I sure do love being locked out of the main game and having to force myself to go through shit ton of bullet sponge enemies and traps with limited resources in a very confusing map. All jokes aside, this DLC’s gameplay is the absolute worst. I would rather do Old World Blue’s boring ass fetch quests a 100 times before ever setting a foot in the Villa (Sierra Madre itself isn’t that bad). Fortunately the cast of characters is great and the whole concept of robbing an abondend casino is cool, but that’s not enough to save this whole shitshow that I just experienced.

While I do think this remake is somewhat unnecessary, Atlus still nailed it. A lot of amazing QoL changes that I didn’t even think would improve the experience that much (Linked episodes, removing some old annoying mechanics, Theurgy, etc). The OST is the only downgrade in my opinion. I felt like all the original tracks that were remade were missing the charm that really made them special in the first place (except for Changing Seasons). I wish there would’ve been some major changes made to Tartarus but it slowly started to grow on me, still not a good experience but not as miserable as it was in FES. Also the atmosphere is kinda dull compared to the original's "dark but yet somewhat colorful" feel it had.

Overall, I still prefer FES (most likely just me being biased) but I can definetly see why someone would prefer Reload over it.