Persona 3 fans are manifesting the single most important character portrait in the entire game for the remake.
Over the past weekend at Anime Expo 2023, Atlus debuted the new Persona 3 Reload trailer just below. Aside from confirming an all-new English voice cast for the remake, the trailer also gives us a new look at remade character portraits for the likes of Akihiko, Mitsuru, and Fuuka.
It's the latter character who's perhaps caught the most attention from the Persona fanbase. Fuuka has always been beloved by Persona 3 players as a bit of a derp, and one of her in-game character portraits from the original game really didn't help this image, which you can see for yourself just below.
This. Is what you must aim for from r/PERSoNA
Now, Persona 3 fans are really hoping this derpy portrait makes it into Reload. The post just below for example shows Fuuka's remade character sprite on the left, before the post's author attempts to remake her in their derpy vision. The result has some... unintended consequences, if you go from the general gist of the responses on Reddit.
Tried to recreate the Fuuka derpy look using the new sprites from r/PERSoNA
Below is perhaps a more appropriate derp remake for Fuuka. The user has tried to bring her eyes a little more central, and the result is a character that looks goofy, albeit in a weird way. The original Fuuka was pretty adorable, and definitely easy to root for, which is sort of what these remakes are trying to tap into here.
took my hand at editing fuuka's new sprite to look like her OG goofy one from r/PERSoNA
All things considered, there's no reason to believe Fuuka's iconic derp face isn't in Persona 3 Reload. It's not like we've seen every in-game character sprite, after all, so Atlus could be holding back Fuuka's oddball look for later on. We certainly hope so, or else there might be plenty of disappointed Fuuka stans out there.
Check out our new games 2023 guide for a look over all the games that'll probably be with us before Atlus's remake.