Started this with pretty low expectations not because I thought it'd be bad, but because after 4 playthroughs you would think there's not much else to be impressed or moved by, and it absolutely proved me wrong.
Its biggest strength is understanding how beautiful the original's message is. It brings new life to the social links thanks to their voice performance, it allows you to spend more time with the main cast while focusing on the more understated aspects of their characters, and despite some of my issues in terms of presentation (both tone and visuals) these are not important enough to overshadow how breathtaking and refreshing it is.
I'm very grateful towards this game, not only because it was able to remind me of how much P3 has meant to me through the years and helping me find new things to love about it, but also for reinvigorating the way I interact with art and the value I find in every little thing I can take away from it, and that's something really special I think.

Persona 3 Reload isn’t just the original game with a new coat of paint. This remake has several fantastic additions that aren’t just aesthetic changes, making the already classic JRPG even better.

To start with, Reload’s aesthetics and design bring it in line with recent entries like Persona 4 and 5, giving Reload a modern take on the blue colour scheme and moody vibe of the original release. This change to fit with modern sensibilities doesn’t exclude the old though. In fact, it even embraces it. Reload maintains many of the old songs from the original game, this time remixed with new instrumentation and new vocals by Azumi Takahashi and returning rap artist Lotus Juice. The game is also fully voice acted this time with a new voice cast. Veterans might even recognise a few familiar voices from the original game, as some of the old actors reprise roles for various side characters scattered throughout the game. It's a cute easter egg for those who've poured countless hours into Persona 3, FES and Portable over the years and can appreciate such the smallest details.

The main story is virtually unchanged from the original release. It still tackles the same themes like the meaning of death, belonging, time and existence as beautifully as it did before, and the cast of characters both big and small remain as memorable as ever. If anything, Reload adds more on to what was already fantastic without undermining the core of the story or adding unnecessary filler. There are several brand new ‘Linked Episodes’ which give the male party members of your group more time to breathe amongst the sea of social links. Ken, Junpei, Akihiko and the rest get a significant amount of screen time during these moments, fleshing out their characters even further. Shinjiro's is my personal favourite as he takes his time warming up to you, but eventually sees you as an equal as we get to know him a little more intimately than the original game. These optional episodes give us greater insight into what characters are thinking between the main story and they fit amazingly well.

The addictive gameplay loop of social sim by day and dungeon crawling at night is the same as ever, but with clever changes made to streamline and make things less time consuming. The list of changes is massive ranging from quality of life additions like being able to sprint in Tartarus, various balance changes and so on, but most of them effectively make playing the game less tedious and cuts bits that didn’t exactly work out. The fatigue system is straight up gone and female social links have platonic options in their social links, which means no more forced cheating being a requirement to max out your female social links. A welcome and sensible change. You can still romance everyone if you choose to, but the option to pursue no one or a single person is now a thing.

The highest form of praise I can say about Reload is that it adds new things so naturally that it almost feels like the new additions had always been there, but were never included. That’s how valuable their additions are to the base game, a game that was already very good but is far more impressive with the various balancing changes and additional story content Reload includes. This is the treatment Persona 3 rightfully deserved.

If anything, the remake is so faithful that it can seem dated in some places. This is especially clear in social links and even the environments which lack the detail and vibrancy of Persona 5. As for the social links themselves, sometimes they do drag out and inflate petty issues and conflicts that could easily be resolved if you weren't forced to be so agreeable to get through them quickly. Even then, they still remain oddly entertaining despite the drama feeling a bit forced at times.

Reload may not have all of the content from prior rereleases like FeMC or The Answer (yet), but it still manages to feel comprehensive and complete despite that. While I do wish The Answer’s campaign was not stuck behind a pricey expansion pass, it doesn’t take away from the base game which is genuinely one of my favourite videogames of all time.

