in the second half of the game right now, but i made an account on here because i wanted to post my thoughts on it so far as someone whose favorite game of all time is, by far, persona 3 fes. this review will be messy but i do not care.
i think that reload is fantastic gameplay-wise, by leaps and bounds the best in the series in that regard even though it’s very easy, but i have very mixed feelings otherwise.
i barely like a single thing about the game visually, the original atmosphere is COMPLETELY drained and i feel like the atmosphere was just such a big part in establishing the original’s identity. it doesn’t even feel like p5, it’s just bland.
i dislike the new menus, the usage of 3d is way too obvious and in general i’m just not sure why they’re focusing so much on 3d visuals in a series acclaimed for its 2d visuals (the characters’ normal 3d models have some decent facial expressions in cutscenes but the characters’ facial expressions in normal dialogue are so flat and rarely changing that i usually laugh when i focus on them during dialogue. in generally i find myself laughing at this game much more than i have with like… any other game? and more often than not it doesn’t feel like i was meant to). it also feels like, outside of maybe the social link menu, there just isn’t enough… progression, perhaps, when you go deeper into the different menus like there is in p5. it reminds me of strikers’s menus, albeit nowhere near as bad. but there’s no distinct style to the menus, they just throw a bunch of samey silhouetted 3d models of roger at you. the system menu looks nice though. the game also pretty much completely murders the yellow used in the original menus which sucks, making everything blue as fuck doesn’t make it p3.
the portraits can be very hit or miss, they can feel very skinwalkery (especially in the case of yukari and junpei, whose characterization also feels skinwalkery. they felt more hateable in the original when they were meant to be hated and felt likeable in the original when they were meant to be liked, so they just feel very mundane and neutered in comparison, which sucks because they’re my 2 favorites in the game, the 2 earliest party members in the game, and arguably the game’s 2 most developed characters. the other party members’ characterization is mostly fine but akihiko’s new portraits and voice alone give off such a different vibe that i think i hate him now. fuuka’s original portraits aren’t exactly pleasing to look at but they undeniably fit her perfectly while the new ones simultaneously look moe as all hell and… weirdly bitchy/judgy? natsuki looks like a fucking duck now but nobody cares) but some characters like akinari, shinjiro, mitsuru, and chidori look much better now with their new portraits.
in terms of reload’s voice acting, besides akihiko (who i already mentioned) and junpei (whose new voice feels both very similar and very different from the original at the same time, making it uncanny valley to me), the voice acting is generally fine but really bland. the original voices could sound really trashy but in a way that feels real, making them charming, and that feeling of shitty, charming, realisticness is the defining trait and appeal of p3 for me, while now, the voicework is pretty much your average very competent anime dub (sidenote: i don’t hate dubs, i experience japanese games and animation through the dubs whenever they’re at least okay. i just think that it’s what reload’s voice acting sounds like, and not what the original game’s voice acting sounds like). kenji, yuko, akinari, ikutsuki, and shinjiro are the only real standouts for me so far but the first 3 don’t have any old voices to compare the new ones with and shinjiro sounded a bit animeish in the original anyway. the (as far as i know) one voice actor they brought back so far, elizabeth’s, sounds really grating, although i don’t really remember her talking in the original and i find all the dialogue from her that i’ve heard from her so far to be pretty grating in general anyway so maybe that’s why.
for one last take on the visuals, the only other parts that i particularly enjoy visually so far are the anime cutscenes. i find their artstyle to look very appealing and it makes me want to see what else that studio has animated, but despite looking alright, they seem to lack any and all of the interesting direction and editing which they sometimes had in the original game, barring maybe the new meaning of the armbands cutscene but that one feels like a kind of random addition anyway. i also question some of atlus’s decisions. when i heard every single review website mention that junpei’s perviness was toned down, the only scene that came to mind as too uncomfortable for me and something i think p3 could possibly benefit from the removal/neutering of is the scene of junpei rating how the girls look in their bikinis, which reload instead… gave the anime cutscene treatment??? p5 era atlus moment.
