This is my third attempt at getting through Persona 3 and I finally was able to finish it. The quality of life features are very much appreciated. I also can see why this is people's favorite, a lot of the themes and writing still hold up.

There's two major things keeping this from being a 5 for me. Tartarus is still a slog, while combat has improved and Tartarus floors are smaller, at a certain point you're still climbing dozens of floors of the same stuff. The other, some of the emotional beats fall flat on their face when it's followed by cheery overworld music immediately after. Not sure if it was this way in the original, but some of the flashy fun stuff kind of hinders the dread of the world that exists.

I'll begin by expressing my appreciation for Persona 3 Portable. Not my first foray into the world of Megami Tensei, but one that resonated with me greatly. So much charm, so much character. It shined in a sea of JRPGs, a genre I was only knee-deep in. It's phenomenal story would cement its place in my memory for years to come.
For this reason it's easy to ramble about my opinions of this remake, so much so that I find it difficult to narrow down my thoughts and write a cohesive review of this remake. In short, it's great: it checks all the boxes of what you'd expect from a remake, but is it the second coming of Christ that the new-gen Persona fans have made this out to be? Not quite; I found it to be perhaps a little too faithful to the original, with flaws that cannot be ignored. But don't let that dissuade you from playing this, it is an exceptional title through and through, one demanding of your time and attention entirely.
My biggest problem with the game was how easy it is. While I may be a more experienced player in the Megami Tensei franchise, this has to be the most undemanding title in the franchise, at least in terms of skill and gameplay comprehension. Physical attacks are unbalanced, and the introduction of Theurgy skills strip the game of any remaining challenge. There are maybe one or two bosses that are balanced around these Theurgy attacks, with the rest of the game being an easy feat because of them. I cleared the game on the "Hard" difficulty setting without any significantly challenging moments, save for the optional Reaper fight.
While MegaTen (and JRPGs in general) aren't games that I play for the graphical fidelity, I found this entry to be pretty underwhelming in visuals. There are scenes in the game where it looks arguably worse than Persona 5 (2016). That being said, I think it's important to stress that this is all subjective to the player and that for maybe 90% of the game the visuals are plenty serviceable. Again, underwhelming would be the best term to describe the visuals.
The gameplay borrows quite a bit from previous entries in the Persona franchise, namely Persona 5 Royal, which stood out in a crowd of JRPGs for it's unique and ground-breaking gameplay. As such, playing Persona 3 Reload felt like reuniting with a long-lost friend, with it's iconic cast of characters and tight gameplay to boast. Despite my aforementioned grievances with the title, I greatly enjoyed the time I spent just playing the game; from exploring Tartarus and grinding out battles against shadows, to just kicking back and watching the story unfold, there is plenty of fun and enjoyment to be had here.
In summary, this is an exceptional JRPG and a worthy entry to the Persona/MegaTen franchise that both newcomers and returning veterans can--and should--enjoy. In my 96 hours with the title, I found that while the developers may have played it a little too safe in this remake, returning to the world of Persona 3 was delightful, and I'm glad I was able to reunite with the its wonderful cast and experience the captivating story once more.

Guiado por um roteiro ousado, que tropeça em notáveis elementos técnicos, compensados pela notável paixão de seus criadores, P3R se mostra uma aventura sensível, empática e intensa, mesmo entre aquelas que ousam tocar em temas mais profundos. Com um elenco principal de personagens fenomenal, a jornada de quase 100 horas de gameplay acerta no que se propõe a abordar.

Entretanto, mesmo deixando de lado seus irmãos de franquia (P5R, P4G e P3FES), não são poucas as vezes que o jogo apresenta cenas, conceitos ou desfechos que causem, no mínimo, um levantar de sobrancelha, especialmente considerando que os antagonistas da jornada possuem o carisma de uma imagem feita por inteligência artificial. Felizmente, os fraquíssimo elenco de antagonistas e os momentos de tédio ao longo da reta final de gameplay são elementos que podem ser superados com um pouco de boa vontade.

