seventeen years later apollo justice is a capital CG Cursed Game. harbinger of a new age which never really came- the apollo justice trilogy as a complete package is plainly awkward in how it languidly, disinterestedly follows its namesake. of course you can’t blame apollo justice for the decisions the IP made after it came out but apollo’s role in the franchise absolutely colors how this game is played now. now the game is a thracia 776-like experience, a darker, more punishing, more inconsequential story in the face of a broader conflict, except the two generations of warriors that flanked thracia 776 are both replaced by the one and only Phoenix Wright™.

it’s honestly doubtful that AJ receives the sheer abuse that investigations 1 or dual destinies does online, but it feels like the only game in the series that has yet to find a strong niche. the old guard has always held it apart from their beloved trinity, but yamazaki’s growing base of defenders doesn’t want to claim it either. its fans are often colored as the most vapid, rabid fans in the fanbase, relishing an imagined dynamic between klavier and apollo.

and certainly it’s not a difficult game to poke holes in. the game’s infamously fraught middle cases, regardless of how you view them, just don’t click together. yeah yeah, there are a lot of cinemasins “ding!” issues, but the cases also fall limp dramatically. in court there are scenes and even whole witness interrogations that don’t materially contribute to the core narrative of the mystery, as takumi envelops the player in minutiae to fill space. while both cases are about noble thieves and rotten cops, the game seems to shy away from its own subject matter at key moments. klavier, the series’ most passive rival, completely disengages from the injustice at hand when the corruption of law enforcement is exposed, even when he has a personal connection with the people at stake. apollo’s unique “gimmick” mechanic is also very weak, a task of observation that doesn’t engage with puzzle-solving in relation to the case at all.

but the game’s most glaring sign of incompleteness is the complete epic fail of an ending. the game goes out on a long limb to ground the player lucidly in this entry’s grand, time-spanning mystery. and the gamble pays off! there’s a lot of momentum that gets built up, all for the most bafflingly anticlimactic final day in trial of the entire series. i do not actually have much objection to how phoenix intrudes on the case, it’s not really revolutionary to have the mentor set the stage and deliver a couple pieces of evidence that help you clench the case. but the game completely fizzles after this. it’s so bizarre. for a franchise with so many infamously persistent final bosses, it’s insane how trivial the proceedings of the final court segment of this game are. right after managing a perfect passing-of-the-torch moment in AA3, they completely bungle it here. somehow.

but it’s inaccurate to label apollo justice a failed experiment, the tone and ideas the game is going for are still deployed and in place, if not exactly intact. right out of the gate apollo justice asks the player to consider possibilities that would be considered downright heretical in the rest of the main series. in the original trilogy, the shounen-like, operatic approach to good and evil is striking, but it often drains the game of moral dimension. sure, the games often flirt with the idea that maybe the protagonist would have to make a moral sacrifice, or that an antagonist was a profound victim before lashing out, but you’re always able to manage a perfect victory, in the end. every antagonist unilaterally goes too far in their plotting, even if they were hurt by the world or the people around them.

apollo justice dares to challenge this. the perfect victories that define the original trilogy are nowhere to be found. your catharsis is impeded as each subsequent not guilty verdict represents a new threshold to which you’re forced to subvert the justice system in order to free your unjustly accused clients. for the first time, it seems that the rot in the justice system might not just be a few corrupt Bad Men led by Wrong Ideologies, but instead a set of systemic failings, that the mechanics of justice itself might be at fault. for all of the games that have been centered on the expansion of the wright anything agency as a found family, apollo justice is the only game to lucidly cope with legacy, and how values, practices, and patterns of behavior are passed down (or often, more interestingly, withheld from being passed down).

the game’s final decision feels almost insulting given the current state of the game’s ending but i applaud that the final action the player takes is rendering an explicit moral judgment on a character. it’s an empty choice, but it demonstrates the strength of even the most trivial and obvious decision a person can make. more importantly, it invites every player, even the lowly klavier-apollo shipper, to consider the ethics of what actually happened here, that they are a creator of justice and not just a subject to it.

this attitude pulsates through the entire game. miraculously, ace attorney’s signature attention to detail when it comes to staging and presentation adapts perfectly to a more grounded, desperate story. the soundtrack is much more subdued overall but constantly poised to summon that classic pursuit cornered momentum. the animation maintains its expressive power while respecting and communicating the humanity of its subjects. all in all, apollo justice acquires a unique electricity no other game in the series has. this electricity carries you through even as you’re arguing about the location of a trash can a witness threw a pair of panties into or whatever

i’d consider myself something of an ace attorney superfan. this series’ creative calculus has a way of wringing out pathos that draws my focus to the screen unlike any other franchise. but i can’t deny that after having loved the series for so many years, it can feel weary in how it tells its stories with the same cadence, with the same structure underlying every case. even on the fiftieth replay, apollo justice still feels untamed. never definitive but always suggestive, my heart pours out for ace attorney four.

