Atlus staff have described the process of porting Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden to modern systems as “difficult” and “painstaking”.

Publisher Atlus has described the process of porting Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden to modern platforms as “difficult” and “painstaking”. The publisher first announced these ports last year. Their goal is to bring the series to newer platforms. Especially consoles like the Nintendo Switch. Persona 5 Royal’s multiplatform release was in the last quarter of 2022, while Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden ports were also recently released.

Famitsu magazine has published an interview with Atlus producer Atsushi Nomura and Persona Team director Daisuke Yajima about the ports in conjunction with the games’ release on the new systems.

Nomura has led the development of these remasters – he was also responsible for the Steam version of Persona 4 Golden 2020. Yajima was the director of the aforementioned Steam version and the director of the recently released Persona 3-5 remasters. Mainly for optimising the games, so they don’t look worse than the originals. When asked about the process of remastering Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden, they explained the problems they encountered during development.

It turns out that remastering Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden was much more than just porting. Considering that both games were initially released for handheld consoles, not for a main console like Persona 5 Royal. Yajima confirmed this, where high-resolution data were available for things like sprites and 2D illustrations, but the 3D models had textures that took a long time to optimise. Nomura also described the process as “difficult” and “painstaking”. The elements that would have made these textures work with high-resolution displays did not originally exist. Atlus worked with Preapp Partners, the team that helped the developers port Persona 4 Golden to Steam.

Nomura noted that after the rework required to create the high-resolution data, the characters and backgrounds looked much better than in the original.

This really impressed the team. Yajima said that even with the increased resolution, corrections were made to aspects such as appearance and areas. This was done to support the game’s new 60 FPS, as the original game was made at 30 FPS. This is especially noticeable in areas where the movement and scaling of event scenes are not consistent after the boost. However, the movement and battles feel smoother than in the original as a result.

Regardless, both manufacturers hope that fans will enjoy the remaster. This gives it a new chance to be playable on various available systems. Yajima hopes fans will enjoy the female protagonist’s journey in Persona 3 Portable. She noted that some fans may know her but have never played her before.

Source: Persona Central