This review contains spoilers
Persona 3 Reload is the perfected way at portraying a remake of a beloved game while retaining and respecting the originals tone, story and integrity for new players to experience.
I played through FES back in April 2020 and believe that every aspect of Reload and the original both have their own strengths that make them fantastic games.
Where the new gameplay features and balanced difficulty are some of the best the series has to offer, the originals challenge and lack of controllable party members gave it a character of its own which I really enjoyed.
Where the absolutely stunning visuals of reload especially in the new in-game cutscenes was everything I wanted from a remake, the originals tone in it’s early 2000s cutscenes and what they had to work with given the hardware is still visually fantastic to this day.
Where essentially all of the re-recorded music captured the original soundtracks feel and all of the new songs sounded stellar and were some of the best music they’ve done, the originals is timeless and certain tracks despite how amazing the new versions are they will never hit the same as before, but are so good that hearing them through Reload doesn’t do you a disservice.
Where the new voice work is absolutely fantastic and I’d even go as far as saying the likes of Aigis, Junpei, Mitsuru, Chidori, Ken and Shinjiro all did just as good if not better performances in my mind, the originals cast still holds up its own (a few characters in the original, not so much) and both games have the same impact as it did before.
The extra story and character scenes in the likes of the link episodes, hangouts and added Strega scenes did nothing but wonders for the game and improved its already fantastic story and character writing. I noticed this when going through Reload and it’s really apparent now, characters in Persona 5 and to a lesser extent Persona 4 really don’t develop much without the aid of the main character. I think this is partially due to most of their arcs happening behind a social link and tying their second awakening to the rank 10 of a character may be one of the worst decisions Atlus made with the recent games.
Having these characters have scenes completely devoid of the main character and allowing them to develop as the game goes on, coming to a realisation through the consequences of the story is so much better and it’s what really sets Persona 3 apart from the later entries.
That’s not to say later entries are bad, characters do get development but it’s a far cry from what is portrayed in this game. I will say despite the main cast having zero bad characters the villains of this game are still just alright. Strega as a group are fine and Takaya is a great parallel to Makoto, being the visual representation of a Messiah rather than the mental representation that Makoto has. Chidori is their best member with everything she has and Junpeis awakening scene was done extremely well. The likes of Ryoji were improved a lot with his extra scenes and Nyx is the best final boss they’ve done from a story, character and gameplay standpoint as he doesn’t just come out of nowhere having time to be built up towards the final confrontation.
Going through the majority of the social links in this game made me realise I actually really like a lot of them. Sure the likes of Kenji, Nozomi, Miyamoto and Hayase were either just funny or I was indifferent on. But the variance in the character writing with people like Tanaka being just an awful person, Mutatsu being not a good person as well but having his own realisation and redemption and Akinari being the best non party member social link in the game with his ties to the core themes made them stand out a lot. The newly fully voiced social links really adds a lot to them and it’s surprising how just adding a voice to these characters made me care a whole lot more.
Knowing what the ending to this game is really adds a lot to the final day. Obviously going into the ending completely blind is the best experience but seeing Makoto go around and talk to all these people he’s bonded with over the last year, making false promises with all of them as his time is drawing to a close is very impactful and the likes of Akinaris mother hit extremely hard for me.
The ending scene got me again, they did this scene so much justice and it was absolutely beautiful the way it was portrayed. Aigis being my favourite character in the whole series is always the part that gets me the most in the ending. The amazing voice acting from Dawn M. Bennett really sold this scene and I’m glad that they managed to keep, maybe even better the feeling that the ending brings in the original. I could go on and on about how this and many other scenes in this game are so well written but I have a tendency to make essay long reviews and this ones already getting there so I’ll leave that for now.
Despite all this and even though I do prefer Reload over the original, I can’t say it’s definitively better. They both have their own standing in what makes them unique experiences even if they are the same story, it feels vastly different from the likes of Golden and Royal where they are in every sense of the word an upgrade. Those games being remasters makes them essentially the definitive experience but with Reload being a remake, it gives ground that the original still has a place in being played and appreciated akin to FFVII and its remakes.
Do you need to play the original after playing Reload? No I don’t think you do need to do that at all. But if you wanted a slightly different experience with all the above points I made, it’s still worth your time.
