore, but I couldn't do that in persona 3, it was a letdown and whenever a serious moment was happening, I could really get into it because it was just a picture of the characters speaking barely feeling like anything, after finding out that persona 3 really is pretty much similar to 4 it really was just disappointing, I couldnt properly enjoy it, sure having a FEmc is fine and all but I genuinely wouldve just preferred having the male only version if I could see the characters interact with each other, cutscenes where I actually feel the tensity and just being able to explore, I can't play p3fes but I definitely wouldve preferred if that came to new platforms then p3p, it just genuinely feels wrong after knowing

[@Kelphelp]

FES is the original experience how it was meant to be played, but its crazy how many people swear by P3P despite significant flaws. I'm guessing this was the version atlua had the most complete in house and had to recreate some assets. I do wish we got FES here but I don't think its possible

[@OneLastScholar]

You guys are insane, P3P is the definitive Persona 3 experience... gameplay-wise, and FES doesn't come even remotely close. Sure, FES has 30 minutes of anime cutscenes and 8 minutes of meaningful 3D cutscenes... but in a 100-hour game, if that's big deal to you, you are better off just watching the P3 movies. lol Ah yes, there is the much-talked about 3D exploration. That is actually nice... for the first 4 hours. Afterwards it becomes clear how boring Iwatodai is to traverse, NPCs don't even walk around - it is a dead world, not very different from P3P's 2D backgrounds. P3P's QoL features like fast travel blasts away FES' boring world. Oh right, The Answer. Great story, shame there is only 2 hours of it locked behind 30 hours of Compendium-less grinding. Female MC from P3P offers you about 80-100 hours of content that is not just way better than The Answer, but also beats the Male MC route by a mile. FES is great, it was my first experience and how I came to love P3, but blasting P3P only shows you guys never actually played it so you resort to parroting nonsense.

[@Vxsu_]

dont worry persona 3 reload fixes that.

[@aaronammann4236]

12:15 I thought that evoker was done with standard animation. new information for me. my guess for the audio quality, I personally think that the audio had to be compressed as they were working on persona 4.

[@Kelphelp]

Possibly but P4 remaster was done before P3P Remaster was announced so we still don't have an idea for better or worse on the audio compression

[@aaronammann4236]

@@Kelphelp well I mean that after they had finished the localization process the recorded audio for P3P had to be compressed to make way for the audio for Persona 4 when they had announced that the next persona was coming soon back in 2010. the music for the remaster, I personally think, was what the music department had still kept since they were sold on CD's.

[@jadedark3098]

This port is a big let down for me. Back in the day I played p3 on the playstation but never finished it. I got this ver and was frankly like 'what the heck, I remember this looking way different'. After so many years I still remember that scene when the hero calls the persona for the first time... Chills! This version is just awful. If they were porting it so meticulously couldn't they add proper cutscenes and 3d sprites and environments?

[@Kelphelp]

That would Def change the nature of P3P so I don't think it's possible. FES would have been much better to port and fix, but I got the feeling Atlus has difficulty doing that

[@OneLastScholar]

The port is good enough, it was never meant to be a remake.

[@jeremymueller0404]

@@Kelphelp personally i got nothing against the concept or portable. Its just the execution is bad. Iam sorry but they could've added at least a few more stills or make it so in key scenes u get lots of illustrations or 2d sprites with slight movement . Like idunno make it more like an interactive popup book for example. Like some scenes got that down really well. Especially the first few where u get a good balance of static convo bits mixed with illustrations that actively show of what happens and sometimes even a 2d image with parts that slightly move. Like iam not hating on it being a visual novel because i really like visual novels they can ne very great , likr for example zero escape for the ds . But the whole pre rendered backgrounds that look like a map rather than a room u stay in mixed with dialog and soundeffects is not only incredibly underutilizing the concept of a visual novel but also greatly undersells every major scene. U can't tell me fleeing from the big shadow and minatos subsequent awakening carried any of the weight it had in the original or fez . And iam not saying that a visual novel can't do that iam saying that iam however saying that the whole fleeing from the shadow bit being handled only trough incredibly unexpressive portrait art ,dialog and soundeffects didn't really make u feel like u are just fleeing from a massively powerful monster that could kill everyone but instead like u where playing hide and seek as a child and someone knocked over a vase. The awaking itself was handled better because they actually blended in a few stills that visualize the situation but also had a slight bit of animation. Overall visual novels can be so good at telling a story but when u heavily focus on the text and allmost completely avoid using any visual aids to help visualize the scene and set the tone it really boils down to being a bad experience even judging it as a visual novel. The only thing it really has going for it is the optimized battle system and the bit of content it does ad but in my humble opinion those 2 points don't make it a good game or even a good way to experience the story . And to the people being like its just a remaster . A good remaster can ad a few things make a few changes if necessary as long as the game stays fundamentally the same. And adding a few visual bits to better the experience would've benefited dis incredible poor remaster because its not even good at being a incredibly basic surface level remaster

