Generally,
I wouldn’t think a second, gender-swapped, playthrough of a game would merit
another review, but P3P just happens to be an exception. For the most part, games that allow the
player to pick between a male and a female don’t really offer a different
experience. Your pronouns are changed,
the VA is different and you can bunk with the dudes if the game has a romance
option. These things aside, the core
experience, character interactions and story remains the same. As if to say “screw your traditions” P3P goes
the extra mile by completely changing many relationships, offering whole new
ones and giving the female protagonist an altogether different feel than what
you get in the original.
One of the things I’ve grown to love about the “Persona” series is the artwork, and P3 is no exception. Soejima’s art and character designs all exude personality, by looking at the character designs alone, you can get a feel for each character’s personality. What I also love is that, unlike many JRPG artists, Soejima’s characters and art isn’t over designed; there aren’t zippers upon zippers upon zippers and dozens of angles, with armor on top of armor. Things are kept simple and memorable, with greater emphasis on defining features and personality. This focus on personality remains in the protagonists.
The
male protagonist has an aura of cool carelessness. His character portrait in the menus depicts
him slouching, with a blank expression.
Most of his artwork depicts him as a little bit grim and serious. He wears his hair over his face, doesn’t
smile, y’know that whole thing, he’s the cool angsty teenager. While I do
appreciate the character and the design, I feel the male MC’s sort of detached
personality, further expressed through dialogue options, makes him a little
more difficult to relate to and not quite as fun to inhabit. The female MC on the other hand, her artwork
and portrait depicts her smiling. She’s
an opposite of the male MC, where he was cool and careless, she’s fun and
energetic. Her dialogue options are more
often laid back and fun, rather than serious and detached. It’s these little details that make, what’s
really just the same game, feel so fresh and different, despite my having
already spent 80+ hours with it.
On
top of the much appreciated artwork and dialogue depicting differences in
personality, the female MC gets some little bonuses to her story that alters
how certain events play out. For
instance, the biggest change is the rivalry between the MC and fellow student
and SEES member Junpei. In the male MC
route, Junpei’s rivalry stems from his feelings of uselessness and his jealousy
that someone else gets to be top dog and not him. In the female MC route, Junpei retains those
same feelings, but part of it has to with his own sexist attitude. He’s not just pissy that someone else gets to
be leader, he’s pissy that the person taking the post happens to be a girl,
rather than a strapping tough guy like him.
It’s a small detail that, in the overall story, doesn’t really change
much, but it does create a wholly different dynamic between you, Junpei and a
few other characters and it’s greatly appreciated.
On
the topic of relationships, the female MC also gets to enjoy S. Linking the
whole team, rather than just the females, which allows to further develop each
character and give us new insight into their lives. It’s also nice that certain relationships are
slightly altered from the male MC’s game, giving a different feel to the
relationship. Fuuka’s S. Link, for
instance, originally just has the male MC forced to deal with her awful cooking. In the female link, you help her learn to get
better and realize the mistakes in her approach and you cook alongside
her. There’s more of a sense of
camaraderie, which makes the overall relationship different and interesting in
its own way. There’s also the ability to
link with: Junpei, Akihiko, Ken, Koromaru and Shinjiro. Finally, we get some more insight into these
characters and we better learn where each one is coming from in terms of their
place in the story. We get further into
Junpei’s family life, we see why Akihiko is as determined as he is, why
Shinjiro is so stoic etc. We also get to
hang out and form a bond with the group dog which is all kinds of awesome! There’s also a couple new female characters
to interact with in the after school groups, both of whom I preferred over the
two characters I Linked with in the male MC playthrough. Saori’s, arc is a bit of a personal favorite
now as I appreciate her overall arc and find her rather relatable. It gets into the fucked social politics of
the high school world and hits with a bittersweet ending. Then there’s Rio, the ultra determined tennis
player who doesn’t have time for silly high school gossip and bullshit. Her arc is also pretty nice, as she learns to
relax a little more, rather than being a complete hardass. She kind of reminds me a bit of Hidetoshi,
another character who has a similar personality. Best of all though, unlike the male MC route,
you can actually choose which characters you’d like to form a romantic bond
with, rather than being a field playing asshat.
To
be honest, while the male MC is the canon character in the “Persona” storyline,
the female MC is, overall the better of the two I think. I prefer her more positive personality and
design and just find her more endearing overall. The biggest reason for my preference
of the character though is that her route just offers a more complete
experience, in that she actually has the opportunity to befriend and spend time
with every member of the main cast, rather than just a select few. It was something sadly missing from the
original game, especially for characters like Junpei, as we get more insight
into who he is, and he proves that he is, in fact, the broest of the bros and
he’s got your back always.
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