When Persona 3 Reload was first announced, I was a little anxious and worried about it. I had gotten into the Persona series in 2017 when Persona 5 released and was completely enamoured with the series, playing through every title throughout that year. Persona 3 FES however stood out above all the rest. Its story, themes, characters, and the way they wove it all into the gameplay captured my imagination and heart in a way like few other games have or ever will. I also played through Persona 3 Portable and loved the alternative take through the eyes of the female protagonist, seeing new sides to my favourite characters and finding even more to love about Persona 3. It’s a game that I love so much that I’ve beaten FES twice and Portable twice (doing the Male MC route in the 2023 port release to see any more differences between it and FES). Persona 3 is a special game to me so when the remake was finally announced, it had a lot of expectations to live up to. I had worries that modern Atlus would try and inject P5 sensibilities and writing into the game considering how successful it was, I was disappointed to find out that The Answer from FES (which I know many don’t like but for me it is an incredibly important piece of the story that made Yukari my favourite character of all time) and that the female protagonist from Portable wouldn’t be included. The dream was always to have a definitive Persona 3 that includes all the content but I now realise how idealistic I was being. There will never be a definitive version of Persona 3 and that’s ok. Playing Reload made me realise that every version of P3 has its strengths and weaknesses, that each journey is its own unique take on the same incredible story and that your own tastes will determine which version will become your favourite.
Let’s get the elephant out of the room first. The omissions from this remake are disappointing and I totally get why many are disappointed from them but I also understand what Atlus have decided to do here. Reload is very much focused on the core journey story from the original Persona 3 and trying to make it the best possible version of that first and foremost. What that means is that while stuff like The Answer and FeMC did not make the cut, The Journey from the Male Protagonist viewpoint has been very meticulously expanded upon, including nearly everything that FES and Portable added to that portion of the game, like Aigis’ Social Link and people wandering into Tartarus to be saved. On top of that, there’s been a bunch of additions and tweaks that ultimately makes this arguable the perfect base to build upon like they did with FES and Portable in the past (and at the time of writing, rumours do suggest that The Answer is coming via DLC, further strengthening my thoughts). Reload is about remaking The Journey at its core to be the best it can be and while I share the disappointment in omissions, I think Atlus choosing to focus on the core of Persona 3 was ultimately the right decision, as much as missing out on the other stuff hurts.
Back to the initial worries and fear of how much influence P5 and modern Atlus would have on this remake. I am very glad to say that I was wrong on that front. While there are some fumbles and missteps here and there (especially if you’re like me and adore P3 to the point you’ll pick up on many nitpicks), the new content in Reload very much shows that the team on this understood and loved P3 like the rest of us. Yeah some things are lost in translation and effected by the evolution of modern technology, like how bright the dorm is now or how some things like having the option to choose swimming or kendo have been cut for just track and field but the new content, ooooo the new content expands upon my favourites that tickle the brainworms in ways that only Persona 3 could and that’s what I love.
The Male route had a few flaws with it being the first game to introduce Social Links, the most notable being the lack of Links for your male party members like Junpei and Akihiko. Reload has taken the opportunity to introduce new Linked Episodes for Junpei, Akihiko, Ken, Shinjiro, and Koromaru that will appear throughout the story. They’re very much character hangouts that expand upon each character in ways that are very much appreciated. Getting to have a closer look into how Shinjiro and Ken are feeling before their big Full Moon mission, hearing Akihiko talk more about his sister, and helping Junpei get through his rough patch are all wonderful things that make each of these characters more endearing and the writing fits right at home with these characters core identities. Yeah, a little bit of subtlety is unfortunately lost with Shinjiro and Ken but it’s definitely made up for with just how well these hangouts are written. Strega also get additional scenes in a similar manner that expands mostly upon Takaya’s character, giving him a new fascination with the Protagonist and his ability wield multiple Personas which I think really fits Takaya well, especially with how he views the Dark Hour and Personas as gifts bestowed upon the chosen few.
New night events have been added as well. The original P3 very quickly ran out of night time activities if you knew what you were doing, and so these new events are another great addition. Every party member now has two different night time hangouts with 3 events on each that unlocks abilities for them as well as expands upon their character. For example you can cook or watch DVDs with Yukari or attend to the plants or read manga with Junpei. I had a lot of fun reading Yakuza novels with Aigis and seeing Yukari want to become strong and kind like the female protagonist in the show she watches. Again, the writing expands upon the characters in ways that truly fit with the characters and that’s all I could ever ask for. The abilities you unlock for doing these include stuff like reducing the SP cost of healing for Yukari which is a nice bonus.