Persona 3 is and continues to be the best game in the franchise and I’m excited for if or when they release The Answer to finally be able to play through that portion of the story.
10/10
I played through FES back in April 2020 and believe that every aspect of Reload and the original both have their own strengths that make them fantastic games.
Where the new gameplay features and balanced difficulty are some of the best the series has to offer, the originals challenge and lack of controllable party members gave it a character of its own which I really enjoyed.
Where the absolutely stunning visuals of reload especially in the new in-game cutscenes was everything I wanted from a remake, the originals tone in it’s early 2000s cutscenes and what they had to work with given the hardware is still visually fantastic to this day.
Where essentially all of the re-recorded music captured the original soundtracks feel and all of the new songs sounded stellar and were some of the best music they’ve done, the originals is timeless and certain tracks despite how amazing the new versions are they will never hit the same as before, but are so good that hearing them through Reload doesn’t do you a disservice.
Where the new voice work is absolutely fantastic and I’d even go as far as saying the likes of Aigis, Junpei, Mitsuru, Chidori, Ken and Shinjiro all did just as good if not better performances in my mind, the originals cast still holds up its own (a few characters in the original, not so much) and both games have the same impact as it did before.
The extra story and character scenes in the likes of the link episodes, hangouts and added Strega scenes did nothing but wonders for the game and improved its already fantastic story and character writing. I noticed this when going through Reload and it’s really apparent now, characters in Persona 5 and to a lesser extent Persona 4 really don’t develop much without the aid of the main character. I think this is partially due to most of their arcs happening behind a social link and tying their second awakening to the rank 10 of a character may be one of the worst decisions Atlus made with the recent games.
Having these characters have scenes completely devoid of the main character and allowing them to develop as the game goes on, coming to a realisation through the consequences of the story is so much better and it’s what really sets Persona 3 apart from the later entries.
That’s not to say later entries are bad, characters do get development but it’s a far cry from what is portrayed in this game. I will say despite the main cast having zero bad characters the villains of this game are still just alright. Strega as a group are fine and Takaya is a great parallel to Makoto, being the visual representation of a Messiah rather than the mental representation that Makoto has. Chidori is their best member with everything she has and Junpeis awakening scene was done extremely well. The likes of Ryoji were improved a lot with his extra scenes and Nyx is the best final boss they’ve done from a story, character and gameplay standpoint as he doesn’t just come out of nowhere having time to be built up towards the final confrontation.
Going through the majority of the social links in this game made me realise I actually really like a lot of them. Sure the likes of Kenji, Nozomi, Miyamoto and Hayase were either just funny or I was indifferent on. But the variance in the character writing with people like Tanaka being just an awful person, Mutatsu being not a good person as well but having his own realisation and redemption and Akinari being the best non party member social link in the game with his ties to the core themes made them stand out a lot. The newly fully voiced social links really adds a lot to them and it’s surprising how just adding a voice to these characters made me care a whole lot more.
Knowing what the ending to this game is really adds a lot to the final day. Obviously going into the ending completely blind is the best experience but seeing Makoto go around and talk to all these people he’s bonded with over the last year, making false promises with all of them as his time is drawing to a close is very impactful and the likes of Akinaris mother hit extremely hard for me.
The ending scene got me again, they did this scene so much justice and it was absolutely beautiful the way it was portrayed. Aigis being my favourite character in the whole series is always the part that gets me the most in the ending. The amazing voice acting from Dawn M. Bennett really sold this scene and I’m glad that they managed to keep, maybe even better the feeling that the ending brings in the original. I could go on and on about how this and many other scenes in this game are so well written but I have a tendency to make essay long reviews and this ones already getting there so I’ll leave that for now.
Despite all this and even though I do prefer Reload over the original, I can’t say it’s definitively better. They both have their own standing in what makes them unique experiences even if they are the same story, it feels vastly different from the likes of Golden and Royal where they are in every sense of the word an upgrade. Those games being remasters makes them essentially the definitive experience but with Reload being a remake, it gives ground that the original still has a place in being played and appreciated akin to FFVII and its remakes.
Do you need to play the original after playing Reload? No I don’t think you do need to do that at all. But if you wanted a slightly different experience with all the above points I made, it’s still worth your time.
Persona 3 is and continues to be the best game in the franchise and I’m excited for if or when they release The Answer to finally be able to play through that portion of the story.
10/10