I had only started to enjoy the JRPGs that Atlus makes fairly recently. It started when I played Soul Hackers 2 in 2022 before playing Persona 5 Royal. I never actually knew how far down the rabbit hole went for the variety of their games. Especially when I took a chance on Persona 3 Portable just months after my initial Persona experience. I knew it would be dated, but it still offered a timeless and emotional story with most of what I enjoyed of Persona 5 Royal’s gameplay. So, when Persona 3 Reload was announced near the end of my playthrough of Persona 3 Portable in 2023, I was shocked and intrigued.
A faithful remake with graphical fidelity that exceeds even that of Persona 5 Royal with similar advancements in the gameplay? It felt like a dream come true. But is it too good to be true? Does it do enough as a remake? Or does it miss the mark? Well, in my experience, it is a remake that never missed the mark. It is a gripping experience with so much style, flair and sorrow sewn into every last detail of the game. In my over one hundred hours of playing, it was hard to put down, and I already want to replay it.
Developer & Publisher // Atlus, Sega
Platforms // PlayStation 4|5, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
MSRP & Release Date //$69.99, Feb 2nd, 2024
Reviewed On // Xbox Series X
Into The Darkest Hour
Persona 3 Reload starts off with the nameless main character arriving in the city of Iwatodai. But just as he arrives in the dead of night, the moon turns green and the people around him become coffins, and puddles of blood are scattered around the town as he makes his way to the dorm he was transferred to. This phenomenon is known as the Dark Hour. The strangeness does not stop there, however. He finds a small child who asks him to sign a contract shortly after arriving there. A resident that everyone he meets shortly after is not aware of.
It is from here that he becomes accustomed to the people who live in the dorm, three people by the names of Yukari, Akihiko, and Mitsuru. As well as his school life before being awoken on the night of a full moon by Yukari who asks him to escape with her as the dorm is under attack by mysterious Shadows. It is during an encounter with Shadows on the rooftop of the dorm that the main character awakens to the power of his “Persona”. Shortly after the awakening of his Persona starts a chain reaction of mysterious and deadly shadows showing up every month. It is up to him, Yukari, Mitsuru, Akihiko, and the rest of an elite squad known as SEES to take them down and uncover the mystery of the Dark Hour.
The story of Persona 3 Reload is a slow burn that feels excellently paced. My journey in the game went over 100 hours and I never felt bored. There is a lot of great character development, and the stakes get higher throughout the narrative which remains nearly untouched from the original Persona 3. Making the journey more than worthwhile.
Surviving Month to Month
Each month in Persona 3 Reload is a chapter in the narrative. The first few months focused on growing SEES with new members. While also learning about the dangers of the Dark Hour. Every team member that makes up SEES also goes through trials and growth along the way. Yukari failed to defend the main character in the opening and learns to fight in solidarity with him. While one of the newer members that joins SEES, Junpei, wants to be the leader of the group and almost messes up important missions due to him trying to take control.
The story of Persona 3 Reload, despite being grim in its premise, has a lot of warmth to it in the first half of the game. Everything is bright and hopeful for the most part. However, in the latter half of the game, the story becomes so bleak that the color palette of Iwatodai, the dorm, and even Gekkoukan High School starts to fade. Almost as though it is doomed to a grim fate. I wish I could go into more details without spoiling the story. The story is fantastic, holds a grim tone, and even has an emphasis on the main character himself to make things more personal.
The main character is a sort of X factor in the story. He can do things that the other members of SEES can’t such as summoning more than one Persona. But he ends up becoming the leader and tries to navigate the team through many different threats. He has a backstory that helps fit him into the narrative perfectly. While feeling more like a vessel for the player to immerse themselves in. But it is not just doom and gloom every month. The day-to-day in Persona 3 Reload makes up the bulk of the experience.
Day and Night in Persona 3 Reload
Persona 3 Reload has a unique way of passing the time between major story moments. Namely the Social Link and Social Stats system. Social Links are optional side stories with various NPCs in the game. They offer 10 chapters of a unique story for that NPC. For instance, the first Social Link you can engage with is Kenji, a student from Gekkoukan High. Kenji wants to get into a relationship with one of his teachers. They can range from silly anime-esque shenanigans to more down-to-earth Social Links. Such as one where you just sit and talk with Akinari, who is not long for this world.
He never once laments the fact that he will die. Akinari only regrets that he could never live the life everyone around him has and ends up wanting to leave behind a legacy by writing a book. There are so many important and well-written messages in his story. Such as not wanting someone to feel meaningless if they are just living day to day. Every other Social Link also hosts an array of strong messages as well. They are always enjoyable and never drag on too long.
