This review contains spoilers
Life… where does it originate? Where does it go?
Persona 3 released in 2006 for the Playstation 2. I played its 2007 re-release, Persona 3 FES, on the PS2 in 2014. I then played its 2009 re-release, Persona 3 Portable, on the PSP in 2016 and then again on the Nintendo Switch in 2023, though I didn’t finish either of those attempts. My PSP was stolen in a burglary during my first playthrough, and life got in the way during that second. By the time that modern platform port of Portable was released, reliable sources had already made it pretty apparent that we would be getting a modernized full remake of the game in the near future anyway, so I wasn’t too bothered to let it go. Since playing Persona 5 on its release, I’ve dreamt of a game like Reload. A version of Persona 3 that modernizes and enhances it, makes it look and play as good as 5 while maintaining the atmosphere and writing that made 3 my favorite in the franchise. Now that it’s here, it’s kind of surreal. Things have changed a lot in my life since I first played Persona 3, but at the same time, they haven’t changed at all. I’m still playing Persona, so really, how much better could things have gotten?
As a remake, Persona 3 Reload does leave a little bit to be desired, and I’m not referring to the content from FES and Portable that was cut (with The Answer apparently relegated to upcoming DLC.) It’s in the style. Persona 3’s PS2 versions had anime cutscenes that were unlike anything else out there at the time, and certainly unlike anything today. More Serial Experiments Lain than Spy x Family, the anime cutscenes in the original release were equal parts striking and bizarre. In Reload, these original scenes have been replaced by either a new, much less interesting anime cutscene, or a ‘pretty good’ in-engine replacement. Some of these in-engine scenes, particularly the one depicting Aragaki’s death, are quite good. But all of the new animated scenes lack the dark strangeness of their originals, and in a game this reliant on dark strangeness to build its atmosphere, that's a loss worth grieving. Still, that’s about all the negatives I have for Reload on the remake front. In every other category, it goes above and beyond. The visuals are largely excellent, and the stylish pop UI of Persona 5 has been translated wonderfully to the more slow and stoic Persona 3, all shades of blues and odd angles. The music has been faithfully rerecorded and remixed, and while some of these updated renditions took some getting used to they are by and large sideways leaps at the worst. Many stand tall over their initial renditions, and I feel comfortable calling Reload’s soundtrack the best in the franchise to date. Combat has gotten perhaps the biggest glowup, with the addition of P5’s Baton Pass mechanic (now called Shift) as well as an entirely new Theurgy system, an evolution of the weirdly handled Showtime mechanic from Persona 5’s Royal edition. These supermoves are all flashy and cool, and by the end of the game each character in your party has a couple to choose from, so it’s a fun little bit of strategy in deciding which Theury to use and when. All these additions risk making the game a bit too easy, but on Hard I thought it was a pretty balanced affair. Absolutely easier than the original releases, but not something you can entirely sleepwalk through. If you’re looking for a challenge more akin to the originals, Merciless is probably the way to go.
Script-wise, this remake is incredibly faithful. The vast majority of the original game’s script has been maintained pretty much word for word, with the most notable alteration being the much appreciated removal of the transphobic beach scene, which always stood out as gross even for 2006. This is a good thing, because by and large the original Persona 3’s script is quite good. Its characters are much more dynamic and volatile than their P4 and P5 counterparts, their growth during the story far more significant. Personas 4 and 5 have a problem with losing interest in its characters after their initial arc is over. Persona 3 is constantly giving its characters more things to do, with slight character arcs that can last for just a matter of weeks wedged neatly into an overarching story that lasts the majority of the game, from their introduction to the game’s final scenes. The real feather in Reload’s cap, then, are the new Linked Episodes. The PS2 releases of Persona 3 lacked Social Links for all male party members, and that’s been made up for here by giving each of these characters a new ‘hangout’ system, where they invite you to do something and then witness a brand new scene play out. These are neither as lowkey or as predictable (schedule-wise) as the game’s many Social Links, and I’d argue that these new Linked Episodes are among the very best content the game has to offer. The way these new scenes fit into the existing script to help flesh out the characters without flattening them or making their pre-existing scenes feel repetitive is a shocking feat, and the game is significantly better for the writing team’s ability to pull this off. In the future when I think about Persona 3’s characters, a lot of the moments that will spring to my mind first come from these Linked Scenes.
