Well that's that.

After beating FES the first time in 2022, I waited patiently, knowing that the remake for 3 was on the horizon. I said to myself for the longest time that if Persona 3 got the Persona 5 treatment it might become my favorite Persona game and----------- that was a false hope.

I had a blast with this game, re-experiencing Persona 3 again in this incredible new visual way, with a FANTASTIC new voice cast, and incredible additions to the battle system.

I was upset at first that the original cast was replaced with newbies, but they grew on me really fast. I especially love Fuuka, Aigis, and Ken's new voice actors, they do a tremendous job! Don't forget the rest of the social links also getting FULL voice lines!! One of the most impressive parts about this game!! Then there's Junpei's voice actor, who went WAY above and beyond, absolutely KILLED his performance!!! This game also made me like Aigis, which I previously did not, so kudos!!

The other thing they did with the characters is made me LOVE Shinjiro. He became one of my favorite characters, and I became genuinely emotional when he died in this game. I used him in my party, he fucking WALLOPPED the Shadows, he was the fucking goat. In the original game I totally didn't care about him, but everything about him in this game was totally brilliant. Made me love him!

I wish I did more of the Link Episodes, too, but from what I did they were great!

Gameplay wise, I found myself enjoying this game more than FES. Maybe that's a product of now having the entire Persona series behind me playing this one, so I know how to manage my time better with social links (something I found myself not a huge fan of in FES). I maxed out more social links than before, and I really appreciated the Link Episodes they added in this version of the game.

Combat was interesting, adding Theurgies made boss fights a snooze fest when I saved them up.

By far, though, the best part about this game is how they totally fixed Tartarus. They couldn't change what it was at its core, being a maze that you have to climb with randomly generated floors, but they made the experience on each floor SO much more memorable and enjoyable I am elated to say that Tartarus is not only STUNNING but FUN to explore!!! I am over the moon with how happy I am with how the game looks, it's so stunning in almost every way, and the visuals are at their best pretty much any time during the Dark Hour.
Every shot of Tartarus, from inside and out, is totally incredible. Every block has its own unique identity, while based off of the original blocks from the first game, they now feel so unique and make me really excited to explore each and every one.

I have a lot of nice to say about this game, it's a great step up from the original experience, and a well deserved remake for such a classic game. My expectations were not succeeded however, I think it did it's job in the end, but my hope for this game was that it would be Persona 3 presented in the way of Persona 5, which is almost what we got. It felt more like a PS2 game still, though, with a fresh coat of paint. I guess that can't be avoided, completely overhauling the game and going off-script to make it as grand as 5 would probably just be totally ridiculous, but that was my original assumption and desire from before the game was even revealed.

The first time I played FES, I got so bored around the middle of the game that I stopped playing to beat the Snow Queen Quest in Persona 1 ... luckily nothing like that happened to me here, I was engaged the whole way through, there were only a few areas where it felt sluggish, especially the end of the game where you have a week left before the final boss and you have no more stats to max out and no more social links to do.

At the end of the day, I loved it. Wanted to shed a tear at the ending scene because it's so moving. Love the impact of this game, it is so stunning, so enjoyable, and so classic to me. It's something I waited for for so long and now that it's over I am overjoyed, but I am definitely going to miss it!!

The next stop for me is The Answer, which I will be playing the PS2 version of because I don't really feel like waiting until September to play the Reload version (even if its improvements seem very good, whatever.)