Before anything, I am mad and I refuse to suffer alone. I saw someone say the Star arcana looks like Todd Howard. Enjoy!

As much as I would like to say "I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS!" the more I heard more about the game before I got around to it as late as I have, the more worried I got. Thanks Sega for releasing 2 jrpgs I wanted to play so close to each other with Yakuza coming out first. Only getting one day off a week isn't gonna stop me from JRPGing! I will wake up MANY hours early to make progress before heading in for the day. Persona 3 FES is my favorite jrpg, one of my top games of all time and should we evoke a "one per franchise" rule so mgs1,2,3,4,and revengence aren't hogging the top 5, it would be my number 2. Some things that follow might come off harsh, nitpicky or complaining for complaining's sake. Its also easier to complain than compliment, especially when a lot of what I like about this game is story related. The only game that would be under even harsher scrutiny would be a remake of MGS1. Regardless of any complaints that follow, thank god people who are unable to handle ai party members and don't want to emulate and mod no longer need to settle for a worse presenting version of Persona 3 called Persona 3 Portable now that this exists.

So lets start with the story, and despite this game approaching 20 years old I'm gonna be as spoiler free as possible. Gameplay I'll spoil mechanics but story is the most important part of jprgs so I'm gonna let that remain obfuscated. In a post FF7R world, every "remake" now has the potential to be a different game while wearing the skin of the old to get people to buy it so just seeing something getting a remake isn't a cause for celebration for me anymore. The plot is by and large the same, including the early months often sited as being "too plow paced" and I couldn't be happier about that. Persona 3's story and themes were something that changed me as a person, and I still hold strong to a lot of those beliefs to this day. Make no mistake, there were changes. Some new scenes and dialogues were added, some of which were there to explain changes to things such as the outfits or the new Theurgy system. The other new story scenes and dialogues don't really take away anything and attempted to do a little bit of fleshing out for some of the more underbaked characters to lackluster results unless it was a link episode. The main villain had a line in one of these that could have been taken from a redditor or your average twitter user. You can also see the post arena aspect of Akihiko and Mitsuru effect them as well. As far as social links go the changes to their contents are minute at best, so the good ones are still good (SUN) and the bad ones are still bad (MOON). You also don't get automatically put into a romance with female characters which to me was a mandatory change. Certain options will raise the romance flag but if you did it accidentally or didn't realize some lead that way, in my experience, you can walk it back before committing towards the end of the link. You can also rewind up to the last 5 "passage of time" events should you think you messed up somewhere. You should still be rotating your saves though, don't be an idiot in that regard. Social links are also fully voiced now, but interactions outside of those such as some weekend hangouts aren't. The male party members didn't have social links in the original and in portable they replaced other social link characters but here they have link episodes I mentioned prior which are more streamlined social link replacements. You don't need to worry about choosing the right options, they are linear and while giving you the expected reward for maxing out a social link (a unique fusion) you get other goodies too, but even without those I think seeing the characters get more added to them is worth it alone. I always appreciate more Koromaru. I've seen this ending several times in my life now, be it by playing or watching other people and it never fails to hit me. That piano has the same effect on me as Secret Base from Anohana. I think I cried harder now that back when I beat the game the first time.

Graphically and animation wise, the game is beautiful. Atlus has really stepped up their 3d game, I didn't play Royal so maybe this has been the standard for awhile, and just more proof at how much of an inarguable downgrade portable was in terms of presentation to the original. All these pivotal moments aren't reduced to shaking jpgs and sound effects. There was also a good amount of anime cutscenes still in the game, which makes me wonder why ones such as the first persona awakening and Aigis' introduction were in 3d among others. Those 3d recreations had for lack of a better word lost some "soul". However I do think the new art direction is at odds with Persona 3's themes and general mood quite often. Outside of blues, the original game as more muted and here is more saturated and bright. Also it has the persona 5 strikers thing where everyone looks like they've been dipped in olive oil. They look damp and shiny at all times. But the "hit the weakness" and critical persona attack busting through the character face cut in didn't get old, and I honestly used it to figure out weaknesses before they even hit. The new Theurgy mechanic's animations were so fluid and fun to watch which is good cuz you can't skip them, just like all out attacks. I'll go into more detail about them in the gameplay section. Having the camera be closer to the MC (who I will refer to as Makoto going forward) as opposed to the birds eye view allows a lot more detail to be seen, especially in tartarus where they went mental in visual design. It doesn't fix the inherent issues with tartarus as a whole but at least its more visually stimulating. Every character has their own all out attack end screen and you bet I was using the screenshot feature for all of them. The battle end animation was also dynamic, with the characters walking away in different orders. I don't know exactly what effects the order other than whoever landed the killing blow has the center focus. That pause menu though, my god that pause menu! It was so smooth I damn near slipped out of my chair when I first saw it in person. The fall into the water transition, the character's faces in the shard in Makoto's hand while looks through the party, the persona flavor text, oozing style. Does that match Persona 3 tone wise? No not at all but I'd be a liar if I said it isn't appealing. That's some more of your unignorable P5 influence in action. The new outfits are also really slick. I like them all but I think Yukari, Mitsuru and Fuuka got the best ones. However should you want to go back to the classic outfit with classic armband, you can since its a costume and wont effect stats. I'm glad that is the case but I didn't take advantage of that cuz again, I REALLY like the new outfits. Also the battle panties and "Sexy armor" (thats what its called) are still in the game and that shocked me as I didn't think those would come back. Maybe I'm just too used to games not having shit like that anymore.

