Persona 3 Reload
PlayStation 5
WHERE TO PLAY
Dive into the Dark Hour and awaken the depths of your heart. Persona 3 Reload is a captivating reimagining of the genre-defining RPG, reborn for the modern era with cutting-edge graphics and gameplay.
I can’t believe it’s been somewhere in the realm of eight years since I playedPersona 5for the first time. The impact it had on me was profound, introducing me to a darker, more mature storytelling style that felt grounded in reality, something I hadn’t yet seen so eloquently articulated in gaming before, all the while being so cleverly packaged in bright colors and opulent animations. And from the first moment I started playingPersona 3 Reload, it was clear how much I had missed the unique visual and aural aesthetics and gameplay loop only thePersona seriescan provide.
The game kicks off with a transfer student, that’s you, arriving at Tatsumi Port Island Station just before midnight. Not long after he steps off the metro, the clock strikes 12 and the world around him shifts into what he’ll later learn is the Dark Hour, a space outside of time where shadows roam free, consuming the minds of the city’s inhabitants. Strange coffins litter the streets where people once stood, illuminated by a gigantic, green moon that nearly consumes the sky.
It’s A Shame Persona 3 Reload Ditched Its Female Protagonist
She’s my favorite protagonist in the series and I’ll miss her presence.
After making your way to the dorm, you’re quickly introduced to a few of your fellow classmates who are just as surprised to see you as you are to see them walking around the dorm with what appear to be guns strapped to their hips. Not long after, you’ll learn that they aren’t exactly guns, but rather Evokers—tools used to summon a user’s Persona to do battle against the shadows. How do you learn this? Well, by pointing a would-be gun to your head in the heat of the moment and pulling the trigger.
It sounds…problematic, right? Well, it kind of feels that way at first, but you eventually get used to it.
Not long after being initiated into the Persona-user exclusive task force—Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, or SEES—you find yourself thrust into the core gameplay loop that will occupy and entertain you for the next 80 to 90 hours it takes to complete the game. You’ll spend most of your days attending classes, strengthening your bonds with fellow classmates, and improving your social skills, while your nights will be filled with studying, extracurricular activities, and climbing Tartarus, the shadow-ridden Tower of Demise.
There is so much content to experience, and even though you have nine calendar months to do so, that time can quickly get away from you, resulting in certain bonds and stories not being fully explored.
After being introduced to a slew of initial tutorials, you are set free to manage your days how you see fit. It wasn’t long after that I found myself having to thoughtfully plan each day to both advance the bonds and individual storylines of the characters while also leveling up my social skills and preparing for my next visit to Tartarus. There is so much content to experience, and even though you have nine calendar months to do so, that time can quickly get away from you, resulting in certain bonds and stories not being fully explored.
Some of the individual storylines were easy to get swept up in, like the old couple mourning the loss of their son or the young girl I befriended at the shrine who was struggling with her parents’ divorce, while others were a little more challenging to get through all 10 bond levels, like the conman who made me pay 50,000 Yen to become his protégé, forcing me to speed through his bad advice with each encounter. Regardless of how interesting each story was, the bonds themselves were worth developing as they had a direct impact on the power of the Personas I could fuse, ultimately influencing how capable I was in defeating the hordes of shadows I’d face in the Dark Hour.
When the Dark Hour begins each night, the school you attend each day transforms into a giant tower known as Tartarus. Each night that you choose to venture inside, you’ll fight your way through hordes of shadows as you climb through hundreds of floors, confronting the occasional big boss and uncovering secrets of the Dark Hour’s origin along the way. Combat will feel familiar to Persona 5 veterans. You can use your equipped weapon to initiate a physical attack, or use your evoker to summon your Personas to deal some form of magical damage or enhanced physical damage to the enemy.
Each Persona you and your party wield, as well as each shadow you face, has their own affinities and weaknesses to contend with. Successfully targeting an enemy’s weakness will briefly stun them, leaving them open to a follow-up attack. Stunning all enemies will also open up the chance for your whole team to unleash an All Out Attack, dealing massive damage to all enemies on the board, often finishing them off with one flashy fell swoop.
Persona 3 Reload Could Be The Best Way To Play This Classic Game
Some sweet hands-on time with the remake of Persona 3 has convinced me that this is the best way to play the game.