[@oldenoughtowatchallyoutube6761]

Hey I'm new to the game! Question, are all social links breakable if I don't hang out everytime they're available? I know that all the datable ones are but I mean the ones outside of those.

[@Kelphelp]

Welcome to P3 man! From what I remember they aren't. What is for sure are the date able ones so if you spend more time with one than the other it can break. Also there are some twists I didn't expect so it's possible some will break due to choice rather than neglect. Hope that helps!

[@ssasuke125]

Hey there just saw your review it seems like both versions of Persona 3 are good in their own way also I currently Playing Persona 5 Royal would you recommend I play Persona 4 Golden or Persona 3 Portable next after PS5R?

[@Kelphelp]

My personal opinion is tondef play Godeln. Great title, and portnas well. I'm not a fan of Portsble or HD so I say try FES with a mod. You'll get much satisfaction from that

[@OneLastScholar]

P3P is superior to FES with mods. That guy is trying to sell you a 30 FPS low resolution game as the best way to play P3, don't fall for it.

[@BLIZZ2012]

So sorry if I end up being that one guy but from what I gathered Atlus actually kinda fucked up with the remaster. I don’t know if there was a patch or not but from some of the auto it’s WAY more compressed then the original and some of the 2D backgrounds (again from what I saw) aren’t really “remade” instead glazed over with AI upscale which smears some of the details. This can also apply to the UI elemental icons which also looks a bit funky. While it’s not as bad to distract from the whole experience to say they did a good job would be a bit of an overstatement considering these avoidable glaring issues

[@Kelphelp]

For sure the compression is completely jarring, I truly wish I knew why that was the case. I didn't notice it too much on the music but definetly on soundbites from characters and enemies. It's pretty present. If they did do AI upscaling and didn't clean it uo for sure that's terrible work, and I hope they go back to fix such a blatant issue. It's weird Atlus has moments where some elements are improved but others aren't. Damn shame tbh if that was the case.

[@KonEl17]

@@Kelphelp I'm pretty sure atlus used a freeware ai upscale for p3p they were incredibly lazy with this remaster what ever this is called

[@yourmum756]

They didn't even add manual skill inheritance to the game like how they did with Nocturne, and the background upscales look worse than fan-made ones that have been around for years. The port is far from "lovingly" made; it's downright lazily done.

[@KonEl17]

@@yourmum756 completely agreed, I honestly think this review is more on the switch port then the xbox/ps version. P4G got way more love WAY MORE.

[@Kelphelp]

@@KonEl17 this is definetly more on the Switch port than the other versions, but felt was a good baseline to describe. Top right should have the console in question

[@h.a6859]

Do I need to start from persona 1 or can i start from any part like 4 maybe ?

[@Kelphelp]

Honestly not at all! Persona games are similar to Final Fantasy where each entry is standalone and you don't need ti play the others to try!

[@NapoleonBonaparteMAGA]

Subbed

[@NapoleonBonaparteMAGA]

More for you shadow's of the empire video but just got into p5r but skipped around this vid high quality

[@Kelphelp]

I appreciate you man for taking the time to watch! Glad you love P5R, it's Hella dope mannn

[@IceBoneKillah]

If they are actually going to make a definitive version of Persona 3, makes sense they would kinda phone in the portable update to make us feel like we need to buy both

[@Kelphelp]

I feel it man, really sucks there is never a definitive Persona 3 experience tbh

[@fucksusan.fuckcensorship.874]

@@Kelphelp there is, just emulate p3 fes with party control mod or the HD texture mod that is about 80% done.