In terms of voice acting, I do think its all good to great. However I still don't see why most of the VAs needed to be replaced (we know why Junpei's old one was gonna be replaced no matter what), especially since some are still in the game as different characters or in Elizabeth's case is still her OG, Tara Platt who was Mitsuru's OG va as well. Like if they can still do the voice and were clearly available since you still have them in the game as smaller roles, it feels to me as you didn't wanna pay their "now a more known name" rates. The treatment of voice actors is a discussion for another time and place, not in a review of a video game like some game journalist would force in. At least I got to hear Liam O'Brien again in some form. Junpei and Mitsuru's VAs, Zeno Robinson and Allegra Clark respectively, sound like they're going for imitation and they do a bang up job. If I didn't know beforehand I probably would have taken a good while to notice the change. Fuuka is a straight up improvement to me, and I find it funny that she shares her VA with FF7R Yuffie, Suzie Yeung. Game crushes from my youth both have the same VA in remakes is quite the coincidence. The main one I took issue with was Akihiko's new VA, Alejandro Saab. He's not bad, I actually think he did a great job but Liam O'Brien is one of my favorite VAs so no one was gonna fill that void and he did not grow on me despite being a main part of my battle party. Koromaru is also actually voiced by a human now doing dog sounds and I never got used to it. Yes it was stock wolf noises in the original but you can't beat a wolf howl. It was just off and he's always in my party since he's the single best character in the series. Everyone else of SEES (Yukari, Aigis, Shinji, Ken) were fine, minor things like I miss the bite Michelle Ruff gave Yukari's delivery and the initial more stilted speech Aigis had that went away as she spend more time with the crew are gone but they weren't dealbreakers.

Now for gameplay. As I said above, you have full control over party members. REJOICE all of you who didn't see the big fuckin TACTICS option and fell victim to the "Mitsuru used Marin Karin" memes. Unlike in portable, the game feels balanced for it. Some character's kits have been reworked such as Akihiko not having as many debuffs but that aint gonna stop me from using him just like how Ken being really good now won't make him a permanent member. You have the "Shift" mechanic with is not quite baton pass but allows you to free swap after knocking an enemy down so you can continue to do so. You're gonna want to do that cuz shuffle time has been reworked with new rewards and buffs along with the original money, sword, healing and exp choices that you're gonna want it after every battle. Grab those major arcana cards for buffs such as more exp, persona stat increases and being able to choose multiple cards during shuffle time and when you grab enough you get an ARCANA BURST which increases the level of all reward cards. The Theurgy mechanic is also brand new and is basically super attacks that ignore resistances or buff/heal your party. Every character's meter fills up by just fighting but doing specific things will make it fill up faster but not all requirements are made equal. For example, Aigis hitting with her physical skills gives her more meter than just regular attacking while Yukari get more for healing, which is what she is doing most of the time. Characters also get specific traits as you bond with them in non social link related hangouts at the dorm such as Yukari having healing spells only use 1/2 their required sp. Another change that I expected to be mandatory was the ability to manually choose persona skills for inheritance, not just for yours but your party members as well. Not only that, but the skill card copying is much better too. You go up to the inari, pray, choose the card you want and you get the copy immediately and best of all IT TAKES NO TIME. There is literally no reason to not copy cards every day that you can and it makes the sword cards of shuffle time no longer being weapons but instead skill cards an easier pill to swallow.

