Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

Back in 2007, Persona 3 hit store shelves with little fanfare, and a small, limited printing of copies from publisher Atlus.  However, the game became a huge hit with fans of JRPG titles, as it successfully blended social interactions with solid dungeon crawling combat.  Many months later, a new bundle was released for the PS2, called Persona 3: FES, which added a new expansion pack to the game, and expanded the printing of the title, which was routinely selling on eBay for $100 a copy.  Now, Persona 3 comes to the PSP, and it takes all the great combat and social interactions of the title, while fixing some of the presentation and adding new features.

Persona 3 Portable allows you to start off the story as either a female or male student, a new choice for this platform, as the previous versions only allowed you to play as a male character.  Regardless of which character you select, you start to notice that things are not all they seem to be here at Gekkoukan High School.  Shortly after you arrival, you find out that you have the power of Persona, powerful spirits that reside in some people’s consciousness, and that the rest of your dorm mates have the same abilities as well, although in different manifestations.  The leader of the dorm calls the squad, SEES (Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad), and you join the squad to find out what is causing dark spirits to take over the world.  Sure, it sounds a little convoluted, but takes that story and mix it in with a teenager trying to have a normal everyday life and it becomes a completely enjoyable experience.

Persona 3 Portable takes all the new combat options that were available in the FES version and mixes in a bit of Persona 4 as well, allowing you to control the actions of your entire team, instead of just your main character.  This new combat option is nice, so you do not have your characters using powers that might not work on an enemy that has not been completely analyzed as of yet.  It also, allows your team to be a bit more efficient with healing.  However, you can leave those characters in control of the AI if you want, and that might be a good start for those that are coming into the series new, so as not to overwhelm the player.

While fighting shadows and other creatures is your main focus, there is also a deep social interaction model that is very important to complete the game.  Going to school, studying, making friends, joining clubs and more are there not only to boost your stats, but to enhance your powers as well.  For instance, I had my character join the volleyball squad, and keeping up attendance to practice built up one of my Personas, which was powered by that social link.  Everything you do in your off-time and at school, enhances your social links, and in turn powers up your Personas and your teammates.  Befriending a team member will have them making sure you are healed, and at some points, even have them taking an attack for you at a moment’s notice during battle.  Also, it is just a lot of fun doing the extra social activities, because you get so much extra narrative from the people you are relating to in these encounters.

Bringing a game like Persona 3 to the PSP did require a few changes to the interface, and I have to say that all of these changes make the experience more streamlined and enjoyable.  Instead of navigating your character through an environment, like school, or a local strip mall, you get a static screen and a cursor that highlights when something can be used or has some form of interaction.  I love this, as walking across a screen could end up being tedious and boring, especially when nothing was really happening, because it would take so long to load these sections, which leads into another point.  Load times are virtually gone with Persona 3 Portable.  Transitioning to new locations or levels happens in an instant.  Now I was using the download version, which probably helped, but the UMD version comes with an optional install that will assist with loading sections.  This is a huge feature, as the original game cranked for 30 seconds sometimes, just loading a new section.  About the only time optimization went bad is with your characters in Tartarus, a large monolithic tower where the shadows and evil forces reside.  Here, you change to an isometric perspective, and the graphics have been downscaled for the hardware.  For some this might be a huge issue, but I had no real problem with the downscaled graphics.

Combat in Persona 3 Portable normally takes place in the aforementioned Tartarus.  Tartarus is a place that only shows up during the Dark Hour, a time that happens between midnight and 12:01AM.  During this time, anyone that is not armed with a Persona is turned into a coffin, while the dark shadows come out to feast on the souls of the innocent.  The Job of SEES is to enter Tartarus and advance to the top of the huge structure, killing its inhabitants along the way.  Combat is turned based, and the turns are based on your attack skill.  You can attack with a physical weapon, or use your Persona, which will have different powers depending on the Persona that is equipped.  Each battle will require the player to use strategy and investigation to win.  You will need to analyze each target, so you can find their weakness and attack it to limit damage.  The AI for your teammates is fairly competent, and I never saw them using powers that were frivolous against a target.  I decided to let them do their own thing instead of controlling them, and it worked out fine.  Some will want to use the granular options of selecting each combat option for the entire team, and that control is there for those users.

While the PSP is a great platform for Persona 3, the game’s length might be a hindrance to some.  A full game of Persona 3 Portable, seeing it to the conclusion of the school year, might find a player investing 70-80 hours of play, which could be a turn off for a game that is supposed to be portable, or digested in small chunks.  Routinely, I found myself having to put the game into suspend, due to a lack of save points while in Tartarus.  Also, because of the large scope of Persona 3 Portable, you can get lost in all the options that are presented to you while playing.  Within a game month, I had a club, student council meetings, a budding relationship and more, all sucking up my time.  While not bad, it could intimidate the casual gamer that might want to try Persona 3 Portable.

Overall, Persona 3 Portable does a great job taking a huge game of this scope and solid job migrating the experience to a portable platform.  The game is enhanced by the new features, and gives players an experience they may have never encountered in a game before.  Just make sure that you have the time to invest, because once you get started, you are sure to be hooked.  Persona 3 Portable gets 5 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.
Check out Persona 3 Portable and other Sony PSP  reviews at Test Freaks.