While I do think this remake is somewhat unnecessary, Atlus still nailed it. A lot of amazing QoL changes that I didn’t even think would improve the experience that much (Linked episodes, removing some old annoying mechanics, Theurgy, etc). The OST is the only downgrade in my opinion. I felt like all the original tracks that were remade were missing the charm that really made them special in the first place (except for Changing Seasons). I wish there would’ve been some major changes made to Tartarus but it slowly started to grow on me, still not a good experience but not as miserable as it was in FES.

Overall, I still prefer FES (most likely just me being biased) but I can definetly see why someone would prefer Reload over it.

Kinda way too disillusioned by the superfluous pageantry of P-Studio's Persona titles to keep up with this and it's making me hate playing video games, so shelving this and P3P for my own sanity. Maybe I'll get around to it in a few months once I'm in the mood to push through a fluffy monster RPG with concerning portrayals of women again. Which like, even though I say that, Persona 3 feels a lot better in that department than P4 or P5, especially from what I've also been playing of Persona 3 Portable, where Yukari in particular almost feels like a real teenage girl with actual interiority! Really wanted to see more of Mitsuru, she seems pretty cool. Same with the autistic trans-coded robot girl and the dog, those guys are like 50% of the reason I wanted to play this game.

Tartarus was also way fucking cooler than I expected! Well, not in Reload, but in Portable it was pretty comfy and had enough going on with its moment to moment gameplay to make me not fall asleep. Though early on your power scales up way faster than the difficulty of the floors themselves do, and the bosses felt more like brute forcing them instead of instigating a strategy. Reload feels like it makes that whole dealie even worse, like you get all the fun midgame toys from Persona 5 like right away, and I feel like it just trivializes the whole thing (I am not playing on hard mode ever again though, it literally just makes the game twice as long, made the mistake once in Persona 5)! They also had an opportunity to give Tartarus sections more of their own mechanical identity to mix it up from the more pure dungeon crawling of the original, and at least what I've played it just feels worse somehow, even more lifeless and toothless. Maybe I'll change my mind once I get to the later portions, but I was not very impressed.

I don't wanna carry on with the negatives too much, there's clearly a lot to love here, and I'm sure this will end up being a lot of people's go-to way to experience P3, but man, Reload is so much. Seriously considering just playing FES first instead next time, and then working my way up through each iteration, because even as somebody who has only had minimal contact with the original Persona 3, something really feels off about this game. I don't trust it. Maybe I'm just annoying and old though.

Anyways, Persona 6 should be about a 40 year old lesbian detective and her talking tanuki tulpa that nobody else can see who says kinda borderline problematic shit. Also probably put a different kind of music in these games next time; maybe it's just the remixes that were giving me a migraine though.

This is my third attempt at getting through Persona 3 and I finally was able to finish it. The quality of life features are very much appreciated. I also can see why this is people's favorite, a lot of the themes and writing still hold up.

There's two major things keeping this from being a 5 for me. Tartarus is still a slog, while combat has improved and Tartarus floors are smaller, at a certain point you're still climbing dozens of floors of the same stuff. The other, some of the emotional beats fall flat on their face when it's followed by cheery overworld music immediately after. Not sure if it was this way in the original, but some of the flashy fun stuff kind of hinders the dread of the world that exists.

