In a lot of ways P3R is as good as you could wish for a remake to be, but its visual and auditory shortcomings are hard to ignore. Still this is one of the most fun RPGs you can play and I barely put it down since release.

First thing you'll notice is that the UI and character animations / art are mostly incredible, I love the ocean blue aesthetic for the menus and it doesn't feel too much like a copy of P5's. Gameplay is amazing, incorporating the best mechanics of newer games like the Baton Pass but now with actual balancing. The "Showtime"-esque mechanic with flashy special attacks isn't completely braindead and adds new strategies. This is pretty easily the best combat in the Persona series and every boss fight has been upgraded a lot in terms of gimmicks and challenge, making them stand out more from one another. Tartarus has also been fleshed out considerably speeding up the levelling process. You can mix and match all party members without anyone falling too far behind. P3 already had the best written story but certain characters with less screen time in the original have been given way more attention, and the male members of SEES can be hung out with giving their own bonuses. Finally QOL changes mean the average player will see much more of what the game has to offer in the side content. So both gameplay and story are a huge success here!

Sadly Reload didn't even try to be a definitive version of P3. Besides the obvious missing FES content (likely getting added as expensive DLC) and Portable, there's much more terrible decisions. The most insane is obviously the remixed music. The P3 OST is one of the most beloved of all time and not even having it as an OPTION in the remake is downright criminal. WIthout exception every remix has worse mixing and less power than its original, and the sound effects are weaker too. The vocalist doesn't fit P3's vibe and sounds like she's straight up struggling with the songs. New tracks are decent but again don't fit the mid 2000s vibe and were clearly made without Meguro's involvement. Presentation is also all over the place. It can look really nice in the day sections with the 60fps and raytracing implemented. but a lot of Dark Hour scenes look horrible now. How is it even possible for a PS2 game to have better lighting than a PS5 one? My last major complaint is the new anime cutscenes. Any sense of the raw edginess and symbolism of the original is gone for a much more sterile direction, and the scenes chosen to be 2D animated are randomly chosen like the awesome awakening scene which is now animated in engine and it just kinda sucks.

It doesn't replace FES for me which still reigns supreme in terms of SOVL but it could maybe have been perfect had it been given more time and budget. Now we have 3 completely different versions of P3 :D