All of my worst thoughts strike me at the Ox's hour, just after midnight. It's quiet, noises that I normally wouldn't notice become louder, and I become painfully aware of shadowy figures in the unlit room. Anxiety can swirl around me, thanks to strange piles of clothes and feet without blankets. Sometimes it's just a little too dark, and the eerie abyss of a dark bedroom becomes an existential horror.

The timid cast of "Persona 3 Portable" blames more supernatural horrors, but they must share that midnight terror with me. Blending high school life with the gothic apocalypse, this RPG greets players with numerous warnings reminding them that time is always looming, and within a year they must figure out who, or what, they're competing against.

"Persona 3" shares most of the social RPG traits I loved in "Persona 4" and "Persona 5". There are daily studies, flirting, exams, and other school life concerns. At night, the focus shifts to exploring the dungeons in the mysterious labyrinth of Tartaros. As you collect personas and exterminate shadows, you frantically search for the almighty evil that plagues the city during the dark hours of the night. the PC version is a port of the PSP version released in 2009 and is controversial for its changes from the PlayStation 2 version of "Persona 3 Fes," which is something of a director's cut version. In some ways it is better, but in others it is questionable.

For the portable version, Atlus streamlined its approach by replacing most 3D environments with a 2D point-and-click system and removing animated video cutscenes. Events unfold through in-game models, text, and static artwork. Dungeon crawling and turn-based battles use 3D, but are more like visual novels. Also, the long epilogue added in FES has been removed, but a female protagonist route has been added.

All of these differences are the same here, but the PC version of Persona 3 Portable adds quality-of-life adjustments, remastered graphics, and a Japanese dubbing option.

The portable's PSP origins are becoming more apparent as the years go by. The highs and lows begin when the protagonist first summons his persona by pressing a gun-like evoker against his temple. The tension of this moment, once highlighted in animated cutscenes, cannot be conveyed by the in-game model alone. There is not much animation in the original, but this is one of the few moments where its absence hurts.

While the lack of such sequences is sad, the discomfort of the world and the struggle with death is conveyed through the writing and art. When everything feels cursed and the clock ticks toward the "darkest hour," "Persona 3" stylishly expresses a cosmic unease. Filthy layers of green, blue, and yellow blanket the world in shades of unease, and Tartarus towers over everything, accentuating its terrifying scale. The shadows that inhabit the massive dungeon take on unnatural shapes and movements. Their eerie distortions make climbing the hellish structures less tedious, even when you get caught up in a comical game of tag trying to sneak up on them.

I default to the portable female protagonist mainly because I like some of the social links that have been changed from the male version and some new music. Her iconic blue bob counterpart, a character often referenced in Persona 3-related spin-offs, has an odd moment in the game during character selection where he claims that his arc is a superior first experience. There is no point in heeding that warning. There is no need to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion in a spin-off or FES-only epilogue.

The portables have some nicely written parts. I found that choosing the female route changed some friendships and routine interactions for the better. Several of the main members (Shinjiro, Akihiko, and Junpei) only have access to social links through her path, but they still have the option of friendship with the other high school girls in the party. Getting to know a character like Junpei makes his outspoken nature more sympathetic. The key points of the story remain the same with either protagonist, but I believe that the turning point is more fulfilling after he has developed a deeper relationship with the crew.

While Persona 3's art direction, cast, and constant musings on fear are among Atlus' best, the monotonous dungeon crawling is not. While there is an option to visit Tartarus most nights, the skyscraper-like dungeons are not as dynamic as those in "Persona 4" or "Persona 5." Conceptually and visually, the towers of hell that loom and destroy the city's skyline every night absolutely rule, but in practice, they add hours of endless "not yet, not yet" agony.

Combat can be both painful and helpful. Portable" is arguably a better version of the "Persona 3" combat system. In the PlayStation 2, the player could only control the actions of the main character; everything else was commanded by the AI. In the portable, the player can control the entire party, so the game is no longer needlessly punished by AI mistakes. I could only watch as Mitsuru sent me to my death, silently praying for Mitsuru to heal me.

It is not a "persona" without a collection of sometimes terrifying, sometimes adorable demons that you summon along the way. Fusing personas excites the part of my brain that loves nasty Excel spreadsheets, but it's how that information is packaged that makes all the difference in the world. I love completing the "Persona Compendium" with every possible combination of demons, but it's exhausting to keep reaching in and out of more complex recipes to find a specific skill or creature.

While not entirely fair, it's hard not to compare P3P's demon recipes here to their modern successors: whereas the fifth game simplified things like three-way fusions and had a faster pace of choices, the portables throw lists out on the table and then toss them together in a complex "guess who game" in which You have to put them together. More carefully and diligently searching for the creature I needed, I often did things like open the refrigerator in the middle of the night and grab a fistful or so of shredded cheese. I have no idea if this is enough to nourish me, but I can't bring myself to cook anything else.

This battle feels like a draft of a later persona, but I appreciate the turn-based combo that exists throughout the series. When I encounter a shadow on the prowl, I first attempt a preemptive attack, then analyze and exploit the elemental weakness. After all these years, I still haven't learned my lesson, and sometimes I try to force my way through. Shadows punishes that behavior even on Normal difficulty, and if you don't apply a thoughtful strategy, your party will be wiped out. Depending on how much time I spent climbing Tartarus, I will either rave about how tight and satisfying the process was or lament how drawn out it was.

"Portable's" axis from 3D overworld to 2D environment remains one of the more controversial choices, but in retrospect, I would have spent nearly 70 hours navigating the same handful of "open" maps. I opt for point-and-click accelerated travel. I say point-and-click, but that's not entirely accurate either. It's more like drag-and-click, which can be tedious without customizing the controls. Instead of aligning the cursor on a target and left-clicking, you use the mouse as an analog stick. On the world map, the PSP-era cursor is slid from point A to point B to make a selection. The speed of movement can be accelerated, and if the cursor does not have much distance to travel, a simple double-click seems to work. A little finicky, but not too bad if you set up key bindings to speed up the movement. I would suggest hooking up a controller or using the Steam deck.

The PC version has plenty of configuration options with remappable schemes and other settings that made it consistently comfortable to play on my setup. On my desktop, I played at 3840 x 2160 full screen at 120 FPS and cranked the rest of Persona 3 Portable's settings up to high without any issues. This game is about the same age as the high school protagonist, but I'm relieved that I didn't add troubleshooting to my arduous task.

For the most part, the portables look great, but some environments and models have fared better than others in the remastered process. Backgrounds with lots of lighting effects suffer the most, with layers of messy particles in the art. It is not devastating, however, and the upscaled remastering is a significant improvement.

After playing the PC version of Persona 3 Portable, I was relieved to realize that my longing for this world wasn't just a childhood feeling. The further you go, the more acute the sadness and fear you feel. It's a haunting, unknowable sense of unease. Whether in the haunting ticking of the "dark hour" or in a passing conversation with a restless classmate, the otherworldly discontent oozes in all the right places.

"Portable" may not be top-notch in terms of old systems and dungeon crawling, but its cast and tone easily make up for its shortcomings. One can forgive "Persona 3" for being a bit monotonous, and one can appreciate the horror of inevitability colored by a twisted style that is distinctly different from the games that followed.