Finished this game as part of the Ace Attorney Trilogy. Being a big fan of the original Phoenix Wright trilogy I was excited to experience my first playthrough of Apollo Justice.

Apollo as a character is a charismatic successor of Phoenix, mostly because he has similar traits as him and fills in the same "newbie" spot. Trucy, Apollo's companion, manages to stand out more on her own. I like the dynamic of the new prosecutor Gavin - I was constantly switching between admiring and cursing him. The return of some familiar faces is nice, even though the game feels more like a followup of Episode 5 of the first PW:AA than the entire trilogy in that regard.

Apollo's "sense" ability is a new feature in the cross-examinations which seems a little bit too gimmicky to me. On the other hand the 3D inspections of the evidence is underutilized.

My enjoyment of an Ace Attorney game depends mostly on the cases (logical use of evidence, twists, mystery, emotional investment, opponents). Sometimes the game relies too much on wild turns that didn't make much sense to me, but nevertheless were guessed correctly by me because I assumed the game would want to create a big twist. The final case does an excellent job of connecting loose threads spanning several years in the story. Unfortunately, catching the true villains of each cases never really had a big emotional impact for me.

All in all Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney succeeds as a new chapter in the Ace Attorney saga and has all the trademarks the game series is known for. I liked all cases but neither one of them could hook me completely.

One technical nitpick about the Xbox One version: Switching between dialogues and evidence often interrupts the music for a short moment which was never the case in the original DS version of PWAA as far as I remember.

Persona 3 is a great game, no matter the form, so I'll still give it a 4/5.

But as a remake I was pretty massively disappointed by this. It didn't do enough to improve on the flaws of the original (pacing, poorly written social links, time management elements being unbalanced, worst main antagonists in the franchise). It also felt less polished than P5R--weird lighting in certain areas, very empty backgrounds, missing several QoL things, etc. The cutscenes also lacked the direction of the OG and they made some very strange decisions as to when to use in-game cutscenes vs animated ones.

I did appreciate the new linked episodes, but that's really the only interesting thing this version brings to the table. Ultimately this is mostly just the original game with a shiny coat of paint.

By the end of it, I was not convinced that this was a necessary remake, especially since it fails at even being a definitive version with the lack of FeMC content.

I don’t think I’ve ever been as torn on a game before as I am with Persona 3 Portable. To sum up the following review in a single sentence, the game’s high points are largely squandered by poorly-paced gameplay segments sandwiched between the actually interesting story beats and plot developments which often seem to come out of nowhere, thus lessening their impact.

Every point of praise I have for the game seems to come with some kind of caveat. Aigis is maybe the best character in the entire series: her whole arc about learning what it is to be human is remarkably well-executed, almost too well-executed. She isn’t introduced until around the halfway mark, but then the entire last quarter of the game practically revolves around her. There were points towards the end of the game where it really felt like Aigis was the main character and that the protagonist was just there as an observer, a sensation which sort of took me out of things a bit, as it felt like the writers couldn’t commit to a decision.

I’ve read a number of reviews that state that the transition from cutscenes to visual novel portraits and narration had a detrimental impact on the understandability of the narrative, but I actually didn’t find that to be the case. Sure, the usage of stills in place of anime cutscenes looked a bit goofy, but I only really felt lost in regards to what was happening at one or two points throughout the game, which I honestly don’t think is too bad, considering how they took an entire JRPG and crammed it into a visual novel. I just think the plot twists aren’t handled well. Hear me out, the game has a number of conceptually strong plot twists, but these twists tend to be rarely foreshadowed and poorly explained—particularly the ending—thereby removing all the oomph a good plot twist should have.

The cast and their dynamic is incredibly strong, albeit different from that of later Persona games, but the line-to-line dialogue is often clunky and felt like it could’ve used one last once-over from the translation team. The soundtrack is good, but there isn’t nearly as much track variety as there is in later Persona games, meaning songs start to feel repetitive fairly quickly. Really the only point of praise I can think of that doesn’t have a double-edge attached to it is Junpei and Chidori’s dynamic—it’s a nice change of pace from the Persona series’ later “best friend” characters (mostly from Yosuke, Ryuji is still great).

Then there’s the gameplay. Now, it’s no secret that when it comes to JRPGs, I prioritize story over gameplay. If the gameplay is unique and creative, that’s an added bonus, but I don’t mind engaging with a somewhat boilerplate combat system as long as the writing is solid. The only time gameplay is going to be detrimental to my assessment of a JRPG is if it’s actively tedious, and to that, all I can say is: Tartarus.

