There's a sense of earnestness that emanates from the game. It can be easy to roll your eyes at times - this is a game that's ultimately about the power of friendship after all. However more than anything else I believe that Persona 3 is a game that's asking you to set aside your cynicism.

The game does a good job of getting you invested in its characters. Its a long game, and you are constantly exposed to your party. There's a large amount of unique dialogue that gradually fleshes out the group, it is practically inevitable that you'll become invested in them over time. You get to connect further in the dorm hangouts, which are a great addition, they add a lot of life to the game. The story starts out slow, but it grows over time, building up into something that is emotionally resonant. The ending in particular is beautiful.

There are some issues. The social simulation part of the game is fairly bare-bones. Some of the social links are overly stretched out and unsatisfying. Tartarus is too drawn-out and samey. But there are highlights to. Fantastic side stories: the sun social link and some of the linked episodes being the highlights. Fully voiced social links adds life to evening the most boring interaction. Fusing overpowered personas is a joy. The fantastic music and stylish presentation shines bright throughout the game.

Is Reload a worthy remake of the original? I don't know, I never played any prior incarnation of Persona 3 . I can only look on the game in isolation, and from that perspective I believe Reload stands up well on its own merits.

What I noticed right away is that this is a visual novel (VN) that actually nails the visuals. There's a lot of effort put into having numerous custom backgrounds and sprites and also having characters interact with things in the background. It feels nice to play a VN where the visual aspect is given the attention it deserves.

I also appreciate the amount of choice you are given in your own dialogue. There are a numerous amount of responses that cover what you'd reasonably want to say in response to something in almost all circumstances. Better yet, what you say actually matters. Characters will form lasting opinions of you based on what you say and their perceptions of you will actually effect the story in significant ways. Scarlet Hollow also doesn't flaunt the fact that what you're saying matters: there is no "X will remember that" that pops up, because it'd have to pop up every 30 seconds with how often the things you say matter.

The writing is pretty good, it feels smart and the characters are well done. On the whole I like the story, but it isn't finished yet so its hard to truly judge. That's my biggest complaint really, that the game isn't finished yet.

Wildfrost boasts an adorable art direction, a wonderfully vibrant soundtrack, and numerous fantastic design decisions. The combo system and the golbling enemy keeps early game fights interesting: with every different hero and pet combination comes a different strategy to maximize money on the early fights. The charm system is great, its very customizable and provides a lot of run variety. And runs themselves aren't overly long; Wildfrost isn't a rougelike that takes over an hour to get through, rather a shorter and sweeter thirty to forty minutes. Its good that the run length is shorter because Wildfrost demands a lot of your attention. Battles are quite tactical and you need to be very attentive in them or things can quickly go wrong. No matter what difficulty setting you're on you're never more than two steps away from losing.

Wildfrost's difficulty progression is also not extremely stretched out in the way other games in the genre are. Seriously, Slay the Spire is a great game but having to grind through 20 ascension levels for 4 different characters is obnoxious and a huge time sink. Instead Wildfrost has a difficulty modifier system where you pick and choose diffuclty bells that add additional challenge (similar to Hades). You only have to level up the difficulty five times before the max is unlocked, and the levels carry over across factions, its so much nicer to the player.

I can comfortable say that the difficulty is well balanced. The game starts out tougher than other games I've seen in the rougelike deckbuilder genre which I believe is a good thing, as it means I'm not having to grind my way through several difficulty tiers before actually feeling any resistance. Still at the start its easy enough that its not overly difficult to get some wins. There's plenty of resistance later on though. I've now beaten Wildfrost's ultimate challenge 3 times, and it at first looked near impossible. But now I can comfortably say its a well designed challenge that pushes the game's difficulty to its limits, but not past them.

I love the way that the final boss works in this game, its a creative idea implemented extremely well, in a way that smooths out what otherwise could've been some very rough edges. The card designs are good, using a fairly simple set of mechanics that are implemented in a well balanced and interesting way. I enjoy the timer system, it makes me think about card value in a way a traditional mana system doesn't. Enemy designs are also on point, each encounter has its own distinct flavor and tests a different aspect of your tactics and deckbuilding. Wildfrost has cemented itself in my mind as one of the best of the genre. In fact I'm brave enough to say that for me it IS the best in the genre. I encourage you to give it a shot, hopefully you'll like it as much as I did.