So... Which version of Persona 3 should I get?

[scorptatious]

I've played through P4G twice now and I freaking love it.

However, I still want more Persona, so I'm thinking about going back a bit and trying out 3.

Question is, which version should I play? I remember seeing one version of it on the PSN, but I don't remember which one it was.

I know one version is for the PSP, but I don't have one anymore sadly.

Also, what differences are there between 3 and 4G in terms of gameplay? Considering this is an earlier title in the series, I'm prepared to deal with things that have been changed and/or improved upon in 4 and 4G. Still, I would like to know what I'm getting into so I don't run into any... unpleasant surprises. All I know is that you can't control your party members directly, which I can accept.

 

[Diablo2000]

You should get the PSP one. It improves somewhat the gameplay, since in the PS2 version you couldn't control party now you can. THAT alone should be enough in favor of the PSP one, but it also have reworked Social Links and you can choose the gender of your characters which in on itself has his own Social links.

I heard that it doesn't have the prologue chapter of FES, but it's alright since that prologue chapter drags, it's pointless and it sucks anyway.

Yeah, PSP version. That's the one you will want to play.

 

[Tony2077]

if you want the answer get p3fes if you don't care get p3p
psp version has the female main but lacks the running around outside of the dungeon and the after story the answer

 

[shrekfan246]

The PSP version will play on the Vita just fine. It's how I've been playing it myself. As for why, that's primarily for two reasons:

Persona 3 Portable adds in the ability to manually control all party members during combat, as in Persona 4, which is a function missing from Persona 3 and FES as far as I'm aware. And from what I've heard the AI in Persona 3 occasionally does incredibly stupid things at the worst moments in fights. Portable also offers a female player character, though the game itself does lightly suggest that you should play as the original male protagonist first.

EDIT: As an addendum, Portable presents the out-of-dungeon areas in a similar manner to visual novels or point-and-click games rather than the full 3D rendering of the PS2 version or Persona 4 Golden and I've heard it doesn't have the few anime-style cutscenes either, so that's something you'd have to get used to. Still damn fine all the same. The gameplay itself is largely the same compared to Persona 4 Golden from what I've noticed, though physical attacks have their own typing as well instead of all being generic physical swings.

Portable and FES are both available on the PSN last I knew, Portable for the PSP and Vita and FES for the PS3 as part of the PS2 Classics. FES has an extra campaign, so to speak, but it's apparently mostly just the dungeon crawling side of the Persona games.

 

[Mikejames]

I enjoyed FES, but I don't think The Answer was particularly worth it as far as epilogues go.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

FES Good things:
+Animated cutscenes. This is actually a pretty good thing compared to static images from Portable. At the very least, when I replayed FES after playing Portable I was able to figure out some scenes.
+Some additional little content (I'm not talking about The Answer here) that's not available in portable.
+-The Answer. Ok, it might be a good thing. It's basically an additional end-game chapter that's full of grinding and not very enjoyable to play through. But some stuff they show is really good. You can simply watch it all on Youtube though, it's really short if you skip all the grinding.

FES Bad things:
-No manual control of your party. This will infuriate you.
-Lacks many additional little gameplay features from Portable.

Portable Good things:
+Vastly improved gameplay and new Personas. Believe me, having manual control of your party is a blessing!
+Additional campaign for Female Protagonist. You should definitely play her after playing as a male protagonist. Female Protagonist has almost entirely different Social Links (that are just better) and some little different things here and there. She's also much better and more likable then male protagonist

Portable Bad things:
-No animated cutscenes. And sometimes things might get confusing.

So, overall, I'd say go for Portable.

