Persona 5 Tactica
Persona 5 Tactica
Game
Game2023
Persona 3 Portable
Developer ATLUS
Persona 3, released outside Japan as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, is a 2006 role-playing video game developed by Atlus. It is the fourth main installment in the Persona series. It was originally released for the PlayStation 2 in Japan in 2006 and in North America in 2007. It has received several enhanced re-releases and ports: Persona 3 FES, an extended version featuring a new playable epilogue and other changes,… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
331 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Nov 2, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
86
LovedLoved
181 positive · 30 negative
95% range 80–90%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 181 | 30 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 34 | 2 | 40 |
| Mastodon * | 5 | 4 | 29 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 6 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
2,799 of 3,535 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
87% recommend · 182 yes, 28 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 210 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (4,709 of 5,801 positive).
Players praise the female protagonist Kotone's route as a unique and valuable experience. [1][2][3] Many criticize the port's AI-upscaled backgrounds and poor audio quality. [4][5][6] Some recommend playing other versions of Persona 3 instead of this port. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [4]
horrible horrible upscaling in the backgrounds, very big deal breaker when you need to rely on modders to do the million dollar company's job
- [1]
One of the most experienced designers at Atlus is a woman named Kido Azusa. She was the lead director/writer for the female protagonist route in this game, and you can tell. I recommend this game to anyone looking for a JRPG from a genuinely female perspective. For so many RPGs, romance options are the only difference between the male and female protagonist. But Kido Azusa gives us all sorts of subtle little …
- [3]
TLDR; as someone who loves FES, Portable is worth it purely for kotone. Atlus screwed up the rerelease, so if you buy this PLEASE be aware it's a visual novel mainly + it needs some mods to make it not have ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ai-upscaled backgrounds. IN TERMS OF ACTUAL GAME CONTENT, I LOVE IT!! sappy heartfelt review below I find myself chasing shadows trying to find a single game that gives the same feeling as the femc route …
- [7]
This is a hard recommend because, at its core, it IS Persona 3 Portable at its fullest, and it's probably the best way to play this game, even with this port's multiple shortcomings (low quality audio, ugly upscaled backgrounds etc.) With that said, since you're here reading this review and probably wondering where you should play P3 for the first time, I would say skip this version of the game and either play the …
- [2]
As pretty as Reload is, it's sad it will never be fully completed. That this is probably the most content-complete version of P3, which is an immense sadness. Kotone is definitely the best protagonist in Persona. And as I'm a cis-het guy, I genuinely appreciated the fem experience of her social links, and it made me realize how being a girl is far more than a mere preference in aesthetics, and we should have more …
Summarised from 34 of the 324 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 11, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Players who liked Persona 3 Portable talk about female protagonist route is a highlight; those who didn't talk about aI-upscaled backgrounds look ugly. Which matters more to you?
Critics, per Wikipedia
Persona 3 received positive reviews upon its release, earning a Metacritic score of 86. Shane Bettenhausen of 1UP.com called the game a "refreshingly new take on the MegaTen [Megami Tensei] concept", and "the best RPG hitting the PS2 this year." He praised the "excellent" AI created to direct the actions of party members during battle, which he felt created "the series' speediest and most dynamic battle system to date." Jeff Haynes from IGN criticized the system, finding that it would occasionally result in the death of the player's character, which causes a game over. GameTrailers called the game "a rare supernatural delicacy", stating it is an RPG that fans of the genre shouldn't miss out…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 331 · most liked firstPersona 3 Portable: The Only Game Where You Can Choose Your Gender Link: youtu.be/Ge3oTIyn2sQ?...