If you didn't like Tartarus in the older games then I don't know if they did enough here to make you like it, unless you're a style first person then you might be shallow enough to be pleased. The floors are a lot more visually stimulating as I said earlier but you're still running through randomly generated floors despite the new mechanics. The sizes of the floors vary greatly. Sometimes its not much more than an L shape even at the higher floors and other times its like 3 large treasure areas with 16 hallways connecting them all. Until you leave tartatrus though, floors are persistent once explored. Going back to a floor will leave any chests as they were when you moved on but enemies will still respawn. Characters would also not shut the fuck up in tartarus. When you see an enemy, a chest, a teleporter, the stairs, after battle, just walking around, dead air is not allowed until you have cleared that floor out. I heard the same lines over and over and even changing character doesn't really change much outside of the non generics. Outside of gold hands, treasure chests, strong enemies and floor centric gimmicks like "enemies have aliments" or "its fucking dark" you now have breakables for items to sell or consumables, locked chests, monad doors and greed shadows. Those locked chests replace the gold chests of the original and require Twilight Fragments to open. Twilight Fragments are one of the most important things you will have in this remake. As I said you need them for locked chests which is where you'll find weapons and gear but now you need to use them to heal at the clock. Yes the clock costs something now and early on you will be struggling to have any amount of those shards. There are a handful of them as one time pickups in the overworld but you mainly get them as rewards for leveling social links as well as rewards from Elizabeth's requests but rarely you can find them as breakables on floors. There is also no bench EXP in this game so you have two options when it comes to catching up characters. 1, the old fashioned way of grinding reapers or two, the great clock. I try to fight the reaper before beating the game each time and outside of the flu exploit in vanilla p5, this one wasn't too difficult even with unoptimized personas thanks to Theurgy. Outside of battle it made me damn near shit myself though. The great clock appears on floors after using a certain amount of twilight shards. How many? No idea but it was definitely more than 10. That allows you two pick 2 party members and the next battle you fight with them, will catch them up to within a level of Makoto. I would have very much rather a bench exp system that at worst started out at like 25% and increased with the fool social link or something. The Monad Doors come in two types, those on random floors and those on boss floors. The ones on random floors are a single hallway with a boss in the middle, and you get two chests as a reward which in my experience was something random and then materials for weapon crafting. The boss doors are several hallways with several bosses and chests that tend to end with you getting a new arcana card for shuffle time so you can access more effects. They're good for exp but I was definitely bored of them after the first couple times. I still did them all, no reason not to. Greed shadows will basically do all your collecting work for you as they open all the chests but in order to catch them you are forced to make choices as you chase. I never missed one but also once Fuuka learns tartarus search it removes that aspect and you can just fight them after a dialogue box.

Music is where most of my complaints lie since I do love me the Persona 3 OST. The new music like "Its Going Down Now" and "Color Your Night" are fantastic, especially the latter. Go listen to it RIGHT THE FUCK NOW! Full Moon Full Life is the new into and its good, but I prefer Burn My Dread. I appreciated the respect to Burn My Dread and Want to be Close in the beginning but I don't appreciate the teasing. Majority of the remixes I don't really care for though, they're at best inoffensive. I can actually understand the dorm music now outside of "HEY HEY HEY" and that was a trip. I think the only one I liked more outright was Changing Seasons and it really felt like they added a lot more lyrics as opposed to the barely audible french in the original that happened like twice. Two of my favorite songs in Persona 3 are "Mass Destruction" and "Want to be Close" to the point where the former is my favorite battle theme in the genre. I could not dislike those remixes any more than I do. I'm gonna start with "Want to be Close" first cuz I have less I can articulate well about it. As begins it sounds great, then when the lyrics start it just feels flat to me. I was able to put up with it and the game replaces it partway through anyway with Changing Seasons. As for Mass Destruction, I was no longer upset that there was a different song that played when I got advantage after listening to it, which is the aforementioned "Its Going Down Now". Just like "Want to be Close" it starts out great, some strong "BABY BABY BABY" as it begins and lotus juice sounds great but after that first "OH YEAH" it sounds like the new singer gave up. The battle theme is no longer the bop it used to be and instead like it had the life sucked out of it. Yes I am aware that "its supposed to be the enemy advantage theme so its purposefully not as exciting" but fuck that, the song isn't worth being the most played song in the game now. At least "Its Going Down Now" gave me my baby baby fix and again is a great song. The new Mass Destruction never grew on me and I gave it until late September in game, then during any non story sequence tartarus runs I was playing the original at full blast. Now I gotta deal with the chance that should Mass Destruction come to other games in the future is has a very high likelihood to be this version. If Atlus releases a classic music pack that AT LEAST includes the original Mass Destruction though it also having the original Want to Be Close is ideal, I'll bump this game up to 5 stars despite my other issues.

Another thing I was not a fan of was certain removals of social link choices. When it comes to clubs, you had an assortment of options before. When going for athletics you could choose between Kendo, Swimming and Track. For culture you could choose between art, photo and music. Here your only options are art and track. Yes I know other than the focal point of the club the actual links were barely different, but Kendo is cooler than Track. I've seen some speculation that its a causality of having all the s links being fully voiced. Thats a shame if true, y'all should learn to read. I also know the game is based off of vanilla P3 which explains other removals (some they allowed to squeeze in like Aigis' social link) but man, if it isn't lame that the Makoto is once again locked to a singular weapon type. I WANNA USE BIG SWORDS! I don't wanna use Junpei to get my big sword fix. There was also a change to a specific boss fight, it removed the player element to it. Anyone who remembers "the roulette" knows what I'm talking about. That was pretty lame. I was expecting a change in the way to "get your desired result" but making it making it full on luck, while can be seen as thematically appropriate, they still went and made it sometimes scripted. Its last spin might have more thematic meaning now that I think about it, given the cutscene that follows.

