Asreported by Twitter user SMTNetwork, the development staff on the recent modern-platform rerelease ofPersona 3 Portableis working on patches for the game. The sound quality in particular is singled out as something the staff are “VERY AWARE” of.Just released back on January 19, the new version of Persona 3 Portable sought to finally bring a version of the formative title to all modern platforms, including PC viaSteam, as well as thePlayStation 4,Xbox Series X|S, andNintendo Switch. Advertised as a “remaster”, and sold directly labeled as such in Japan, the hope for this version of the game had been that it would properly scale up the experience and presentation from its original PlayStation Portable format.
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However, upon launch, it became clear that the process had not gone as smoothly as hoped. While Persona 3 Portable’s gameplay has been preserved well for the new versions, the presentation of the “remaster” has been subject to much criticism. The game’s backgrounds and UI assets seem to have been quickly and cheaply updated using AI upscaling software, making some of them look messy. As well, the audio quality has been taken issue with. A series of clipsposted by Twitter user NamsCompendiumdemonstrates the disparity in the quality compared to the original version of the game, with character speech in particular sounding badly distorted.
Though neitherAtlusnorSegahave directly commented on these issues, the aforementioned SMTNetwork claimed they have communicated with the development staff. According to their post, patches for all versions of the Persona 3 Portable remaster are already in development. Evidently staff are especially aware of the sound issues, meaning it may have been a problem in the porting process that they simply weren’t able to fix in time for the declared January 19 release date.
Without word from the developers or publishers themselves, we can’t know what exactly went wrong in the porting process for Persona 3 Portable or how deep their eventual efforts to fix it will go, but it is all reflective of the continued struggle to get a modern, playable version of Persona 3 with no caveats. The Portable version of the game was already the iteration with the most effective quality-of-life improvements, but its more limited presentation even before the ill-conceived remastering process, as well as lacking content from the PlayStation 2 version of the game’s Persona 3 FES update, didn’t necessarily make it the definitive choice. The imperfections introduced in the new ports only compromise the decision for Persona 3 fans further, so hopefully Sega and Atlus are able to have these alleged fixes for the game out sooner rather than later.