neutral · AI labelView post →One of the most experienced designers at Atlus is a woman named Kido Azusa. She was the lead director/writer for the female protagonist route in this game, and you can tell. I recommend this game to anyone looking for a JRPG from a genuinely female perspective. For so many RPGs, romance options are the only difference between the male and female protagonist. But Kido Azusa gives us all sorts of subtle little differences, from warm female friendships to lowkey everyday sexism. The social links…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →horrible horrible upscaling in the backgrounds, very big deal breaker when you need to rely on modders to do the million dollar company's job
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →a nice port marred by very sloppy looking AI upscaled textures and awful sound quality. A great game but it's genuinely surprising this was considered presentable by Atlus. Thankfully this can be fixed with mods, shoutout https://gamebanana.com/mods/440962
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Despite what rating this review gave this game, this is not a fault of the actual game itself, it’s the way this port was lazily done by Atlus and put up on Steam in this embarrassing state. Just emulate this game, as this “remastered” version of portable uses AI upscaling for all the textures which make the game look super ugly, but they somehow even messed up the audio where they didn’t fix the low bit rate so the audio sounds like you're playing it on a DS. However if you are able to get…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As pretty as Reload is, it's sad it will never be fully completed. That this is probably the most content-complete version of P3, which is an immense sadness. Kotone is definitely the best protagonist in Persona. And as I'm a cis-het guy, I genuinely appreciated the fem experience of her social links, and it made me realize how being a girl is far more than a mere preference in aesthetics, and we should have more games in which the fem has mechanical consequences, and Persona really is a game…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Honestly. I wish I didn't need to write this. But, man, what a terrible job is done on this release, istg- After completing the Reload full run, coming back to Portable feels extremely stressful in many ways - I needed no less than 6 hours to go through the mods in order to make the game at least somewhat plausible, and there are still unsolvable issues like the quality of character voices which cannot be covered by usual means There are two things I'd keep the 'recommend' on for - the concept…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Replaces old background art with worse AI upscaled art. There isn't even an option to go back to the low-resolution original art. Either get Reload or emulate the PS2 FES or PSP version.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It isn't reload, but if you can get past the lower quality then it's still great. It's the only way to play Kotone's route, since Atlus can't be bothered to add her to reload. (im still holding out hope though)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TLDR; as someone who loves FES, Portable is worth it purely for kotone. Atlus screwed up the rerelease, so if you buy this PLEASE be aware it's a visual novel mainly + it needs some mods to make it not have ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ai-upscaled backgrounds. IN TERMS OF ACTUAL GAME CONTENT, I LOVE IT!! sappy heartfelt review below I find myself chasing shadows trying to find a single game that gives the same feeling as the femc route from P3P. The only game I can think of that comes close strangely enough is…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm gonna start playing through Persona 3 Portable! I've played through the game as Makoto a bunch of times (in FES, Portable, and Reload), but I haven't done a full playthrough as Kotone yet, so I thought it'd be fun to play as her now! :D
positive · AI labelView post →Persona 5: The Phantom X seems neat so far, but can not for the life of me understand why you'd make a Persona mobile game and opt to have it feel like Persona 5 instead of Persona 3 Portable. You built the perfect mobile game structure! Why am I running with a screen joystick!!!
neutral · AI labelView post →Great game, mediocre port. Just play Persona 3 FES on a PS2 or PS2 emulator instead tbh. I could also recommend you to just emulate the PSP port of this game, It's practically identical to the steam release (Both are the portable version of the game) Beat the game 3 times and got all achivements, over 150 hours played and I'd still be down to replay it again. If you already beat the game on your PSP when you was younger like I did you can actually import your save file directly from your PSP…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A 39 minute long rough-cut preview of a video about Persona 3 Portable and gender is now live over on Patreon. Hope you enjoy <33
neutral · AI labelView post →this game is somewhat a legacy title, with the shinier and newer persona 3 reload taking up 99% of the incoming persona-three-inclined players. kind of funnily, i think it is persona at its best. tartarus is turned into a fascinating and fun gameplay element, is challenging, requires interacting with the deep system of persona fusion to get through (i played on harder difficulty) the addition of kotone shiomi, the female protagonist, with her fresh scenario script and vastly improved social…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Persona 3 Portable was my introduction to Persona and a game I cherish so endlessly. I was really disappointed when the FemProtag did not return in Reload. If they brought her back with DLC that utilizes genAI, I wouldn't touch it with a fucking ten inch pole.
positive · AI labelView post →Female protagonist Kotone not only have better social link than male protagonist makoto. She also have LGBT romance options. Something P3R didn't even include.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun game, classic Persona/SMT, but my negative review is sparked by a game breaking progression bug on 7/7 in the Hotel. When attempting to break mirrors after the Hierophant boss to access the next boss, I break a mirror but the game doesn't register it as broken and traps me in the room. My party members and Fuuka keep telling me to break the mirror. When interacted with again, the mirror only says "The mirror is already broken." No resolution has been found, despite 10+ attempts, reloads,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Its an incredible game, but the upscaled textures and artwork is a bit ♥♥♥♥. This is probably just a me thing, but spending too much time on the day sections gives me motion sickness. If you just want to experience Persona 3, get Reload, but it is totally worth getting this game to play Kotone. She should of been in Reload </3
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →is this port kinda garbage? yes. is it the only way you can truly play kotone's route? also yes. i'm totally biased but i think it's worth it, if only to experience femc's route. crime against humanity that she's not in reload tbh.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Tartarus is the Worst but cracking veryone is the Best
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Yeah, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite was probably also the game I spent most time on my PSP. It depends on what games you like, but I loved Persona 3 Portable and Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. If you liked Monster Hunter, you could also try God Eater. It is a really gold Monster Hunter Like with a good story!