To truly live is to be willing to change. And we have to make those choices for ourselves.
As an adult, I felt a much stronger attachment than I expected to Shinjiro Aragaki. So many of the characters in this game are trapped in a rut, wondering if they’ll ever be able to escape the circumstances that leave them feeling powerless. Junpei, desperate to be great, lashing out against the system that has once again stuck him in the role of an underling and threatens to erase what makes him feel special, taking away everything he holds dear. Yukari, her blind faith in her father crashing down and leaving her aimless and uncertain. The vast majority of the game’s characters, friends and allies alike, experience being stuck in some emotional abscess that leaves them without direction and without escape. This is something that resonated with me, as someone who’s been struggling to break out of my own malaise for many years now, but it was Shinjiro’s portrayal that hit closest to home.. Unlike your other party members, whose aimless search for purpose is at least a search for purpose, Shinjiro has given up. Content to spend the rest of his life wallowing away in back alleys, refusing help no matter how desperately offered the people who care about him, Shinjiro is a loner by choice. He made a mistake a long time ago, and every moment of his life is a mixture of self loathing and twisted atonement. The new Linked Episodes here really flesh out his character, exploring the depths of both his own isolation and of his friend’s commitment to him. His struggle with people who only want what’s best for him and his own sincere belief that he deserves nothing but the gutter until he dies becomes the game’s most gripping and emotional subplot, and it makes its inevitable end all the more powerful. In a game that is often a bit more general and less cutting in its poignancy, I was surprised by how ‘seen’ I felt by these scenes. It got me thinking. I don’t have Shinjiro’s illness. I haven’t lost my family. What’s my excuse? If I don’t figure my shit out, I risk ending up just like him, hurting the people I care because I blinded myself into thinking I deserve some sad fate. In the end, Shinjiro finds his atonement, but the game makes it clear that it wasn’t worth it. Life is too short and too finite to spend locked in a cell of your own making. It’s a lot to consider, and that Persona 3 manages to make me grapple with my actual real life issues is what makes it a special game. You can tell that the people writing this were experienced in struggles like that, rather than just approximating it. It means something to me. It really motivates me to make some changes to my life, to be someone better in the very near-future. And thinking about my future inevitably got me thinking about my past, too.
Even if we’re apart, we’re still connected.
That first 2014 playthrough of Persona 3 FES occurred just after graduating high school. I played it with my friend in my basement during the summertime. Sometimes we’d be up all night. We’d make trips to 7/11 to get energy drinks to make sure we could make as much progress in a given night as possible. We’d order pizza, Chinese food, wings. Those were precious moments, cherished memories from so long ago now that it all feels like some distant dream. I knew going into Reload that it was going to be impossible not to think about it, but for a while it didn’t really strike me. Towards the end of the game, as I went through Aigis’ genuinely emotional Social Link, it all hit me at once. After that memorable summer, my friend and I grew distant. The people we became in the time since were no longer compatible, and I haven’t heard from him in well over five years. But playing Persona 3 Reload, there is no sadness, only warm nostalgia. He’s gone now, but the Him from the summertime of 2014 is always going to be there. Towards the end of the game, during one of your routine “teachers talking to you during class” segments, the teacher announces that she’s going to be moving away. She then thanks all of the students in her class by name, grateful for the year she’s spent with them. It’s a bizarrely moving moment, and not really one the game treats with any significance. I think that’s how I feel looking back at that summer, just appreciation that those days happened at all. Maybe I should call him sometime… but not before I become the kind of person that the me from back then would be proud of.
