Persona 3 Reload (2024)

I really loved playing the OG on PS2, like way over 10 years ago now, it's one of my strongest gaming memories. And what a joy to now return to it for the first time in many years in its revamped form.

It's a great remake, basically keeping the original format but upping both the quality of every aspect, and also with some quality-of-life stuff. I played this one in the combat baby mode, since it's always what made me stressed in the previous version, so I can't talk much about the combat, really. I also accidentally killed the Reaper guy and got all my guys to level 99, so that completely broke the game, but... Oh well.

I love the theme and story of this game. I felt like it's something a lot of other games haven't delved into on that existential level. Really, is about dying and why the hell we are here, what is conscious, and why do we do anything? Important and mature questions to think about and discuss, and I appreciate so much that they wanna do that here.

Now... I'm just waiting for that P4 remake to come out... heheh

most complaints i have about this game are all fixed in later games.

-not all playable (important) characters have social links

-instead social links are mostly forgettable npc. this wouldn't be that big of a problem if they don't look like npcs, like the chess girl from p5r. at least put some effort into their design so they're memorable and makes us want to get to know them more

-the grind in tartarus is wayyyy too long and tedious. although the surroundings change as we climb tartarus, but overall nothing changed. this is fixed in p5r by separating palace from mementos. and each palace and boss are unique and ties into the characters' backstory which makes us care to grind. being able to drive and run into enemies in mementos also make it more fun than tartarus. being able to talk to the shadows, extort them, and joke with them in p5r also makes the grind more fun

-not much to do in town. crane machine only has like 1 or 2 you can catch, no point doing most activities in town once your social stats are maxed out. fixed in p5r by adding way more content

-ending is too vague. would be more emotional if it's more clear why and how yuki died

-ryoji have too little screentime. not enough time to get to know him and make his reveal have an impact. this can be fixed by either making him playable and/or giving him a social link. like what p4g did to Adachi and what p5r did to Akechi

-way too little time to max out all social links. some only appear like once a week while others appear 5 days a week, so we should obviously prioritize the former, but nowhere in the game does it say what days are each character available (unlike p4g and p5r iirc).

-during battle, you can't see whose turn is next which makes strategizing difficult. fixed in p4g and p5r

-shuffle time is hard to trigger when you've gotten too strong, fixed in p4g by adding guaranteed shuffle time

-strega should have played a bigger role in the grand scheme of things instead of being minor antagonists, serving as mere obstacles before the big boss. they should have impacted the story more, instead of only causing one death

-the poorly designed hidden boss need to be fixed!!!

overall. fun at first, but quickly becomes repetitive and tedious. especially when you've maxed out all the levels and become too overpowered.

Where do I even begin with this game? Out of the gate, between the other two entries in the modern Persona series (I played Persona 5 Royal first, then Persona 4 Golden, and finally now this one), this one is likely my least favorite, but I would rather have that speak to the quality and simple preference of the other entries and not to Reload itself being a bad game, which I hope to illuminate clearly below.

Many people played the original in their early teens when it originally came out as P3 FES or P3 Portable, and I think if I had done that at that time and played it before the other entries, it may have also become my favorite. The themes of the game perfectly embolden that time of living in the world, and I can tell it would have spoken to me on that level if that was the case. And while it sadly was not the circumstances of my playthrough, if it had been (and if I had received no spoilers on the plot) the experience would have been unmatched, and if you reading this check any of these boxes that I didn't, listen up and go play it.

The gameplay here is the best the Persona series has ever offered, and I don't mean that lightly. Given my game order, finishing with this one was a fantastic choice that did not leave me complaining or feeling sluggish like other similar RPG's have. This helped the intentional monotony of Tartarus (the dungeon tower you climb the whole game that is just randomized dungeon crawling, as opposed to P5's unique designed Palaces, which I vastly preferred gameplay wise) to not feel very sluggish and was in fact quite fun most of the time, which is an achievement given how unfun the concept itself sounds and is designed in the original.

I would be remiss if I did not discuss the music of this game. While some of the renditions of the classic tunes from FES and Portable are different here (and some would call worse) I believe this is the best P3 OST offering out there in one package. To highlight a few new tracks, It's Going Down Now might be my favorite song from the entire franchise, and best battle track I've ever heard, and I'm not kidding. (Please if you are reading this and have not heard the song, go listen to it NOW). Color Your Night, the new night time song, is also fantastic and deserves to be highlighted and held among the rest of the original P3 tracks as superb. Even if you never play the game itself, do yourself a favor and listen to the soundtrack, you'll thank me later. (and go listen to P4 And 5 if you feel up to it, they're masterpieces as well).

Preferentially, the cast is likely my least favorite of the three games, but wow does Reload do them justice regardless of my preferences. Junpei Iori starts the game as the Hero's typical "Best Bud" character, but as the narrative goes on (without spoiling stuff) he grows into his own in a way that the other two similar archetypes in P4 and 5 simply don't, and I adore the character for it. Despite being the first Persona game of the three in this style, the cast is, in my opinion, the most unique here, featuring such classics as a robot killing machine disguised as a girl, some child they found on the side of the street, and a dog (literally just a normal dog, yep). I kid, but despite how different these characters feel, they mesh together so cohesively in every group scene it's easy to forget these things and think to yourself "Yep, this is my team, this is my squad". It's rare for a game to make me care about the cast as much as P3 Reload did, and yet here we are, with me gushing about the game.

