Persona 3 Reload is a game that I was super excited to play the moment that it was announced, even though I only played P3P for the first time last year. The worst part of the original, to me at least, was the combat. P3R fixes this by pulling from all of the best aspects of P5R and putting those aspects into this game. I am of the belief that, in terms of the vanilla story, Persona 3 has the strongest, so now that I feel it has the strongest story and comparable combat to P5R, I think that P3R comes close to being the best game in the franchise.
In terms of what this Persona games best, there are a couple of things. I think that the main narrative and the way that it weaves all of your other party members in works better than the other Persona games that I have played. It made me more invested in the stories of all of the SEES members. Another thing about the game that was particularly strong was the voice acting. A big reason I feel this way may be due to the fact that a majority of the game, including all of the social links, are voice acted. This made some of the characters, especially Yuko's, stand out much more to me than when I played P3P. Really all of the voice acting in the game with all of the new cast was great. I also enjoyed the little easter eggs with a majority of the original cast of P3 and even some of P5 making little appearances. The update combat is nice as well, with it being more streamlined than ever making the long Tartarus grinds feel less tedious than before. The addition of Theurgy is pretty cool too, with it being super fun and overpowered at times in the game.
Another that P3R does exceptionally well, like all of the Persona games, is the music. The soundtrack for P3 was already great, but with several new tracks and remixes of almost all of the old ones it may be the best music the franchise has to offer. The new night time theme Color Your Night, new Iwatodai Dorm theme, new battle theme It's Going Down Now, and new opening Full Moon Full Life are all some of my favorite songs in all the Persona games. The only song that I didn't enjoy as much as the original was Mass Destruction, but by the end of the game due to all of the upgrades you can get it was rare to hear this one over It's Going Down Now since that was the song when you went into a fight with an advantage.
Though a lot of little things were changed in the game, I would argue that this is about as faithful as it gets when it comes to a remake. They did make a lot of things easier to do and added some elements from other games to make this the definitive version, but the story and social links remain mostly unchanged. I did like that we were given time to spend with the male SEES members, which was previously only an option when playing as the FEMC in P3P. Another small change that was made that I enjoyed some was the visual changes to Tartarus. This wasn't a huge change even if it did help the tedious grind just a little bit. I did expect them to change a little more, but it didn't make the game any worse by not making any major changes.
The lack of change didn't hurt, but after replaying P5R last year it does kind of make some of the original lows of the game stick out a little more. Some examples of this are some of the lulls in the story, particularly when the characters were on break. There wasn't enough social links available to do in those breaks when the game wasn't forcing you to watch your character do something like go to a track meet. Also towards the end of the game the night time segments are still lackluster with all of the night social links maxed out and no more stats to raise. Lastly, though I love the story, it does take a little bit to really get interesting. The first half of the game is just a lot of grinding your way up Tartarus and doing social links, but once you have all of the SEES members it really picks up.
Overall, Persona 3 Reload is the best way to play Persona 3. It does so much right and has just enough changed to feel like a more modern game while till staying incredibly faithful to the original. The story, combat, voice acting, music and just about every other aspect of the game is as good as it gets. I love Persona 3 Reload and I feel it is as close as you can get to the quality of Persona 5 Royal without making any drastic changes. The game is a masterpiece.
In terms of what this Persona games best, there are a couple of things. I think that the main narrative and the way that it weaves all of your other party members in works better than the other Persona games that I have played. It made me more invested in the stories of all of the SEES members. Another thing about the game that was particularly strong was the voice acting. A big reason I feel this way may be due to the fact that a majority of the game, including all of the social links, are voice acted. This made some of the characters, especially Yuko's, stand out much more to me than when I played P3P. Really all of the voice acting in the game with all of the new cast was great. I also enjoyed the little easter eggs with a majority of the original cast of P3 and even some of P5 making little appearances. The update combat is nice as well, with it being more streamlined than ever making the long Tartarus grinds feel less tedious than before. The addition of Theurgy is pretty cool too, with it being super fun and overpowered at times in the game.
Another that P3R does exceptionally well, like all of the Persona games, is the music. The soundtrack for P3 was already great, but with several new tracks and remixes of almost all of the old ones it may be the best music the franchise has to offer. The new night time theme Color Your Night, new Iwatodai Dorm theme, new battle theme It's Going Down Now, and new opening Full Moon Full Life are all some of my favorite songs in all the Persona games. The only song that I didn't enjoy as much as the original was Mass Destruction, but by the end of the game due to all of the upgrades you can get it was rare to hear this one over It's Going Down Now since that was the song when you went into a fight with an advantage.
Though a lot of little things were changed in the game, I would argue that this is about as faithful as it gets when it comes to a remake. They did make a lot of things easier to do and added some elements from other games to make this the definitive version, but the story and social links remain mostly unchanged. I did like that we were given time to spend with the male SEES members, which was previously only an option when playing as the FEMC in P3P. Another small change that was made that I enjoyed some was the visual changes to Tartarus. This wasn't a huge change even if it did help the tedious grind just a little bit. I did expect them to change a little more, but it didn't make the game any worse by not making any major changes.
The lack of change didn't hurt, but after replaying P5R last year it does kind of make some of the original lows of the game stick out a little more. Some examples of this are some of the lulls in the story, particularly when the characters were on break. There wasn't enough social links available to do in those breaks when the game wasn't forcing you to watch your character do something like go to a track meet. Also towards the end of the game the night time segments are still lackluster with all of the night social links maxed out and no more stats to raise. Lastly, though I love the story, it does take a little bit to really get interesting. The first half of the game is just a lot of grinding your way up Tartarus and doing social links, but once you have all of the SEES members it really picks up.
Overall, Persona 3 Reload is the best way to play Persona 3. It does so much right and has just enough changed to feel like a more modern game while till staying incredibly faithful to the original. The story, combat, voice acting, music and just about every other aspect of the game is as good as it gets. I love Persona 3 Reload and I feel it is as close as you can get to the quality of Persona 5 Royal without making any drastic changes. The game is a masterpiece.