If you believe, you will be saved.
I really have no idea how I should score this thing. A 5/5 feels too generous, like every modern Persona it has blatant pacing issues in both the first and last fifth of the game. I ran out of meaningful things to do in the evenings by October, and by January I was basically going to the arcade to boost my Persona stats every single day. The qualities of its Social Links are a real mixed bag too, though I don’t think they’re as bad as some say. For the most part they’re at least entertaining enough to sit through, and I think a lot of them are genuinely funny as “high school dude” simulators. But you can tell they really had to stretch to get 10 scenes out of some of these, which doesn’t help an already over-long game. Likewise, while climbing Tartarus and fighting dudes has been made more entertaining than ever before, it’s still a climb up 250 samey rooms fighting the same 10 variants of 20 or so enemies. They’ve definitely spiced it up significantly, and I don’t really mind it much at all, but by the end you’re definitely left wondering if it couldn’t have been 50 floors shorter. At the same time, I again reflect on my 2014 self playing the game with a friend. All of these things that strike me now as feeling bloated or unnecessary were things that back then felt like astonishing surprises. Being younger and having more free time, not to mention being less skilled at managing my time in a game like this, I can imagine that barren January both having more stuff left to do and feeling downright magical due to the major vibe shift the game goes through. Hell, I have a vivid memory of ‘Memories of the City’ playing for the first time on New Years Day. My friend and I dropped the controller, listening to the song without a word, in awe at the game’s ability to totally bowl us over with its presentation so many hours in. All of these flaws are flaws, yes, but they’re also exacerbated by where I am in my life right now. They’re flaws that I thought were strengths a decade ago, because they WERE strengths a decade ago. It’s an impossible game for me to score, and I almost feel like a fraud for daring to try. Thankfully, the backlogg’d average for the game is exactly 4.5, so leaving it there feels like the right thing to do. It’s a special game.
The End almost doesn’t feel real…
So, now I’ve finished Persona 3 Reload. A game I’ve wanted to play for almost a decade now, dreaming of what could be. It isn’t exactly how I wanted it to be, but in many ways it’s better. It cannot be overstated how meaningful the Linked Episodes are as an addition to the game, not to mention the new study scenes and the like. And the new voice cast nails it too, seriously impressive work. It’s been a real journey for me, more than I thought it would be. It’s made me reflect on so much of the last ten years of my life, what’s been good, what’s been bad. What parts of me I should keep and what I should discard for the future. (Staying up until 1AM on a work night to write a review of a video game probably belongs in the latter category.) Frankly, now, at the end of it, I just feel… confused. But that’s okay. Towards the end of Persona 3, all of its characters are confused. They’re uncertain of themselves, of their purpose, of their reason for living. The emotions brought about by my circumstances playing Persona 3 Reload was reflected unknowingly by the game itself, making for one of the most remarkable video game playthroughs of my life so far. For the most part, its characters figured it out. They steeled themselves, and moved forward with conviction. It makes me feel confident that someday, I could maybe do the same.
Every passing day is an opportunity to make things better. No matter how minor the method or insignificant the growth, there is always something we can do. Whether that be something we do to help others or to change ourselves, or even just to have a good time. Our lives are so small, but we can cast such a wide net with the time we’re given. I’ve spent a long time not thinking about it. Figuring that I was cursed in some ways from the get-go, so why bother pushing for something better? Persona 3 Reload reminded me that this really is it, I’ll only ever get one chance to be this person. I still have time left to make that person the best it can be. I understand now that not using that time wisely is nothing more than an excuse to not care, and all that accomplishes is pain for everyone in my life. We all have to make the best of the time we get, and take advantage of every opportunity that we’re given. Opportunities for rest, for love, for joy. For the people we want to be, for the people we’ve lost along the way. For all the precious moments that we didn’t realize we should cherish.
