After rushing through the original Persona 3 to prepare myself for Reload, I decided to take my time with the remake, though sometimes it wasn't by choice since I was sort of busy and could only fit time for shorter games. I have to say, it was worth it. Persona 3 Reload is the first and only game to ever make me cry. I've come close, tearing up to a few other games, like Persona 4 Golden and Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, but it was never full on crying. Here, the ending really got to me since the presentation of the final cutscene itself is just perfect. But I'm getting ahead of myself, I don't think this game is ENTIRELY perfect as there are a few nitpicks I have with it compared to the original, but for each nitpick, there's something else that's ten times better to make up for it. I'll go over my main nitpicks and then go into how this game makes up for it. I found that the direction for certain cutscenes was... weaker at times. For instance, the opening cutscene with the protagonist heading to the dorm lacks the tension that the original had with the music blaring from his headphones, the sound of rushing water, Yukari in complete distress, and not knowing what Evokers are. In Reload, that cutscene lacks all of that and Yukari's added dialogue feels unnecessary. There's a couple of other cutscenes that don't really do it for me, but to make up for it, two of the best cutscenes in the game were significantly improved, and the in-engine cutscenes look fantastic (though the protagonist's awakening was on the weaker side, not because of the visuals but because it was lacking elements that made the original so good). The two cutscenes I'm referring to are the 10/4 incident and the ending scene. The build-up to the former especially is amazing, the game makes great use of camera angles to really add to the cinematic elements of the cutscenes. The voice acting is also top-notch in these scenes, hell, in the whole game. The only voice I wasn't too fond of was Yukari's as I feel like she lost the sassiness that made her one of my favourites in Vanilla, but she still does what she does just fine so I don't hate it either. Anyway, the only other nitpick I really have is with some of the remixes. Honestly, it's mainly the battle music (though Mass Destruction is fine). Unavoidable Battle and Master of Tartarus have very harsh sounding drums that are overbearing in Vanilla, which really adds to the atmosphere. Yet here in Reload, they're significantly weaker and they lack that intensity, which is such a shame. Meanwhile, other songs lack the hip-hop beats (or whatever it's called) that give off the same effect, like with Living With Determination - Iwatodai Dorm Arrangement. I don't dislike any of the remixes (with the exception of Unavoidable Battle) but there are some that are just weaker overall. However, the game makes up for it with not only great remixes, but fantastic original songs. Great remixes include When The Moon's Reaching Out Stars, Want To Be Close, and of course, Changing Seasons. To be honest, I wish there was more original songs because they're some of the best in the series, such as Full Moon Full Life, The Meaning of Armbands, It's Going Down Now, and Color Your Night, ESPECIALLY the last two because those genuinely might be the top spot for me (minus Vanilla's The Battle for Everyone's Souls and Memories of You). Anyway, that's enough with the nitpicks, so music and cutscene direction aside, what more does Reload do to make Persona 3 a better experience? Well first of all, there's more to do in the game. At night, there wasn't too much to do in Vanilla, only really raising social stats and Mutatsu's Social Link (though I know Tanaka's a night Social Link in FES). Here, not only did Tanaka become a night Social Link, but now they let you hang out with the SEES members for perks, both for them in battle and for yourself like raising a social stat. I'm really happy with this change because unlike in Vanilla, I barely had to go to bed. I only really did so around the last week of January, but that's because I realized I couldn't max every Link in time so I gave up and wanted to finish. Speaking of, they added Linked Episodes for certain characters, which are basically smaller Social Links that are only five episodes long and for party members that didn't have one in Vanilla, which were Junpei, Akihiko, Ken, Koromaru, and Shinjiro. Ryoji and Takaya also had some scenes or days dedicated to them as well, which was great to see as this and the Linked Episodes allowed for the writers to go into untapped territory about their backstories or motives. Simply adding a Linked Episode made Shinjiro go from a character I was neutral on to one of my favourite characters in the entire series, his Linked Episode especially was so powerful. Aigis also gets her Link from FES here (unless it's different but I can't imagine it would be), and I was able to max her out as well (which made me happy, she was my favourite in Vanilla and still is my favourite). A wild thing to point out is the menus, they are STUNNING. Just opening the menu and seeing the animations in each tab never gets old, it's very stylistic and beautiful and I appreciate how it looks. Last but not least, the Tartarus changes. I didn't really like Tartarus much in Vanilla, but I did really like the atmosphere of it. I'm happy to say Reload really did deliver with the changes. I will admit that this game definitely was easier than Vanilla and it wasn't really hard until the end, but at the same time, I feel like the changes they made really helped make the experience better. I never really got bored of Tartarus since it was much less grindy than in the original. I think they should've kept fatigue since it was a bit TOO easy if you ask me, but I don't really mind. It was also nice that you could do Monad doors to get experience faster but with more of a risk since enemies are much stronger. I almost always did them and I got to level 80 before the final boss, which was great because I wanted to at least reach 76. So, with that said and done, what do I think of Persona 3 Reload? Well, there's definitely some elements I liked more in the original, but I think the new additions and changes from the base game make for a better overall experience, so I'll take the smaller losses there for a large scale win. Overall, Persona 3 Reload does a great job remaking an already wonderful game and fixes a lot of my issues with the base game, making this one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.