I write these reviews as I play the game and had my thoughts on the lack of answer and FEMC not being in the game initially in the above section, but two days ago The Answer dlc was announced, cheeky bastards choosing that day, to release in September in an expansion pass alongside P4EX and P5EX music and velvet room attendant costumes. I sure as hell won't be paying extra for these. How about you give me the good versions of Mass Destruction and Want to Be Close back instead? I never liked The Answer both story and gameplay wise and I can't imagine they'd change much with it given how they handled the base game though it would probably be a HELL of a lot easier with access to Theurgy. No details on FEMC, not that I ever thought she'd happen, but I can't say say I would buy the her dlc either especially with the potential of "Time" and "Way of Life" to get treated as poorly as "Want to be Close" and "Mass Destruction".

TLDR if you skipped this far (bars). Reload is the same great story with the themes and characters that made those of us love it way back when with some minor changes to them such as some extra scenes. It has beautiful models and cutscenes, slick aesthetic that in my opinion clashes with the tone and themes of the game, great voice acting, some great new tracks at the cost of butchering remixes of the more played tracks in the game (which were my favorites), but ideally more in line with what I think a remake should be and want from one. It updated gameplay to the current standards of the series without forcing a genre change but left the story 98% intact. A lot of this came off as nitpicky, but when I love a source as much as this its just whats gonna happen. At the end of the day I enjoyed my time playing the game, and thats what I want to happen when I play games first and foremost especially when its a remake of a personal favorite. If you REALLY cannot handle ai party members or don't want to emulate to use the mod for FES, which for the latter I respect and a supporter of original hardware, then this one is a more than fine version to play. You get the most important parts of what made Persona 3 so loved: its story, characters and themes without being an inferior VN and cursor experience like portable. Reload aint the definitive version as it lacks aspects like MC weapon usage, club choice variations and FEMC, though its closer with the recently announced answer dlc. Regardless, its better than having portable as the only official release of Persona 3 on current platforms. Whens the classic music pack though Atlus?

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take a break from the genre for a while. I continue to suffer from the fact most of the games I want to play are jrpgs.

The phrase “x story helped me out during a rough time” is used commonly to elaborate on how much a piece of media has helped someone out, but I can’t say that about Persona 3, primarily because it’s a story that has taken root inside me deeply and stayed with me throughout the years ever since 2021 when I first played it. It’s not like it helped me during a single rough time, it was more like an affirmative embrace and an acknowledgement of my struggles throughout all of these years collectively instead of just one period of time. Persona 3, much like Good Will Hunting, Evangelion, and Pandora Hearts, is a game that I like to revisit and reflect upon every time I feel like I’m in a rut and can’t figure out who I am and what am I supposed to do in this world. It’s something I’ve closely attached to who I am because of how much it shaped my mindsets towards life, “The meaning of our lives is something that we make but don’t see”, and, “You don’t need to save the world to find meaning in life” are quotes I internalised, reminded myself of anytime I felt myself falling down an existential crisis, and the long term effects it had on me throughout the years is not something I take for granted. In a way, Persona 3 is a symbol of my struggles during my adolescence, and so, it is that revisiting it through Reload that I felt like I was looking back on parts of myself from back then and getting in-touch with them again. It felt like a reflection of my past, of all the struggles I pushed through to make it this far to where I am today, and by the end of it, I realised that much of my own growth throughout the years was because of stories like Persona 3, growth due to me burning my dread and venturing in life while living in the moment.


When you’re faced with a crisis that you have no idea how will it end, or how you will resolve it, you have two choices, whether to believe that you’ll fail and fall into a hole of cynicism or to believe in your happiness and work towards that ideal in the moment by focusing on yourself and doing what you can until eventually, everything falls into place. This sentiment seemed too unreal to me because of how clouded my vision was with all of the negativity that I surrounded myself with back in 2020 because whenever I tried to resolve my issues, I half assed it and it backfired, whether it be my existential crisis due to the societal pressure I experienced that made me feel like I had to have a larger than life success story to be worth anything, my ever growing disdain towards the fleeting nature of bonds, struggles with navigating interpersonal issues due to my self pity and cynicism as a byproduct of my fear of abandonment, and fear of death due to religious doubts I had. All of this was too much for my 17 year old self to bear, but as I said, Persona 3 and its characters all reflected different intimate parts of who I am for a reason.


