P3P is something that would have been a lot more novel at the time of its release. Having this big PS2 game on a handheld in 2009. The actual combat and dungeons are pretty much perfectly converted from the original console versions, but it's outside of this where it falls short. So much impact is lost in the cutscenes with this new visual novel style with no models or animations, or even any detailed drawings for important moments - just screenshots of the PS2 anime cutscenes at most. In general the presentation is a huge step down and can be pretty ugly, eg those abysmal AOA portraits. It's way less immersive with no actual city to run around. So this was fine for existing fans back then, but in recent times this has become the most played version of P3 by newcomers by FAR due to how easy it is to emulate, and since last year it's officially available on all modern platforms. It really sucks because FES is sooo much better overall and it's only purchasable on... the PS3 store.

The most notable change - I don't think Portable's full control combat is necessarily "superior". FES tactics system works perfectly fine if you aren't stupid, and every enemy was designed around that system so the balancing is now a bit messed up. I enjoy the styles of both. There's a decent amount of new content, some great social links added that made me see new sides of certain characters, and the option to play from a female perspective is nice to have even if it didn't change nearly as much as I would have thought. I do love the new songs Kotone has but you can tell Meguro was in P4 mode at this time because they don't really fit in with P3's style. In any case it's still hugely disappointing that we will never see an ultimate version with all content from FES and Portable. Gonna be missing some of this in Reload.