After 20 hours with Persona 3 Reload, I'm going to shelve it for now. In those twenty hours I was surprisingly captivated by the game despite being largely uninterested in JRPGs or life sims - the latter being the dimension of the game I enjoyed the most.

What halted my progress in P3R is generally its sense of repetition, particularly throughout Tartarus. I found its seemingly endless, faceless depths to be fairly mindless to ascend through, a major bummer when the combat is so satisfying. Even the rote daily schedule began to wear a bit, which was a clear signal that I needed a break.

I do hope to return to P3R due to how captivating the storyline is, and how intrigued I am to develop a lot of my social links. I was simply beginning to feel like I was going through the motions for the sake of not losing my momentum towards P3R's conclusion, rather than playing it solely for the enjoyment of the in-game moment.