Persona 3 Reload is a remake of the 2006 original, and classic, that was released back on the PS2, seeing an extended version in 2008 (FES) and a PSP version in 2010 (P3P). Seeing so many releases, alongside Steam ports of the Portable version back in 2023, P3 has quite a range of quality based on the version you get your hands on.
While the Steam port of Portable is somewhat regarded as the worst version, due to poor porting and terrible graphical quality when compared with the other releases, Reload seeks to fix all these issues by remaking the game in its entirety. Is Reload the best version to date though?
I Am Thou
Persona 3 Reload follows the same story as the original. You’re a new transfer student, starting your second year of high school in Tatsumi Port Island. Starting a new life at Gekkoukan High School would have been simple enough, if a bit jarring for an orphan kid, however, your life takes a turn for the worst when you start to experience a new 25th hour of the day.
The Dark Hour is a time that little experience, only those with the potential are able to walk around during such an event. All others are transmogrified into coffins, while shadows may lurk on the city streets and seemingly take the enthusiasm straight out of people. Awakening to your potential, you are quickly put into the jacket of a SEES member. The “Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad”.
As one of the few people who can explore the Dark Hour, the protagonist and an expanding roster of teammates must explore the tower known as Tartarus to uncover the secrets behind the 25th Hour, the existence of the shadows, and how to save the lost who roam the streets without a thought in their heads.
A heavy theme with Persona 3 is that of Memento mori, the inevitability of death and accepting that it will happen. This was felt a lot more in the original release, with the much darker tones of story and colour scheme, while Reload has taken on a much brighter and bloom aesthetic, diminishing the themes somewhat. While the story aspects are still there, some returning players may find the punchiness of the setting to be lighter than before.
The main story of P3R will last you up to 100 hours, based on how much time you put into exploring Tartarus and social life outside of the dungeon. With wide difficulty settings this time can alter quite a bit. P3R has a good bit of replayability too, with a New Game Plus mode to carry on your status to a new run, as well as aiming to max out all social links, fill in the persona compendium, max your social stats, and more.
You can get an easy two runs out of P3R, aside from doing Merciless runs and self-imposed challenge runs such as protagonist only, no attacks, items only, etc. Sadly, Reload does not include FES’s The Answer episode, most likely to feature in DLC later, nor does it contain the female protagonist of Portable, with different social links and a slightly altered storyline.
Persona!
Persona 3 Reload is built almost entirely the same as the original and will be similar to anyone who has played P4 and P5. The game is split into two parts, dungeon crawling and social life. While dungeon crawling can take up more of your playtime, due to how long battles can last and the length of the dungeon floors, the social life parts are just as important if you’re a fan of story and connections.
The dungeon, Tartarus, is a tale as old as Fantasy itself. A tall tower that reaches into the heavens, changing as you go higher up. Tartarus is split up into sections, with each style having two halves that unlock with each full moon. Exploring Tartarus, you can engage with shadows on the field to enter into turn-based combat, using spells, swords, and items to win against the hordes of foes.
Megami Tensei as a franchise is quite versed in elemental weaknesses and resistances, with Persona sitting within said grouping. The best way to play is to hit enemies with their weak elements to gain an extra turn, either using it to attack again, let another ally take a turn, or if all enemies are hit with their weakness and are currently in a downed state you can let loose an all-out-attack to easily clear the encounter.
A new addition to Reload is that of Theurgies. Similar to limit breaks, you build a gauge through different actions depending on the character and can use said gauge at your leisure to use a powerful action. These range from very high-damage elemental attacks that pierce resistances to full-party heals and buffs. Theurgies are, however, too strong at times. A full party round of these can kill bosses in a single round, lowering the difficulty too much at times.
As you clear combat, you will be rewarded items and experience, improving your characters to face ever harder fights. You will also have a chance to enter shuffle time, choosing a card to grant more experience, money, items, boosts to your stats, and new personas to utilize in battle. Shuffle time has seen a bit of a change, being closer to that of Persona 4 Golden, allowing you to simply pick a card and not have to worry about randomness coming into play.
