"All that really matters is that we're proud of how we lived."

Persona 3 was the game that truly made me love video games and honestly changed my life. When the remake was announced, I was insanely excited to experience one of my favorite stories in an updated fashion.

I'm not sure exactly what my expectations were but I can say that they were surpassed. It was done justice and some.

The addition of new social aspects like the guys getting Link Episodes and the hangouts enhanced what I thought was already a strong cast of characters. The additional scenes and focus that the characters get made the story moments hit even harder.

I liked some more than others, but I very much enjoyed the Reload OSTs especially Color Your Night.

The gameplay is way more enjoyable than the previous versions of P3 and the Theurgy skills are cool as hell.

All-in-all, Persona 3 Reload is all I could've asked for and more. It has renewed my love for this game and cemented itself as an all-time favorite.

It has Koromaru, therefore it's peak. I haven't played any other versions of Persona 3 so I'm glad I finally got to experience it after all these years.

Loved the story overall, especially the ending.. it was beautiful and left me very satisfied. Everything else was also on par, from the characters, to the voice acting, to the visuals, to the music, to the combat. It's consistently great throughout the entire game. It is also worth mentioning the UI because they most definitely cooked.

I had the most fun in Tartarus, grinding away, searching every corner for chests and fighting EVERY shadow I spot. I tried using all the characters and everyone felt strong which was really nice because I often tend to use the same party members in these types of games. I played 99% of the game with Direct Commands on because the one time I changed it to Act Freely, I didn't like it. Having controls over your party is just convenient, especially with the addition of Theurgy, which is basically your ultimate ability that you charge up over time and does crazy damage, heals your party or sometimes even buff them.

I will be running it back with another playthrough so I can get all of the achievements and I can't wait to go through Tartarus all over again with the SEES squad.

KOROMARUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!

Memento mori -- remember, you will not have enough time to complete all your Social Links if you focus on the old couple and their stupid persimmon tree the second you start the game. Do any of these kids even go to school!?

Apologies to FES devotees, but the "Persona 5-fication" of Persona 3 has, in my eyes, been nothing but a net gain. Sure, it's upsetting that the only other legally accessible version of Persona 3 is a ho-hum port of a compromised portable release, but I'm no stranger to the base game, and when stacking it up side-by-side with Reload, it's hard to not internalize the remake as being the superior way to play the game.

Pretty much every facet of the original is improved or otherwise preserved, and nothing has been downscaled or infringed upon in a manner I would view as harmful. That extends to giving the player direct control over their party, a choice that was originally made to suit Persona 3's themes of communication and bonding by treating each member of SEES as their own individual with their own will. You could largely avoid Mitsuru's habitual casting of Marin Karin by engaging with command presets, my issue is not with the AI. I just think having input over 25% of my team in battle makes the game a little too passive and boring. Well, not anymore. Now I have total control, me, and I'm using my newfound agency to... habitually cast Marin Karin-- wait what the hell

An expanded list of spells and abilities adds a lot more variety to combat, and having more input over how your Personas are built permits more strategic planning over the original's randomized inheritance. All quality-of-life changes that are more or less standard parts of the modern SMT experience, effectively bringing Persona 3 on par with Persona 5 and Shin Megami Tensei V. It is likewise as easy as those games, but being accessible to new audiences isn't necessarily a bad thing. I opted to play through Reload on hard and found the difficulty curve to be more enjoyable this way, though by the time you reach the end game you'll still likely be overpowered. Armageddon is basically the "bully The Reaper" button, and I feel a little bad about it, but that's free EXP so what're you gonna do?

Even the individual blocks of Tartarus, Persona 3's massive procedurally generated labyrinth, are fleshed out in a way that makes navigating less rote and tiresome... though it doesn't completely alleviate some of the tedium. This is perhaps one area where Reload is a bit too slavish to the original game. Enemy designs are turned over and recycled constantly, and the limited number of blocks ensures that even though the geometry is more varied, you'll still probably get sick of exploring before reaching a border floor.

Though I've seen people upset that Reload recasts everyone (except Tara Platt, who apparently had the one unassailable performance), I do think the new cast is excellent, and emotional beats that I found affecting when I played the original game were even more impactful despite anticipating them thanks in large part to better voice direction, more emotive character models, and more dynamic cinematography. I've seen mixed opinions on the soundtrack and changes to Persona 3's aesthetic, but I'm way into all of it. These are my favorite versions of familiar songs, I think the character portraits are a clear step up and I adore the hard lines segmenting areas of shading, I am 1,000% down with the water theming in the menus, and I think the new SEES uniforms are great and actually make the party feel like a well-backed force.

