Persona 3 is one of my favorite games.

So I get no joy out of giving this remake the star rating that I'm giving it, especially when there are a number of things that this remake does better than than the original. But man... there are just too many things that this remake gets wrong.

If you experienced Persona 3 for the first time with Reload and had a great time with it, then I'm happy you liked it. I like Persona 3 and want everyone to experience the game and enjoy it. Me criticizing this remake doesn't invalidate anyone's first time experience with the game, but the fact that you had that great first time experience doesn't invalidate the fact that I experienced this game only as a remake and was left disappointed and underwhelmed with the changes.

It's a good game, maybe even a great one. But it's not a great remake. And that's the only lens I have to view it, because Persona 3 is a game I had already played years ago.

Atlus is no stranger to making iffy changes in rereleases. This bad habit of misunderstanding things and removing the soul of the original game is really highlighted here due to Persona 3 Reload being Atlus's first remake on such a grand scale.

Right at the start of the game you can see the removal of the dark and dreary atmosphere that really made Persona 3 work the way it did. Instead of the dorm being dimly lit as a subtle but constant tone setter for the game's dark mood, the dorm in Reload feels like it's being lit with florescent lights. Everything in the dorm is super bright and ugly looking. This may sound like a nitpick, but this lighting was really necessary to set the mood in certain dorm scenes. The new graphics can look nice, but in certain locations everything being so shiny either removes the atmosphere or just looks weird in general.

One of my two least favorite things about this remake is the new cutscenes. They rarely live up to the original, but in particular the animated ones just look amateurish from a cutscene direction standpoint. This is heartbreaking because the cutscene direction was one of the coolest parts of the original Persona 3. Every single animated cutscene has lesser direction. The only one that's comparable to the original is the one with Ryoji on the bridge. To me, the level of detail in the animation doesn't matter if the cutscene direction is way inferior. It's a tragedy what they did to the animation. It's hard to explain how the cutscene direction is different using only words, so I recommend taking a look at some of the animated cutscenes in Reload and comparing them to the original. You will be able to tell that purposeful and stylish direction was replaced by something more lifeless and boring.

The in-engine cutscenes look a lot better than the animated ones. However, when you're replacing an animated cutscene with an in-engine cutscene there is always going to be some amount of flair and style that is lost in the process. The cutscenes that were animated, such as the protagonist's Persona awakening, should have stayed animated. I say this even though I don't think the new awakening looks bad. It just doesn't look as cool. My favorite cutscenes in Reload were in-engine scenes that were added where the original game only had dialogue and no cutscene. For example, the final scene of Reload is amazing. Persona 3 has the best ending in video games and not only did they not ruin it, they actually made it better by making it a cutscene. But despite the few cutscenes I liked, overall I think this game would be a better experience if they just kept the cutscenes from the original game (even though keeping cutscenes from a PS2 game in a large scale remake was never an option for them).

The second of my two least favorite things about this game is the music. Almost every track is a downgrade from the original. There are a few tracks like Deep Breath Deep Breath, Changing Seasons, and Memories of You that sound really good... but this game's soundtrack did more to annoy me by ruining plenty of beloved songs than it did to impress me. I would have just preferred to use the original soundtrack, which wasn't an option for some stupid reason (they're going to sell it as DLC). The new singer really does not fit Persona 3. There's no grit in her voice compared to the original singer. The mixing and instrumentation used in some of these remixes are really questionable. The new Mass Destruction is a Mass Bastardization. What they did to this game's soundtrack was, once again, a tragedy.

I've talked about my biggest dislikes with this remake, so let's talk about the biggest missed opportunity: Tartarus. In the pre-release interviews for Persona 3 Reload, the developers said that the biggest change to the game was Tartarus. And I'm telling you right now, Tartarus feels...

The same.

They made it more visually interesting (to the extent that they could) but it's still the same randomized dungeon crawling with very little spice added to it to make it more entertaining. I even enjoyed the dungeon exploration in Persona 5 Royal's Mementos more because the Morgana vehicle was more agile and there were those orbs scattered everywhere to collect. And at least in Mementos you were blessed with the knowledge that the randomized dungeon crawling you were doing wasn't the meat of the game. In Persona 3 Reload, Tartarus IS the game. I'm not saying Persona 3 Reload needed Persona 5 dungeons. It doesn't. But barely anything was done to make these sections more interesting. It just felt like they gave up on making Tartarus fun to explore and instead opted to make it look visually interesting.

There was some concern that the new voice actors would ruin beloved characters, but I think they did a pretty good job for the most part. I really enjoyed the voiced Social Links. Persona 3 doesn't have the strongest Social Links so I could tell there was a lot of effort put into trying to humanize some of the more unlikable characters. The redesigned character portraits also helped a lot because the original designs for the social-link-only characters were not the best. However... another major complaint I have with the game is that the character portraits for the main characters aren't as expressive as they used to be. There are too many instances in this remake where the expression the portrait is using isn't intense enough to convey the right emotion. What's worse is that there are many times when the character portraits are straight up using the wrong emotion for the words that are being said.

The two best things about this remake are the user Interface and the new battle system. The UI is top notch and is unmatched in the industry. Which is, of course, typical for Atlus games. The battle system is much improved. Not only can you control party members now, but the battles are just more flashy and fun to play in general. Characters can use Baton Pass now and everyone is equipped with their own crazy looking special move. The battles are truly a sight to behold in action. I suspect most of the effort went into the battle system when making Persona 3 reload. A number of the boss fights are unchanged but the Strega battles are FAR better than they used to be. Takaya puts up an actual fight now when he used to be a complete joke. As for the new Strega story content? It's neat, and fits into the story nicely, but it's probably not going to change anyone's opinion on these characters.

So if the only things that are improved in this remake are the UI, the battles, and the graphics... was this remake really worth all the effort? A remake is supposed to be a straight upgrade to the original, and I can think of so many instances in Reload where I'd rather be playing the original. People wanted a remake of Persona 3 to have a definite version, but what we got was just... another version. Definitely not definitive. It's not definitive when you have to surprise every enemy to avoid hearing the shitty remix of Mass Destruction. And I haven't even mentioned FEMC or The Answer. This makes Persona 3's problem of not having a definitive version even worse. Now the best version of Persona 3 is probably a heavily modded version of Reload that includes all the original stuff that was ruined in Reload. But will modders succeed at adding the soul back into Reload? I don't know, but it shouldn't be this way. Other companies have done a far better job than Atlus at remaking or remastering their content. It shouldn't be "business as usual" if Atlus is going to continue to remake games, because as it currently stands... Atlus isn't good at remakes.

Persona 3 Reload is a game with filled to the brim with quality aspects. But those aspects were mostly inherited from the original. This is very far from being a great remake.

For my money, FES is still the definitive version of Persona 3 because it retains the original vision that was lost in this remake.