Persona 3 Reload Hits the Mark On All the Right Spots, Providing Improvements While Staying True to the Original

Debuting as a spin-off of Shin Megami Tensei, there is without a shadow of a doubt that Persona has come a long way as one of ATLUS’ biggest franchises that can stand on its own. While the franchise has been around since 1996, many agree that it only reached mainstream success a decade later thanks to one game that managed to change everything, Persona 3.

Persona 3 is the series that brought a massive evolution to the franchise, from the approach to a specific theme, stylish art direction represented by one dominant colour, a quality music selection with its own distinctive genre, to a blend of day-to-day life sim gameplay that offers a unique gaming experience. Despite its age, the third instalment still proved to be a relevant title that it received support through various expansion projects that led to the development of Persona 3 as a full remake.

Speaking of the remake, we previously got the chance to play it early through exclusive access courtesy of ATLUS, and it’s through this review that we’ve finally been able to share a review of our experiences of playing for almost two months. While we’re still limited in what content we can discuss, we’ll still be going through the most important aspects, especially for those who are still on the fence on whether or not they should get the game.

Return to Tatsumi Port Island 

Before embarking on an epic and emotional adventure, players will first step into the shoes of a second-year transfer student for Gekkoukan High School located in Tatsumi Port Island. What starts out as your normal daily life of a high school student quickly takes a drastic turn when you come face to face with the Dark Hour, a mysterious and terrifying phenomenon or the period of time every midnight marked by the appearance of monsters called Shadows.

It is during this period that the world view changes drastically, and how almost everyone turns into a coffin, while those who do not transmogrify can become victims of a serious condition called the Apathy Syndrome.

The protagonist has felt the phenomenon of the Dark Hour for a long time, but it is in this new life on Tatsumi Port Island that changed his destiny as a Persona user, which is a manifestation of the power of self that is key to fighting against the Shadows. From here, the players are invited to join a special extracurricular club called the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad or S.E.E.S. for short, where they’re tasked on fending off the Shadows and getting rid of the Dark Hour.

Their task isn’t an easy one, because in addition to having to investigate the mysterious tower called Tartarus, which is believed to hold the key behind uncovering the Dark Hour’s secret, they will be faced with a serious threat from powerful Shadows that appear in every full moon phase. As well as Strega, a group of Persona users who have their opposing goals of not wanting to let the Dark Hour disappear. At least this is a rough description of the Persona 3 story which of course will continue to develop.

ATLUS has formulated a story that focuses on a main theme for the franchise, and what they offer in Persona 3 revolves around death and finding the meaning of life. This specific theme is very prominent throughout the storyline, even in some of the side stories of some of the supporting characters in the game. But of course, not everything is doom and gloom as there’s also many peaceful moments in the story, because after all, one part of accepting death itself is the ability to enjoy life as much as possible without any regrets.

In terms of storytelling, especially with the character interactions, Persona 3 Reload is still presented in the same format with additional character portraits that makes the conversation between characters be more expressive. We also appreciated how ATLUS had revamped the game script to be expanded in several places, including the dialog responses that are more appropriate to describe the character of the protagonist.

Even though we’ve enjoyed this story many times including through the anime movie adaptation, Persona 3 Reload still manages to present all the key emotional beats of the story so well that we can’t help but feel the same feelings all over again.

If you’re among those who are worried that there are major changes to the original story, from the portion that can be discussed in this review, we can at least confirm that Persona 3 Reload sticks closely to the source material and improves upon it, rather than just changing it.

Daily Life of a Gekkoukan Boy 

If Persona 3 Reload was a standard turn-based RPG that followed a linear storyline, we wouldn’t have needed to spend over 100+ hours to complete it. What makes the modern Persona games so long is the combined daily life / social sim elements where players have to go through their daily activities as a school student. The games have calendars that cover almost a year’s worth of time, and while there are some periods where you’ll miss out on because they’re story-related, it’s still a considerable amount of time by RPG standards.

There are a plethora of activities that players can do almost every day at different times, but Daytime, After School and Evening are where you’re given the most freedom. Daytime refers to the early morning hours on every holiday, which is sometimes also associated with the time when you’re at school, although it’s only limited to classroom learning sessions. After School, as the name suggests, covers the after-school portion where you can spend your free time with your characters, some of whom are involved in extracurricular activities, while Evening is the late night time where you can’t visit too many places or interact with most of the game’s Social Links, making it the most ideal time to improve your Social Stats.