neutral · AI labelView post →First Game: Sonic Riders Last Game Played: Final Fantasy IV (tis what I'm currently playing anyway) Favorite Game: Persona 3 Portable Worst Game: Most multiplayer shooters, Marvel Rivals being the worst. Game I've Played the Most: Sonic 3K / Sonic Rush Most Surprising: Cyberpunk 2077
neutral · AI labelView post →Persona 3 Portable is a great version of the game and honestly my favorite. The option to play as the female protagonist makes a huge difference. Her Social Links are fun, fresh, and give the story a new angle that works amazingly well.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hello, SweetHearts of the MilkCart! I'm MinxMilk~! We're off to a beautiful day and would love to spend some beautiful social link time with you! Today's game is PERSONA 3 PORTABLE! <3 I hope to the giant boba in the sky that Shinji wakes up!
neutral · AI labelView post →You probably are playing this game for FEMC or Kotone Shiomi. In term of atmospheric designs, This game has that sense of dread compared to P3R which mostly felt pretty plain & clean. Definitely recommend also playing this alongside Persona 3: Reload.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →P3P achieves a wonderful and rare thing in the gaming space in that the gender select for the protagonist isn’t a glorified “Choose your dating pool” button that Bioware and Bethesda RPGs do (I especially find this egregious in Fallout 4 where somehow one being a lawyer and the other being a military vet before the nukes fell doesn't give you a built in boost to speech/firearms) The Fmc has her own personality (really fast to picking the violent option in multiple points in the story and her…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Don't buy this, even if it's ok for you to suffer through AI upscaled textures and compressed sound, Den*vo will just block your honestly bought game from you for trying to install mods, thank you very f*ckin much
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a hard recommend because, at its core, it IS Persona 3 Portable at its fullest, and it's probably the best way to play this game, even with this port's multiple shortcomings (low quality audio, ugly upscaled backgrounds etc.) With that said, since you're here reading this review and probably wondering where you should play P3 for the first time, I would say skip this version of the game and either play the remake or emulate P3 FES, because I really don't feel like this game does…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i like this game a lot but portable is the worst way to experience persona 3 for the first time imo play Persona 3 Reload or FES first
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The dumbest argument I still see from people is that a game isn't a MegaTen title if it doesn't actually say "Shin Megami Tensei" on it. By that logic, Persona 3 Portable on the PSP is MegaTen, but P3P on the PS4 isn't and Persona 4 on the PS2 is, but not Persona 4 Golden
neutral · AI labelView post →Oh to play as our sunshine fmc once more ｡:ﾟ(｡ﹷ ‸ ﹷ ✿) she deserves the world!! The game’s still amazing, still hits right in the kokoro. The port tho… ehhh not terrible but could be better. Use a controller, trust me.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Kotone is in it ! best depressed character out of the two choices, at least we get a "Smiling Depression" char.) She is a fascinating character to study, unlike Mokoto who is the obvious type of depressed char you see in any form of media.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Despite how much I love Persona 3 Reload, the portable port is just.. terrible Like, this sounds worse compared to the actual PSP. The audio is MEGA crunched and the backgrounds were AI upscaled from the original PSP version. If you're a die-hard fan, just play for the female protaganist, but if you're just dipping your toes in just play P3R.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →People complain about this mostly being a visual novel outside of combat, but i think people need to realise Persona has always been like that, i once spent 4 hours straight just watching conversations in Persona 5. The combat is identical to Persona 4, only issue is the final bosses of the game suck and 14 phases is way too many. I think the game is worth a play for hardcore fans for the unique Female protagonist, and just play reload if you wanna do male.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Terrible remaster with poorly upscaled backgrounds and UI elements. As a remaster, it looks much worse than both the PSP and PS2 versions played on their original consoles.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →even after i've replayed this games for more than 20 times, it's as beautiful as ever to me. today marks the day i completed my first playthrough on PC as i first picked this up on my PSP--which was unfortunately stolen by some movers.. all my ng+ files and hard work were robbed away from me lmao BUT it doesn't really matter now, i finally got to play it again here and i can say that i'm genuinely THE happiest persona fangirl ever. yeah, the controls are wack on pc but you'll get used to it,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →on god we all wanted femc instead of aigis dlc for reload
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Even with the worse graphics, I feel it's better than the Persona 3 Reload. I'll say it. And it's largely because I love being able to play the male and female route. The bonds you can build with all the friends/love interests that way is just so good. Some things are frustrating (looking at you bad dialogue locking me out of Sanada romance!) but all that aside I still feel it's a great game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i'm playing the FeMC route in Persona 3 Portable since P3 Reload is my favorite game i'm really enjoying the different songs in the girl route. my favorite so far is Time, it's so soothing.