These new bonding events and linked episodes do not replace any of the old Social Links. The team at Atlus made sure to preserve all the original Social Links with minimal changes and yeah while some like Magician and Moon kinda suck, I have come to appreciate them more now. In life we don’t just spend time with people we like, we often find times where we end up stuck with people who we know are kinda awful people but I think it’s important to have those experiences as well as the good ones. Our journeys through life lead us to meet all sorts of people and they shape who we are. For every cult following advantage taking Moon, there’s a Sun whose brightness shines all the stronger because we can appreciate the good more from having experienced the bad. Persona 3 never shies away from showing us the highs and lows of life and I’m glad the remake chose to keep that intact despite all the shouts calling for some Social Links to be replaced by the male party members.
One thing I’m glad they did change with the Social Links though is the romance aspect. In the original, nearly every girl was written in a way that they fall in love with the protagonist and automatically enter a relationship with him by Rank 10. It was an incredibly outdated view of the world even back in 2006, where Katsura Hashino mentioned in an interview that he believed men and women couldn’t be friends. Thankfully now those Social Links have been altered, and while characters like Yuko and Chihiro still clearly fall in love with the protagonist, you can now guide the link towards a platonic outcome and with characters like Fuuka and Mitsuru, I think the new rewrites work pretty well. Outside of that though, the Social Links remain relatively unchanged and I think that’s a good thing.
Over to the combat side of things, Reload has modernised things for better and worse. I am someone who saw the vision with the FES battle system, where party members were controlled by AI and you could issue general tactics to them. Yeah it was kinda annoying early on when your options are limited but the trade off is a brilliant story/gameplay integration where, as SEES gets closer and closer through their battles and become more experienced, you gain access to more tactic options, allowing better control of the AI members and signifying the growth of the bonds in the team. Reload goes with the modern approach of full party control and the stripped back AI mode as an option, which while it is more fun gameplay wise, you lose that beautiful synergy between narrative and gameplay which is something I think the medium should be more confident in itself exploring.
Thankfully unlike Portable, the game's enemies and bosses have been designed around you having full party control meaning it isn’t quite a cakewalk. It’s still easier on FES and the new Theurgy mechanic is something else that tips the balance more towards the player’s favour. Theurgy attacks are special attacks that can be used when a bar is filled from doing certain actions (like using a Persona for the Protagonist, or using healing skills for Yukari). Once full you can unleash a devastating attack that does an insane amount of damage. I don’t think they’re quite as broken as the Showtime attacks introduced in Persona 5 Royal but when you can hold onto 4 of them between battles to unleash on a Tartarus boss to sweep it in a turn, the difficulty becomes somewhat of a joke. If you’re not playing optimally, I do think there’s still a decent challenge from Tartarus bosses but it’s definitely up to player discretion and you’re given more options than ever to just tear the difficulty apart if you wanted to.
Speaking of Tartarus, there’s been a handful of tweaks to it. While still randomly generated, the aesthetic has been given a massive glow up and the possible layouts are now much more varied compared to the original corridor-like layouts. It leads to a more engaging place to explore though you’ll start to recognise the randomly generated patterns of each block soonish if you’re paying attention. There’s a few new things added like being able to chase down a massive rare shadow, enemies on a floor being inflicted by a random ailment, and dark floors. The Reaper can now follow you up to higher levels and the new twilight fragments you can find lying around can be used to unlock special chests which will eventually spawn a massive clock to allow party members who have fallen behind in levels a chance to catch up now. The fragments can also be used on the P3P style clocks to fully heal HP and SP though it is pretty costly compared to P3P. As someone who knew about the trick of not being forced out of Tartarus when tired the night before a full moon and being able to restore SP by returning to the entrance, I’ve never had a problem with other methods being introduced to restore SP in P3 though I do understand how it undermines the balance of managing resources and exploring Tartarus. Reload’s way and my general stinginess with limited resources meant I did get more of that resource/exploration balance than I did in FES or Portable.
Full Moon missions remain relatively untouched. The bosses have a few tweaks in attacks here and there but otherwise each mission plays out pretty similar to how they did before.