On the other side of gameplay, you will be spending up to a year of time going through normal high school life. During said time, you will answer pop quizzes in school, hang out with friends to improve your social links, and explore the city for its shops and opportunities to improve your social stats.
Each social link, 20 in all, grants you an experience bonus when fusing personas that result in the arcana of the same type, and at max rank unlock a strong persona for fusion. Some social links also grant item rewards, but most won’t make the game much easier aside from romance options.
Social stats include charm, courage, and academics, the real triforce. These can be levels 1 through 6, with each new level requiring more points to increase. A few scenarios and dialogue options are locked behind certain levels, while the main female cast requires a different one to be ranked 6 to engage their social link. Sadly, when maxed you do not gain any benefit from the points you’ll gain in normal play, but the animation still plays as if you’re gaining something.
Reload Your Evoker
As is always true with SMT, the soundtrack for Persona 3 Reload is memorable and amazing. The combat themes are earworms with some great beats and raps, while everyday music accompaniments paint the world in such a lovely light. However, I do feel that some of the changes to the soundtrack from the original do diminish some of the darker elements, as well as some sounding lower quality when it comes to impact. It would have been nice if the base game had the option to use the original soundtrack, for fans of the original.
The difficulty of P3R is also a bit hard to gauge. Light and Dark elements have been added, now letting you deal damage instead of just the instakill moves, alongside many more teleporters to leave the floor you’re on in Tartarus. Crystalised shadows, affectionately referred to as pots, also give you opportunities to gain HP and SP healing items.
While the base game was quite heavy on resource management, like any game before Persona 4, it seems P3R takes on the new ideals of Persona 5 Royal and SMT V, by granting you more and more ways to recover your resources. While this isn’t a terrible direction, it will irk longtime fans who have become accustomed to the low number of actions at your disposal. You can at least not use these items.
As a remake, faithfulness is a major part of how well this game will be accepted by Atlus devouts. Thankfully, Persona 3 Reload stays incredibly close to the original game. The story is the same, with most of the social links being word-for-word. Some translations have been cleaned up, with many quality-of-life improvements across the board.
However, with the good there is bad. The anime-style animations of Reload are far worse than those found in FES. From both a style viewpoint and the emotions displayed. The original was visceral and impactful, while Reload’s animations feel stiff and lack the drive of the original. A lack of funding, or effort, is also seen where many scenes are done with in-game higher rez models, rather than a full-on anime scene. These are even stiffer and fail to emulate the mental states of the characters.
There is also an optimisation issue. Many players had issues with the shadow effects enabled, dropping many frames in places with more NPCs moving about. Combined with the fact the Escapade club is full of static models without features, with up to three people doing two-second-long dance loops. The lack of importance given to the backgrounds at times produces such a jarring comparison to other games nowadays.
When adding everything together, Persona 3 Reload is a great remake of a classic PS2 title. However, with the lack of a female protagonist in the Portable version, some terrible NPC design choices, lacklustre anime scenes, and some irksome choices here and there, P3R doesn’t feel like the ultimate edition of Persona 3. FES and Portable still have their pros, while Reload takes a weird middle ground at times. Reload is probably the smoothest gameplay experience, while FES offers the best story, and Portable grants a more varied adventure.
Overall, Persona 3 Reload gets an 8/10. With the addition of The Answer, some patches to fix some issues, and possible further content with DLC, I can see Reload getting quite a bit better. However, as it stands, it can only be argued as being the best P3 experience. With a certain lack of anime cutscenes, the female protagonist should have easily slotted into the game, but who knows why she wasn’t? Fans of the original should still enjoy this remake, while others might still cling tightly to the other releases. I can at least say, this is the best version on Steam.
Persona 3 Reload Trailer
Read more reviews here
