Persona 3 Portable was provided to us by SEGA for this review. Thank you!
Persona 3 Portable is the 3rd entry in the iconic JRPG series. As a new high school transfer student, you are thrust into the Dark Hour and become a part of the shadow hunting group SEES. Now with your Persona awakened, you and your friends will engaged in turn-based combat to fend off these enemies and learn the truth behind the Dark Hour and your destiny. Level up, equip your Personas, and develop bonds with your team, while going through your school year, to strengthen your abilities to overcome the emotional journey ahead.
Persona 3 Portable is a remaster of the portable version of Persona 3, which came out on PS2 in 2007. There are actually 3 versions of Persona 3 that were released: The original, FES, and Portable. FES is essentially the base game but with an added epilogue, while the portable version took out all anime cutscenes, a lot of 3D environments, and there was audio and graphics compression. While this was done to fit on the PSP when it released, it also overhauled the combat system (much better now), a new character, and added in a bunch of QoL features. This remaster is based on the portable version and features remastered graphics and further improved smoothness and QoL.
While this may seem bad, this is Persona 3 and it's a fantastic game through and through. On top of that, it runs like a charm on the Steam Deck and can run even better with some tweaking! When starting out, I noticed the game was draining at around 13W - 14W, which for a remaster of a portable game, I felt was a bit high. I also noticed some very fast fluctuations of the framerate going from 59-61 constantly. For this, I decided to stick with a TDP of 6 and GPU Clock Speed Frequency of 1000 to fix these issues. This kept framerate at a near-perfect 60 with battery drain sticking around 9W - 10W for the most part.
I didn't notice any issues with controls, though framerate stability had some jumps at times. These jumps lasted a second though and didn't impact overall gameplay, so I didn't justify changing the TDP limit to fix this.
Overall, this is running on Steam Deck as well as I expected. As a remaster of a portable game, I wanted it to have decently good battery life and no trouble running at max settings and 60 FPS, which it accomplished effectively. Persona 3 Portable is a fantastic game though and deserves a chance in the spotlight. The story, characters, and gameplay all come together nicely and create a worthwhile entry into this incredible franchise, and thankfully, this will definitely run well on Steam Deck!
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this first look, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back
Persona 3 Portable is a remaster of a fantastic entry into the series and runs wonderfully on the Steam Deck so far!
