Wait, what? Persona 3 Social coming to mobile phones

4:03 PM on 08.17.2010   |   Josh Tolentino

With three versions of Persona 3 (the original, the FES expansion, and the PSP remake) already out in the wild, it's clear that Atlus isn't above revisiting popular territory. That's been a good thing so far, as each iteration of Persona 3 so far has been superb (30/30 for score, people!), but a line has to be drawn somewhere, right?

Well, we might have just arrived at that line. Atlus has announced the impending release of Persona 3 Social, a new mobile-phone game set to appear on Mobage-town. "What's Mobage-town," you ask? It's a truncation of "Mobile Game Town", and also the name of a Japanese cellphone-based social networking service. It'll feature persona collection and fighting shadows, as well as newly designed main characters courtesy of series art director Shigenori Soejima, and will be free-to-play, monetized through item transactions.

In short, it's not much of a "true" Persona game at all, which means you won't have to groan at the prospect of buying the same game a fourth time. Besides, with Japan's mobile environment the way it is, the chances of an overseas release are unlikely. Check out the screenshots below. I suppose this game's Social Links are real-life ones, eh?