The Bonkurasu Brigade

Part 5 of Famitsu’s P3P Creator’s Blog series. This entry features Susukida, who designed the event scenarios in P3.

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Hi.

Susukida, in charge of the direction of Persona 3 Portable here.

Till now, I have been working alongside Hashino and Soejima in Persona 3 and 4, designing event scenes, adding bits here and there to pace the story, but this time I will be working with the game system director Kido on the system layout and graphic design!

And here, I will talk about an aspect of Persona 3 Portable which has significantly changed the gameplay, the event scenes.

I believe there are readers who have seen magazine coverages and visited the home page, but in this port of Persona 3, the daily map (Aside from the dungeon, in town and in school) and events will be taking place as 2D character based scenarios. This is to improve the loading speeds and make gameplay a more efficient experience.

In events, character portraits will be displayed to the left and right of the screen, and conversations will take place between these two characters. There will be more variations and expressions in character portraits than those in the PS2 version.

Also, it is possible to fast-forward (Skip) scenarios. In your second playthrough, you can skip scenarios you have already read.

In the day map, focus has been placed on the speed at which movement can be made.
If we kept to the same movement system as the PS2 version, where one had to walk about the map, loading speeds will be slower and movement will be sluggish.

That is where we changed the day map backgrounds to 2D, and you move your characters over this 2D map… Which greatly shortens the load time and is better suited for portable-console gameplay.

In addition, the well-received shortcut button in Persona 4 is implemented, and makes movement more convenient and enjoyable.

To make it even faster, I would recommend a “Data Install”. Upon selection of the “Data Install” option on the title screen, a part of the game data will be installed on the memory stick.
Elements such as events and the day map and other aspects can be loaded without placing stress on the console, so please do try it out!
(The data install option is not needed on the 「PSP-GO」, so please do look out.)

Now that I’ve covered quite a few of the changes, I will introduce some of the new character accessories/equipment and omake screen captures.

It’s less than a month to the release date.
We can finally deliver a new Persona 3 experience to everyone!
On behalf of the staff, we’ve put a lot of effort into creating this, so we have confidence in it!
On 11/1, please enjoy a new one-year!
Thank you for your support!