 

[Exhuminator]

Something people don't bother mentioning about the PSP version, is that it actually has simpler poly models for the characters and enemies. This means the 3D graphics are not as good. This is an inevitable side effect of the PSP's hardware having a lower resolution. Also the music isn't as good, mostly from a fidelity standpoint due to added compression. (When you go from a 4.7gb DVD to a 1.8gb UMD, you have to make some compromises.) Also you lose the ability to explore 3D environments outside dungeons, rather you're stuck with menu navigation. You don't have animated cinematics anymore, just 2D static dialogues. And of course, you miss out on all the FES additions. If you think losing all of that is worth it for manual party control... than OK, whatever floats your boat. I think the PSP version is a bit neutered, and I say go for the PS2 FES edition because it's the definitive version.

 

[scorptatious]

Something people don't bother mentioning about the PSP version, is that it actually has simpler poly models for the characters and enemies. This means the 3D graphics are not as good. This is an inevitable side effect of the PSP's hardware having a lower resolution. Also the music isn't as good, mostly from a fidelity standpoint due to added compression. Also you lose the ability to explore 3D environments outside dungeons, rather you're stuck with menu navigation. You don't have animated cinematics anymore, just 2D static dialogues. And of course, you miss out on all the FES additions. If you think losing all of that is worth it for manual party control... than OK, whatever floats your boat. I think the PSP version is a bit neutered, and I say go for the PS2 FES edition because it's the definitive version.

I don't mind lower quality graphics, but I love love love P4G's soundtrack, and it would be a shame not to listen to this game's music in all it's splendor.

This is going to be a tough decision. :/

 

[feeback06]

I never played the PSP version, so I'm going with FES.

 

[Savo]

Go with FES. The gameplay in the portable version is better, but it's nothing massive. The AI is stupid, but a good player will be able to compensate for their lack of intelligence. They did the best they could with the PSP's hardware, but they had to cut or edit a lot of stuff, like running around the environments or the in-game cutscenes, which makes it less immersive. I won't spoil anything, but the ending to the PS2 version is nothing short of fantastic, and the PSP version doesn't even come close to doing it justice due to the omission of the animated cutscenes. The PSP version is also missing the epilogue The Answer, which although not 100% necessary, is still a great way to spend 20-30 hours if you liked the combat system and wanted to see what happened after the main story.

I'd recommend going with FES first unless the idea of not being able to control your party members is unbearable, or if you would rather play as a female character.

 

[dolgion]

While I haven't played Persona 3 FES, I wouldn't say that the sound quality in P3P is bad. It might be less good, but it's not like it sounds flat or tinny. The PSP's sound quality is just fine. I never had anything to complain about. Of course, headphones are always recommended.

As to the merits of P3P, I tried playing with party members on autopilot as it is in FES and didn't like it. You'll have less to think about as you only choose commands for your main character, but it feels too passive and can bite you in the arse at times. When you get to control the party members, you can coordinate their attacks so that you get team attacks and that makes the fights flow very smoothly.

The dungeon graphics might be a little less detailed, less polygons etc. But it doesn't mean it looks bad. I have no complaints.

What I do miss though are the 3D environments and walking around in them outside of the dungeon. When characters interact with each other in FES (I watched some gameplay videos) they'll animate and act it out. In P3P, you only get static anime portraits (which do look nice) dubbed dialog lines (the dub is very good), but you kind of have to imagine the animations in your mind. That's a shame, but from what PS2 Persona 3 veterans say sometimes, the visual novel style greatly cuts down on boring running around as you can "fast-travel" to any place you like with a menu and/or cursor to interact with the hotspots.

Lastly, as you seem to have a Vita, I'd say get P3P. You can play it on the Vita and you're probably used to playing this time consuming JRPG on the go, able to put it on standby whenever you like. That's a big factor to consider. I personally can't imagine playing a long JRPG on my home TV anymore.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Get Persona 3 FES, because it has a 30+ hour extra content alongside the quite lenghty game itself (finished the game in around 130hours).

It is somewhat a continuation from the main game so I recommend getting that version of Persona 3.

 

[Alistar_Helloise]

Persona 3: FES for Ps2. P3P is an okay port, but it lacks a lot of what FES can offer. An immersive over world, animated events, The epilogue game.

