Publisher Atlus describes the process for remastering bothPersona 3 PortableandPersona 4 Goldenas “difficult” and “painstaking” for modern platforms. The publisher had first announced these ports last year, where it would be bringing the series to multiple platforms after several fan requests, especially for consoles like the Nintendo Switch.Persona 5 Royalhad its multiplatform launch in the last quarter of 2022, whilePersona 3 PortableandPersona 4 Golden’s ports were released recentlyas well.
To highlight the launch of these games on new systems, Famitsu magazine released an interview with Atlus producer Atsushi Nomura andPersonaTeam director Daisuke Yajima regarding these ports. Nomura’s most notable role was leading the development of these remasters, as he was responsible for the Steam version ofPersona 4 Goldenreleased back in 2020. Yajima was the director of the aforementioned Steam version, while also the director of the remasters of the recently released remasters forPersonas 3-5, mainly to optimize the games so that they wouldn’t look inferior to the originals. When they were asked about the process of remastering bothPersona 3 PortableandPersona 4 Golden, they described the troubles they ran into during development.
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Famitsu asked if there was a lot more than simple porting involved when it came toremasteringPersona 3 PortableandPersona 4 Golden, as both games were originally released on handhelds instead of a mainline console likePersona 5 Royal. Yajima corroborated this, where there was high-resolution data for things like the sprites and 2D illustrations, but the 3D models had textures that required a lot of time for optimization. Nomura also described the process as being difficult and painstaking, as the elements to make these textures work with high-resolution displays did not exist originally.
Atlus had partnered with Preapp Partners, which was the team who helped the developers whenportingPersona 4 Goldento Steam. Nomura noted that after all the reworking to create the high-resolution data, the characters and backgrounds looked much better than the original, impressing the team. Yajima noted that even with the increased resolution, there were still corrections being made for aspects like the appearance and areas to support the game’s new 60 FPS, as the original game was made in 30 FPS. This is especially noticeable in areas where the event scenes' motion and scaling don’t match after the boost, but movement and battles feel smoother than the original thanks to this.
Regardless, both producers hope fans enjoy the remasters, giving them a new chance to be played on a wide range of accessible systems. Yajima hopes that fans enjoy thefemale protagonist’s route inPersona 3 Portable, noting some fans may know of her but have never played as her before.
Persona 3 PortableandPersona 4 Goldenare available now for PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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