I started Persona 3 a bit before the release of Reload because I like comparing remakes to the source material as I get a lot of joy out of seeing how games are improved or reimagined. Needless to say, Persona 3 is another example of an amazing game in an amazing series. I could go on and on about how much I love Persona 4 Golden (I still need to replay it for a Backloggd review) and Persona 5 Royal was also incredible, but Persona 3 felt the most ambitious of the bunch. However, I can't in good conscious give Persona 3 a perfect score due to some gameplay issues. I don't hate Tartarus, far from it, but there are some gimmicks I don't like or features that feel like they should be there. For instance, being sent to the title screen when dying and losing all your progress is brutal, especially compared to Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal which are much more forgiving. I understand that this game is much older and therefore these features didn't exist yet, but it does make it a little harder to play as someone who went from Persona 4 Golden to Persona 5 Royal to Persona 3. Another reason I can't give this game a perfect score is simply just knowing that FES, Portable, and Reload exist. Each of these are better versions of a great game so I'd rather give this a lower score now than change my score later. I'm not sure about Portable, and FES seems to change a decent bit, but Reload looks like the perfect version for me, not because it's more modern, but because I heard issues I have are fixed, such as slow pacing in the story. Speaking of, I love the story of Persona 3, but I did feel like there was quite a few times where it was kind of slow. This is mainly evident in the first few months of the game, which are also decent gameplay wise. I started to really get in the game around July once I got to the Full Moon before the Third Block. Not that the earlier stuff was bad or anything, but while the story hooked me, it sort of felt slow at the start. Now, gameplay and pacing aside, the rest of this game is just perfect. I love the characters, the story, I especially love the music and I'd go as far as to say this might be one of the best video game soundtracks I've ever heard, with great songs like Burn My Dread, When The Moon's Reaching Out Stars, all of the Tartarus themes, all of the battle themes, Changing Seasons, Unavoidable Battle, The Battle For Everyone's Souls, Master of Tartarus, Master of Shadow, and of course, Memories of You. There's just so much about Persona 3 that is oozing with charm, especially with the animated cutscenes which have a unique style that is very visually appealing to me. Tartarus was actually pretty fun to climb if I'm being honest. It was a little daunting at first, especially with the earlier Blocks, but the further I got, the better my experience was. I also think having the Social Links take place during the day and the dungeon crawling at night was a great idea, especially for the first time with a calendar system. So yeah, I definitely needed to highlight some issues there, but other than that, Persona 3 has so much going for it that I can't help but love it, even if it is flawed. Overall, despite it's issues, Persona 3 was an incredible game with many great qualities to match up my enjoyment of it with the other two Persona games I've played and love.