I will critique the structure and pacing of this game, as it slogs sometimes when it has no need to, and the last few months of the game almost have too much slamming you in the face that it's easy to get a little burnt out. However, this does not impact the quality of the story parts themselves, as they are all fantastic and serve the larger themes fantastically.

In summary, this is, in short, a fantastic game, and one of the best in the genre in my personal opinion. Now after having played this, I cannot wait for Persona 6 and to see what Atlus cooks up for the next entry in the series, and having seen the quality present in this remake, I only look forward to the future coming. I would highly recommend this to anyone new to the series as an entry point, or even to someone like me who worked my way backwards, it's incredible all the same. I loved every second, and I hope this inspires someone else to take a chance, sink their teeth in (I played for 64 hours, I get it's a huge commitment) and really immersing themselves in the world of Persona 3 Reload, experiencing the narrative, beginning and end alike, and getting just as emotional at the ending as me and many others have over the last year of the game being out.

Memento Mori, Burn Your Dread.

Game #51/200 Persona 3 Reload is a revival project of one of my all-time favorite games: Persona 3. I played FES almost exactly 4 years ago and in 100 or so hours of gameplay I had really fallen in love with every aspect of it. I had already played Persona 4 Golden and 5, with the former being arguably my all-time favorite game, and FES offered a lot of the same things. Even some common complaints, like the battle system only allowing direct control over the main character, didn’t bother me. But that’s changed here anyway. Reload addresses some complaints like that one, modernizes things, throws on a very fresh coat of paint that rivals Persona 5 in aesthetics and style, and makes some overall improvements and additions. For example, you can choose to control all characters like in the portable version (or not!). There’s no “FeMC,” which doesn’t surprise me as that would add a lot to the game’s development, but I’m also not in the camp of people who cares about that as I’ve never played P3P. I will ding the game a bit for being rather easy compared to the original. I think the difficulty was fair (and there are several options to customize difficulty), but the average game experience is pretty easy as you get further into the game and unlock more strategic options in battle. I finished the game at level 93 or something like that, without any grinding at all, and blasted through Nyx Avatar (my all-time favorite boss fight from any game as it was in FES - but still fun here) using Satan with no troubles at all. The Reaper was also disappointingly easy. The gameplay loop involves exploring procedurally generated dungeons in Tartarus, a large tower, and fighting bouts with shadows (demons) with your own demons. I found the battles pretty fun and addicting as you tapped into your party's abilities to exploit weaknesses with the famous press turn system. It works very well here as it has in previous entries and some new features, like Persona 5's baton pass and "Theurgies" (basically super moves) enhance the experience even more despite lowering the difficulty quite a bit. I did manage to die a few times on the normal setting anyway despite being quite experienced with the game.

There are now Monad doors, which offer an moderately challenging fight with the reward being some predictable loot and free mapping for two floors. I did a number of these but realized that they probably take more time to complete than they're worth, so I stopped in the latter half of the game. I did really enjoy some of the Monad "challenge" doors though that offered better loot and harder fights at the end of certain Tartarus segments. Other than the battle system and exploration, the demon fusion stuff is as fun as I remember and you can create a ton of interesting looking demons with various combinations of abilities that can unlock new strategies in combat. It can be addicting to find new summons and customize their abilities or resistances in a way that creates a very powerful persona. There are a lot of rewards at constant turns -- treasure chests, twilight fragments, breakable environments with small loot, simple quests with rewards, missing persons that can be found, etc. Like open-world games, you'll find yourself always looking around for other things to do and usually you'll find something.

Perhaps somewhat controversially, I follow a 100% completion guide while playing Persona games. While I am not typically a guide follower, I enjoy seeing everything that the game has. It feels unfortunate to miss out on many of the fun social link scenes. So I was able to view all of the social links and found them quaint and interesting. I enjoyed developing bonds with my teammates and other folks, learning about their lives and dramas, etc. The game's story itself isn't amazing. It moves through a few simple story beats and the ending is pretty emotional, but the execution of the story just isn't too strong. Unlike Persona 4 and 5, this game's story lacks exposition. There are some cut scenes and lore bits that explains the plot and the context of events before it, and it all makes sense and is interesting, but it's just a little shallow for me. As much as I enjoyed the social links and how they showcased adolescent relationships and school life, I struggled to care deeply for the characters. They are all pretty well designed though and have different and not entirely tropey personalities. Fuuka emerged as my "best girl" in this game because of her thoughtful, balanced, and earnest traits. I found Mitsuru charming once her social link became accessible, but thought it was odd how little interaction you were afforded with her for a big chunk of the game considering you were keeping a pretty major secret on her behalf. I always remember feeling like there were a couple of odd plot holes as I played, but can't recall them now, so maybe it was just me. Junpei is quite realistic and funny. Aigis also had a nice character arc, but I wish it was fleshed out a bit more. Yukari was great too and I liked Suemitsu this time around. The only one I truly did not like much was the Emperor. I thought that one was pretty bare bones.

Overall, this is a really nice revival of Persona 3. I'm not sure I'm interested in the Answer DLC coming in September since I've beaten it before on PS2. It's fun and rather tough, but a bit of a 20-hour slog too. At the end of the day, I prefer the charm and challenge of FES I think, but this is a really nice alternative for the upgraded graphics, various new features, and gameplay improvements. Still, 4 Golden and 5 are superior choices I think.