Each Social Link is fully voice-acted and everyone did a fantastic job in their own stories. My favorites are both Akinari and Yuko, whose stories are focused on becoming a coach for a group of kids. Yuko’s voice actress, Shelby Young, felt the most natural in her line delivery. Akinari’s voice actor, Lucien Dodge, makes every voice line match the tone of a dying person. They both stood out to me the most and were easily my favorites. All of the Social Links and major story moments are broken up by many trips to Tartarus, where the real fun begins.
Clockwork Maze
Tartarus in Persona 3 Reload is a procedurally generated dungeon that spawns during the Dark Hour in the same spot as Gekkoukan High. There are many different floors to explore that are segmented into different Blocks that are unlocked throughout the story. For instance, the starting floors look like hallways from Gekkoukan High. With an oppressive shadow obscuring your vision as you navigate through each floor with puddles of blood everywhere and raven feathers raining from the ceiling, its general ambiance is incredible. There is limited variety for each floor, but the layouts are always different. Making each run through a floor feel very different even if the scenery looks similar.
Some variety is added as you unlock new Blocks in Tartarus, however. Such as a fleshy neon purple alien-like environment with faces protruding from the walls. As well as golden halls with red carpets and waterfalls. But there have been some improvements for traversing Tartarus in Persona 3 Reload. Such as the Monad Doors. These doors lead to mini-bosses and smaller dungeons to earn lucrative items. Such as materials to craft equipment or unique equipment for your teammates.
There are breakable objects that allow you to earn stuff to sell off at shops. In addition to Twilight Fragments that are needed to unlock certain rare chests found throughout the way. You can also encounter a giant golden hand that tries to steal the loot from a floor. This triggers a mini-game of trying to find the way it went to track down and kill it to get a lot of experience points and all of the loot in one go. It all allows Tartarus to feel renewed and more like a living breathing thing. Outside of these additions, Tartarus is still filled with the same shadows and fun combat.
Satisfying and Deep Combat
Persona 3 Reload has a turn-based combat system with a lot of depth to it. You can attack, defend, use items, and harness the power of Personas. Each party member including the main character all have their own Personas. Which are creatures that have their own unique attacks and abilities that match their owner. For instance, Yukari’s Persona is focused on healing the team but has wind abilities to attack Shadows. While someone Akihiko has lightning abilities but also has physical abilities that cost health instead of MP to use.
When using any attack or ability, they can sometimes be the weakness to any Shadow. When striking a weakness, enemies will go into a downed state. If you coordinate with your team, and down every shadow, you can execute an “All-out Attack”. This attack deals massive damage to every shadow and can sometimes end an encounter instantly.
In Persona 3 Reload, they added a similar mechanic to Persona 5’s Baton Pass called Shift. When hitting a weakness, you will always get an additional turn. This additional turn can then be passed onto another team member to use an attack unique to them. This can be strategically used to execute all-out attacks consistently.
Also, new to Persona 3 Reload are the normal light and dark skills like Eiha and Kouha that can be used alongside their instant kill skill counterparts. But the coolest addition to the combat is the new “Thuergy” system.
Personal Ultimate Attacks
Theurgy attacks are a form of ultimate attacks unique to every character. For instance, Yukari fires a flurry of arrows infused with wind at a single enemy for massive damage. The main character, on the other hand, gets a whole slew of different Theurgies with some interesting variety. Such as one that heals the party and buffs them, and another one that summons a group of Jack Frosts to deal massive ice damage to foes. What makes the Theurgy system so unique is how you fill-up the meter to use it.
Every character’s Theurgy is tied to their personality and as such, their emotions influence how you fill up that meter. For example, Yukari’s is focused on healing the group, and makes sense for her character. Akihiko on the other hand needs to receive stat boosts to quickly fill up his meter due to his desire to continue growing stronger. It’s a fantastic touch that adds some coherency to the system.
The combat in Persona 3 Reload feels renewed and unique compared to the rest of the series now considering the new Theurgies and Shift system. I never felt bored when engaging in any encounter, especially with the bosses that you can find on select floors. As well as bosses tied to the main story that all remain the same from the original Persona 3, Sleeping Table included. They are all rebalanced to match the match power Theurgy adds to the rest of the game. You can either make quick work of them or barely survive by focusing on utilizing everyone’s Theurgies.
But another key aspect of the gameplay is the Persona Fusion, which is integral to unlocking the Theurgies for the main character.
The Velvet Room in Persona 3 Reload
Persona 3 Reload features a creature-collecting system. After each battle in the game, you enter “Shuffle Time”. Which allows you to pick a single additional reward. You will always get items and experience points. But during Shuffle Time you can either choose from a set amount of money, more experience points, or Tarot cards that offer unique boons. My favorites are one that allows you to draw more than one card and another that even fully recovers all health and MP for every party member. But you can earn an array of Personas through each Shuffle Time. These can then be fused in the Velvet Room.
