It’s crazy that in the course of a single month, we are getting three content-packed JRPGs, one is a “modern” game with elements of the past, another is a remake of 2000s era classic updated for a modern time, and the last one is Final Fantasy 7 so the other two don’t matter at all. But before the one-winged angel takes over the scene, it’s a better time than never to talk about the middle child in this metaphor. That being Persona 3 Reload, which in a nutshell is a PS2 game remade as a PS4 game, and that is not a bad thing at all; it is a bad thing if you played the re-release of Persona 3 last year because you aren’t getting anything new here, but how is the game as a standalone game, quite good.
Persona 3 is mainly viewed as the odd duck to new Persona fans; while they will attempt Persona 4 at some point, anything before is viewed as dated, but Persona 3 has always been in the middle ground between dated and seeing where improvements can be made. The improvement can be seen from the starting line as the game is gorgeous now running in Unreal 5, which really helps to make the colors pop between the different worlds. But if you have played any Persona game before you will start to see the checklist early on; it’s only when you spend a lot of time with the game you start to get to the interesting aspects of the game. The first one that stood out to me was a moment that felt right at home in the mid-2000s edge culture, where to summon your Persona, you have to shoot yourself in the head; that content warning at the start was not for giggles this is a remake that keeps everything intact from the original work and only updates it.
As for the gameplay, where it’s Persona so a mixture of turn-based combat and high school life sim, and it takes most of its gameplay elements from Persona 5, so it feels more stylized and faster, and after giving the re-release a try for comparison that was the right direction to go in. But this goes back to this being compared to 5 again because the tone of the story is still in its developing phase. I say that because this wasn’t a 150-hour experience, it was instead a 50-hour one, and I knew that going in, so I expected some plot elements to happen off-screen to help with pacing; what I didn’t expect was for major character arcs to be resolved off-screen, mainly the awakening of each party members Persona, you only truly seen your awaken moment. I first thought that this was made so we can get to the interesting plot elements and this is where the issues start to come into play that aren’t the remake’s faults, and that is the story wasn’t that interesting.
I say that because I wasn’t playing through the game for the story, like I was with earlier games, I was playing it because, at this point, the daily cycle of socializing and then go battle monsters had become a comfort zone for me, the same way the daily cycle in Stardew Valley was my comfort zone during my high school years. But then came a point in nearly every RPG where I find a battle method that breaks the game like a twig; I usually find it near the final dungeon of the game. I found it here around the 3rd month, and from that point on, I just spammed that attack just to get the game moving again, and then everything just snapped, and I realized this had turned into a conveyor belt, but that didn’t cause me to lose interest in the game I was mainly fascinated by how insane it got if I kept pushing forward, even accepting the fact that I’m now fighting demons with an android schoolgirl and a dog, that was the moment I realized the tone was all over the place, but I enjoyed the ride as a whole despite these issues.
Now is this a good place to start playing the Persona games? No, because after this one, you would leave with more questions on the fandom of the franchise. As for the new fans that were made with Persona 5, is this one worth sinking the time into as you wait for the next mainline installment? I’m not sure, to be honest; it may be interesting to see where certain aspects got their start and where others were forgotten about as newer games kept coming out, it’s an interesting halfway point for fans, but for everyone else, it might be viewed as a mess. But for me I did enjoy my time with the game, but I doubt it will leave any staying power once the next release comes out. So, if it all interests you, give it a shot; you may like it and want to see the other games, or you might not like it and throw it into the pile of “not for me”.
Score: 8 out of 10
Reviewed on Xbox Series X