For a dumb teenager like me who couldn’t believe in himself, drowned in self pity and inferiority towards others, and had trouble seeing what was so special about myself, Junpei Iori represented my struggles with the indifference of the universe crucially. He’s someone who believes his own hype to subconsciously convince himself that he’s a hero destined to save everyone, when in reality that’s merely his coping mechanism with his deep-seated insecurity about his incompetence, and that shows in the dichotomy of his goofiness and feelings of envy and jealousy. It’s only later through meeting Chidori, someone who felt like her life held meaning due to her persona, much like he did, that he realized that he doesn’t need to be this impossible image of a hero that he created within himself and that if he kept on being true to his innermost self, the one who wanted to become a baseball player, he’ll have already become a hero to someone, like he did with Chidori. I said that Junpei’s insecurities and tendency to compare himself to others reflects a part of me in the past, but truth be told, I still have those tendencies lingering in from within me, yet in the same vein, over time I’ve learned to trust in myself, that whatever I do, it’ll result in something special. I learned that it doesn’t matter if there’s someone who’s better, smarter, more insightful than me, because no matter what, they can never be me, and so long as I pursue that self and see to it that its potential is met, everything will fall into place. It’s for that reason that I can look back on Junpei’s arc in P3 fondly and think to myself about how much it helped me internalise that self trust, because there’s nothing more real than pulling a mentally ill goth bad bitch by being funny and quirky.



When I said that P3 reflects different parts of myself from the past, I meant that because it’s not just my teenage years that it reflected but my childhood as well with characters like Ken. I could go into how characters like Mitsuru, Akihiko, Shinjiro, & Fuuka connected with me but I want to go with Ken not just because he’s my favorite among the aforementioned characters (I’m quirky, I know) but because of how he crucially reflected a part of me that no other character has, and it’s how Ken chooses to adapt to his situation to fit in in self deriding ways that I feel seen by. From the start, Ken is pushed into this dog-eat-dog world where only the strong survive, even in SEES, and that sudden change in his environment not only made him lose himself but a person’s most precious value, that being his inner child. Ken was forced to let go of his childish nature, gaslight himself into thinking that such notions would only hold him back, and proceeded to move solely through objective means because of how he was stuck in an adult world where if he doesn’t man up and throw away his childish needs and struggles, he’d be left behind, much like how his mother left him behind and so did everyone else, with their looks that were devoid of nothing but pity, yet even then, in his linked episodes, he couldn’t let go of his inner child and it shows sprinkles of his inner child peeking out due to his enthusiasm. It’s a heartbreaking accurate depiction of how much Ken struggles to connect with others and most importantly himself, because nothing has been the same for him since his Mom died. Many people, when looking at Ken’s character, view Ken’s arc as a revenge arc, and while that’s a valid reading of his character, to me, it felt like it was more so Ken reconnecting with his inner child, realising that he doesn’t need to put up this facade to “survive” and “fit in” with this cruel world, and that he doesn’t need to hold himself back emotionally so much because of others anymore, because while he may have lost his family, he gained another through SEES, and that’s what “living” means. Losing people, meeting new people, bonding with them, and doing simple things like practicing your hobbies, that’s what living really means, and that meant so much to me because back when I was a kid, I never had any friends of my own, could never really connect with them, and that’s because I always hung out with my older brother’s friends, which subsequently made me mature too fast for my good and didn’t allow me to live my childhood to its fullest. I could never connect with people my age, because I was so used to forcibly maturing myself to keep up with my older friends, I always felt like bottling up my emotions and needs in favor of a facade that could get me the closeness and sense of belonging I wanted out of their company since I was too awkward to make any friends of my own, yet on the inside I was too young and emotional to get along with my older friends, creating this unstable interpersonal problem I had that plagued my childhood. It’s funny, how I’m a grown person now, yet seeing Ken be plagued with this same issue I had and recovering from it through mundane means, almost had me tearing up because it reminded me of how much I hardened myself and designed a strong man to protect the hurting child inside me.