Social Stats are essentially special statistics that describe your character’s capabilities in several aspects ranging from Courage, Charm, and Academics. Improving your stats is crucial as players can only access some perks and start a relationship with certain characters depending on your rank in certain stats. Some of the main heroines in the game still require a max rank in one of the stats, so targeting a playthrough with full Social Links will still be quite challenging as it was in the original game, where we had to resort to old guides to help us through.

Even so, we discovered that old guides are no longer usable. Players can however find the help online if needed. Fortunately for those of you who might be too lazy to look for a guide,  you can opt to use online features like Vox Populi to see what activities most other players are doing on any given day, including the most chosen answer when faced with a quiz or test at school.

While the daily life portion in every modern Persona game is quite exciting, it was in Persona 3 that we found that there were limitations of what we can do, making it feel monotonous quickly. This especially rang true during the Evening time session where we could only visit a few places even though the total locations that can be explored are quite limited. We can understand this, as night time is the only time you can do any Tartarus exploration or Shadow hunting, but on the other hand, you can make significant progress in just one run before being faced with a dead end that only opens up after one full moon phase.

Fortunately, Persona 3 Reload has brought in a variety of improvements that make night time sessions more enjoyable. The biggest improvement is the Iwatodai Dorm, which is now filled with more activities that you can do with each party member. You can choose to spend your leisure time with them, whether it’s cooking, reading books, tending to plants, or watching DVDs that are also packaged in the form of some sort of mini-story interaction. At the end of each of these interactions, you can increase the “Personality” of each character which refers to their special capabilities while in combat. For example, Yukari, who has a dominant role as a support, can give players a 50% SP cut for recovery skills.

A Brand-New Tartarus

Tartarus is one of the most important components in Persona 3 that contributes greatly to both the story and gameplay portions. The story of this mysterious tower is interesting to learn more about, but the same cannot be said when you have the opportunity to explore it, because Tartarus has a dungeon design that can be very boring. This is because Tartarus is designed as a tower with hundreds of floors and has a random layout, so there’s not much to do other than fighting with Shadows. In terms of design, Tartarus is also fairly uninteresting, so trying to find excitement from its exploration sessions can be very difficult, so players may only end up enjoying the combat portions more.

This is what makes fans really hope that ATLUS can make Tartarus more interesting in Persona 3 Reload, and we can finally say that this game has brought so many changes that are very fitting. Starting from the easiest to notice which is the design, each Block has now been built with a stronger atmosphere. We especially love Arqa Block which now feels so creepy, especially with the face sculptures and giant eyeballs that are visible on the walls. Party members can even converse and talk with each other, whether it’s about their opinions on Tartarus itself, or other related topics to ease the tension.

Another major change that we are particularly excited about is the redesign of Monad Depths. No longer being an additional block that can only be accessed near the end-game, in Persona 3 Reload, they now make it an optional area that spreads across various blocks in the form of Monad Door and Monad Passage. Both are almost similar because they both take you in an alternate version of each block with strong bosses to face and rewards to claim. The difference is that players will encounter Monad Door more often because of its random placement, and only provides one boss challenge with rewards in the form of rare materials. Meanwhile, Monad Passage can only be accessed in certain areas, and usually you have to deal with more bosses that also provide greater final rewards in the form of Major Arcana cards and an extra slot for it.

Major Arcana cards are one of the other upgrades for Tartarus, where you can sometimes select Major Arcana cards during Shuffle Time at the end of the battle for special bonuses. Depending on how many cards you collect, the grinding process will certainly feel much more rewarding especially after you manage to trigger Arcana Burst which upgrades each Shuffle Time card permanently. From what we’ve observed, the grinding process in the game is now made easier, whether it’s when you want to go back to explore a visited floor in Tartarus instantly, or even how you can save people who are lost in Tartarus. This gives you more motivation to visit Tartarus even if you’ve made significant progress.

Furthermore, there are still a variety of interesting gimmicks added, such as the addition of a new type of Shadows, which gives more items in addition to lots of EXP, crystals to break that usually drop items for sale, the Dark Zone phenomenon on some floors that reduces visibility and triggers the appearance of Reapers faster, to how Fuuka is now provided with a variety of support skills that are more useful when used during exploration.

All these improvements contribute greatly to our enjoyment, and while Tartarus hasn’t quite reached the level of complexity of Persona 5’s Palaces, this time around, the dungeons are still very well overhauled and even in our opinion designed to be more suitable for those who want to enjoy the combat portion as much as possible.

