Many fans of Persona 3 have been wanting for a proper remake for a long time now. With the release of Persona 3: Dancing Moonlight, the desire to see a modern take on the members of SEES have only increased. While the game is very beloved by Persona fans and JRPG fans alike, there are some problems in Persona 3 that haven’t aged gracefully. In order to adjust the game for a modern audience, one big part of gameplay will need to be changed.
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Lack of Full Party Control
Persona 3 was a big jump for the Persona series as a whole with it being the first Persona title on the PlayStation 2. Not only graphics were updated, but gameplay was changed up as well for the new 2006 audience. To change things up, the players in Persona 3 could only choose the actions for their player character in battle. This meant that other party members were completely controlled by the AI, resulting in some battles being far more harder than they needed to be. While the player could choose different tactics that the party members could follow, it still would be unknown what they would exactly do each turn.
In the PSP port of Persona 3, full party control was added, but this presented another problem. Because the original game wasn’t designed around being able to control every party member directly, some parts of the game became too easy. This is because many of the enemies in Persona 3 were more simplistic in nature compared to other enemies in the Persona series or Shin Megami Tensei.
How a Remake Could Fix It
As stated before with what happened with Persona 3 Portable, just adding full party control in will present a different problem. However, that doesn’t mean full party control can’t be implemented in a remake. In order to ensure everything is balanced, full party control would need to kept in mind when designing a remake. After all, a remake isn’t a remaster or re-release where a game is put out just with better graphics or the like. A remake of Persona 3 would need to completely redesign everything to improve the gameplay while keeping true to the story and themes of the original, like with the remake of Final Fantasy 7.
If Persona 3 was completely redesigned for a modern audience, a lot more cues would likely be taken from Persona 4 and Persona 5 in its gameplay. As an example, Tartarus would likely be more similar to Persona 5’s Mementos with more tasks to complete inside other than grinding.
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Better Tactics for Persona 3 Remake
While many Persona fans would prefer the ability to have full control of the party, some may feel nostalgic for being able to have AI helpers. In that case, the tactics system for Persona 3 would need to be updated as well. The original Persona 3 had many tactics available at their disposal as well as many to unlock over time. While their effectiveness was questionable at times, some players may find new strategies if these were to become more fleshed out.
Following were the available tactics for the player’s party in Persona 3:
Act Freely - Party members would attack enemies, but heal injured team members if their health dropped below a certain percentage. Full Assault - Party members would focus on one enemy until it dies. Conserve SP - Functioned the same as Act Freely, but party members wouldn’t use skills that cost SP. Heal/Support - The party members would only use healing and support skills. Knock Down - Party members would only focus on knocking down enemies. Same Target - Functioned the same as Full Assault, but would only attack the enemies that the player would attack. Attack Fallen - Functioned the same as Full Assault, but would focus on enemies that were knocked down. Assign Target - Party members would focus on a given target before it dies. Stand By - Party members would skip their turns. Orgia Mode - Aigis’s attack would double for 3 turns with her needing to cool down for 3 turns after using. Analyze/Full Analyze - Tells the Navigator to scan an enemy. Request Help - Calls in party members that weren’t in the battle. Oracle - Causes Fuuka to use the Oracle skill.
While many of these are simple, many of these can be improved with modern AI and the addition of the Direct Commands tactic that was later added after the release of Persona 4. Out of all of these, Request Help has a lot of potential to shake up fights with players being able to use every single party member as an army of sorts with tough battles. If a remake of Persona 3 were to be designed around the constant switching around of party members, it could make for more interesting party dynamics.
However, even more tactics could be added for the remake that could play around the social links between party members. There could even be more tactics that could be based around new systems being possibly being introduced to the remake.
Will There Ever be a Persona 3 Remake?
Although many have been waiting for any kind of news pertaining to a Persona 3 remake, there has been nothing but silence pertaining to it from developers. However with the very positive reception of Persona 4 Golden’s steam release, there could be something involving the title happening behind the scenes.
The only thing that fans can do as of now is to make their voices heard and support the Persona titles currently available for purchase. If the demand is there, there is always a chance that someone at Atlus might greenlight a project that allows players to return to Tatsumi Port Island once more. Until then, however, fans can only speculate on what could be if Persona 3 was given a modern touch.
A remake of Persona 3 has not been confirmed.
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