Hotline Miami 2 is not as good as its predecessor. The level design is noticeably worse than the first Hotline Miami; levels are far less readable and much larger, containing far too many points in which enemies can kill you from off-screen - the cardinal sin of action game design. The end result is that the player is conditioned to approach levels at a slower, far more methodical pace, using doorways as choke points to clear out a room before moving on, rinse, repeat until the chapter is cleared. In HM1, where levels are tighter, more constrained, and dense with enemies, I was powering through like a tornado of violence, clearing rooms in seconds and maintaining massive combos while using a variety of melee and ranged weapons. HM1 feels like driving a sports car at the absolute limit, as you're constantly toeing the line of failure in the pursuit of even more performance. In comparison, HM2 feels like driving an old car on its last legs, strategically managing every turn and intersection to avoid breaking down before you reach your destination.

So yeah, HM2 isn't as Capital G Good as the first game. It is, however, a far more interesting work.

This is an ambitious, sprawling double album versus the the tight, razor-sharp debut that is HM1. HM2's narrative is far more reflexive - on its predecessor, on it's own status as a sequel, on the success of it's creators and the struggles of game development, on violence, the media, sensationalism, the military industrial complex, mental health, and love. It is a frequently confusing, often bloated work that is reaching out to express everything that is on its mind, cohesion and coherency be damned. It doesn't quite know what it wants to say, but it can't hold it in any longer. It is a clear labour of love, a deeply nihilistic passion project, a misunderstood masterpiece that would only ever work as a video game but is unfortunately kind of a bummer to play. It's like a cross between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Pathologic.

It's like The Last of Us 2 if it weren't written by Zionists.

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.