Persona 3 Reload: An amazing remake plagued by modern monetization practices and horrible balance.
This review comes from a perspective of someone who played FES up until May and has experience in all mainline modern persona games, so my experience as a Persona player and experiencing the world of 3 essentially for the first time plays heavily into my review.
Before I get into the story (spoilers ahead), let me answer a question for people wanting to play this game:
It's a great game that I highly recommend you buy. The story is great, the QoL changes they add into the gameplay is a breath of fresh air and is one of the main reasons why I couldn't really finish FES (and also the really really slow pace of the game at the start). However, It's a game that doesn't really provide any incentive to replay in NG+ other than finishing up some trophies you missed on your first playthrough. The content after finishing your first playthrough is non-existent, and if I were to buy this game, I would wait for a sale, because it definitely is not worth $70.
Now let's move onto the better part of this game, the story (spoilers ahead, you've been warned):
I love the underlying themes of this game, they're so good and well-written, alongside each of the characters. Unlike the other themes like in 5 that talked about fate and rebellion, 3 talked about death and your convictions. Tackling the theme of Death in a video game can be difficult, but ATLUS does it perfectly, and the eerie and dark color scheme that comes with Tatarus, the Dark Hour and the overall atmosphere of the game in general complements the events that transpire throughout the game.
Everything is written beautifully. Each event that happens in the main story doesn't feel like a cliché, it felt like every event happened for a reason and had a purpose in the plot.
Each of the main characters (the party members) get their own time in the spotlight of the game. The developments I enjoyed most were Junpei's and Aigis', I felt like their character breakthroughs were much stronger in their convictions and in the development/build-up to the climax of their character arc. However, Aigis' development as a character is kind of unfair because she gets like 5 months of screentime dedicated throughout the game to develop as a character.
Again, the theme of Death was explored amazingly. If it eventually happens, why don't we just give in to being zombies and forget everything? It's the same question Takaya and Nyx were repeating for the entirety of at least the end of the game. If you ever wondered why we live our lives on this chaotic planet called Earth, I think P3 has the answer (haha, get it?).
Okay, now with the story out of the way, let's talk about gameplay:
Gameplay differs from FES (which I will be talking about mostly because I never touched portable) in the sense that they have removed fusion spells for special attacks known as Theurgy's. Theurgy's are special moves you charge up over time, and these moves range from powerful damaging attacks to overpowered support skills.
Theurgy's are absolutely broken and in a bad way. They are a trump card to many of the game's bosses, and you can usually cop out of hard situations by using these skills. The reason for this is because Theurgy's are scaled based on the persona that is equipped. This means the damage scales on the Persona's St and Ma stats, and also accounting for any Amp/Boost skills along the way (and for some reason Charge/Concentrate!). This makes most attacks do way more damage than they are supposed to, and the fact that they ignore resistances makes it even more encouraging to spam it on any enemy you see.
The balance in this game is horrendous. Who on god's green Earth thought it was a good idea to add Crit Rate Boost/Amp into the skill pool? These skills combined with a high crit skill like Brave Blade/Heaven's Blade and Apt Pupil means you are NEVER missing a crit, and since a crit is essentially the same as hitting a weakness, you will be doing nothing but farming one more's and all out attacks once you learn about making a phys skill persona with crit rate boost/amp.
However, I have to give credit where credit is due. ATLUS tried to lessen the grind in this game by adding the Great Clock, which in my mind is an absolute godsend. The Great Clock allows you to select up to 2 party members to level up until the MC's current level (with a maximum of 13 levels per clock). This helps your party members that you have been perma benching in a Tartarus run not slack behind, and when you need that party member for an important boss fight, you don't need to spend another 1-2 hours leveling them up just to progress in the game's main content. However, the pacing of levelling in this game I think is spot on. If you prioritized EXP cards in Shuffle-Time throughout the entirety of your run, you shouldn't need to spend extra time grinding because you're underlevelled for a boss. Some may argue that grinding to match the level of a boss should be a staple of a JRPG, but in my opinion, it's just an unnecessary waste of time that the devs can fix by tweaking some numbers.
