I'm a pretty big fan of modern Persona. At this point I've done multiple playthroughs of 3-5, so when this was announced sufficed to say I was fairly excited. I knew from the first trailer that this game was going to be something special, and thankfully we didn't have to wait too long after to see it release in a year already jam-packed with JRPGs.
There's a lot I can gush about here. The cast is phenomenal with basically every member of your party being fleshed out even more than in previous iterations of P3. The combat has most of the bells and whistles P5 Royal has which translates flawlessly to the main dungeon of P3. The updated soundtrack is absolutely amazing making it hard not to stop and listen to the songs instead of actively playing the game. And to top it all off, there's bonus content that make the already endearing setting (that looks great in HD) feel even more alive with additional events and quality of life features giving new players what is arguably the best entry point to the series thus far.
Most (if not all) of my negatives are mainly just nitpicks that aren't deal breakers whatsoever. Some of them are things like not having content from other versions (FES, P3P) which may or may not come in the form of future DLC, as well as Tartarus simply being more tedious at times than I'd prefer which can't really be helped without fundamentally changing how the game works. Some of the social links are also noticeably weaker than the later entries, but again it's hard to fault Reload for that due to them staying faithful to those that were in the original game.
While I still think I prefer Persona 5 and Persona 4, I have a newfound appreciation for 3 following Reload even after first experiencing Portable only a year ago. I'd say this is worth a shot for basically anyone even remotely interested in JRPGs. Who knows, you may just find yourself enamored with the franchise like so many others as it continues to get more and more popular.
There's a lot I can gush about here. The cast is phenomenal with basically every member of your party being fleshed out even more than in previous iterations of P3. The combat has most of the bells and whistles P5 Royal has which translates flawlessly to the main dungeon of P3. The updated soundtrack is absolutely amazing making it hard not to stop and listen to the songs instead of actively playing the game. And to top it all off, there's bonus content that make the already endearing setting (that looks great in HD) feel even more alive with additional events and quality of life features giving new players what is arguably the best entry point to the series thus far.
Most (if not all) of my negatives are mainly just nitpicks that aren't deal breakers whatsoever. Some of them are things like not having content from other versions (FES, P3P) which may or may not come in the form of future DLC, as well as Tartarus simply being more tedious at times than I'd prefer which can't really be helped without fundamentally changing how the game works. Some of the social links are also noticeably weaker than the later entries, but again it's hard to fault Reload for that due to them staying faithful to those that were in the original game.
While I still think I prefer Persona 5 and Persona 4, I have a newfound appreciation for 3 following Reload even after first experiencing Portable only a year ago. I'd say this is worth a shot for basically anyone even remotely interested in JRPGs. Who knows, you may just find yourself enamored with the franchise like so many others as it continues to get more and more popular.