the new soundtrack is fine, i didn’t hate it as much as i expected to. in terms of the few completely new songs, it’s going down now is an incredible battle theme, whenever i hear it in game it feels so badass and is easily my favorite normal battle theme in the series, although for whatever reason it feels comparatively pretty lame whenever i try listening to it outside of the game. i’m not sure how it of all songs got a hundred distinct "clean" versions on youtube before the game came out and it’s honestly comical since it turns out an entire unique verse of the song was withheld from prerelease promotional materials (worst part of the song anyway but whatever). color your night is incredible, lotus juice normally singing can sound great and at its best in this song, i want to hear him cover soul phrase next. on the other hand, when the moon reaches for the stars and mass destruction got two of the worst remixes i’ve ever heard, not sure why they got a vocaloid to replace the female vocals in those. it sucks because those were quite possibly the 2 songs you hear the most in the original game, but at least the aforementioned 2 good new songs happen to cut the time you have to hear those remixed versions of them in half. i get why they didn’t add the ability to hear the original game’s music though, since there are entirely new songs. sure, p2p did this over a decade ago after learning from p1p’s reception, but those releases didn’t add much new music to the main gameplay. the only other remixes that i think sound much better so far are those of master of tartarus, iwatodai dorm, deep breath (which is heard twice so it’s irrelevant), and changing seasons. the rest are just bland, often slightly inferior remixes.
as one random last thing, the july and august full moons are so much more fun to go through now, they were neat at first in the original but became kind of a dreadful slog upon a revisit but i looove the new details they added.
to sum it up, the game is great fun but the embodiment of a soulless remake that fails on nearly every level to accurately capture the appeal of the original (it also has all of the content from fes and portable besides the only 2 things that made people want a remake of p3 which can finally be the definitive version with both the answer and the female protagonist, which is an… interesting decision? literally the bdsp of persona. but the answer will be sold to us alongside what im guessing will be dlc costumes, tracks, and personas from persona 1/2 as an expansion pass for a total of $30, so it’s okay, guys!), therefore making it worse as a first p3 experience than fes is.
persona 3 fes:
gameplay: 6/10
characters: 10/10
story: 10/10
visuals: 10/10
sound: 10/10
overall average: 9.2/10
persona 3 reload:
gameplay: 10/10
characters: 8/10
story: 10/10
visuals: 4/10
sound: 5/10
overall average: 7.4/10
i think that reload is fantastic gameplay-wise, by leaps and bounds the best in the series in that regard even though it’s very easy, but i have very mixed feelings otherwise.
i barely like a single thing about the game visually, the original atmosphere is COMPLETELY drained and i feel like the atmosphere was just such a big part in establishing the original’s identity. it doesn’t even feel like p5, it’s just bland.
i dislike the new menus, the usage of 3d is way too obvious and in general i’m just not sure why they’re focusing so much on 3d visuals in a series acclaimed for its 2d visuals (the characters’ normal 3d models have some decent facial expressions in cutscenes but the characters’ facial expressions in normal dialogue are so flat and rarely changing that i usually laugh when i focus on them during dialogue. in generally i find myself laughing at this game much more than i have with like… any other game? and more often than not it doesn’t feel like i was meant to). it also feels like, outside of maybe the social link menu, there just isn’t enough… progression, perhaps, when you go deeper into the different menus like there is in p5. it reminds me of strikers’s menus, albeit nowhere near as bad. but there’s no distinct style to the menus, they just throw a bunch of samey silhouetted 3d models of roger at you. the system menu looks nice though. the game also pretty much completely murders the yellow used in the original menus which sucks, making everything blue as fuck doesn’t make it p3.
the portraits can be very hit or miss, they can feel very skinwalkery (especially in the case of yukari and junpei, whose characterization also feels skinwalkery. they felt more hateable in the original when they were meant to be hated and felt likeable in the original when they were meant to be liked, so they just feel very mundane and neutered in comparison, which sucks because they’re my 2 favorites in the game, the 2 earliest party members in the game, and arguably the game’s 2 most developed characters. the other party members’ characterization is mostly fine but akihiko’s new portraits and voice alone give off such a different vibe that i think i hate him now. fuuka’s original portraits aren’t exactly pleasing to look at but they undeniably fit her perfectly while the new ones simultaneously look moe as all hell and… weirdly bitchy/judgy? natsuki looks like a fucking duck now but nobody cares) but some characters like akinari, shinjiro, mitsuru, and chidori look much better now with their new portraits.