Earlier, I described Persona 3 as a meditative experience that gives me space for my feelings whenever I need a haven to express myself within, or feel seen within, and so, there are parts of it that are timeless to me, parts of it that help me see myself in a better light and enable me to look at myself more positively, one such part is Yukari’s character and how much of an embrace it feels to me. Truthfully speaking, my aim with my media experiences is to either escape the real world, or for edutainment purposes, but it is so rare for me to engage myself with a story that can help me discover positive, strong traits within my character that makes me love myself. It’s hard for a story to do that, since what I look for in fictional characters are parts of me that I and others around me struggle to accept, more often than not are negative parts, but that’s why Yukari means the world to me, since not only does her character give me a safe space to feel seen and accepted for my contradictory feelings of love and hate towards intimacy, but she also embodies a trait of mine that helps me accept it, that being kindness and empathy. Yukari’s premise is that she struggles with the internal conflict known as the hedgehog dilemma, where she craves intimacy but disdains contact with others, because she wants to be loved, but doesn't think she's worth loving because of the self pity, sense of weakness/inferiority, & self hatred she internalised as a byproduct of being "abandoned" by both of her parents, at least emotionally. I say emotionally because her dad died so he didn’t abandon her technically, and her mother simply clung to other men for emotional support, so she didn’t consciously abandon Yukari, but at least on an emotional level, Yukari felt like she had the deepest craving she had was taken away from her, forever a wish beyond her reach, and that affected how she perceived herself and others and based her moral compass around her disdain for her Mother who abandoned her and what she represents. Following that, Yukari would disassociate with anything that resembled the escapist coping mechanisms her Mother did through either self-denial or self-isolation from others. It’s why she despises being helped out, because not only does she blame and hate herself for what happened to her parents but because it resembles her Mother’s helpless state of feeling like she needs to be saved, it’s why she was mad when Makoto helped her out during her s. Link, it’s why she tries to present herself as this being who towers above the concept of weakness to feel a sense of leverage and derive self-worth from that, but at the same time, she’s a highly emotional person who wears their heart on their sleeve, and so bits and pieces of that need for emotional support and insecurities about her self image come out. An example of this would be her jealousy and fixation over Mitsuru, she’s so fixated on Mitsuru because deep down, she wants to be like her, someone who’s unfazed, looks powerful and is the exact opposite of her Mother. A toxic sense of admiration, you could call it, since she never recognizes this jealousy, how wrong it is since even Mitsuru’s flawless demeanor was fake and a byproduct of societal expectations, and how much it contradicts Yukari’s conscious desire to present herself powerfully, and whenever she recognizes that, it’s in self-loathing, like how she did in Yakushima, because of how much she gaslights herself into thinking that she’s strong and doesn’t need help, even if it means ignoring herself and wrongly seeing others. Despite those insecurities getting in the way of how she interacts with others, she's a very kind person who has all the love to give to others, yet when it comes to loving herself, that ''love'' she has for others is devoid of any love for herself. Time and time again, in various instances Yukari shows how much empathy and kindness she has for others, even from the start of the game, like how she was the first SEES member who bothered to reach out to Makoto and connect with him instead of spying on him, how she was the first to defend Makoto when Junpei lashed out at him, how she made insensitive jokes about Junpei but then apologized to him and considered his feelings, or with how she helped other SEES members navigate their problems like Fuuka who struggled with people pleasing habits during her final s. link and Mitsuru who struggled with self-acceptance and existential dread. Additionally, if you spend enough time with her during the night events, there's a moment where she talks about how inspiring the main female character is, how she wants to be just like her, someone who's there for everyone around her and is capable, and that puts into perspective how kind Yukari is and how much she empathizes with others. Yet, she has moments where she’s a tease and makes fun of others, sometimes in a tone-deaf way, and why is that? The majority would chalk it up to her being a quirky mean white girl, and while I get it and understand how appealing that is since I’d love for a pretty white girl like her to call me racial slurs and deride me my right to live, I think that Yukari’s need to prove her toxic self image right to justify her self hate and rejection of help to disassociate from her Mom is what causes her to be such a tease and to be so slanderous, because while she's quirky and mean in her own right, it's also valid to infer that about her character. It doesn't help that being bullied due to her father's failure influenced her perception of social interaction more aggressively and might've added to that if anything. In a sense, she has the most amount of kindness out of anyone, but the dichotomy she has where she pushes everyone away while craving their love and attention, is what clouds that trait of hers and makes it harder for her to express that, and it's why whenever she gets praised for her kindness, she denies it. She's a perfect example of how someone's personality can be so dynamic, where she's a mean teaser on the outside, but would be the quickest to be there for someone else, and that part of her helps me embrace the idea that I'm a kind person, or at least, try to be because I'm similar to that aspect of her and it feels very validating. It's especially relatable because there are moments where I went out of line and lost friendships due to that, due to unhealthy tendencies and mindsets I had, and that made me reject my kindness in favor of self-loathing, yet through Yukari, I was able to see that part of me, admit to it, and love myself more authentically because of it.


