Persona fans rejoice, the highly acclaimed JRPG series by Atlus premiered a new trailer just today for their latest endeavor, Persona 3: Reload, a remake of the classic 2006 JRPG Persona 3.
This trailer focuses primarily on Persona 3’s antagonist group Strega, showing off their new English voice actors and shiny new character models, a big step up from their 2006 PS2 models. Longtime players of Persona 3 may also recognize that a lot of the scenes and dialogue Strega are featured in in the trailer are new additions, possibly showing that Strega and likely other characters have had their roles expanded on in the Reload remake.
Turns out the S.E.E.S. aren’t the only Persona-wielders around… 👀 Here’s the official character art reveal for Strega members Takaya, Jin and Chidori in Persona 3 Reload! pic.twitter.com/Qx3Vx2LW5t
— Official ATLUS West (@Atlus_West) September 20, 2023
But the antagonistic trio aren’t the only thing shown in the trailer, the great new voice actors monologue over short vignettes of gameplay, set to a remixed version of “Changing Seasons”, a beloved song from the original Persona 3.
The game seems to be moving towards a stylish presentation, definitely reminiscent of Persona 5 in terms of the cinematic special attacks and dynamic menu overlays, noticeably, it seems a good amount of the cutscenes in the game are rendered with the in-game models, though only time will tell if this means the game will or won’t feature animated cutscenes, a staple of the series since the original Persona in the 1990s.
As for the snippets of gameplay, we were able to see, it seems that Atlus is expanding once again on their tried and true turn-based formula, with the aforementioned cinematic special attacks adding a bit of flair to the moment-to-moment gameplay, such as Junpei’s wild strikes or even Mitsuru ice skating for a special attack. The trailer also seemed to feature a Baton Pass, a mechanic from Persona 5 used to stylishly overwhelm the enemies using multiple characters.
There’s quite a lot packed into this short-minute trailer, and Persona fans will definitely have a lot to chew on when they dissect it in anticipation for the full release. Said full release for Persona 3: Reload will be arriving on February 2nd, 2024, though you can pre-order it now for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and 5, as well as Steam on the PC.