in terms of reload’s voice acting, besides akihiko (who i already mentioned) and junpei (whose new voice feels both very similar and very different from the original at the same time, making it uncanny valley to me), the voice acting is generally fine but really bland. the original voices could sound really trashy but in a way that feels real, making them charming, and that feeling of shitty, charming, realisticness is the defining trait and appeal of p3 for me, while now, the voicework is pretty much your average very competent anime dub (sidenote: i don’t hate dubs, i experience japanese games and animation through the dubs whenever they’re at least okay. i just think that it’s what reload’s voice acting sounds like, and not what the original game’s voice acting sounds like). kenji, yuko, akinari, ikutsuki, and shinjiro are the only real standouts for me so far but the first 3 don’t have any old voices to compare the new ones with and shinjiro sounded a bit animeish in the original anyway. the (as far as i know) one voice actor they brought back so far, elizabeth’s, sounds really grating, although i don’t really remember her talking in the original and i find all the dialogue from her that i’ve heard from her so far to be pretty grating in general anyway so maybe that’s why.
for one last take on the visuals, the only other parts that i particularly enjoy visually so far are the anime cutscenes. i find their artstyle to look very appealing and it makes me want to see what else that studio has animated, but despite looking alright, they seem to lack any and all of the interesting direction and editing which they sometimes had in the original game, barring maybe the new meaning of the armbands cutscene but that one feels like a kind of random addition anyway. i also question some of atlus’s decisions. when i heard every single review website mention that junpei’s perviness was toned down, the only scene that came to mind as too uncomfortable for me and something i think p3 could possibly benefit from the removal/neutering of is the scene of junpei rating how the girls look in their bikinis, which reload instead… gave the anime cutscene treatment??? p5 era atlus moment.
the new soundtrack is fine, i didn’t hate it as much as i expected to. in terms of the few completely new songs, it’s going down now is an incredible battle theme, whenever i hear it in game it feels so badass and is easily my favorite normal battle theme in the series, although for whatever reason it feels comparatively pretty lame whenever i try listening to it outside of the game. i’m not sure how it of all songs got a hundred distinct "clean" versions on youtube before the game came out and it’s honestly comical since it turns out an entire unique verse of the song was withheld from prerelease promotional materials (worst part of the song anyway but whatever). color your night is incredible, lotus juice normally singing can sound great and at its best in this song, i want to hear him cover soul phrase next. on the other hand, when the moon reaches for the stars and mass destruction got two of the worst remixes i’ve ever heard, not sure why they got a vocaloid to replace the female vocals in those. it sucks because those were quite possibly the 2 songs you hear the most in the original game, but at least the aforementioned 2 good new songs happen to cut the time you have to hear those remixed versions of them in half. i get why they didn’t add the ability to hear the original game’s music though, since there are entirely new songs. sure, p2p did this over a decade ago after learning from p1p’s reception, but those releases didn’t add much new music to the main gameplay. the only other remixes that i think sound much better so far are those of master of tartarus, iwatodai dorm, deep breath (which is heard twice so it’s irrelevant), and changing seasons. the rest are just bland, often slightly inferior remixes.
as one random last thing, the july and august full moons are so much more fun to go through now, they were neat at first in the original but became kind of a dreadful slog upon a revisit but i looove the new details they added.
to sum it up, the game is great fun but the embodiment of a soulless remake that fails on nearly every level to accurately capture the appeal of the original (it also has all of the content from fes and portable besides the only 2 things that made people want a remake of p3 which can finally be the definitive version with both the answer and the female protagonist, which is an… interesting decision? literally the bdsp of persona. but the answer will be sold to us alongside what im guessing will be dlc costumes, tracks, and personas from persona 1/2 as an expansion pass for a total of $30, so it’s okay, guys!), therefore making it worse as a first p3 experience than fes is.
persona 3 fes:
gameplay: 6/10
characters: 10/10
story: 10/10
visuals: 10/10
sound: 10/10
overall average: 9.2/10
persona 3 reload:
gameplay: 10/10
characters: 8/10
story: 10/10
visuals: 4/10
sound: 5/10
overall average: 7.4/10