Gaming | Game Development
The Definitive ‘Persona 3 Reload’ Review: An Interesting Success Story
I hold the ‘Persona’ series near and dear to my heart. I’ve thoroughly played through 3 — 5, and the series is easily one of my favorite of all time.
I held off from talking about ‘Reload’ for a solid while. I bought the game about a month after its launch and to say the least, had mixed feelings that I needed to sort out.
Now that I’ve beaten the game again to sort out my thoughts and the recently released ‘Episode Aigis’ DLC is making waves, I thought it prudent to discuss what makes ‘Reload’ tick.
For those unaware, ‘Persona 3 Reload’ is a remake of the genre-defining PS2 RPG ‘Persona 3’, which had been rereleased multiple times over the years. ‘Persona 3 FES’ was an enhanced rerelease with new personas and a DLC epilogue called ‘The Answer’ in the USA and ‘Episode Aigis’ in Japan. The game was also rereleased on the PSP as ‘Persona 3 Portable’, which added a female protagonist with a completely different route and pared the game down into a visual-novel like format to comply with system requirements outside of combat.
Initially, when trailers were dropped, I was optimistic.
It’s always been hotly debated which version of ‘Persona 3’ was the best, with the ‘FES’ expansion being superb, but at the cost of PS2 clunk. When the game was re-released on PSP, the ‘Portable’ female protagonist route was unanimously praised but the concessions made to make the game run on the weaker hardware dampened the experience, namely the worse, weaker, annoying visual-novel overworld exploration.
I was hoping that ‘Reload’ would fuse everything people liked about past releases into the ultimate, definitive version of ‘Persona 3’.
This did not happen.
‘Persona 3 Reload’ was strictly a remake of the original ‘Persona 3’ upon launch, nothing more, nothing less. No ‘FES’ DLC, no ‘Portable’ female protagonist, just the base game with greatly enhanced graphics and gameplay with numerous, necessary quality of life improvements. It was also revealed the soundtrack would be completely overhauled and the original voice cast replaced, which raised a few eyebrows.
Not that ‘Reload’ looked bad, in fact it looked stunning. Created in the Unreal Engine, the lighting was incredible, models were sharper and crisper, and the menu and sprites looked like massive improvements. The tweaks and changes to the combat looked like they were going to change the game just enough to remove the frustration from the original.
And ‘Reload’ delivered in so many ways. The voice acting cast kills it, the music sounds just as fresh as I remember the original sounding, and the overall use of taller models, better sprites, and a brighter lighting engine make the game pop and feel so much more stylish, matching the flair of ATLUS’ current repertoire.
A criticism I had of the original ‘Persona 3' was that compared to newer entries, the social sim friend-making social link aspects of the game were much weaker due to not being able to form bonds with or hang out with your male party members, only being able to social link and romance your female party members. ‘Reload’ fixes this by adding “link episodes”, loads of bonding opportunities with fun, heartwarming or tragic dialogue for your male party members, and truly expands upon the cast of the game, making them much more fleshed out, relatable and likeable compared to their PS2 counterparts.
The combat and dungeon crawling is also much improved. From basic functions — like a run button — to quality of life overhauls — like the complete removal of a system which would knock party members out of commission for using them too long (the Fatigue system) — ‘Reload’ makes exploring the ever-expanding mega dungeon of Tartarus so much more enjoyable and much less of a clunky slog.
However, ‘Reload’ struggles sometimes with being a faithful remake. In many aspects, it is. Dialogue is nearly copy-pasted over, character arcs retain their complexity and locations are the same. But many aspects of the game present ‘Persona 3' on a much grander scale than originally intended, which can both enhance and degrade the game.
What do I mean by this? ‘Persona 3 Reload’ uses CG cutscenes and new music to make everything much more stylish, polished, and just plain cooler. Cutscenes and overall combat seems so much more badass than before, but often times ‘Reload’ replaces the challenge of the original game with style.
The original ‘Persona 3' was fairly difficult. If you weren’t careful, enemies would wipe your whole party and you had to be careful about what items you used. The game was an endurance test, as enemies were health sponges and you didn’t deal a lot of damage.
The ‘Persona’ series, 3 included, uses the Press Turn system, a turn-based combat system in which every enemy has a weakness to a specific type of attack, either Elemental, (fire, ice, wind, lightning, etc) or Physical (gun, slash, pierce, etc). When the weakness of an enemy is used, you gain another turn and they are knocked down, rendering them immobile. If all enemies are knocked down, you can engage an All-Out Attack, an attack that hits all enemies on screen with massive damage.
In the original, you NEEDED to utilize All-Out Attacks. They were the only way you were able to deal considerable damage and striking weaknesses felt necessary to do damage and progress.
In ‘Reload’, a super system called Theurgy is introduced, allowing party members to charge up, buff themselves, or do massive damage, almost removing the need to strike weaknesses. Why strategize or even think about what you need to do next? Just unleash a Theurgy, watch the numbers go up, and wipe everything out with a single button press.
Now, I’m not saying Theurgys are bad, I really enjoy the animations and triggering them is obscenely satisfying, but that style replaces the challenge of the original, which is something ‘Reload’ does often: Not taking account for the rustic charm of the original game and modernizing everything.
It also bothers me that ‘Reload’ is missing content from past versions. While the DLC of ‘FES’ was added later as DLC to ‘Reload’, we are still missing the female protagonist and features from Portable, and we didn’t even have ‘FES’ content on launch. It just really bothers me that ATLUS didn’t decide to make the ultimate version of ‘Persona 3’ that would make everyone happy when they clearly had the resources to. They just got lazy and only remastered the bare minimum.
However, personal gripes aside, ‘Persona 3 Reload’ is an incredible rerelease, and the fans agree. Selling over 1 million units in its launch week is incredible and an unlikely success no one expected. ‘Reload’ has seemed to click more with a casual audience who were not expected to enjoy the game.
But the hype surrounding the game was for good reason. ‘Reload’ fixes so much from the original games that it is absolutely the definitive version as of now. I would recommend ‘Reload’ over all other releases of the game just due to its accessibility, style, and overall feeling of polish compared to its counterparts.
