The rumored Persona 3 Remake could see the reinvention of Persona 3's visuals and gameplay, working to tell its compelling narrative in a modern light. With Tartarus serving as the game's primary backdrop, iterating upon its level design may help to keep the title's traversal feeling fresh, especially when considering how long playthroughs of Persona titles can be.
Persona 3 featured Tartarus, a labyrinthine tower that spanned a total of six blocks and 264 floors. The dungeon followed suit in the series' feature of sprawling, maze-like environments, where players must search for each floor's exit while bracing for attacks from shadows around every corner. Its outward appearance painted Tartarus as a tower made up of impossible geometry, making it feel both intriguing and formidable; backlit by a deep green sky, the dungeon served as a shadow nest for the SEES crew to infiltrate. In a remake, exploration here could be even more involved.
A Persona 3 Remake Could Introduce New Mechanics Into the Player's Exploration of Tartarus
While other entries in the Persona series were able to utilize altering dungeon designs respective to certain people or themes, Tartarus served as the only explorable battle hub available to the SEES team. Because of this, it worked to differentiate itself through the designs of its blocks and subsequent enemy encounters. The tower begins in the Thebel Block, with checkered flooring and architecture that slightly resembles Gekkoukan High, making its first levels feel somewhat grounded among the sense of dread it evokes.
As the player ascends, however, the blocks become more and more visually incongruent, with some floors drenched in golden hues while others take on an almost psychedelic approach through eclectic spiral designs. The concept of Tartarus and the otherworldly sense created through its visuals make for an interesting approach to its dungeon. However, Persona 3 does show a bit of age through the tower's level design.
Unlike more recent dungeons in the series, Tartarus relies solely on exploration and combat. Whereas Persona 5's Palaces made proper use of puzzles in its environment, playing into the themes of certain palace rulers, Persona 3's Tartarus took a more streamlined approach. Of course, Tartarus didn't have the same luxury of specialized dungeons based on certain characters or gimmicks, though talk of a Persona 3 Remake begs the question concerning whether such a feature could be integrated.
Persona 3's playtime is one of the higher in the series, where time spent in Tartarus can easily span over fifty hours before hitting the game's end. As a result, the tower's 264 floors can feel a bit grating between the game's Full Moon Operations, which comprise the rare instances where battles may take place outside the dungeon, limited only to key boss encounters.
Because such an emphasis is placed on Tartarus' adaptability, perhaps a Persona 3 remake could introduce a system where some floors make use of puzzles based on the corresponding story beats and character conflicts happening during the narrative at that time. That way, the floor 'anomalies' from the original game could move past a focus on Shadow encounters or item drops to feel more integrated into the cast's exploration.
Puzzles that adapt to Persona 3's narrative beats might make Tartarus feel all the eerier, as the tower could mimic a living, breathing personality that comes to understand, or even taunt, the SEES crew as they ascend its floors. In addition, puzzles could make use of the title's emphasis on the Reaper, a foreboding enemy that ambushes the player if they stay on a floor too long. Beyond a modernization of its visuals, a Persona 3 Remake could work to amplify the atmosphere of Tartarus, furthering its status as one of the Persona series' most compelling dungeons.
Persona 3 Portable is available now for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.