Voice acting in the English dub has seen a changing of the guard with the main cast getting new VA’s but the old VA’s are still around in more minor roles as a nice touch. Like Akihiko’s old VA Liam O’Brien is now Kurosawa the police officer while Yuri Lowenthall, the old VA for the Protagonist is now Yukari’s dad. Tara Platt even manages to come back as Elizabeth despite no longer being Mitsuru. The new cast have the benefit of much better voice direction leading to a much better sounding dub. As iconic as Michelle Ruff’s performance as Yukari is to me, and as much as I did love the way she put a harshness in her voice for her portrayal, I do think at times it was a little too strong, leading people to misread Yukari’s more sarcastic playful side as a general meanness. It took me a while to adapt to Heather’s performance but I think it does fit Yukari better overall as a character. While it’s much softer, she still manages to bring out the harsher tones when it's called for and I think she hits the softer side to her in such a sweet and lovely way. Junpei and Mitusru’s new VAs are perfect fits while Fuuka’s new VA elevates her character to new heights. Akihiko and Shinjiro have much more difficult performances to improve upon and I think the new VAs there, while they do a perfectly fine job, don’t quite hit the highs of the past. Ken and Aigis also have brilliant new performances further elevating the new dub.
Another good change is making sure the main VAs aren’t doing multiple roles. Like Derek Stephen Prince has a pretty distinct voice and in the original game he voiced Takaya, the principal, Mitusur’s father, and some delinquents and it’s a bit much. Reload uses a much larger voice cast and is all the better for it.
On the music front, the whole soundtrack has been reworked, again for better and worse. New songs like the advantage battle theme It’s Going Down Now and the new nighttime song are brilliant additions that would fit right at home with the original P3 and that’s the highest praise possible. A lot of the old songs are remixed to a level where I’d say they’re about equal with the original soundtrack and then there’s Mass Destruction which has been given an entirely new verse where Lotus Juice shows just how far he’s come with his raps as he starts firing through bars much quicker than I’ve heard him do before. Lotus Juice however…. Has potentially been given a little bit too much freedom…. Perhaps. The new dorm lyrics are a step down from before (Minding my biz, so mind your own biz? Where’s my so dance, wanna put you in a trance?) Burn Your Dread - Final Battle sees him trying to do the heavy rap he does so well in Mass Destruction but I don’t think it works quite as well here, in fact I think I would’ve rather they just used the Future Arrangement included in the movie soundtrack instead. It might be one of those things where I hold the original stuff in such high regard that I’m nitpicking at any small change because the music is still good, it’s another great Persona soundtrack, I just think it’s a little bit weaker in some places and stronger in others.
That’s about it for new stuff so let’s talk a bit about why Persona 3 is the best Persona game. This game was designed with the calendar system in mind. Where in P4/5 you’re given a deadline to finish a dungeon and finishing it early puts the story to a complete halt, Persona 3 uses the Full Moon deadline to go, this is the date the next boss is coming, it’s up to you how you well spend your time preparing for this. It allows them to keep moving the plot towards that mission, giving characters moments of growth and tension as the plot slowly unveils itself. It’s a slow burn through design, letting you grow accustomed to its many mechanics and systems while also getting you attached to its cast. Having every party member staying at the same dorm allows you to speak with them every day, watching them grow, seeing them worry, seeing the little animations they do like Fuuka being on her laptop or Junpei playing videogames, paying attention to little details of how often Yukari likes to sit on her own at the beginning. Having characters become unavailable for Tartarus or Social Links when big events hit them hard because everybody is dealing with their own stuff and the world doesn’t revolve around you. Having Persona evolutions being tied to huge plot related character moments instead of Social Links, where those characters find a new resolve to push forward through their lowest moments. Having characters like Junpei and Yukari not only be relevant at the beginning of the game but also manage to keep giving them moments throughout the whole story right through to the end.
The core theme of Persona 3, memento mori - remember you will die, delivers a powerful experience. Death is inevitable, it awaits every single one of us at the end of our journey no matter who we are, but it’s what we do with the gift of life that makes the journey through it special. Persona 3 shows just how impactful losing someone is. Whether it’s a friend, a parent, or an acquaintance, losing the people you love is something we all go through so it’s important to remember to make the most of your time with them. It’s important to grab life and find the resolve to make it through the hard times and fully embrace the highlights. That is the power of Persona 3, every connection you make helps you grow on your journey and the more impactful your journey is, the more you can look back as the end arrives and smile through the tears, knowing that you’ve not only had a fulfilling life yourself, but also enriched the lives of many others. It doesn’t matter whether it’s FES, Portable, or Reload, that core is there in every version of Persona 3 and each game has its own unique take on the journey of life and I think that’s beautiful. There is no definitive version of Persona 3 because there is no definitive version of life, we all follow our own unique journeys.
