You would think having experienced this game across 3 separate iterations, 4 movies, a (brief) skim through the latter half of the manga, and an unhealthy amount of revisits of the game's strongest moments in the span of 2 months would result in just being sick of what the story has to offer at some point, or at least a temporary burn out and move on to another series for a time. Instead I came out of this even more confident in the feelings FES had already brought out by the time the credits rolled.

I already held Persona 3's story, tone and characters to a higher standard than the other two modern games, with the only real problems I had being the sheer amount of dead time during day and night and the eventual feeling that despite the randomized nature of Tartarus, every visit felt the same. And that wouldn't be a problem if the gameplay loop for the first half of FES is some of the most exhausting shit ever as a result of the fatigue system paired with the nigh incomprehensible AI decisions that disregarded any tactics you employ under certain circumstances. That aside its still hard for me not to recommend FES before or even after playing reload for the sake of noticing the subtle (and not so subtle) differences between the two. The main thing to really consider about Persona 3 Reload is that it is not a remake of OG, FES or Portable; its an amalgamation of every official version of this story that even takes liberties from the movies and the Femc route of Portable. I'd go farther to say that Reload's biggest issue is something brought about by Portable's existence: cutscene direction. While it doesn't hurt the narrative in the long run, I can't help but wonder why these changes had to exist in the first place. The immediate scene that comes to mind is Aigis' resolution in December. Aigis is a character I am completely normal about and totally have not formed a confirmation bias regarding the structure of her character and shared fate with the main character being turned on its head by November into being the most natural and heartwarming relationship between a silent protag and party member in the series. That aside, while her awakening is still fine when it comes to the back and forth between her comrades (I'd even go as far to say her new voice actress kills these scenes and especially her social link), the tone and shot direction of the original is axed in favor of this static conversation on the couch with the most expression being Aigis standing up and sitting down (but eventually smiling so I again I can't fully hate the scene lol). In comparison OG makes use of the cramped setting of the dorm to give this inherently dramatic composition paired with an emotionally distant Aigis who isn't looking any of her teammates in the eyes, all the while holding her wrist close to her chest (something she does in Reload eventually but again the problem is THIS scene specifically), eventually leading to her outright falling to the ground, paralyzed in fear of death, not of her own concern, but because of everybody that has allowed her a chance at life, despite her contradictory existence. Again this point gets across in Reload as well, and at the end of the day this is pretty nitpicky considering how many cutscenes are revamped to give more dynamic expressions and animations for the cast, Strega and the social links especially are noticeably given love in this area, as well as them now being fully voiced for every rank.

Brainrot aside, the gameplay side of Reload is something I was expecting to be more mixed about. Instead I just had a good ass time making stupid ass builds no different from FES and Royal. Of course Reload may be a bit overtuned for the player if you aren't on merciless but like, so was FES if you put in enough time in those tartarus visits. I was especially confused as to the discourse around Nyx's difficulty, which I probably don't have the right to speak on as I was overleveled every time I fought them. Point is I don't see the same problems in the scaling as FES fans do, its all up to your agency to grind in advance to hitting the eventual wall or just saying fuck it and beat your head against every wall until you've gotten past everything on your own terms, a mindset that will most likely be carried on to this games version of The Answer, which day one content aside, I hope is handled well.

The daily sim of these games was always something I'm pretty indifferent to overall, mainly due to how much dead time can build up for the sake of giving the player time to rationalize the situation at hand (October through December). Social links have always been hit or miss in all of these games, Akinari and Aigis being the only ones I could confidently call great in FES, and still honestly believe after accidentally doing a max social link run this playthrough. However, voiced social links through every rank did wonders for characters like Bebe, Yuko, and the party members, especially when paired with platonic routes that alleviate how awkward the transition towards romance is handled in this series, even if Yukari should have enough chemistry with the mc in the main story to negate this, it still ends up not landing for me most of the time personally. Naturally this also means the jealousy system is gone entirely and with it Fuuka is automatically much better for not bricking my save file by October and forcing me to drop two entire social links in fortune and strength like she did in FES. Linked Episodes are also a welcome addition but not really something you can implement naturally without there being prior knowledge of who even is a social link in the main game. Overall an improvement from prior games but can be infinitely expanded upon if Atlus so wishes.

The main story is mostly untouched, outside of the aforementioned changes in direction, and animated cutscenes (and lack thereof in certain places) that pairs with the more familial bond SEES has throughout the game that FES had more than enough time to expand on. Strega is given much more attention, with Chidori specifically getting just a bit more to do with Junpei in her closing moments (disregarding the revival event which I still like) and explicitly mirrors the main character's final moments on Graduation Day, somehow making this entire stretch hit even harder than it did any other time previously.

I'm sure there's much more to mention but I'd just be recounting all of the best moments these games highlight enough in a given playthrough, so I'll just close with the soundtrack honestly containing my favorite tracks in any game I've played so far. Memories of the School was given so much justice to the point it outright surpasses its original composition to me, Color your Night is just peak and nobody should question it, and this game's version of Burn my Dread Last Battle adds a more somber tone from the perspective of the mc alongside the swan song feeling the original gave from the perspective of those that gave him life.

Overall an amazing remake given form by its predecessors, not made for the purpose of replacing any version previous regardless of your opinion on it, but instead made to stand alongside its roots while hopefully paving a new standard for the future games to inevitably not follow up on.

