So, just as a disclosure, I've tried playing through Persona 3 before, specifically Persona 3 Portable (on my Vita, not the recent remaster). In that playthrough, I only got up to after Fuuka joins the crew before dropping the game entirely. I think there's too much of a tradeoff in visual presentation in that version and I didn't feel like getting a copy of FES. This unfortunately means that I am reviewing this remake as someone who isn't super familiar with the original, as I didn't get far in Portable and I've never played the version that fans tend to say is the best (P3 FES). Luckily for me, this remake exists, and damn I really enjoyed my time with it.

When looking at Persona 3 Reload as its own thing and not a remake (which I will try to do for the rest of this review since I'm not exactly reliable on what the original game was like anyway), this game has a lot of strengths and only a few weaknesses in my opinion. I think my complaints will echo a lot of the more common ones, but nonetheless I think they are fair ones to throw out there. The game formula, overall, is unfortunately not that engaging to me. I did enjoy the core gameplay of switching out party members, exploiting enemy weaknesses, giving buffs and debuffs, taking out every shadow I see, and fusing strong personas in the Velvet Room, plus the new Theurgy feature which is basically a strong finishing move you charge up the gauge for through different means for different characters (like how Yukari heals and the protagonist switches personas). This game's main source of combat, though, is not very fun. To elaborate a little, unlike Persona 5 and Persona 4 - which have specialized separate dungeons to fit story thematics and certain characters - Persona 3 has all of its combat (aside from the full moon boss fights) take place in one big dungeon called Tartarus. I don't find Tartarus fun to explore for a variety of reasons, but my main issue with it is that it just doesn't feel like it has much to offer. Each room is procedurally generated with treasures to find and shadows to take down, but I find that the rooms of each block of Tartarus (its split into five different blocks) just kinda blend together; they follow a similar general structure. To clarify, the blocks do have many visual differences and some structural differences, like how the floors on the Harabah block have a psychedelic LED lights aesthetic, while the Tziah block has a golden royal look to it. Similarly, Harabah has a fittingly zig-zag twists-and-turns style structure to its floors. However, each floor on a particular block kinda just feels like more of the same: fight shadows, look around for chests, find the stairs, rinse and repeat. I think its rather disappointing considering how Persona 5 was able to have stuff that felt like genuine progression in its dungeons, like all the events that take place in them, the puzzles, needing to take a day to unlock the heart of a palace, and just much more purposeful level design overall, although I do know that's an unfair comparison since Persona 5's dungeons aren't procedurally generated. The more fair comparison is Mementos in P5, and, admittedly, I did still feel Tartarus was more interesting than Mementos. Also, the social sim aspects of this game feel less polished than Persona 4 or Persona 5 in my opinion. Some of the Social Links feel stretched out far too long or rely too much on you agreeing with everything that everyone says, even if its actually a bad thing for them. Kenji is probably the most infamous example; his link is very easy to do and the Magician arcana has a lot of useful Personas tied to it, so he was the first link I maxed out for practical reasons, but the actual link is boring. Most of it is just him talking about dating his teacher and you have to be his hype man to get the most points. Having the option to tell him not to date this teacher would break the entire link, so its just not even there. I did actually quite like Kenji's appearances in the main story, though; they get some good comedy out of how much of a slacker he can be or how much of a plain guy he is. Another example is Miyamoto, whose social link I admittedly didn't finish but I didn't like how the game encourages you to tell him to keep competing in track even when he tells you his knee is seriously injured. "Just walk it off" instead of "You should go get that taken care of".

However, I think it is absolutely worth powering through Tartarus and overlooking the more boring social links to experience the story. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Although it does take a while to really get going, I felt that was worth it since, honestly, the way this game gets me to care about and love the characters had me so enamored. Part of how it achieves this is actually through the slow pacing; friendships are made mostly out of necessity at first, since you're all students living in the same dorm and it doesn't take long until you find out you're Persona users united by the common goal of learning the mysteries of Tartarus and the Dark Hour (that ominous extra hour of the day where everything turns green and ordinary people transform into coffins so they never get to see it). The friendships end up blossoming into genuine relationships not too long in, although some characters already have relationships before the game begins like how Akihiko and Mitsuru were Persona users working together before you ever showed up. I do find it funny how Fuuka is the only party member you get to see unlock her persona for the first time, while the rest get it offscreen. Persona 4 and Persona 5 make a big deal out of every character awakening to their persona, so it just goes to show how different Persona 3 is in comparison. Of course, since these games have very long stories, I'm not gonna bother summarizing the whole thing, but I will talk about the parts I really liked...which will take me a while, lol. I think the mystery of Tartarus and the Dark Hour itself is pretty compelling, especially learning that the family business Mitsuru was born into - the Kirijo Group - had done some truly terrible things there and kept it under wraps. One of the first things the characters notice when they first see Tartarus is that the school transforms into Tartarus during the Dark Hour. This is because, 10 years before the game's events, the Kirijo Group used the school as a location to conduct an experiment on the Death shadow. At first, you're led to believe that defeating the shadows in Tartarus as well as the big arcana shadows that show up every full moon is the best course of action because of a doctored tape shown by the chairman Ikutsuki, but the unaltered tape explains that you should not be hunting down the arcana shadows because the experiment split Death into those arcana shadows. Killing them causes them to reunite with Death, and when Death is reborn, he is used to power Nyx, which causes the whole apocalyptic end portion of the game where Nyx's arrival is inevitable, and her arrival will mean the end of everything. The party members vow to challenge certain death...and, of course, because its Persona, they defeat the god and succeed, but the way they handle receiving the news that death is inevitable is really interesting since each party member has their own way of handling the thought that they're going to die. They all come to the same realization: the only way to make life worth living is to stare death in the face and do what you can to help others. A rather literal "power of friendship" type thing here, but it works well since I think a more hopeful message regarding death is good. As you likely gathered by now, a huge theme of this game is death, and, while the game kinda beats you over the head with that in so many ways (some Social Links involve helping people cope with death, two supporting characters die in the main story and the main characters have to deal with the grief they feel from that, the main character sacrifices his life to seal Nyx, etc.), it adds a lot of meaning to the game's story overall. I especially love how the main villain group, Strega, is essentially a group of nihilistic teens that serve as philosophical opposites to the party members. One of the Strega members, Chidori, is vital to a main party member's growth as a person, as they grow to care for each other and even have a little romance despite the circumstances. The members of Strega deliberately try to detach themselves from the joys and feelings that come with being human and its interesting to watch them struggle with that; even Jin, probably the least developed member of the team, reveals that he has a strong loyalty and personal attachment to the leader, Takaya, due to their past together, and that is why Jin follows him so fervently. Meanwhile, Takaya believes he is the savior of mankind (to the point that his design is pretty much a parody of Renaissance-era depictions of Jesus Christ), delivering "salvation" in the form of killing others. He revels in the oblivion that Nyx would bring, while the heroes challenge it.