I'll begin by expressing my appreciation for Persona 3 Portable. Not my first foray into the world of Megami Tensei, but one that resonated with me greatly. So much charm, so much character. It shined in a sea of JRPGs, a genre I was only knee-deep in. It's phenomenal story would cement its place in my memory for years to come.
For this reason it's easy to ramble about my opinions of this remake, so much so that I find it difficult to narrow down my thoughts and write a cohesive review of this remake. In short, it's great: it checks all the boxes of what you'd expect from a remake, but is it the second coming of Christ that the new-gen Persona fans have made this out to be? Not quite; I found it to be perhaps a little too faithful to the original, with flaws that cannot be ignored. But don't let that dissuade you from playing this, it is an exceptional title through and through, one demanding of your time and attention entirely.
My biggest problem with the game was how easy it is. While I may be a more experienced player in the Megami Tensei franchise, this has to be the most undemanding title in the franchise, at least in terms of skill and gameplay comprehension. Physical attacks are unbalanced, and the introduction of Theurgy skills strip the game of any remaining challenge. There are maybe one or two bosses that are balanced around these Theurgy attacks, with the rest of the game being an easy feat because of them. I cleared the game on the "Hard" difficulty setting without any significantly challenging moments, save for the optional Reaper fight.
While MegaTen (and JRPGs in general) aren't games that I play for the graphical fidelity, I found this entry to be pretty underwhelming in visuals. There are scenes in the game where it looks arguably worse than Persona 5 (2016). That being said, I think it's important to stress that this is all subjective to the player and that for maybe 90% of the game the visuals are plenty serviceable. Again, underwhelming would be the best term to describe the visuals.
The gameplay borrows quite a bit from previous entries in the Persona franchise, namely Persona 5 Royal, which stood out in a crowd of JRPGs for it's unique and ground-breaking gameplay. As such, playing Persona 3 Reload felt like reuniting with a long-lost friend, with it's iconic cast of characters and tight gameplay to boast. Despite my aforementioned grievances with the title, I greatly enjoyed the time I spent just playing the game; from exploring Tartarus and grinding out battles against shadows, to just kicking back and watching the story unfold, there is plenty of fun and enjoyment to be had here.
In summary, this is an exceptional JRPG and a worthy entry to the Persona/MegaTen franchise that both newcomers and returning veterans can--and should--enjoy. In my 96 hours with the title, I found that while the developers may have played it a little too safe in this remake, returning to the world of Persona 3 was delightful, and I'm glad I was able to reunite with the its wonderful cast and experience the captivating story once more.

Guiado por um roteiro ousado, que tropeça em notáveis elementos técnicos, compensados pela notável paixão de seus criadores, P3R se mostra uma aventura sensível, empática e intensa, mesmo entre aquelas que ousam tocar em temas mais profundos. Com um elenco principal de personagens fenomenal, a jornada de quase 100 horas de gameplay acerta no que se propõe a abordar.

Entretanto, mesmo deixando de lado seus irmãos de franquia (P5R, P4G e P3FES), não são poucas as vezes que o jogo apresenta cenas, conceitos ou desfechos que causem, no mínimo, um levantar de sobrancelha, especialmente considerando que os antagonistas da jornada possuem o carisma de uma imagem feita por inteligência artificial. Felizmente, os fraquíssimo elenco de antagonistas e os momentos de tédio ao longo da reta final de gameplay são elementos que podem ser superados com um pouco de boa vontade.

Dentre as evoluções de personagem e a densidade temática que vai se formando na reta final do game, P3R apresenta clareza e coragem nos seus momentos chaves, com especial destaque para os arcos do Junpei, Ken e Aigis. Vale mencionar que os pontos chave da narrativa ainda são impactantes mesmo nos dias atuais, quase 20 anos depois do lançamento. Naturalmente, a obra segue sendo uma das melhores mídias já inspirados por Evangelion, obra a qual o jogo não cansa de tomar inspirações, conceitos e fazer referências sem medo de associação direta.

Elementos como dublagem, animação, música e design geral acabam caindo no que você espera da Atlus. Em P3R eles continuam com a sequência histórica de qualidade em todos esses aspectos, então me resta pedir desculpas, já que palavras são insuficientes para descrever o quão bem implementados foram esses elementos, desde o começo até o último momento da jornada do game.

Para resumir, P3R é uma experiência no mínimo intrigante do que vou resumir como "Expectativa vs Arte". O jogo certamente não foi o que eu esperava, e eu fico feliz que tenha sido assim, não me arrependo de sequer um minuto dessa jornada, e sei que se tivesse conhecido essa obra em outro momento da minha vida, o impacto pessoal teria sido muito maior.