For every step backward Reload takes, there’s two steps forwards that made re-experiencing Persona 3 for a fifth time worth it. I adore the additions to the characters I love, I respect the desire to keep as much of the original game intact as possible while expanding upon it in other ways that fit within its core themes. Persona 3 is one of my favourite games of all time and I’m glad Reload has given me a chance to refresh my love of this wonderful experience and given many new things to love in the process.
Let’s get the elephant out of the room first. The omissions from this remake are disappointing and I totally get why many are disappointed from them but I also understand what Atlus have decided to do here. Reload is very much focused on the core journey story from the original Persona 3 and trying to make it the best possible version of that first and foremost. What that means is that while stuff like The Answer and FeMC did not make the cut, The Journey from the Male Protagonist viewpoint has been very meticulously expanded upon, including nearly everything that FES and Portable added to that portion of the game, like Aigis’ Social Link and people wandering into Tartarus to be saved. On top of that, there’s been a bunch of additions and tweaks that ultimately makes this arguable the perfect base to build upon like they did with FES and Portable in the past (and at the time of writing, rumours do suggest that The Answer is coming via DLC, further strengthening my thoughts). Reload is about remaking The Journey at its core to be the best it can be and while I share the disappointment in omissions, I think Atlus choosing to focus on the core of Persona 3 was ultimately the right decision, as much as missing out on the other stuff hurts.
Back to the initial worries and fear of how much influence P5 and modern Atlus would have on this remake. I am very glad to say that I was wrong on that front. While there are some fumbles and missteps here and there (especially if you’re like me and adore P3 to the point you’ll pick up on many nitpicks), the new content in Reload very much shows that the team on this understood and loved P3 like the rest of us. Yeah some things are lost in translation and effected by the evolution of modern technology, like how bright the dorm is now or how some things like having the option to choose swimming or kendo have been cut for just track and field but the new content, ooooo the new content expands upon my favourites that tickle the brainworms in ways that only Persona 3 could and that’s what I love.
The Male route had a few flaws with it being the first game to introduce Social Links, the most notable being the lack of Links for your male party members like Junpei and Akihiko. Reload has taken the opportunity to introduce new Linked Episodes for Junpei, Akihiko, Ken, Shinjiro, and Koromaru that will appear throughout the story. They’re very much character hangouts that expand upon each character in ways that are very much appreciated. Getting to have a closer look into how Shinjiro and Ken are feeling before their big Full Moon mission, hearing Akihiko talk more about his sister, and helping Junpei get through his rough patch are all wonderful things that make each of these characters more endearing and the writing fits right at home with these characters core identities. Yeah, a little bit of subtlety is unfortunately lost with Shinjiro and Ken but it’s definitely made up for with just how well these hangouts are written. Strega also get additional scenes in a similar manner that expands mostly upon Takaya’s character, giving him a new fascination with the Protagonist and his ability wield multiple Personas which I think really fits Takaya well, especially with how he views the Dark Hour and Personas as gifts bestowed upon the chosen few.
New night events have been added as well. The original P3 very quickly ran out of night time activities if you knew what you were doing, and so these new events are another great addition. Every party member now has two different night time hangouts with 3 events on each that unlocks abilities for them as well as expands upon their character. For example you can cook or watch DVDs with Yukari or attend to the plants or read manga with Junpei. I had a lot of fun reading Yakuza novels with Aigis and seeing Yukari want to become strong and kind like the female protagonist in the show she watches. Again, the writing expands upon the characters in ways that truly fit with the characters and that’s all I could ever ask for. The abilities you unlock for doing these include stuff like reducing the SP cost of healing for Yukari which is a nice bonus.
These new bonding events and linked episodes do not replace any of the old Social Links. The team at Atlus made sure to preserve all the original Social Links with minimal changes and yeah while some like Magician and Moon kinda suck, I have come to appreciate them more now. In life we don’t just spend time with people we like, we often find times where we end up stuck with people who we know are kinda awful people but I think it’s important to have those experiences as well as the good ones. Our journeys through life lead us to meet all sorts of people and they shape who we are. For every cult following advantage taking Moon, there’s a Sun whose brightness shines all the stronger because we can appreciate the good more from having experienced the bad. Persona 3 never shies away from showing us the highs and lows of life and I’m glad the remake chose to keep that intact despite all the shouts calling for some Social Links to be replaced by the male party members.