I already mentioned how I really like the characters, so I'll use this paragraph to elaborate on that more. Something about the way Persona 3 Reload handles social aspects and overall characterization makes everyone feel so real and fleshed out. This is helped by the Social Links and the really great main story, as expected for a Persona game, but near the latter portion of this game, you get a lot of opportunities to interact with the characters outside of the usual things. Before then, you did still have this feature called Linked Episodes that have you hang out with male party members to advance their personal stories (to my understanding this was done because they had no social links in the original game), and that is a really great feature in my opinion, but Persona 3 Reload later adds something that allows you to casually hang out with them as well. Since each member of the party - SEES - lives in the same dorm, you can join them in leisurely activities like watching DVDs, reading books, cooking, brewing coffee, tending to garden plants (this comes with the nice benefit of improving the plants by giving you more upon harvest or improving the effects), brushing the dog, walking the dog together...there are so many opportunities to interact with your party members in this game and it made me feel much more attached to them. I love that Shinjiro takes pride in teaching you how to cook and nearly breaks down after watching a sad animal movie with you (relatable). In fact, I think Shinjiro in particular gets a lot of much needed time for his "sweet and sour" - for lack of a better description - personality to shine and for his touching relationship with the MC to develop, since you learn more about his backstory and grow to care about him before the death that he knows is coming. But the other characters still benefit a LOT from this too, in my opinion: I love that Ken pretends to like black coffee to make himself look more adult (only to try it enough that he actually ends up liking it naturally), I love how Junpei enjoys gardening to the point that he uses the plants as a metaphor for his growth as a person, I love how Akihiko's obsession with training ruins corny action flicks for him, I especially love the robot girl Aigis taking moronic advice from Junpei completely seriously which causes her to say corny phrases. The dorm activities are meant to give stat boosts and other bonuses like an extra Theurgy or easier ways to charge up the Theurgy gauge, but, even when I had maxed out stats and would gain nothing else from them, there were several times that I did it anyway just because I liked these characters. There's also the escapades the team gets up to in the optional Command Room camera tapes; they're very goofy but man are they entertaining, stuff like Shinjiro trying to hide that he likes watching cooking shows or Fuuka trying out a phony exercise brace she bought that instead tickles her a lot. All this made me feel so much more of a connection to Persona 3's main cast than anyone in Persona 5 and Persona 4, though that's not to talk bad about those games characters since I still like them a lot. I guess this is a long drawn out way to say that SEES feels like a true team where everyone really cares about each other, despite their flaws, and it's wonderfully shown in both main story and side activities.

I'll talk about the social aspects just a little more here. Despite the game's more boring social links, I found this also had some of my favorite links in the series. I love how Tanaka's, for example, is basically him trying to teach you how to be a sleazy businessman, and the game really exaggerates just how much of a conniving slimeball this guy is. The link with Maya was almost nostalgic for me because it takes place entirely on the computer inside a fictional MMO, and much of it is based in 2000s MMO culture which I thought was fun. Unfortunately the game does have some problems with balancing the social aspects in my opinion. This is a common complaint from what I've seen, but, at night, there isn't much to do, especially when nearing the last few months in the game. Your social stats (Charm, Courage, and Academics) are likely already max at that point and there are very few social links that take place at night. The game also gives out so many school breaks that it can be pretty tough to finish all the social links that can only be done at school; if I have any advice to give other players, its to prioritize those links over any others. I missed out on finishing so many school Social Links both because of this and because I kept going for unlocking new ones rather than finishing the ones I started.

This review was very long, but I suppose that's par for the course with a game as long as this. Can you believe there's still other details I really wanted to talk about? I really enjoyed this game and, honestly, I think its my favorite out of the Persona games I've played. It has a very interesting and lovable cast of characters, a great (albeit rather slow) story, and the gameplay was still fun even if Tartarus was kind of a slog to get through. 264 floors of Tartarus was just nuts. Regardless, I give Persona 3 Reload a solid 4.5 stars; very close to a 5, but the nitpicks add up unfortunately.