QoL is also a huge plus with Reload. However, most of it is a given considering the QoL we got in P5R, with the addition of the Town Map showing every available Social Link, but alongside some new additions, like the Shared Computer in the Iwatodai Dorm (I think? I don't recall using it in FES).
Overall, the experience I had with this game was positive, and I would definitely recommend it to a friend wanting to dive into Persona or the JRPG Genre. However, I don't think it's the coveted masterpiece of a remake I think some fans are making it out to be. The story is definitely one of the strongest out of the Persona games, but the balancing and lack of endgame/NG+ content does not justify purchasing this game at its full price tag of $70. The fact that The Answer is coming to Reload as DLC rather than as a complimentary side-story on release is also a slap in the face and another occurence of the shitty DLC practices ATLUS have been using for years. If you want to play The Answer, just emulate FES on PCSX2.
(80 Hours Played)
4/5
EDIT: I wanted to give quick insight into the Music/Art Direction of Reload. The music has produced some of the best vocal tracks I have ever listened to. It's Going Down Now and Color Your Night are some of my favorite tracks. They're both catchy, and they fit the atmosphere and environment that the player is in when the song is played. The Art Direction I believe is kind of mixed. I've heard from people that played FES and Portable that the Art Direction sucks and steers away from the magic and mood present in past iterations, but I wanted to give my own objective opinion on the Art Direction of Reload as someone that didn't play/finish FES: The character sprites look amazing and are a huge upgrade from 5's character sprites. The character's faces look more like their 2D Portraits, more effort and care is given to the animation of characters for in-game cutscenes (with the dialogue boxes, not the full renders). However, I think I noticed that the overall atmosphere of the Dark Hour outside of Tartarus felt more washed out in color and more dull than it was in FES. I'm not an artistic guy so I don't really know how to explain it, but it felt like something was off. In addition, I definitely noticed the lack of anime cutscenes throughout the game. Until I know where these anime cutscenes were, I can't really say if I have a preference for one or the other, but the one I do know about is the MC's awakening, and by far the FES awakening that used anime instead of an in-game render (Reload) conveyed much better tension and felt more emotionally powerful than Reload was. Anyways, that's my take on the music and art direction or Reload.
This review comes from a perspective of someone who played FES up until May and has experience in all mainline modern persona games, so my experience as a Persona player and experiencing the world of 3 essentially for the first time plays heavily into my review.
Before I get into the story (spoilers ahead), let me answer a question for people wanting to play this game:
It's a great game that I highly recommend you buy. The story is great, the QoL changes they add into the gameplay is a breath of fresh air and is one of the main reasons why I couldn't really finish FES (and also the really really slow pace of the game at the start). However, It's a game that doesn't really provide any incentive to replay in NG+ other than finishing up some trophies you missed on your first playthrough. The content after finishing your first playthrough is non-existent, and if I were to buy this game, I would wait for a sale, because it definitely is not worth $70.
Now let's move onto the better part of this game, the story (spoilers ahead, you've been warned):
I love the underlying themes of this game, they're so good and well-written, alongside each of the characters. Unlike the other themes like in 5 that talked about fate and rebellion, 3 talked about death and your convictions. Tackling the theme of Death in a video game can be difficult, but ATLUS does it perfectly, and the eerie and dark color scheme that comes with Tatarus, the Dark Hour and the overall atmosphere of the game in general complements the events that transpire throughout the game.
Everything is written beautifully. Each event that happens in the main story doesn't feel like a cliché, it felt like every event happened for a reason and had a purpose in the plot.
Each of the main characters (the party members) get their own time in the spotlight of the game. The developments I enjoyed most were Junpei's and Aigis', I felt like their character breakthroughs were much stronger in their convictions and in the development/build-up to the climax of their character arc. However, Aigis' development as a character is kind of unfair because she gets like 5 months of screentime dedicated throughout the game to develop as a character.
Again, the theme of Death was explored amazingly. If it eventually happens, why don't we just give in to being zombies and forget everything? It's the same question Takaya and Nyx were repeating for the entirety of at least the end of the game. If you ever wondered why we live our lives on this chaotic planet called Earth, I think P3 has the answer (haha, get it?).