This is probably gonna be one of my longer review since i have alot of mixed feelings on this game and its sad that i cant put this game any higher. I was waiting for this game as long as any other ff7 fan with high expectations, and i spent 100 dollars on this shit so this game leaving me with unsatisfactory rlly bothers me.

I want to start with the positives cuz dont get me wrong its not a BAD game by any means.

First, rebirth is one of the most visually beautiful games you will ever see, cutscenes, areas, land, characters all look better than it ever was compared to prior ff games and im glad to see how attractive the game looks, similar to OG, rebirth does a great job at getting comfortable and enjoying all the characters in the cast giving them individual dungeons, focus in the story and the constant back n forth between one half of a party to another allowing the player to have a chance to explore and play as each and every character. The combat is a big stepup from remake, with the addition of synergy attacks and vast combinations of abilities.


I am a little mixed(or confused)on the story but the one thing im satisfied the most is cloud and sephiroth as they have a huge stepup narratively compared to OG, i like how rebirth focuses more on the degration of a soldiers body and particularly how clouds psyche is affected+with sephiroth interference. Rebirth emphasizes on how powerful sephiroth is by manipulating clouds mind to doing things without a conscious such as when the visions he sees and his impact to attack other people such as when he attacks the sephiroth clones constantly or to the extent of attacking tifa, or he when he retrieves the black materia from aerith. rebirth rlly shows us how messed up and unreliable cloud truly is and that what looks like is going to be the main focus of next game has me hooked.

Now the positives of this game is unfortunately cut short as square enix still suffers from making an engaging open world game, mission layouts and pacing for when it comes to ff7. I never rlly had the love other ff fans when it comes to 7 and unfortunately its the same for rebirth as it continues to make this game feel like a chore, now to specifically what im complaining about is:

The open world, one of if not my biggest concern when starting this game was if square enix was able to create a fresh, unique and engaging open world that allows players to freely explore the unknown without some kid calling you every time you discover something or when you open up the map and dont see a whole checklist that makes up the exploration.

Oh well to no surprise im talking about rebirth, Now i full cleared the first three regions before i got absolutely bored of the other and half assed them and holy shit man this game did not change a SINGLE thing in each region, its the same thing every region, get chocobo,find towers, investigate summons,scan that crystal shit who even knows what that does, and do some battle challenges maybe a mini boss thats not rlly challenging and side quests which as per usual arent good. the open world is very limited and the only thing that is not marked on the map are chocobo stations but they are impossible to miss when a big ass chocobo is leading you to it.

this is like assassins creed type of open world, which are also not good, this was by far the biggest disappointment and it was sad that i didnt have the motivation to continue to explore the world by like chapter 8.

Another thing that bothered me is the unusual amount of mandatory mini games during the main chapters, there should never EVER be like 4-5 chapters where minigames take up majority of the chapter, like what type of bullshit was square enix on? Excluding the last 2 chapters, im sure there is more mandatory minigames than main bosses fought, and like 75% of the minigames werent even good and all the good ones were locked in late game where i was alrdy drained out and tired of rebirth.

Dont get me wrong i dont hate games that have 1 or 2 mandatory sections of minigames, i was even enjoying it in rebirth early in the game with minigames such as queens blood. But when u have filler chapters every other chapter it not only slows down the pacing but it makes the game (for me at least) disengaging, and its not like the dungeons are that good that it kept me going cuz even those were pretty boring and basic dungeons, the pure motivation to finish this game was cloud/sephiroth and the 100 dollars i potentially wasted.

I do wanna leave off a positive point of rebirth because i do think this game is more good than bad, as for example the last 2 chapters of this game was the first time i was like “i might’ve gotten my money worth” since it actually looked like square enix put effort and time intos the final dungeon and ofc the iconic scene and sephiroth boss fights. It sucks cuz the ending hooked me like the remake did and i know im gonna buy the next game, i jus hope that some of these problems are fixed/improved.

I do really want to like this game, i like the cast and the concept in ff7, and it sucks cuz probably im the only ff7 player who feels this way about this game because this is not the first time i have these mixed feelings about ff7, its every single ff7 game ;from og to crisis core to remake and now rebirth, where I enjoy the story but the gameplay keeps it from the score i want to put it at.

it’s unfortunate this game didnt live to the expectations not only i put on it but as well as square enix did and the only thing i can hope is it grows on me or the next game whenever it is, makes up for it but this time i should probably keep my expectations a bit lower.

I'm probably going to be in the minority and say that this may be the best version of Persona 3 you can play. The party members are much more fleshed out, the turn-based combat system is much better here and all the social links are voiced. The 2 things that are missing are FEMC (which I don't really care for tbh) and The Answer. This brings me to the 1 glaring problem with this game the outrageous DLC policy where they sell you a 70$ game and try to sell you a 30$ DLC for the complete experience IN A REMAKE.

fantasic rpg with questionable story choices the closer to the finale you get

cast of supporting characters is too big to give everyone a satisfying end and falls short of Yakuza 5's ability to wrap up a large complex story, IW feels like it manages to wrap up it's core ideas but doesn't know what to do with loose plot threads or just straight up forgot until last minute

having liked Gaiden's story especially was disappointing with how comnected characters were handled, you can tell Gaiden was made After this

overall I still loved my time with it and enjoyed the story for the most part, it just feels more like a middle entry of a trilogy than it's own thing with a satisfying end imo