positive · AI labelView post →I played Persona 3 almost 13 years ago, and to this day, the ending made me cry again. The story is an absolute masterpiece, and this is a piece of Shin Megami Tensei history that is a MUST to play. However.. I wouldn't recommend Portable at all. The gameplay is very boring, bland, and mind numbingly easy. Lack of animations, battle soundtracks, and rinse-repeat gameplay of hitting weaknesses followed by all out attacks for the win is enough to drive anybody insane. The portable version also…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →best social links in persona besides persona 4 golden. would easily stand up to their other titles if they put a little more effort into it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Made another Akihiko manip. Been playing Persona 3 Portable and set on romancing him. He also gets brainwashed during battles a lot in my game, which is always delicious. #hypno #hypnosis #hypnoart #akihikosanada #persona #persona3
neutral · AI labelView post →Buy this, install Reloded 2, install mods, And you'll play the best P3 story available hands down. Femc's route is nothing short of amazing and with the added cutscenes and other things through mods. This game lives to be the best Story version of P3. The ONLY thing that it still sadly doesn't have is 3d movement and in game cutscenes. They are still the novel style like the psp. So, if you don't mind novel style movement outside of dungeons and would like to experience the best Story that…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Has a charm to it reloaded doesnt, for me that charm makes it better but I cant say I would recommend
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am writing this review from the perspective of a completionist who has seen every side of this game. Across all versions of Persona 3, I have played through the story 7 times. Twice in FES, twice in Reload, and three times on Portable. Two of those times were on here, on Steam. I will start with the cons, because truthfully this game is an excellent experience. No spoilers, by the way. First off, Portable is an objective downgrade compared to every other version of Persona 3. In many…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Playing through Persona 3 Portable. My god, I forgot how bad it was to earn money in this game. I'm so used to Persona 5, where it gives you experience and money after battles. But having to just get item boxes or shuffle time for money, it's so annoying! Especially since money isn't always there!
negative · AI labelView post →Officially finished Persona 3 Portable!! 🎮 Loved it. My second Persona game ever. P5R was the first. 😉 I already have P4G on my Switch and am excited for it. 😁 #P3P #Persona
positive · AI labelView post →I made a Gamebanana collection for Persona 3 Portable PC that brings together all of the mods that fix issues with the PC port and adds other quality of life improvements. This is just a curated collection by me, nothing I personally worked on. gamebanana.com/collections/...
neutral · AI labelView post →As my first Persona game ever, VERY STRONG IMPRESSIONS, 10 hours so far and I'm enjoying it a lot, I don't mind the Visual Novel conversion and the 2D hub world because everything else is just so good, Music is amazing, I don't like and know RPG battles that much other than pokemon but I got the hang of P3's just fine and it's so fun! I love the story, characters, and voice acting even if I'm not that far into the game yet ai upscale is :(
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm playing this for my girl Kotone 👍 //Indonesian gov suck for banning persona series (and many other game), this review shall be my last legacy_T
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →amazing game about accepting death so you can celebrate life at the fullest. however you cannot date the quirked up white boy in the velvet room so.......
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY YEEEEEEEEEEEAHHHHHHHHHH
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →if you get this game just mod the hell out of it please. i beat it on switch and it was fine, but there's so many amazing community mods that make the PC version of the game the definitive version. did you know the title screen says "POATABLE" 😁
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Persona 3 Portable is my forever game
positive · AI labelView post →without any exaggeration, this game genuinely changed my life. i was and still am struggling mentally and have just been in an extremely rough spot in my life. i played this knowing the spoilers and even then it changed my outlook on everything. there are other versions of this game, if you want a more modernized version please play reload. its on sale a ton, though if you want to play as kotone please play this game. saori and rio's link are some of the best in the franchise. i cannot…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Persona 5 if it was good
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I first want to address the fact that this specific port of the game to modern consoles and steam was a complete mess. The sound quality isn't great and all of the backgrounds were ai upscaled (ew), however it is still persona 3 portable and any version of persona 3 portable is good. P3P is in my opinion the best persona game atlus ever made and this is after playing persona 3 (FES, Reload and Portable) 4 (Golden) and 5. The femC social links are absolutely amazing and not just the new ones:…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the game ai upscaled everything terribly and the sound effects are somehow worse this time around. the psp version of the game has better sound effects. buy this game when it's on sale cause not even $20 is worth it for such a half assed port
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Obligatory Context: Persona 3 stands out in the series as a very odd entry with 4 different versions to play but somehow no single one of them being "definitive" or "The Complete" P3 experience. So where does Portable stand in this case ? a brief comment on gameplay: you can enjoy a variety of QoL introduced in P4 and while the non-Tartarus sections have been replaced by a "visual novel" style it honestly doesn't detract all that much (if anything navigating locations and dialogues is…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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