[@Chaosflower]

So I absolutely ADORE P3P because of the visual novel stuff and mind you Persona 5 Royal and both great ace attorney games are MY FAVORITE GAMES OF ALL TIME and I also like it because now I don’t have a lot of money to get a psp or take hours to learn how to emulate on a computer so it’s better to me and also the femc is pretty much just female me sooooooooooooo

[@Kelphelp]

I mean if it works it works right?

[@Chaosflower]

@@Kelphelp true mate true

[@Catannoyed]

as a die hard fan of vn, I love P3P over FES.

[@Kelphelp]

I feel it. While it doesn't have the story beats of the OG I know some folks do love it

[@lemonov3031]

I noticed that undub! Big respect!

[@Kelphelp]

Still my favorite way to play + party control mod. Absolute perfection

[@NotTomorrow1]

Shill circus starts at 10:10

[@Kelphelp]

The fuck does this even mean. You acting like a clown in your own circus tbh 🤡

[@Cyberslasher]

@@KelphelpHe means that he disagrees with your opinion, because most people think the remaster is crap.

[@Cyberslasher]

I think the remaster could have been much better, just look up a video of all the compressed AI upscaled images in it, it looks pretty bad.

[@Kelphelp]

Well he definitely didn't use English to articulate that, just shouted "shill" because. And shit I paid this game OUT of pocket anyways. If they use upscale everything with no touch ups its definetly bad. I do love how clean it is but even then I don't advocate for Portable in any way shape or form. It's just a mute experience even on PSP so it's not much to look at anyways

[@Cyberslasher]

@@Kelphelp Yeah, I'm glad the Persona 3 FES HD mod exists lol.

[@jordanllamozas3242]

At the beggining, I prefered fes just for cutscenes, but then I remembered they were on youtube

[@Kelphelp]

That's another avenue too. Play Portable but watch the FES cutscenes but there are real time character scenes that are frequently missed as well

[@OneLastScholar]

About sums it up, watch the fluff on KZbin and enjoy P3P's superior gameplay.

[@fucksusan.fuckcensorship.874]

@@OneLastScholar nah ill just emulate persona 3 fes with party control that's the "superior gameplay" p3p is a downgrade in every other way than added party control and FeMC. Hard pass my G. Ya'll are sleeping on emulators and paying companies for diluted ports. Its hilarious. Even the models are a straight downgrade from the ps2 version. Yall come up with the funniest copium just to run from your buyers remorse. Whatever makes you feel better for being scammed

[@mamas.8259]

👍👍👍👍👍

[@Titanium6]

Cool nice biker jacket.

[@Kelphelp]

Thanks man I appreciate it!

[@matt4193]

FES remake when 😳😳😳😳😳😳😳

[@Kelphelp]

I legit wish I knew man. It's just in rumor atm 😭

[@yoshi314]

i suppose this says a lot which franchise is a priority to Atlus atm. Nocturne has a half-assed port, smt5 is kind of average as it is, p3 gets a decent port although without the FES content

[@Kelphelp]

Do not get me started on SMt5 I'm still fucking angry it was like the most mid experience in terms of story but gameplay was extremely solid. My God the stuttering is killing me too.

[@hiroshinagoya2469]

I was hoping they would add The Answer side quest; I really feel the PSP version miss a very important side of the story to give closure to the protagonist.

[@Kelphelp]

Sorry to say but it won't be added. It didn't come in the original PSP experience so same here. Reload is coming out ao it doesn't make much sense now either

[@Radek494]

Soon you will have to compare Persona 3 remake to PSP and PS2 versions

[@Kelphelp]

You bet your goddamn ass I'm doing a comparison of em all when it comes out. Cannot wait for REload.

[@pedrohidalgo9880]

The definitive 1st playtrought experience is persona 3 FES with mods hd textures, control party, 16:9, undub, with rebirth cutscenes and enhanced audio, at 4k in pcsx2 😎, and for a 2cnd playtrought p3p with the FemC 😅😅

[@Kelphelp]

Ngl that's kind of how I did it. I mean without emus but hey it worked ngl!

[@MikiGo88]

The moment you said the switch ver is the psp vr I got sad. I have the ps3 vr that got ported over from the ps2 and I was really hoping it would just be that ver and maybe the added female but that would just take to much work i guess and they took the easy way out and just upgraded the quality 😢

[@Kelphelp]

Yea since they are two different games technically, it be difficult to do that without remodeling the title. Trust me, I'm just as disappointed as you are!