 

[Kotaro]

The PSP version lets you control your party members directly (instead of the AI controlling everyone except the protagonist), and you can play as a female character with new social links if you want. However, it removed the animated cutscenes, you no longer walk places and instead just select stuff from a map, and the playable epilogue "The Answer" from the FES version isn't there.
Also, the game wasn't really balanced with the ability to manually control your entire party in mind, which makes the game slightly too easy.

Personally, I recommend Persona 3 FES, which you can get on the PlayStation Network for ten bucks.
In addition, the female main character is non-canon, and "The Answer" is canon. So if you want the whole plot, yeah...

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

I bought the original ps2 classic version for the ps3 and enjoyed it immensely and I think I'll get p3p so I can play it again with a different protagonists and tightened combat. So I'd recommend playing the original first, then p3p. If you're not the type to play a game more than once and you don't care about the cutscenes and 3d roaming, then I guess get p3p since its combat is improved. Though I never had trouble with with the characters in my party, plus you can tell to only do certain actions which gives you more control

 

[neonsword13-ops]

Get P3P if you want: Better gameplay, a more user-friendly experience, and an alternate Female storyline
Get P3/FES if you want: A more immersive experience, cutscenes, and a 30+ expansion.

All of them are the same game, but they way you go about experiencing them are completely different. For me, I first bought P3 on PS2 and the battle system felt against me with all of the grinding and the AI controlled party members. The PSP version fixed almost every gripe I had with the PS2 version at the expense of taking out all of the cutscnes and all 3D movement outside of the dungeon. It's hard for me to pick a favorite, but I'd go with P3P because it's just an overall less frustrating game to play.

 

[klaynexas3]

I'd say FES. While P3P has the better gameplay, it really doesn't have that much for it, and I'd you are only in it for the gameplay, then I'd say just do a NG+ for P4G rather than spend more money for generally the same gameplay. However, if you want an immersive plot, FES simply pulls it off better. Yes, your AI will piss you off, but over time you learn how to use them properly and have them not fuck things up. Plus, 30 more hours in the expansion. The only thing left to talk about is the female MC. That's really just preference, so if you would just play the guy anyway, that shouldn't be a deciding factor. And yeah, that about covers most of it. And, when in doubt, buy them both.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

P3P uses the updated mechanics of P4 which makes it a much more user friendly experience. And there is the female protagonist's route which includes a bunch of new social links and some new music.

The main strikes against P3P are the presentation and the lack of The Answer. As for the second point it really comes down to personal preference. I actually liked The Answer. Yes it was a bit of a grindfest but overall I found it to be an enjoyable experience. In fact it felt a lot like Persona 1 and 2 (and I guess more like older RPGs in general): dungeon crawling intermittently broken up by a bit of story.

The presentation of P3P I did have a problem with (speaking as someone who played FES before P3P). Now I'm generally not to fussed about good graphics, but the whole point and click overworld just didn't look very good. And on top of that it kind of broke the immersion for me a well. I like having my little avatar to move around. I like knowing where people are situated in a scene. I like the little icons that pop up over people's heads. These are all small complaints but because the game is so long and you have to be looking at this bland crap all the time it really started to get to me.

If neither of those things are issues then you'll probably get better mileage with P3P, but I still prefer FES.

All that said I'd actually recommend both (if you consider that an option). Play FES first, then play P3P as the female protagonist.

 

[Strain42]

The interesting thing about FES vs. P3P is that both have things that the others don't, and so there really is no right answer as to which one is objectively better.

I personally would say FES. I think it's the more definitive version, and I feel as though the VN style of P3P takes away from the story.

Basically I suppose what it comes down to is do you prefer the full story (which you get from FES as P3P doesn't have the epilogue) or the more polished gameplay features of P3P, which may be easier for you since you're probably quite used to P4's mechanics. It can be a bit difficult for some to take that step backwards to FES.