At times, the combat feels a little too easy and repetitive, as I could most often successfully target all enemy weaknesses and defeat them with an All Out Attack before they could even get a hit in. However, the frequency at which I faced shadows and the speed at which I could defeat them made it so I never felt bogged down by the battles themselves, making progress through each of the floors felt fluid and well-balanced instead of a slow grind. And the occasional challenging enemy or floor boss seemed to pop up just often enough to keep me entertained, providing an additional degree of challenge that actually required me to think more strategically, employing debuff skills and defensive maneuvers to avoid their devastating attacks.
Just when climbing the neverending floors in Tartarus started to feel like a grind, new mechanics and features were introduced that kept things feeling fresh. And every 30 floors or so, the level design completely changed, with each block of floors becoming more interesting to explore than the last as I steadily made my way to the top of the tower.
When you’re not engaging in battle, you’ll spend a lot of time in the Velvet Room, a pocket dimension only the main character is aware of, where you’ll fuse new Personas by combining two or more of the Personas you acquired by defeating shadows. This mechanic feels kind of likePokemonin that each Persona you wield is wildly different from the last, and there are hundreds for you to unlock and collect.
When fusing Personas, you can also carry over some of the skills from the base Personas you are using. With careful planning, I was able to make several Personas that had a wide variety of attack types, ensuring I was prepared for just about anything the shadows could throw at me. And although I was tempted to hold on to some of my well-crafted Personas for longer than I should have, I always felt rewarded by sacrificing them to fuse an even more powerful and badass-looking Persona that would help me climb another 20 floors more effectively.
In addition to the incredible variety of battle options you have from your Personas alone, there are dozens of unique weapons, armor, and gear for you to find, buy, unlock, or create along the way. I was always swapping things out, but each change to my loadout felt significant and also made me weigh the pros and cons of one item over another. Sometimes I’d swap back to a sword with lower attack damage just because it had dark affinity instead of physical: a factor that made me more capable of taking down a particularly challenging floor boss in Tartarus.
Persona 3 Reload looks incredible too. Each time you summon a Persona, you’ll see a beautifully designed animation of the character pulling the trigger they’re aiming at their head, glass shattering to reveal the chosen Persona they’ve summoned. The animations and character stills that follow the end of a battle are cleverly designed and never seemed to get old, even near the end of my 85-hour playthrough. Furthermore, the soundtrack is incredibly catchy and really wormed its way into my ear. Even when I was taking a break from the game, I couldn’t help but sing the dorm or battle soundtracks as I went about my life.
The story explores concepts like mourning the loss of family, suicide and self-harm, failure and regret; all of which makes the reality you find yourself in that much more believable, and the stakes you are facing as high as they can get.
Overall, the main story is engaging but fairly slow-paced, with the occasional big moment or twist being revealed every 10 hours or so. There were a handful of well-made cutscenes that were sometimes delivered using the in-game graphics, and sometimes with a hand-drawn, anime-style cinematic. Like theother games in the series, Persona 3 Reload has a dark tone, though possibly one a bit more mature than its counterparts. The story explores concepts like mourning the loss of family, suicide and self-harm, failure and regret; all of which makes the reality you find yourself in that much more believable, and the stakes you are facing as high as they can get.
Although Persona 3 Reload is a remake of the original release,Persona 3 Portable, it feels like an entirely different game outside of the story and characters. The cutscenes, the in-game animations, the battle mechanics, the explorable areas, even the voice acting have all been redone and redesigned from the ground up. It makes the whole experience feel much more modern, like it could have been released around the same time as Persona 5. Because of this, it is incredibly hard not to compare it to the mega hit that was Persona 5, a near-perfect game in my eyes. At the same time, Persona 3 Reload isn’t trying to be a brand-new game, but rather a retooled retro, modernized for a new generation.
Persona 5 was my first venture into the series and reallyset the bar high. Although Persona 3 Reload can’t compare to the depth and detail found in Persona 5, missing some valuable puzzle and stealth elements—as well as the temple-like Mind Palaces connected to each main boss—it also never feels bloated with extra content it really didn’t need (something Persona 5 was guilty of). Persona 3 Reload is a fantastic game that everyJRPGfan should experience. I was fully immersed and engaged from start to finish, and ultimately was sad when it finally ended. And with only half of the Personas unlocked on my first playthrough and some storylines left unfinished, I just might take the plunge and play through the new game + before I finally say goodbye to this instant classic.
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