It’s Going Down Now 

Moving onto the combat system, as we’ve discussed in the previous preview, Persona 3 Reload offers a flow that is so smooth, responsive, has more impact, and overall, we can admit to being the best combat system in the series so far. It’s a bold claim, but we really mean it. Even the upgrades to the overall character animation quality contribute to the smooth combat movement, even when exploring Tartarus.

Players will still be presented with classic turn-based combat with a focus on finding your opponent’s weaknesses, where each character is equipped with a Persona that has its own role and weaknesses in various elements. It’s just that the protagonist has the special ability to use the power of many Persona, so he is arguably your most important asset that can adapt to various battle situations.

Finding your enemy’s weakness is crucial in combat, as this can give players a huge advantage in terms of damage you can deal and the chance to get an extra turn in the form of 1 More. It’s during this 1 More phase that players are now given access to the Shift system, which is akin to Persona 5’s Baton Pass, in that you can pass that extra turn to another character who might be able to execute attacks according to the weaknesses of the other enemies you’re facing. Once you’ve managed to knock out all the enemies after hitting their weaknesses, you’ll be given an All-Out Attack command that involves all party members ganging up on the enemy.

Keep in mind that 1 More itself also applies to the enemies, so if your character is hit by an attack according to their weakness, then your opponent can also get an extra turn which sometimes can be very fatal, especially when fighting tough bosses who deliberately target characters who are already paralyzed for extra damage. That being said, status effects in the game can also be very troublesome, especially those that make your character uncontrollable for several turns, so bringing a support character with recovery capabilities is certainly recommended.

Aside from delving into combat which is still relatively the same with the addition of the Shift system, the biggest change that we particularly enjoyed is the Theurgy skill. Each character is now equipped with their own ultimate attack along with their Persona that can be marked with a special gauge.

Players can increase the gauge faster following the Personality of each character which relates to their role in combat. Some are easier like the protagonist who only needs to switch Persona or target the opponent’s weakness, but there are other party members who are too situational which make their Theurgy take longer to be used. Specifically for the protagonist, the Theurgy skill has been replaced with Fusion Spell which consists of a combination of attack and support skills from various Persona, it’s just that for this one the game has done some balancing by removing some of the old Fusion Spell.

Welcome (Back) to the Velvet Room 

It wouldn’t be a Persona game without Igor and his assistants in the Velvet Room, always ready to help the protagonist in his adventure. This is a special facility that players can access at any time through the blue door at Paulownia Mall, and the main lobby of Tartarus. This place, which exists between dreams and the real world, is still a mystery, but one thing that’s for sure is that Igor plays a big part in strengthening your character, especially in your ability to control Persona.

Through the Velvet Room, you can access the Fusion feature to create new and more powerful Persona, perform special Fusions that require multiple Persona at once, and register your Persona so that it can be recalled without having to discard its levels and skills. If there’s one big change we immediately noticed from the Velvet Room in Persona 3 Reload, it’s the simplified fusion system. Aside from some special Persona that can only be created with a combination of more Persona in Special Fusion, players would normally only need to combine two Persona.

We honestly quite like this change because you don’t have to waste too many Persona to get certain combinations, especially since these usually can’t be achieved with just a combination of two Persona. This is such a big change that we couldn’t even use the old Fusion Calculator guide. There’s also the added factor of the game adding new Persona like Mithras and Matador, but at the same time removing some of the old Persona.

Aside from spending time tinkering with the Persona, players can also take on a series of side missions from Elizabeth, Igor’s eccentric assistant. Most of them would just require the player to get special items to present to Elizabeth to answer her curiosity, while others are related to the progress of Tartarus’ exploration sessions and your ability to create Persona with special skills. While the mission structure isn’t always interesting, the hilarious interactions with Elizabeth are probably the best part, aside from the huge rewards to be had. Not only that, depending on how many missions you complete, Elizabeth will sometimes ask you to take her out to various locations that are also filled with entertaining moments.

Ups and Downs of Social Links 

Aside from Tartarus, another part of the original Persona 3 game that needed a serious overhaul was definitely the Social Links. This is the game’s bonding system where each side character is represented by a different Arcana, so the relationship can also be strengthened as long as you have a Persona that matches their Arcana. Each Social Link consists of 10 ranks and depending on the response to your dialog or actions, you can get the extra points needed to rank up, but on the other hand, they can also be dissatisfied with your response or even be so disappointed that it triggers the Reverse status, which makes the Social Link progress be hampered.