Persona 3 released in 2006 for the Playstation 2. I played its 2007 re-release, Persona 3 FES, on the PS2 in 2014. I then played its 2009 re-release, Persona 3 Portable, on the PSP in 2016 and then again on the Nintendo Switch in 2023, though I didn’t finish either of those attempts. My PSP was stolen in a burglary during my first playthrough, and life got in the way during that second. By the time that modern platform port of Portable was released, reliable sources had already made it pretty apparent that we would be getting a modernized full remake of the game in the near future anyway, so I wasn’t too bothered to let it go. Since playing Persona 5 on its release, I’ve dreamt of a game like Reload. A version of Persona 3 that modernizes and enhances it, makes it look and play as good as 5 while maintaining the atmosphere and writing that made 3 my favorite in the franchise. Now that it’s here, it’s kind of surreal. Things have changed a lot in my life since I first played Persona 3, but at the same time, they haven’t changed at all. I’m still playing Persona, so really, how much better could things have gotten?
As a remake, Persona 3 Reload does leave a little bit to be desired, and I’m not referring to the content from FES and Portable that was cut (with The Answer apparently relegated to upcoming DLC.) It’s in the style. Persona 3’s PS2 versions had anime cutscenes that were unlike anything else out there at the time, and certainly unlike anything today. More Serial Experiments Lain than Spy x Family, the anime cutscenes in the original release were equal parts striking and bizarre. In Reload, these original scenes have been replaced by either a new, much less interesting anime cutscene, or a ‘pretty good’ in-engine replacement. Some of these in-engine scenes, particularly the one depicting Aragaki’s death, are quite good. But all of the new animated scenes lack the dark strangeness of their originals, and in a game this reliant on dark strangeness to build its atmosphere, that's a loss worth grieving. Still, that’s about all the negatives I have for Reload on the remake front. In every other category, it goes above and beyond. The visuals are largely excellent, and the stylish pop UI of Persona 5 has been translated wonderfully to the more slow and stoic Persona 3, all shades of blues and odd angles. The music has been faithfully rerecorded and remixed, and while some of these updated renditions took some getting used to they are by and large sideways leaps at the worst. Many stand tall over their initial renditions, and I feel comfortable calling Reload’s soundtrack the best in the franchise to date. Combat has gotten perhaps the biggest glowup, with the addition of P5’s Baton Pass mechanic (now called Shift) as well as an entirely new Theurgy system, an evolution of the weirdly handled Showtime mechanic from Persona 5’s Royal edition. These supermoves are all flashy and cool, and by the end of the game each character in your party has a couple to choose from, so it’s a fun little bit of strategy in deciding which Theury to use and when. All these additions risk making the game a bit too easy, but on Hard I thought it was a pretty balanced affair. Absolutely easier than the original releases, but not something you can entirely sleepwalk through. If you’re looking for a challenge more akin to the originals, Merciless is probably the way to go.
Script-wise, this remake is incredibly faithful. The vast majority of the original game’s script has been maintained pretty much word for word, with the most notable alteration being the much appreciated removal of the transphobic beach scene, which always stood out as gross even for 2006. This is a good thing, because by and large the original Persona 3’s script is quite good. Its characters are much more dynamic and volatile than their P4 and P5 counterparts, their growth during the story far more significant. Personas 4 and 5 have a problem with losing interest in its characters after their initial arc is over. Persona 3 is constantly giving its characters more things to do, with slight character arcs that can last for just a matter of weeks wedged neatly into an overarching story that lasts the majority of the game, from their introduction to the game’s final scenes. The real feather in Reload’s cap, then, are the new Linked Episodes. The PS2 releases of Persona 3 lacked Social Links for all male party members, and that’s been made up for here by giving each of these characters a new ‘hangout’ system, where they invite you to do something and then witness a brand new scene play out. These are neither as lowkey or as predictable (schedule-wise) as the game’s many Social Links, and I’d argue that these new Linked Episodes are among the very best content the game has to offer. The way these new scenes fit into the existing script to help flesh out the characters without flattening them or making their pre-existing scenes feel repetitive is a shocking feat, and the game is significantly better for the writing team’s ability to pull this off. In the future when I think about Persona 3’s characters, a lot of the moments that will spring to my mind first come from these Linked Scenes.