Dentre as evoluções de personagem e a densidade temática que vai se formando na reta final do game, P3R apresenta clareza e coragem nos seus momentos chaves, com especial destaque para os arcos do Junpei, Ken e Aigis. Vale mencionar que os pontos chave da narrativa ainda são impactantes mesmo nos dias atuais, quase 20 anos depois do lançamento. Naturalmente, a obra segue sendo uma das melhores mídias já inspirados por Evangelion, obra a qual o jogo não cansa de tomar inspirações, conceitos e fazer referências sem medo de associação direta.

Elementos como dublagem, animação, música e design geral acabam caindo no que você espera da Atlus. Em P3R eles continuam com a sequência histórica de qualidade em todos esses aspectos, então me resta pedir desculpas, já que palavras são insuficientes para descrever o quão bem implementados foram esses elementos, desde o começo até o último momento da jornada do game.

Para resumir, P3R é uma experiência no mínimo intrigante do que vou resumir como "Expectativa vs Arte". O jogo certamente não foi o que eu esperava, e eu fico feliz que tenha sido assim, não me arrependo de sequer um minuto dessa jornada, e sei que se tivesse conhecido essa obra em outro momento da minha vida, o impacto pessoal teria sido muito maior.

Um excelente remake para um excelente jogo da era do PS2. Melhorando em cada aspecto do jogo tanto em gameplay, quanto em trilha sonora, design e, principalmente, os menus desse jogo.
Persona 3 Reload conseguiu melhorar o estilo de Persona 5 e criar um próprio com suas artes. Trazendo, finalmente, dublagem para todas as histórias dos Social Links, era o que me deixava um pouco chateado nos jogos anteriores onde só trazia a dublagem em momentos específicos da história e quando completava o Social Link de um personagem.
A trilha sonora nem se compara, já está na minha playlist do Spotify. Trazendo de volta o Lotus Juice com remakes de músicas do Persona 3 como Iwatodai Dorm e de novas do jogo como It's Going Down Now com a incrível cantora Azumi Takahashi.
Não vou comentar muito sobre a história de Persona 3 Reload, pois eu quero que joguem esse jogo e experimentem uma trama que possui mensagens um pouco pesadas, mas impactantes, sobre morte e suicídio. Mas, eu recomendo muito reservarem um bom tempo com esse jogo, pois já é de costume os jogos da franquia Persona terem uma história longa.

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.

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

Kinda way too disillusioned by the superfluous pageantry of P-Studio's Persona titles to keep up with this and it's making me hate playing video games, so shelving this and P3P for my own sanity. Maybe I'll get around to it in a few months once I'm in the mood to push through a fluffy monster RPG with concerning portrayals of women again. Which like, even though I say that, Persona 3 feels a lot better in that department than P4 or P5, especially from what I've also been playing of Persona 3 Portable, where Yukari in particular almost feels like a real teenage girl with actual interiority! Really wanted to see more of Mitsuru, she seems pretty cool. Same with the autistic trans-coded robot girl and the dog, those guys are like 50% of the reason I wanted to play this game.

Tartarus was also way fucking cooler than I expected! Well, not in Reload, but in Portable it was pretty comfy and had enough going on with its moment to moment gameplay to make me not fall asleep. Though early on your power scales up way faster than the difficulty of the floors themselves do, and the bosses felt more like brute forcing them instead of instigating a strategy. Reload feels like it makes that whole dealie even worse, like you get all the fun midgame toys from Persona 5 like right away, and I feel like it just trivializes the whole thing (I am not playing on hard mode ever again though, it literally just makes the game twice as long, made the mistake once in Persona 5)! They also had an opportunity to give Tartarus sections more of their own mechanical identity to mix it up from the more pure dungeon crawling of the original, and at least what I've played it just feels worse somehow, even more lifeless and toothless. Maybe I'll change my mind once I get to the later portions, but I was not very impressed.

I don't wanna carry on with the negatives too much, there's clearly a lot to love here, and I'm sure this will end up being a lot of people's go-to way to experience P3, but man, Reload is so much. Seriously considering just playing FES first instead next time, and then working my way up through each iteration, because even as somebody who has only had minimal contact with the original Persona 3, something really feels off about this game. I don't trust it. Maybe I'm just annoying and old though.

Anyways, Persona 6 should be about a 40 year old lesbian detective and her talking tanuki tulpa that nobody else can see who says kinda borderline problematic shit. Also probably put a different kind of music in these games next time; maybe it's just the remixes that were giving me a migraine though.