What makes the system especially in Persona 3 needing an overhaul is the fact that every Social Link with a female heroine in the game always goes down the romance route. Because of that, inevitably in order to get max Social Links for all characters, you’ll end up being a playboy with multiple girlfriends. Thankfully, Persona 3 Reload has fixed this as you’ll now be given the option to remain friends, which the game will also give you a warning before entering a different route. This automatically makes some Social Link events get massive changes.

ATLUS has especially brought another major overhaul in every Social Link, which is now combined with full voice acting for the first time in the series history. Although the male party characters don’t get Social Links, Persona 3 Reload has now provided a replacement in the form of Linked Episodes, which we think are handled very well in terms of story.

In addition to providing background that fans do not yet know about about these characters, the placement of Linked Episodes that follow the progression of the main story also makes it feel more canon, especially from the interactions between characters that are more alive to involve moments with other S.E.E.S characters. Similar attention is given to Strega, mainly Takaya himself so that you can better understand the motivations behind one of the game’s main antagonists.

If there is a part that we think can still be overhauled, then it is in the bonuses that can be obtained when increasing the Social Link rank, because in the end this game still only gives you a limited EXP bonus when attempting a Persona fusion. In addition, we were honestly a little disappointed to find that Persona 3 Reload has removed the Social Link route that allows you to join more clubs at school, so for the Chariot arcana, you are now only limited to the Track Team, and for the Fortune arcana, you are only limited to the Art Club.

We do understand that the developers may have wanted to design it to better fit with the Social Link, but at the same time being able to have the option to join other clubs certainly strengthens the replayability aspect of the game, especially from those particular Social Links.

New Moon New Life 

Another integral part of the modern Persona series that we’d like to discuss is the music and art direction. Especially for the music, this time Persona 3 Reload has presented a new music collection that involves Azumi Takahashi as the latest female vocalist replacing Yumi Kawamura. Because of the strong nostalgic impression especially how Yumi has become the vocalist of Persona 3 after a long time, it can be very understandable of course if there are some fans who are not familiar with the latest version.

For us, Persona 3 Reload already offers a solid and fresh soundtrack, especially in some of the original songs such as Colour Your Night with a relaxed feel, to It’s Going Down Now, which has probably become our favourite battle theme in the entire franchise. Some of the old soundtracks also got a much needed new twist, such as Iwatodai Dorm, which now features rapping from Lotus Juice to Changing Season, which gets additional lyrics from Azumi Takahashi, including a fast-paced section that is no longer filled with mumblings in French.

As for the game’s art direction, Persona 3 Reload has received a new style that clearly takes inspiration from Persona 5, but at the same time, they didn’t make it too overwhelming so that you can still see many elements that are retained from the original game. This is especially true in the combat section, which now carries a UI style with a one-button action design, the All-Out Attack splash screen artwork like in Persona 5, to how the character’s silhouette when accessing each menu are adjusted to the costume they are using. Overall, we can see the right combination of stylish design while still maintaining the appeal of the old source material.

As we’ve also discussed in the previous preview, Persona 3 Reload brings a massive graphical upgrade that in some places looks even more impressive than in Persona 5, especially from the 3D character models, the quality of animation, and the lighting. It’s just that the lighting in particular isn’t as consistent, because there are some areas in Persona 3 Reload that seem flatter and lack ambient occlusion effects.

Verdict

Persona 3’s reputation as one of the best RPGs of its time now seems to have been proven again through Persona 3 Reload. As loyal fans of the series, we can see it as a remake that is handled with care while maintaining all the appeal of the old series. So, while they could have added more original content like in Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal, the main focus this time is indeed on creating a remake that can provide the most authentic experience while carefully refining every aspect of it.

This not only includes the production value and more exciting gameplay, but also the best part, which is the interaction between characters and more emotional storytelling with themes revolving around the meaning of life and death. Even though we have enjoyed Persona 3’s story in many different media, what Persona 3 Reload offers is still very special and we can imagine it will make an even stronger impression on newcomers. We can’t say it’s perfect of course, because there are still some places that we think still need to be refined in order to provide the optimal playing experience, especially for those who might expect a scope of content that is similar to Persona 5 Royal for example.

Persona 3 Reload was reviewed on PC Via Steam.

Persona 3 Reload will release on 2nd February for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam.

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