To truly live is to be willing to change. And we have to make those choices for ourselves.
As an adult, I felt a much stronger attachment than I expected to Shinjiro Aragaki. So many of the characters in this game are trapped in a rut, wondering if they’ll ever be able to escape the circumstances that leave them feeling powerless. Junpei, desperate to be great, lashing out against the system that has once again stuck him in the role of an underling and threatens to erase what makes him feel special, taking away everything he holds dear. Yukari, her blind faith in her father crashing down and leaving her aimless and uncertain. The vast majority of the game’s characters, friends and allies alike, experience being stuck in some emotional abscess that leaves them without direction and without escape. This is something that resonated with me, as someone who’s been struggling to break out of my own malaise for many years now, but it was Shinjiro’s portrayal that hit closest to home.. Unlike your other party members, whose aimless search for purpose is at least a search for purpose, Shinjiro has given up. Content to spend the rest of his life wallowing away in back alleys, refusing help no matter how desperately offered the people who care about him, Shinjiro is a loner by choice. He made a mistake a long time ago, and every moment of his life is a mixture of self loathing and twisted atonement. The new Linked Episodes here really flesh out his character, exploring the depths of both his own isolation and of his friend’s commitment to him. His struggle with people who only want what’s best for him and his own sincere belief that he deserves nothing but the gutter until he dies becomes the game’s most gripping and emotional subplot, and it makes its inevitable end all the more powerful. In a game that is often a bit more general and less cutting in its poignancy, I was surprised by how ‘seen’ I felt by these scenes. It got me thinking. I don’t have Shinjiro’s illness. I haven’t lost my family. What’s my excuse? If I don’t figure my shit out, I risk ending up just like him, hurting the people I care because I blinded myself into thinking I deserve some sad fate. In the end, Shinjiro finds his atonement, but the game makes it clear that it wasn’t worth it. Life is too short and too finite to spend locked in a cell of your own making. It’s a lot to consider, and that Persona 3 manages to make me grapple with my actual real life issues is what makes it a special game. You can tell that the people writing this were experienced in struggles like that, rather than just approximating it. It means something to me. It really motivates me to make some changes to my life, to be someone better in the very near-future. And thinking about my future inevitably got me thinking about my past, too.
Even if we’re apart, we’re still connected.
That first 2014 playthrough of Persona 3 FES occurred just after graduating high school. I played it with my friend in my basement during the summertime. Sometimes we’d be up all night. We’d make trips to 7/11 to get energy drinks to make sure we could make as much progress in a given night as possible. We’d order pizza, Chinese food, wings. Those were precious moments, cherished memories from so long ago now that it all feels like some distant dream. I knew going into Reload that it was going to be impossible not to think about it, but for a while it didn’t really strike me. Towards the end of the game, as I went through Aigis’ genuinely emotional Social Link, it all hit me at once. After that memorable summer, my friend and I grew distant. The people we became in the time since were no longer compatible, and I haven’t heard from him in well over five years. But playing Persona 3 Reload, there is no sadness, only warm nostalgia. He’s gone now, but the Him from the summertime of 2014 is always going to be there. Towards the end of the game, during one of your routine “teachers talking to you during class” segments, the teacher announces that she’s going to be moving away. She then thanks all of the students in her class by name, grateful for the year she’s spent with them. It’s a bizarrely moving moment, and not really one the game treats with any significance. I think that’s how I feel looking back at that summer, just appreciation that those days happened at all. Maybe I should call him sometime… but not before I become the kind of person that the me from back then would be proud of.