I also have nothing but praise for the new Not S. Links Reload adds, which provides the male members of SEES additional screentime for their individual stories to develop. I think this helps bond the player with each member of the core party even more than the original did, something that Persona 3's two sequels got right by giving each member their own dedicated Social Links. Strega and their ideology are also given a greater amount of time to develop, which helps build them as a credible threat and enhances their presence in the story. However, I must dock points for not being able to date Takaya, I can fix him

Reload might be me at my most defensive of remakes, and at my most insistent that changing material is not inherently bad. The few ways in which Reload does lack is still a noted step up from the original, and the content which is outright excluded is material I didn't care about anyway (I think The Answer is the closest any expanded content has come to essentially being an IGN "ending explained!" article, and unfathomably boring besides.) That said, I think it's possible to feel this way about Reload and still lament the fact that the original game is only accessible through piracy or by overpaying on the aftermarket, and that even more Persona 3 media is outright lost to time.

i feel like on absolute critical thoughts its a step back from both kh1 and 2. But I can say by not much at all and there are things this game stands out with as well. It feels like this game is rather easy even on proud mode as the game does try to celebrate its return by handing out wonderous moves that are fairly powerful and strong all the way to the end. It defintely has the most options and spectacle out of the three and it continues to be more over the top and exciting however I think it lacks polish or cohesion compared to both 1 and 2. This game defintley tries to tackle a lot with all the spin offs and even adding more details to 1 and 2 to which I feel can be hit and miss. Never outright awful. I'm happy given its develpoment hell and probably reason to why some things feel off or missing, I cannot express how ps2 it feels in the best way possible. Scripted setpieces or event always give the player control or are optional, unlike games of the modern era where interactivity is stripped away to give priority to the "cinematic" elements of the game. KH3 never shys away from being a video game and fully embraces it and even if its not as tight as the other ps2 games. This is the single best trait of kh3. Its uncomprised and unwilling to bend over backwards to make it broader to more players by dumbing anything down but by going really hard on this crossover action rpg. Hopefully the next sequel can shake the baggage of engine change dilemmas and maybe returning the dialouge to the 1st two's more natural delivery. The game has some good dialouge but it is highly expositry and a bit slow and monotone. Also screw you sqaure dlc should still not be $50.

Here is a list of every single joke review I considered making:
Shellden Ring
Floodborne
Dark Shoals
Lies of Sea
Black Myth Dugong
Shellkiro: Shallows Rise Twice
Coral Shell

I couldn't pick one.

Anyway, weird how the funny-ass crab game is the best soulslike ever made that wasn't made by fromsoft. A fun art direction, a surprisingly good story, a really cool shell mechanic, and some very strong boss encounters. It's certainly lacking polish in a few areas and the music is occasionally quite bad, but I had a really REALLY good time with this game!

It's alright, but I just don't like it as much as Donkey '94. I'm not big on the two-screen format and having to clear two screens in a row without dying to get the gold star on a level was kind of annoying. I think it's missing some of the simplicity the original had, even if it largely retains some of the same elements and does them decently well. If I went for 100%, I think I'd do it on the Switch version instead. Not bad, but I think DK94 is just slightly better and more well-executed. I can definitely see the promise with all those extra levels and challenges though, so I can't fault it for content.

(9-year-old's review, typed by his dad)

There's no square root to death

And also I like it when the cubes fall. I don't like 2-player things single-player. It gets uncomfortable when you have to synchronize. Unless you're ambidextrous.

I know someone who's ambidextrous. He's my friend at school. He plays basketball.

An absolutely awesome game, the characters are all freaks and we love them for it. The mini game collections are fun, I really enjoy the Nintendo throwbacks and the photorealistic challenges are really cute!

I like that a number of games are built upon into either longer form score attack or a two-person one-console format.

I can’t really fault it apart from perhaps some similarities between game objectives being same-y. For example, shoot the guy, catch the guy, stop it in place. Or maybe that’s the ingenuity of Wario’s wares.

WarioWare always felt understated, but really playing this in tandem with rounds of Game & Watch Gallery 3 solidifies the connectivity Nintendo has with simple gameplay objectives and hooks.