I had played Persona 4 about a decade ago and Persona 5 when it launched, but I had never bothered with 3 due to the original's off-putting battle system where you could not directly control any of your party members. Portable fixed that but had a lot of concessions made to fit it on the PSP that also turned me off. So Reload was very interesting to me since it finally addressed the issues that kept me from playing the previous versions.
I like Persona 3 a lot! I like its cast and story a lot more than 4's. The new additions to the battle system in this version are pretty fun. My main issues with the game come from the issues I have with every modern Persona. I really like the focus the Persona games have on day-to-day social life stuff, but there's always a certain point where I get very tired of it because you run out of new things to do and it begins to get very repetitive. Eventually you've maxed out enough activities/social stats/social links that you get into a routine of skipping a bunch of very small animations, text boxes, and cutscenes that pop up every time you do something, whether its eating at a restaurant, going to the batting cages, whatever. I look back on my playtime for Persona games and its always around 100 hours... and I always wish I could see just how much of that playtime was walking or teleporting to an activity, hitting start to speed the animations up, and seeing some little music notes appear above the protagonists head before it moves on to the next day and I do that 20ish more times before the story moves on.
The story usually grinds to a halt for these sections of the game, but that's fine in theory because all of the Social Links you are progressing during this section are their own little narratives with a whole bunch of different kinds of people. I love the idea of Social Links. I'm always excited to unlock a new one to see what it's going to be about.
This falls apart when most of the Social Links are boring and/or bad. The SLs in Persona 3 are really weak. A lot of them are forgettable, and when they aren't it's because there's something kind of weird and off-putting about them. The one with the fat kid that feels inferior to the memory of his dead brother... whose family is also part of a doomsday cult. It felt like more time was spent on the cult stuff than anything else, yet it doesn't really get resolved beyond you defending him from some people that want to beat him up in an alley for being in a cult that has ruined people's lives. I guess at the very end you hear that he's moved on to being a food critic or something... but I don't think it says anything about him leaving the cult?
I really dislike how the optimal way to play all of the SLs is to be a huge yes man. Every SL where the person is doing something very bad or destructive, and they ask you for your opinion... if you want to progress optimally you always have to agree with them or cheer their bad decisions on. The teen wants to propose to his teacher? Go for it, dude! The 6 year old girl wants to run away from her parents and get lost and scared in the city? Yeah, that's a great idea!
It's also funny to see certain frustrating writing beats that I saw in Persona 4 and 5 in this game as well. Every time a party member is suspiciously missing every one goes "oh well, guess they're sleeping/busy with something else" and every time something bad is happening to them. This exact scenario happens multiple times! After the second time you should recognize the pattern!
Anyways I don't really have a conclusion. I like Persona but it always feels like its being held back by some annoying design/writing decisions. I'm curious what Persona 6 will be like now that Hashino, the man who has admitted to never interacting with a woman, has left to make his own bullshit. Is it too much to hope that 6 won't have the usual summer vacation skit where all the boys are horny and peeping on girls and then get hit on by a trans woman or gay man? Every time that happens it sucks big time and it also gets drawn out for an absurdly long amount of time. It's always the one cutscene you know is safe to skip when it happens.
I like Persona 3 a lot! I like its cast and story a lot more than 4's. The new additions to the battle system in this version are pretty fun. My main issues with the game come from the issues I have with every modern Persona. I really like the focus the Persona games have on day-to-day social life stuff, but there's always a certain point where I get very tired of it because you run out of new things to do and it begins to get very repetitive. Eventually you've maxed out enough activities/social stats/social links that you get into a routine of skipping a bunch of very small animations, text boxes, and cutscenes that pop up every time you do something, whether its eating at a restaurant, going to the batting cages, whatever. I look back on my playtime for Persona games and its always around 100 hours... and I always wish I could see just how much of that playtime was walking or teleporting to an activity, hitting start to speed the animations up, and seeing some little music notes appear above the protagonists head before it moves on to the next day and I do that 20ish more times before the story moves on.
The story usually grinds to a halt for these sections of the game, but that's fine in theory because all of the Social Links you are progressing during this section are their own little narratives with a whole bunch of different kinds of people. I love the idea of Social Links. I'm always excited to unlock a new one to see what it's going to be about.
This falls apart when most of the Social Links are boring and/or bad. The SLs in Persona 3 are really weak. A lot of them are forgettable, and when they aren't it's because there's something kind of weird and off-putting about them. The one with the fat kid that feels inferior to the memory of his dead brother... whose family is also part of a doomsday cult. It felt like more time was spent on the cult stuff than anything else, yet it doesn't really get resolved beyond you defending him from some people that want to beat him up in an alley for being in a cult that has ruined people's lives. I guess at the very end you hear that he's moved on to being a food critic or something... but I don't think it says anything about him leaving the cult?
I really dislike how the optimal way to play all of the SLs is to be a huge yes man. Every SL where the person is doing something very bad or destructive, and they ask you for your opinion... if you want to progress optimally you always have to agree with them or cheer their bad decisions on. The teen wants to propose to his teacher? Go for it, dude! The 6 year old girl wants to run away from her parents and get lost and scared in the city? Yeah, that's a great idea!
It's also funny to see certain frustrating writing beats that I saw in Persona 4 and 5 in this game as well. Every time a party member is suspiciously missing every one goes "oh well, guess they're sleeping/busy with something else" and every time something bad is happening to them. This exact scenario happens multiple times! After the second time you should recognize the pattern!
Anyways I don't really have a conclusion. I like Persona but it always feels like its being held back by some annoying design/writing decisions. I'm curious what Persona 6 will be like now that Hashino, the man who has admitted to never interacting with a woman, has left to make his own bullshit. Is it too much to hope that 6 won't have the usual summer vacation skit where all the boys are horny and peeping on girls and then get hit on by a trans woman or gay man? Every time that happens it sucks big time and it also gets drawn out for an absurdly long amount of time. It's always the one cutscene you know is safe to skip when it happens.