Okay, now with the story out of the way, let's talk about gameplay:
Gameplay differs from FES (which I will be talking about mostly because I never touched portable) in the sense that they have removed fusion spells for special attacks known as Theurgy's. Theurgy's are special moves you charge up over time, and these moves range from powerful damaging attacks to overpowered support skills.
Theurgy's are absolutely broken and in a bad way. They are a trump card to many of the game's bosses, and you can usually cop out of hard situations by using these skills. The reason for this is because Theurgy's are scaled based on the persona that is equipped. This means the damage scales on the Persona's St and Ma stats, and also accounting for any Amp/Boost skills along the way (and for some reason Charge/Concentrate!). This makes most attacks do way more damage than they are supposed to, and the fact that they ignore resistances makes it even more encouraging to spam it on any enemy you see.
The balance in this game is horrendous. Who on god's green Earth thought it was a good idea to add Crit Rate Boost/Amp into the skill pool? These skills combined with a high crit skill like Brave Blade/Heaven's Blade and Apt Pupil means you are NEVER missing a crit, and since a crit is essentially the same as hitting a weakness, you will be doing nothing but farming one more's and all out attacks once you learn about making a phys skill persona with crit rate boost/amp.
However, I have to give credit where credit is due. ATLUS tried to lessen the grind in this game by adding the Great Clock, which in my mind is an absolute godsend. The Great Clock allows you to select up to 2 party members to level up until the MC's current level (with a maximum of 13 levels per clock). This helps your party members that you have been perma benching in a Tartarus run not slack behind, and when you need that party member for an important boss fight, you don't need to spend another 1-2 hours leveling them up just to progress in the game's main content. However, the pacing of levelling in this game I think is spot on. If you prioritized EXP cards in Shuffle-Time throughout the entirety of your run, you shouldn't need to spend extra time grinding because you're underlevelled for a boss. Some may argue that grinding to match the level of a boss should be a staple of a JRPG, but in my opinion, it's just an unnecessary waste of time that the devs can fix by tweaking some numbers.
QoL is also a huge plus with Reload. However, most of it is a given considering the QoL we got in P5R, with the addition of the Town Map showing every available Social Link, but alongside some new additions, like the Shared Computer in the Iwatodai Dorm (I think? I don't recall using it in FES).
Overall, the experience I had with this game was positive, and I would definitely recommend it to a friend wanting to dive into Persona or the JRPG Genre. However, I don't think it's the coveted masterpiece of a remake I think some fans are making it out to be. The story is definitely one of the strongest out of the Persona games, but the balancing and lack of endgame/NG+ content does not justify purchasing this game at its full price tag of $70. The fact that The Answer is coming to Reload as DLC rather than as a complimentary side-story on release is also a slap in the face and another occurence of the shitty DLC practices ATLUS have been using for years. If you want to play The Answer, just emulate FES on PCSX2.
(80 Hours Played)
4/5
EDIT: I wanted to give quick insight into the Music/Art Direction of Reload. The music has produced some of the best vocal tracks I have ever listened to. It's Going Down Now and Color Your Night are some of my favorite tracks. They're both catchy, and they fit the atmosphere and environment that the player is in when the song is played. The Art Direction I believe is kind of mixed. I've heard from people that played FES and Portable that the Art Direction sucks and steers away from the magic and mood present in past iterations, but I wanted to give my own objective opinion on the Art Direction of Reload as someone that didn't play/finish FES: The character sprites look amazing and are a huge upgrade from 5's character sprites. The character's faces look more like their 2D Portraits, more effort and care is given to the animation of characters for in-game cutscenes (with the dialogue boxes, not the full renders). However, I think I noticed that the overall atmosphere of the Dark Hour outside of Tartarus felt more washed out in color and more dull than it was in FES. I'm not an artistic guy so I don't really know how to explain it, but it felt like something was off. In addition, I definitely noticed the lack of anime cutscenes throughout the game. Until I know where these anime cutscenes were, I can't really say if I have a preference for one or the other, but the one I do know about is the MC's awakening, and by far the FES awakening that used anime instead of an in-game render (Reload) conveyed much better tension and felt more emotionally powerful than Reload was. Anyways, that's my take on the music and art direction or Reload.