[@MikiGo88]

@Kelphelp that's what I was telling my friend they would have had to do what the creators of final fantasy did for X/X2. Still wish they did it 😔😭

[@Kelphelp]

There are rumors of P3 REmake in the works. I haven't looked into the reality of it but it's worth looking into

[@Enzed_]

FES is still my way to play P3. Some say the answer isn't worth it to play but if you mastered the way tactics work and know which works best in what scenario the answer gives you a pretty good challenge, though the story could still be better. The answer is what made me confident in trying out Nocturne as people say mainline SMT is pretty difficult.

[@Kelphelp]

Yea I wasn't a fan of the Answer's story. It felt extremely dragged out snd my God it was hard to look at but it could have been summed up in like an hour. Still, FES is always go to

[@Enzed_]

@@Kelphelp it feels like they dragged it out that long just so you could at least get to around level 80 for the final boss fight, which was laughably easy.

[@Kelphelp]

Jesus so you grind and then can easily beat the final?! Lowkey that's somr cheap doodoo ass I dint like that. I do feel unanimously thr Answer isn't well received

[@Enzed_]

@@Kelphelp I don't remember grinding for the final boss, I just played the game normally, fused some good personas (there should've been a compendium don't know why it's missing), and the boss was easy peasy. I don't know if everyone else who got to the boss thought it was easy but for me it definitely was.

[@Kelphelp]

I commend you getting through the Answer too. I really tried my hardest to get through it but I was so turned off I just dropped and watched the rest online. Yea I can't do it mannnn

[@moisescardenas7244]

Que guapo mi sobrino que emoción, me saludas a tu mami 😘

[@moisescardenas374]

I concur 🤭

[@moisescardenas8028]

Me too 👀

[@umbrella3096]

mf forgot to change his channel names

[@Kelphelp]

They all care in their own way tbh :3

[@nikolaikolev8433]

Isn't modding the game changing gameplay mechanic a way to break it? This just doesn't feel right.

[@Kelphelp]

Not at all. The mod for this specifically let's you control your party members similar to P4 and P5, something sorely necessary snd was a staple in older SMT games. Gives the player more of a balanced experience than breaking the game

[@user-ne3gu8io2i]

not a port it's emulation with waifu 2x upscales aside from the weird pre rendered images and video files PCSX2 has texture modding support but years before that people were injecting custom higher quality textures in secret with something called the rexis build there's ways to widescreen hack FES but there's a lot of pop in so you have to manually edit zoom values for like every cutscene there's 2 different versions of the control party code version 2 is more ideal to use but more obscure the main issue is that the original game runs on Renderware which EA refuses to let other people use but it totally runs on current gen hardware while portable uses the same engine golden does both versions have an undub while FES has a deinterlace mod the audio was always super compressed audio on psp it's completely possible to import the significantly higher quality ps2 audio but it's a mess to go over hundreds of archives and make sure everything matches up possibly even split segments up so tens of thousands of audio files sepertate tools were needed for modding the battle audio on ps2 since it's like attached directly to the models i think it's been figured out nowadays no idea how it would work on psp

[@alone-mp5tq]

shame no persona 3 reload for switch

[@Kelphelp]

I def do not think the Switch cannot run it since the only platforms the game is available is for current gen

[@lolnikmine1679]

P3P is a great game, only for PSP level of hardware. This "remaster" just sucks. Most visuals are upscaled with free AI software, audio is compressed, and literally nothing else was changed. This crap doesn't worth 20$, especially when I can just experience the same stuff on the emulator with better-quality mods

[@Kelphelp]

Yea I'm starting to see they didn't touch up some of thr backgrounds and just spit them out through AI upscaling. Damn mannn

[@Pandor25]

Why did the switch version ported the worst version of the game. :/ Would have loved if they ported the fes vertion. :/

[@Kelphelp]

Exactly how I feel. I adore FES despite its flaws but getting Portable feels like a slap to the face

[@KonEl17]

This remade or remaster is garbage on console!

[@Kelphelp]

I mean P3P is garbage too though :3

[@KonEl17]

@@Kelphelp you mean in general? With the limitations that's the psp I'd still play that then the current remaster.