By now you understand how much Persona 3 means to me, how much of a solace inducing experience it is for me, and how much it helps me to love, to feel loved, to express my earnest desires, and to be there for everyone around me, but in contrast, oddly enough, when I was playing through Reload, a certain part of it re-stimulated my fear of abandonment, my disdain for the fleeting nature of relationships due to past experiences, and my desire for everything to stay the same way, thinking about how worthless something is if it’s destined to never last, that certain part being the front and center of the game, Aegis. A few years ago, during the pandemic, I’d say I was at my worst mentally, and it’s not because of the experiences I went through by that point, but it was more so because of how I dealt with those experiences by willingly surrounding myself with negativity, choosing to be miserable instead of fighting, and preferring victimhood over the pursuit of happiness. It led to loads of perceptual issues I had, and that only piled up more on the issues I already struggled with at the time. You see, I grew up in an environment that shunned sensitivity and emotions and saw them as a sign of weakness, and so, a feminine guy like me who was highly emotional and sensitive, was essentially born and raised in the wrong environment because of how much that aspect of it contradicted how I was at my innermost core. In an attempt to fit in, I discarded myself, drowned myself in an endless hell of facades, and over time, forgot who I even was, becoming something of a colorless broken puppet unable to discern my emotions and convey them, forever emotionally stunted and ignorant of how it feels to “live” because all I did was exist. For that reason I’ve had my complications with loneliness and love, feeling like I couldn’t feel it or even deserved it. So, it is that through Aegis I was able to see a picture of my past self, a grotesque portrait of how I was 4 years ago. It was as eerie as it was comfortable, seeing a character frustratingly and confusingly try to navigate their place in the world and getting shredded by it. It felt validating, because Aegis had the same misconception that I did, and it was that I thought I had to do something larger than life itself to justify my existence when that wasn’t the case. It was very comforting for me to see a character that represents how I was a few years ago, that’s how it was at first anyway. It later dawned on me that after Aegis decided to live, she started struggling with something that I struggle with nowadays, and it’s maintaining relationships, or rather, thinking that they’re worth maintaining anyway since they all end. I’ve always had this thought that yeah, sure, all bonds end, that this is an absolute, but it always pained me whenever I met someone, because I knew deep down, that at some point they’re going to leave me behind and we’ll part ways. Even if we reconnect, it might not even be the same as before and that made me oftentimes crave a reality where time could be halted. But upon revisiting Aegis’ social link, there’s a piece of dialogue that reminded me why I cherish the people I cherish and why I’ll never stop loving the people I’m with.

“Life is both short and finite. That’s what makes it so invaluable, and why one feels that it must be cherished… When you think about it, it’s a miracle that two given people are able to ever meet in this chaotic flow of time and space.”


It’s a simple line, something that’s hard to miss, but that's the case with most ideas in life and is what makes it connect with me because of how Makoto’s dynamic with Aegis resonates with that sentiment and embodies it with the stark contrast of how they live. Their differences made them feel complete because, on the two opposite spectrums, they struggled to understand life and the worth of the process that goes within it that inevitably leads to death, yet through something simple, like knowing and understanding each others' emptiness, they felt the elusive taste of connection and yearned for more from it. Makoto is a human who tries to be a machine, while Aegis is a machine who tries to be human, yet despite their differences, they connected because they both yearn for the same thing, to stand with one another atop Gekoukan’s rooftop and gaze at the city that gave them a taste of that elusive connection. The shortage of something is what makes you fear losing it. Yet, in the same vein, it makes you want to appreciate it and make use of it to the fullest so that when it ends, you can look back on it with no regrets and cherish your memories of it because it’s the memories that make our experiences with one another flow through all eternity. And so, even if I fear losing the ones I love, even if I lived a life of an emotionally stunted puppet, even if I lived in existential dread, even if I thought at times that I didn’t deserve to be liked, or that I was of less worth than others, none of that matters, because regardless of what happens, I’m human, I have feelings worth conveying, I will always have people I love, and I have something to live for, it may not be monumental, but the small ripples caused by the day to day things I do will surely produce a result worth living for in the long run because no two days are the same. It’s funny, I talked about my time during the pandemic as the worst time in my life, yet when I look back on it, I can’t look at those days as an unhappy time. To me, they’re a sign that I’m alive, a backdrop for me to push forward from, a pat on the back telling me how much I’ve changed, and a signal to dash forward and follow my heart, because I now know that rejecting it is the most painful of all. Maybe that’s how I feel about them because over time, I’ve slowly subconsciously implemented the feelings and lessons that Persona 3 made me feel and taught me into my day-to-day life, and now looking back on it, after everything has been said and done, I feel nothing but pride and love towards who I became and who I was. Through remembering my mortality, I remembered to live, and so I did.

A remake of my favorite game ever made. I had my worries about it because of how highly I hold P3 FES, but I am glad to see that it was done justice and is (in my opinion) definitively the new best game in the series. They were able to nail the oppressive atmosphere and depressing themes this game's story holds but able to express the uplifting and inspiring themes to even greater heights than the original. The new pre-rendered cutscenes do an amazing job of showing some of the more intense (and sad) scenes of the story and do it better than the original. The gameplay is cleaner than expected and the visual flair is absolutely stellar. They managed to make Tartarus fun to explore to the point where it felt weird to actually want to explore Tartarus rather than dread it like in the original. I was a little worried about some of the new voice actors, but all of the new VA's do an amazing job of representing their character's emotions and personality as they grow throughout the story. As expected, both the remixes and the new music is phenomenal. Color Your Night and Because I Will Protect You -Reload- are some of the best songs in the series with the ladder being my new favorite. The game isn't 100% perfect, as no game is. Luckily, the issues I had were relatively small and mostly included nitpicky things like some voice lines in the remake not having the same impact as the original, luckily none being in critically important points of the games story. Atlus did an amazing job remaking Persona 3. Reload has shown that Persona 3's story and characters still hold up incredibly well after getting a much needed facelift. I cannot wait to see what they will do next.