One thing I’m glad they did change with the Social Links though is the romance aspect. In the original, nearly every girl was written in a way that they fall in love with the protagonist and automatically enter a relationship with him by Rank 10. It was an incredibly outdated view of the world even back in 2006, where Katsura Hashino mentioned in an interview that he believed men and women couldn’t be friends. Thankfully now those Social Links have been altered, and while characters like Yuko and Chihiro still clearly fall in love with the protagonist, you can now guide the link towards a platonic outcome and with characters like Fuuka and Mitsuru, I think the new rewrites work pretty well. Outside of that though, the Social Links remain relatively unchanged and I think that’s a good thing.
Over to the combat side of things, Reload has modernised things for better and worse. I am someone who saw the vision with the FES battle system, where party members were controlled by AI and you could issue general tactics to them. Yeah it was kinda annoying early on when your options are limited but the trade off is a brilliant story/gameplay integration where, as SEES gets closer and closer through their battles and become more experienced, you gain access to more tactic options, allowing better control of the AI members and signifying the growth of the bonds in the team. Reload goes with the modern approach of full party control and the stripped back AI mode as an option, which while it is more fun gameplay wise, you lose that beautiful synergy between narrative and gameplay which is something I think the medium should be more confident in itself exploring.
Thankfully unlike Portable, the game's enemies and bosses have been designed around you having full party control meaning it isn’t quite a cakewalk. It’s still easier on FES and the new Theurgy mechanic is something else that tips the balance more towards the player’s favour. Theurgy attacks are special attacks that can be used when a bar is filled from doing certain actions (like using a Persona for the Protagonist, or using healing skills for Yukari). Once full you can unleash a devastating attack that does an insane amount of damage. I don’t think they’re quite as broken as the Showtime attacks introduced in Persona 5 Royal but when you can hold onto 4 of them between battles to unleash on a Tartarus boss to sweep it in a turn, the difficulty becomes somewhat of a joke. If you’re not playing optimally, I do think there’s still a decent challenge from Tartarus bosses but it’s definitely up to player discretion and you’re given more options than ever to just tear the difficulty apart if you wanted to.
Speaking of Tartarus, there’s been a handful of tweaks to it. While still randomly generated, the aesthetic has been given a massive glow up and the possible layouts are now much more varied compared to the original corridor-like layouts. It leads to a more engaging place to explore though you’ll start to recognise the randomly generated patterns of each block soonish if you’re paying attention. There’s a few new things added like being able to chase down a massive rare shadow, enemies on a floor being inflicted by a random ailment, and dark floors. The Reaper can now follow you up to higher levels and the new twilight fragments you can find lying around can be used to unlock special chests which will eventually spawn a massive clock to allow party members who have fallen behind in levels a chance to catch up now. The fragments can also be used on the P3P style clocks to fully heal HP and SP though it is pretty costly compared to P3P. As someone who knew about the trick of not being forced out of Tartarus when tired the night before a full moon and being able to restore SP by returning to the entrance, I’ve never had a problem with other methods being introduced to restore SP in P3 though I do understand how it undermines the balance of managing resources and exploring Tartarus. Reload’s way and my general stinginess with limited resources meant I did get more of that resource/exploration balance than I did in FES or Portable.
Full Moon missions remain relatively untouched. The bosses have a few tweaks in attacks here and there but otherwise each mission plays out pretty similar to how they did before.
Voice acting in the English dub has seen a changing of the guard with the main cast getting new VA’s but the old VA’s are still around in more minor roles as a nice touch. Like Akihiko’s old VA Liam O’Brien is now Kurosawa the police officer while Yuri Lowenthall, the old VA for the Protagonist is now Yukari’s dad. Tara Platt even manages to come back as Elizabeth despite no longer being Mitsuru. The new cast have the benefit of much better voice direction leading to a much better sounding dub. As iconic as Michelle Ruff’s performance as Yukari is to me, and as much as I did love the way she put a harshness in her voice for her portrayal, I do think at times it was a little too strong, leading people to misread Yukari’s more sarcastic playful side as a general meanness. It took me a while to adapt to Heather’s performance but I think it does fit Yukari better overall as a character. While it’s much softer, she still manages to bring out the harsher tones when it's called for and I think she hits the softer side to her in such a sweet and lovely way. Junpei and Mitusru’s new VAs are perfect fits while Fuuka’s new VA elevates her character to new heights. Akihiko and Shinjiro have much more difficult performances to improve upon and I think the new VAs there, while they do a perfectly fine job, don’t quite hit the highs of the past. Ken and Aigis also have brilliant new performances further elevating the new dub.