I finally understand all those people who played Phantom Hourglass and said they didn’t like the game because they hated having to explore the Temple of the Ocean King over and over again, because Tartarus is like that but on steroids. Honestly, I think if Tartarus was like, half as long, I would’ve been fine with it. I know that sounds kind of weird, like, “Oh, so 260 floors is too much, but 130 floors isn’t?” But think about it: if Tartarus was only 130 floors, then you’d be playing through roughly the same amount of randomly-generated dungeon as in Persona 4 Golden, which I didn’t find nearly as tedious to play through as Tartarus.

The other thing I hate about Tartarus is the way the bosses are handled. About halfway through Tartarus, the minibosses you have to fight every couple floors just stop having elemental weaknesses. This is a problem because we’re talking about PS2-era Persona: elemental weaknesses are the only combat mechanic. When you take that away, bosses just become giant damage sponges you throw your strongest moves at over and over again until they’re defeated. The only strategy involved is timing your heals right, which hardly makes for engaging combat.

Besides Tartarus, the social sim aspect of the gameplay is rough around the edges too. Even though all three modern Persona games follow the same gameplay loop of boosting your social stats so that you can progress your Social Links, it’s the little details in the presentation that really sell you on it. In Persona 5, there are a bunch of different ways to raise your social stats, and each of those methods come with their own little cutscene or some other added bonus like an item or a minigame to play. In Persona 3 Portable, there really aren’t that many options, because there are only three social stats to raise, so you run out of new things to see very quickly. (Persona 4 doesn’t have a lot of options either, but that at least makes sense because it takes place in a small town.) I’d also be remiss not to mention the fact that all of the Social Links involving your party (besides Aigis) require you to have one of the social stats maxed out, leaving the Social Links for the characters you’re likely most invested in until much later in the game. It’s in that particular aspect of the Social Links that you get the greatest sense that this game is merely the template for Persona moving forward, rather than the series in its most polished iteration.

Ultimately, Persona 3 Portable feels like a game with a lot of good ideas that just never come together. I have my doubts that Tartarus will change to any significant degree, but I think if the remake just makes a few tweaks to the plot to make it a bit smoother, and fleshes out the social sim a bit more, the game could be a lot stronger. Do I think Atlus will do that? Not really, considering their decision not to include FeMC or The Answer in the remake, but I know they’re adding extra side content, so there’s still a chance.

Also, side note because this is really petty, but the magic teacher was super annoying. At first I thought it was funny that magic was a class at the school, but I swear his lectures were way longer than the other teachers’. I know I could’ve just skipped through it, but I like to read through the lectures usually, if only for the fun bits of trivia.

Persona 3 Reload is such a strange mix of high quality and low quality.

The biggest slight I have against Persona 3 Reload is the anime cutscenes; they are such a massive downgrade from the original Persona 3. Sure, they are “higher quality,” but they are directed so boringly in comparison, sometimes to a shocking degree. When I saw the very first anime cutscene, it was the first time I became worried about this remake. It’s not even them just not comparing to the original; completely new ones are kind of bad. The one for getting your new SEES combat gear is so weird, awkward, and goes on for so long. Why is it like that? Around halfway through the game, I became retroactively glad whenever they replaced what was an anime cutscene in the original with an in-engine cutscene in the remake, like they do with the Hero’s Persona awakening scene. Every single one is better directed to an almost ridiculous degree compared to the anime ones. The anime opening is good, though; it feels like it was done by completely different people. There are also times where there were once anime cutscenes; they just did a basic in-game scene; an early example is the Dark Hour scene on 4/8. It only happens twice in the entire game, if I remember right, but it is still disappointing when it happens. The takeaway I have from all of this is that I feel Atlus is at the point where they don’t really need anime cutscenes as much anymore; models and environments are detailed enough to make them feel a little unnecessary at times.

Environments can sometimes be a mixed bag in P3R as well. This is the first time in my life I’ve played a game where lowering the brightness made the game look better. Places like the Iwatodai Strip Mall, Iwatodai Station, and the shrine are perfectly recreated and look great to me. I know people think the dorm looks weird, but once I lowered the brightness, I didn’t really find it to be. Maybe I just got used to it after hours upon hours of playtime. However, there is one play that I do think looks really bad: Yakushima. The Yakushima environments are so bad-looking compared to everything else in the game, to the point that they are distracting.

There are multiple points where it will cut to black, so they don’t have to animate a character doing something. A good example of this is when on two occasions, Yukari stomps on someone’s foot. In the original P3, you see this, but in P3R they cut to black and have a text box. There are a lot of little things like this that you start to notice the more you play. But to contrast this, there is a lot of detail given to other things, like how characters will flip a page when reading a book or magazine, or how characters eating will have the food disappear into their mouths. There are a lot of strange contrasts in this Remake.