This game gave me the best possible first impression into the SMT/Persona universe, and an experience that I will cherish for a long time. I was so addicted to this game from beginning to end, to an extent that only has happened for me for a select few games. As my first Persona game, I was not sure what to expect when it came to the balance of the RPG/combat sections and social sections, particularly considering I'm not a big fan of visual novels, but I found that I loved both parts equally. The gameplay loop is what kept me hooked the entire time, and I really love how in-depth the social side of things is. Some RPGS can feel like there is entirely no gameplay apart from the battles themselves, and this isn't always a bad thing, but I really like how the social part of Persona feels like a whole other game that compliments the battle system, which itself I was a huge fan of.

Persona fusion is such a fun mechanic, especially for someone that hasn't ever done it before, discovering all the personas and skills for the first time. The combat is easily some of my favorite turn-based combat in anything I have played. Each aspect, from downing, to Theurgies, to the variety of elements, buffs and debuffs, and potential customization from the fusion system, all compliments each other excellently. While I did have certain characters I used most frequently, I liked how easy it felt to be able to use all of the party members throughout the game (due in part to the Grand Clocks), with the exception of maybe on. Particularly thanks to the Theurgies, which I’m aware are a new mechanic in Reload, each party member truly feels like they have a particular niche.

Not too many of the social links particularly moved me but I was invested in the vast majority of them regardless, and the payoff for completing as many as I could was absolutely worth it. Themes of life and death are easily some of my favorites in media, as I love existentialism, and this game memorably and successfully implements them in each of the main characters and overarching story as a whole. There's so many great moments and lines of dialogue throughout, particularly near the end of the game, and overall messages that I'm sure will continue to stick with me.

This was such a great experience and I'm excited to play more Persona and SMT games in the future. I'm so glad this game was remade as to give myself motivation to experience it, and it has easily become one of my favorite games of all time. Any minor issues I might have with the game are nearly completely diminished for me by just how much fun I had and how memorable it has already become.

10/10

Memento mori, memento vivere.

I don't think any game I play afterwards will ever have the impact Persona 3 Reload had on me, it's a fantastic and life-changing experience that I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone getting into the JRPG genre or for a seasoned fan of the persona games.

The biggest message P3 delivers is that while we all will leave this world one day, we also have to make the most of it while we can. It becomes especially apparent after the game's story picks up in the second half.

After playing 80 hours throughout the last month it's now become my favourite game of all time, and I don't think I'm even ready to be prepared to play the Answer and New Game+ some day...

I never played the original game, probably won't do this justice so I'll keep it short.

I feel I've figured out quite some things about life, as someone in their mid twenties. Even so, sometimes one cannot help but waver about what do they truly want, what truly is important to them and many other questions that strike our minds from time to time.

This game delves into these uncertainties and much more, on what gives us purpose and what keeps us going foward, what it truly means to be alive. It tells us that to live is to suffer, to bond, to forge memories that will make us what we are and we will keep forever, to accept what we cannot change and to change what we can. Always accompanied with the fateful reminder that to live is to die.

I feel like deep down most of us know this, even if we struggle to come to terms with it which is even harder in modern society, we are constantly told that only success regarding your ambitious career path or job can lead to a truly fulfilling life, but our hearts know otherwise.

In this game, you will accompany many people on their journey to find one's purpose and meaning, and while doing so finding your own. Rushing your way through days and months with an addictive calendar system, making sure to make the best out of every afternoon and evening to max every social link and social stat so you can enjoy the wonderfull characterization that this game offers. The soundtrack is breathtaking and I cannot overstate how much I appreciate how varied it is and how it accompanies so well the state of the game you are currently in.

The gameplay is fun, played it on hard difficulty even if I was playing on easy for a while, which made it boring, so I ended up going back to hard not to regret it.

The themes are all over the place, everything fits them in the game even if some style may have been lost with the remake.

I have always struggled with the concept of death, the death of others and my own. This game resonated with me on a very personal level and I will cherish my memories of it.

"The arcana is the means by which all is revealed. Celebrate life grandeur, it's brilliance, it's magnificence."

My only regret is not having played this back when i was a teenager.This game truly is an ode to life, and it's absolutely beautiful.

I never played the original but I don’t think I’ll ever need to because P3R is already a masterpiece and I haven’t even finished it yet.

This game has possibly one of the best soundtracks in gaming, every song is a banger. When the opening trailer was released with the song Full moon Full life, I listened to it for nearly a month straight and when finally getting to play the game and being able to hear the full version of the song I found myself at true peace.

Everything from the visuals to the characters makes me want to play this game more, if only I had the time.

I will come back to this review once I finish and give a full rundown on what makes this game brilliant because I have no doubt that I will be satisfied by the time it’s done.