What Persona 3 Version Should I Play?

[Ricken]

I'm capable of emulating any of them, I just really wanna hear what version is most worth playing; I already know about the extra content FES has to offer (because I'm terrible and spoil things for myself) so with that considered, what version should I emulate?

 

[Chary]

Portable. Emulates better, has the better FeMC route with more social links with the main SEES group, and FES’s The Answer can go die in a hole because both the gameplay loop and its story suck.

 

[TheGodMauro]

Honestly I wish I could tell myself to not play FES, I liked a lot more the ambiguous ending to 3 than the answer we got on FES. It might be the 'canon' ending, but I could live without it.

Anyways, portable added a female MC and did some changes to the combat, but with the trade-off that the 3d rendering of the world and scenes is gone, instead being present through something akin to a point and click/visual novel (Tartarus is still in 3d though).

Personally I'd go with portable and ignore FES, but it's your call.

 

[Nobody_Important4u]

I am just going to copy and paste my comment from the same question:

Fes.

Jesus christ the awakining is so lame in portable without animated cutscene and the beggning of the game in general is much more lame.

The psp lets you Control party members directly but the game was built around the ai party members so it's not bad as long as you actually use the commands.

Yeah the 3D may become pretty boring after some time but the 2D visual novel thingy becomes boring much faster and the scenes are so much better when you can see what is actually happening.

The epiloge "answer" is pretty bad but it's there in fes version at least.

Beyond the female protagonist (which is actually pretty good) there's not much else, like some teachers have a portrait now and there's an extra save point in your desk at school but you can live without that, there are skill cards now but they don't fit in p3 in my opinion, there are more Elizabeth quests but no one cares about that and there are apparently some refrences to persona 4 now but it's nothing ground breaking.

In short Play fes, and if you ever want to Play the game again you can Play female protag in psp version.

 

[CompassNorth]

Unless you really want to play as a girl FES is just the overall better and canon experience.
Not being able to control the party members I enjoyed since it made the characters feel more genuine, but if you want to control the part members just install the Controllable Party Mod which fixes the main complaint people had with the non-portable versions.

 

[Ricken]

I'm feeling like Portable would be the better move for the FeMC route; story interaction is huge to me, far bigger than 3D rendering in my book
But if I enjoy a playthrough enough I'll go back and tackle FES. Thanks guys

 

[Deleted member 397813]

FES if you haven't played, Portable if you have.

 

[TheifKing]

I’d go with FES since that has actual cutscenes. Some story moments just don’t land as well on the PSP version.