The Velvet Room allows you to fuse Personas together to create new ones. You will also be given the opportunity to inherit skills from the other two Personas to use with that new Persona. Is it a very fun and addicting system that is made better by the Social Link system. Where ranking up Social Links gives newly fused Personas a set amount of experience points to level them up, sometimes past the main character’s level. Social Links also unlock some of my favorites to use in the game like Surt, or Helel. Surt has devastating fire attacks that I love using while Helel has incredible resistance stats.
The Velvet Room is a great place to spend time and also offers an array of side tasks that offer an array of different rewards. Such as money, items for the crafting system, and even different outfits for characters. I loved the additional challenges and never felt like I ever wasted my time doing any of the side tasks. One of my favorites was just feeding a cat over multiple days, while also enjoying the Persona Fusion-specific tasks.
A UI Filled with Style and Substance
The UI in Persona 3 Reload is a major highlight of the experience. The game’s main menu is dead silent and stuck in perpetual night to match the narrative themes. While the pause menu pushes the envelope of what a traditional RPG menu can look and feel like. The main character pulling his head backwards into an ocean to drown out the world around him. With every submenu having him in different poses matches the themes of the game very well.
You can either be in the Social Link menu to keep track of progress with every character or see the main character switching between the matching Tarot cards. Or seeing him lie with a fragment of glass that reflects the image of his party members in the stat menus.
The menus for every vendor also have their own unique flair. Like the weapons and armor vendor having caution tape around it because you are in a police station. As well as pills scattered about in the menu of the medicine vendor. The Velvet Room also has a very stylistic touch to it as well.
A lot of love and care went into these menus and the pause menu stood out the most to me while also having a fantastic new “Rewind” feature. This creates five save spots that allow you to go back to previous days to redo any Social Links if you did not progress or during a night when you missed a key hangout with a party member. It removes the necessity to “save scum” and helped me progress in certain Social Links when I picked the wrong dialogue options.
Pristine Performance, Beautiful Style, Stellar Voice Acting
Persona 3 Reload has a really clean style to it. The colors in every area range from the vibrance in Paulownia Mall. To the gritty Iwatodai station and the colors changing depending on the time of day at school. It’s either a cool blue in the morning or a warm orangeish tone after school. The character animations are all very fluid and have subtle details to them. Such as hair movement for every character, the music player, and headphones the main character has. Additionally, if you go back to the dorm after school and go to your room. The main character’s bag is put up and leaving the room to roam about will no longer have his bag. It’s such a small detail, but if you don’t do this you will have the bag throughout the rest of the night.
The game also had flawless performance throughout my playthrough. There was a clean and smooth framerate with no dips and very noticeable raytracing. You can either see deep reflections on the floor in real-time, in windows, or in the mirrors at the school sink. It all feels very life-like, with a subtle motion blur for when the main character is running to capture that sense of momentum.
The voice acting across the board is absolutely stellar too. With Junpei’s voice actor Zeno Robinson stealing the show. His performance not only sounds similar to the original, but his line delivery brought so much more life into the character and put a smile on my face in his goofier scenes. While moving me to tears when his character was at his lowest in the narrative.
Glorious Music
Last but certainly not least is the absolutely incredible soundtrack. The Persona series is known for its killer soundtracks and Persona 3 Reload went above and beyond in recreating its signature soundtrack front to back. All of the vocals and instrumental usage is all very clear and crisp with Lotus Juice singing softly in the track “Color Your Night” creating a serene tone when exploring the Iwatodai at night. With energetic free flow rapping in the battle themes like “Mass Destruction” and “It’s Going Down Now” that made the long experience this game provides all the better.
Azumi Takahashi also did a fantastic job in these tracks and many others as the lead vocals in the chorus. She had great chemistry with Lotus Juice on every track. The soundtrack for the game stays true to its old-school origins, while feeling more modern with the opening song “Full Moon, Full Life” easily being my favorite. Due to how “at home” it feels in the year the setting the game takes in.
Final Thoughts on Persona 3 Reload
Persona 3 Reload more than exceeded my expectations. Its original emotionally charged story, themes, and setting were followed to a T with new moments throughout that fleshed out its villains and various members of SEES was a welcomed surprise. Its renewed combat system was refreshing and Tartarus felt more alive and enjoyable to explore. There is a ton of replay value with its new game plus and an emotional ending I can never forget. There is not a single thing I would change about this game in the slightest and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