Another good change is making sure the main VAs aren’t doing multiple roles. Like Derek Stephen Prince has a pretty distinct voice and in the original game he voiced Takaya, the principal, Mitusur’s father, and some delinquents and it’s a bit much. Reload uses a much larger voice cast and is all the better for it.
On the music front, the whole soundtrack has been reworked, again for better and worse. New songs like the advantage battle theme It’s Going Down Now and the new nighttime song are brilliant additions that would fit right at home with the original P3 and that’s the highest praise possible. A lot of the old songs are remixed to a level where I’d say they’re about equal with the original soundtrack and then there’s Mass Destruction which has been given an entirely new verse where Lotus Juice shows just how far he’s come with his raps as he starts firing through bars much quicker than I’ve heard him do before. Lotus Juice however…. Has potentially been given a little bit too much freedom…. Perhaps. The new dorm lyrics are a step down from before (Minding my biz, so mind your own biz? Where’s my so dance, wanna put you in a trance?) Burn Your Dread - Final Battle sees him trying to do the heavy rap he does so well in Mass Destruction but I don’t think it works quite as well here, in fact I think I would’ve rather they just used the Future Arrangement included in the movie soundtrack instead. It might be one of those things where I hold the original stuff in such high regard that I’m nitpicking at any small change because the music is still good, it’s another great Persona soundtrack, I just think it’s a little bit weaker in some places and stronger in others.
That’s about it for new stuff so let’s talk a bit about why Persona 3 is the best Persona game. This game was designed with the calendar system in mind. Where in P4/5 you’re given a deadline to finish a dungeon and finishing it early puts the story to a complete halt, Persona 3 uses the Full Moon deadline to go, this is the date the next boss is coming, it’s up to you how you well spend your time preparing for this. It allows them to keep moving the plot towards that mission, giving characters moments of growth and tension as the plot slowly unveils itself. It’s a slow burn through design, letting you grow accustomed to its many mechanics and systems while also getting you attached to its cast. Having every party member staying at the same dorm allows you to speak with them every day, watching them grow, seeing them worry, seeing the little animations they do like Fuuka being on her laptop or Junpei playing videogames, paying attention to little details of how often Yukari likes to sit on her own at the beginning. Having characters become unavailable for Tartarus or Social Links when big events hit them hard because everybody is dealing with their own stuff and the world doesn’t revolve around you. Having Persona evolutions being tied to huge plot related character moments instead of Social Links, where those characters find a new resolve to push forward through their lowest moments. Having characters like Junpei and Yukari not only be relevant at the beginning of the game but also manage to keep giving them moments throughout the whole story right through to the end.
The core theme of Persona 3, memento mori - remember you will die, delivers a powerful experience. Death is inevitable, it awaits every single one of us at the end of our journey no matter who we are, but it’s what we do with the gift of life that makes the journey through it special. Persona 3 shows just how impactful losing someone is. Whether it’s a friend, a parent, or an acquaintance, losing the people you love is something we all go through so it’s important to remember to make the most of your time with them. It’s important to grab life and find the resolve to make it through the hard times and fully embrace the highlights. That is the power of Persona 3, every connection you make helps you grow on your journey and the more impactful your journey is, the more you can look back as the end arrives and smile through the tears, knowing that you’ve not only had a fulfilling life yourself, but also enriched the lives of many others. It doesn’t matter whether it’s FES, Portable, or Reload, that core is there in every version of Persona 3 and each game has its own unique take on the journey of life and I think that’s beautiful. There is no definitive version of Persona 3 because there is no definitive version of life, we all follow our own unique journeys.
For every step backward Reload takes, there’s two steps forwards that made re-experiencing Persona 3 for a fifth time worth it. I adore the additions to the characters I love, I respect the desire to keep as much of the original game intact as possible while expanding upon it in other ways that fit within its core themes. Persona 3 is one of my favourite games of all time and I’m glad Reload has given me a chance to refresh my love of this wonderful experience and given many new things to love in the process.
Roop
2 months ago