If you believe, you will be saved.
I really have no idea how I should score this thing. A 5/5 feels too generous, like every modern Persona it has blatant pacing issues in both the first and last fifth of the game. I ran out of meaningful things to do in the evenings by October, and by January I was basically going to the arcade to boost my Persona stats every single day. The qualities of its Social Links are a real mixed bag too, though I don’t think they’re as bad as some say. For the most part they’re at least entertaining enough to sit through, and I think a lot of them are genuinely funny as “high school dude” simulators. But you can tell they really had to stretch to get 10 scenes out of some of these, which doesn’t help an already over-long game. Likewise, while climbing Tartarus and fighting dudes has been made more entertaining than ever before, it’s still a climb up 250 samey rooms fighting the same 10 variants of 20 or so enemies. They’ve definitely spiced it up significantly, and I don’t really mind it much at all, but by the end you’re definitely left wondering if it couldn’t have been 50 floors shorter. At the same time, I again reflect on my 2014 self playing the game with a friend. All of these things that strike me now as feeling bloated or unnecessary were things that back then felt like astonishing surprises. Being younger and having more free time, not to mention being less skilled at managing my time in a game like this, I can imagine that barren January both having more stuff left to do and feeling downright magical due to the major vibe shift the game goes through. Hell, I have a vivid memory of ‘Memories of the City’ playing for the first time on New Years Day. My friend and I dropped the controller, listening to the song without a word, in awe at the game’s ability to totally bowl us over with its presentation so many hours in. All of these flaws are flaws, yes, but they’re also exacerbated by where I am in my life right now. They’re flaws that I thought were strengths a decade ago, because they WERE strengths a decade ago. It’s an impossible game for me to score, and I almost feel like a fraud for daring to try. Thankfully, the backlogg’d average for the game is exactly 4.5, so leaving it there feels like the right thing to do. It’s a special game.
The End almost doesn’t feel real…
So, now I’ve finished Persona 3 Reload. A game I’ve wanted to play for almost a decade now, dreaming of what could be. It isn’t exactly how I wanted it to be, but in many ways it’s better. It cannot be overstated how meaningful the Linked Episodes are as an addition to the game, not to mention the new study scenes and the like. And the new voice cast nails it too, seriously impressive work. It’s been a real journey for me, more than I thought it would be. It’s made me reflect on so much of the last ten years of my life, what’s been good, what’s been bad. What parts of me I should keep and what I should discard for the future. (Staying up until 1AM on a work night to write a review of a video game probably belongs in the latter category.) Frankly, now, at the end of it, I just feel… confused. But that’s okay. Towards the end of Persona 3, all of its characters are confused. They’re uncertain of themselves, of their purpose, of their reason for living. The emotions brought about by my circumstances playing Persona 3 Reload was reflected unknowingly by the game itself, making for one of the most remarkable video game playthroughs of my life so far. For the most part, its characters figured it out. They steeled themselves, and moved forward with conviction. It makes me feel confident that someday, I could maybe do the same.
Every passing day is an opportunity to make things better. No matter how minor the method or insignificant the growth, there is always something we can do. Whether that be something we do to help others or to change ourselves, or even just to have a good time. Our lives are so small, but we can cast such a wide net with the time we’re given. I’ve spent a long time not thinking about it. Figuring that I was cursed in some ways from the get-go, so why bother pushing for something better? Persona 3 Reload reminded me that this really is it, I’ll only ever get one chance to be this person. I still have time left to make that person the best it can be. I understand now that not using that time wisely is nothing more than an excuse to not care, and all that accomplishes is pain for everyone in my life. We all have to make the best of the time we get, and take advantage of every opportunity that we’re given. Opportunities for rest, for love, for joy. For the people we want to be, for the people we’ve lost along the way. For all the precious moments that we didn’t realize we should cherish.