The character models for all the important characters that have portraits are extremely high quality; they look great. They feel like a massive step up from Persona 5. However, all the generic NPC models can look really weird sometimes; you can tell they are ones from P5 and edited, which is fine on its own, but sometimes it can really be a hard contrast with other models. Also related, having almost all the people in Club Escapade be frozen models in the middle of dancing was not a good decision; it just ends up looking cheap.

The new English voice cast does an equal or greater job than the previous cast. Junpei and Fuuka's new VAs are ones I think deserve particular praise for their work. Zeno Robinson captures the original Junpei perfectly while excelling in the performance, and Suzie Yeung just completely knocks it out of the park as Fuuka. Aigis' new VA, Dawn Bennett, is another one that deserves praise, mainly because I love Aigis and she does a perfect job. It’s a cute touch to have a lot of the former English cast return as older characters; it creates an almost passing-of-the torch feeling. Social Links being fully voiced adds so much; I hope that becomes the standard for Persona going forward. Giving your Social Link voice acting keeps your attention in even the possibly less interesting parts. All of the Social Link VAs are great too. (Sun is still the best Social Link btw.)

One of the new additions are Link Episodes, which give you a way to interact with your male party members in a pseudo-Social Link. These are all great. Everything they add feels right at home in Persona 3 and is just as worth doing as any Social Link. You also get more ways of hanging out with all of SEES through cooking, gardening, reading, and watching TV together. Much like the Link Episodes, they are great and have the added bonus of giving you items, social stats, and even new passive abilities for your party.

Strega are the biggest winner in the remake. I found them to be pretty underdeveloped in the original P3, but they are given enough in P3R to push them way up the Persona Villains chart. It really highlights the strength of P3R; it isn't really adding a new story element to an already existing story like P4G and P5R do by adding new characters; P3R is more focused on expanding on what is already there.

A thing I was worried about P3R messing up was the music, and much like how I feel about the new English cast, the music does an equal or greater job than the original. Remixes like Changing Seasons are amazing, and new songs like Color Your Night are an absolute vibe.

Gameplay is pretty much what you expect from a modern Persona. The biggest difference from the original P3 is that you can control your party fully, much like you can in P3P. I understand why this change bothers people, but I honestly prefer full party control in RPGs, mainly just because I like doing as much as I can in combat in a turn-based RPG. Reload still keeps the slash, strike, and pierce attack types, but something I did find disappointing is that you do not have the ability to switch weapon types anymore, much like in P3P. I kind of get why, but it is still disappointing. A new addition is that they added non-insta-kill light and dark attacks, which I am so glad they did; it makes those elements so much more useful. Theurgy is another new addition to combat, which are basically overpowered super moves that are all super cool and flashy. I do think that they are perhaps a little too overpowered, as it adds to a problem that might not be a problem depending on the person; the game is too easy. P3R might be the easiest Persona game; you can do Tartarus runs in one night with no problem from the get-go. The Persona team needs someone in the room to say, “No, that will make the game too easy.” Not even the final boss felt like a threat; I would even go so far as to say the fight just before may have been harder, honestly.

Persona 3 Reload is still a very good game, but it does have some problems that could have been fixed if they had cooked the game for a bit longer. However, a lot of these problems are not really things that ruin the game. Some of these problems only exist if you have the context of playing the original Persona 3. I have seen people treat this as P5 with a P3 coat of paint, and that feels incredibly disingenuous unless you are taking an absolute surface-level observation. Sure, it has modern sensibilities, but I don’t equate that with being Persona 5. I equate that with being an Atlus RPG released in 2023. Another thing that is more of a criticism outside of P3R is that this game should not have been $70 USD; that’s too high for what this is.

I don’t think this invalidates playing Persona 3: FES, but I don’t think you are losing “something” if you choose to play Reload over it. If you ask me which one I prefer, I would say Persona 3 Reload, despite everything negative I said. It’s not perfect, but it is still damn good.

A faithful remake that's tweaked and added to just enough to make it feel fresh, snappy, modern, and approachable. I loved the improved Tartarus a lot, and it made struggling up its many blocks much more captivating in the moment to moment. Heck, the stellar new dub that covers much more of the game elevates the already great story and makes this version worth a look on its own.

The vibes are a bit different in a couple areas (mostly at the beginning and end) and your mileage may vary when it comes to those changes; I personally enjoyed them as a different take on familiar scenes. The rebalancing is also mostly a positive I feel, but it tends to lean a bit on the easy side, so I would recommend starting on a harder difficulty especially for veterans of the series.

I think they could have even been a bit more liberal with the tweaks even, maybe remix/rewrite/punch-up some of the weaker social links, perhaps alleviate the later months where they won't let you do a whole lot with more new events or more opportunities to do things. These aren't huge make-or-break things though, I respect that they wanted to go mostly as faithful as possible.

Good game, my new favorite version of Persona 3, and the one I would recommend to most people.