The Questionable Order of Persona Remakes.
Remakes are unavoidable these days, be it video games or movies. Some people hate them; some people love them. I lean more toward the love camp, though sometimes I have questions and concerns. One of my favorite RPG series, Persona, started getting remade with Persona 3: Reload back in 2024.
Persona 3 was a widely requested remake. It really kicked off the fame that Persona currently has, but at the same time, it was a more aged RPG game, and even more so there wasn’t a definitive version. You had Persona 3: FES that had a whole epilogue, but you couldn’t directly control the actions of the party members that weren’t the main protagonist. Then you had Persona 3: Portable that let you fully control the party members and added a whole new campaign where you played as a female protagonist. The problem was that the cutscenes were not fully animated and roaming the map was a point and click venture rather than moving a character, but they did include the epilogue that FES had added.
Was Persona 3 Reload the definitive version? Mostly. The presentation was obviously top notch, party members were fully controllable, and the epilogue was included….as a DLC. Sadly, the female protagonist was trapped in P3: Portable and Persona Q2:New Cinema Labyrinth . Regardless, Reload was considered a huge success. Now one would think that after a popular much needed Persona game was remade, they’d start from the first game and go up right?
That’s where you’re wrong.
One of the worst kept secrets was that Persona 4 would be next to receive a remake. Persona 4: Revival was announced last year at an Xbox showcase, with an odd teaser showing just the main character running straightforward through a few locales. It received more proper gameplay a few months ago, with a release this upcoming February 2027.
Now what is the problem here? Persona 4 is awesome and arguably the more beloved game than Persona 3! Well, has Persona 4 aged as badly as Persona 3? Not really.
Sure, it’s not “modern” by any means, but it’s still crisp, and less of a chore to play through. It was also a huge deal when Persona 4: Golden was released from the clutches of the PS Vita on all consoles, back in 2020. Also, notice the “Golden” subtitle? Persona 4: Golden was the definitive edition of Persona 4. I understand that not everyone is a fan of the newly added content in Golden (Marie is the best girl, sue me), but that’s far less debated than Persona 3’s situation. One also must wonder why they didn’t go with “Rewind” for the subtitle, due to the TV theme, or “Reload,” matching the gun theme of Persona 3.
From what we’ve seen, the remake looks great, just as Reload did. While it’s a shame saying goodbye to most of the longstanding voice actors, the new VA’s sound great. The graphics are fun and flashy, and the new super moves look stylish as hell (even if they make the gameplay easier). Thankfully, it does seem like they’re keeping the features from Golden as well, because that could’ve easily been saved for DLC. But so far….that’s really it. No new party members, no new social links, no new epilogues, unless they’re waiting closer to release to explain more.
Still, I think the best remakes are made based on these three features:
How aged the game being remade is.
Minimizing what it’s removing.
Adding new features for returning players.
This remake is currently skating by on one to two of those qualities.
So why was Persona 4 the next in line instead of Persona 1 or 2? Money. Persona 4 is a more recognizable and popular game that wouldn’t require as many changes to its systems for appeal to both the new and older fanbase. Yet, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.
Resident Evil
Let’s look at an unrelated franchise, Capcom’s Resident Evil series. The first game had a remake in the early 2000’s, then, many years later, the second game received a remake. Then RE3 soon followed in 2020. One would think that Code Veronica would be next, but RE4 was the intended follow up. Just like Persona 4, Resident Evil 4 was a far more popular game that would bring in more sales and also like Persona 4, it aged like fine wine.
SideNote: In terms of aging, I also think doing remakes in chronological order gives time for the later games to “age”, and for fans to yearn more for a remake of that game, while remaking the ones that people already feel are too inaccessible. Thankfully and surprisingly, Resident Evil: Code Veronica is receiving it’s remake next year.
In RE4’s defense, it isn’t just widely considered the best Resident Evil, but one of the greatest games of all time. Persona 4 is fantastic, but I’m unsure if its reputation is that strong. RE4 Remake also added a lot. New weapons, new enemies, some new areas, new costumes, and hell, they finally made Luis Sera playable in Mercenaries mode. It’s a shame that Persona couldn’t follow the order that the Silent Hill remakes were going, where it started with its most popular series, Silent Hill 2, and then, the first game.
Familiarity
What if familiarity didn’t matter? What if people were adventurous and wanted to try an older Persona game with modern graphics? Well, the other issue is that Persona 3 really helped the series, because it introduced the Calendar system format (where you decide how to spend each day until a necessary story event) as well as social links (forming bonds with other party members and NPC’s). Both did not exist in P1 and P2’s time. Atlus may fear that people won’t be interested in Persona games without these features; which will of course, lose them money. Personally, I can live without those systems in the remakes of the older games, but that’s just me.
Would people fear that if they revisited a time without these familiar systems, that Persona 6 or beyond would abandon them? I strongly doubt that. It’s a remake, why not just add those in and rebuild the game entirely? First, you run the risk of alienating people who played and loved P1 and P2. I also wouldn’t mind, but this can put the game closer to the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy territory. Even though those games are overall beloved, there are people that don’t care for the changes to the gameplay and story. FFVII could maybe survive that, but P1 and P2? I’m not so sure. Both rebuilding the game and alienating older fans would lose, you guessed it, money.
My solution would be to have social links, but have it only tied to battle and party member decisions; similar to Nintendo 3DS’ Fire Emblem games, where you put some characters together, their ranks increase, followed by some cutscenes of them interacting and getting closer. What may also help is bringing back the naming convention of having the full name of the game be “Shin Megami Tensei: Persona”. That way, it could set the expectation that it might be closer to an SMT game rather than a traditional Persona game.
Final Thoughts
So, is there hope for Persona 1 and 2?
Well, Atlus sometimes perform surveys, asking fans what they would like to see. Persona 3 and Persona 4 remakes did well on surveys, and they happened. SMT 3: Nocturne and to a lesser extent, the Raidou games, did well for games to get revived. What also scored well? Remakes for the Persona 2 duology, and Persona 1.
Atlus
SideNote: Very recently the producer of P-Studio (the studio that does Persona games) Kazuhisa Wada, said in an interview “At this point, I can’t say for sure. But personally, I think it’s something we should definitely do. I think we have to do it,” regarding Persona 1 and 2 remakes.
Clearly, it’s on Atlus’s mind, and hopefully once they get Persona 3 and 4 remakes out of their system, it will be time to revisit where it all started. It should be said that Persona’s 1 and 2 could always receive ports or HD remasters. Ports would be disappointing though, but its better than nothing. HD remasters would be great, even if they’re less ideal than full remakes.
In the meantime, hopefully Persona 4: Revival does well enough that Persona 1 and Persona 2 could come back in some form.
