As expected, I absolutely adore Persona 3 Reload. I would like to preface this by stating that I have not played either of the original versions, opting instead to wait for this remake after seeing the announcement trailer last year.

I love how you are thrust into world of Persona 3. The game opens in typical Atlus fashion with an anime cutscene, it depicts the protagonist travelling to the dorm, intercut with flashes of a girl pointing a gun to her forehead before collapsing to her knees in failure. Obviously, I knew, the mystery behind this setup entirely, the girl, Yukari, being a future party member, the gun being an Evoker, and its purpose being to summon a Persona. However, I can still appreciate how good of a hook it is, I envy those who got to experience the original 17 years ago without the preconceptions I had. The cutscene continues as the protagonist witnesses the Dark Hour for the first time before transitioning to gameplay. The in-game lighting is mesmerising, these city spaces are transformed into something so alien. Again, I like that this poses questions to the player. The mystery continues to unfurl further, as the protagonist awakens to his Persona and is subsequently recruited into S.E.E.S, where we learn of Tartarus and visit the Velvet Room.

As the game goes on it is great to see it offer varied relationships between the party members, their dynamics and conversations were always engaging, there is sometimes tension and awkwardness, which provides realism to their interactions. Even unvoiced lines of dialogue echo this as we learn tidbits about their habits and daily occurrences that really help colour them in. I enjoyed watching the S.E.E.S members become gradually closer throughout the duration of the story as their experiences together build trust and true friendship. I appreciate that the protagonist is separate from the relationships of others here, not just the sole connection between them, which is as it should be. I was further pleased by how much agency they often had in the story.

Shinjiro’s pseudo social link notably illustrates the interesting dynamics between the senior students, alluding to the storied history between them; their start in S.E.E.S and the now quite strained relationship between Akihiko and Shinjiro, I love that we are often informed about past events such as this and as it allows us to understand each character’s mentality, and reason for fighting.

The characters of P3 establish a lot of the archetypes we see in the later entries, as many characters share the same Arcana. Nonetheless, there is a lot of diversity here, for example the third years, as well as Aigis, Ken and Korumaru feel quite unrepeated. In the evening, I often found myself talking to everyone, to learn their perspectives on recent events, which again provides deeper insight into who they are. The dorm activities available during the evening, were sometimes better than the social links, which I know are exclusive to this remake. The pseudo social links they added for the male party members were also particularly good, especially Shinjiro’s which I mentioned earlier, they do well to stand out from the social links as they don’t revolve around school and take place in a variety of locations for example events with Akihiko’s take place at night, in and around the dorm.

Elizabeth is easily the best velvet room attendant, by a large margin. Even her unvoiced dialogue made me crack up. The scenes where you take her out places were better than most social links, her unfamiliarity with the world makes for really effective comedy and is something that is echoed in Marie’s social link in Persona 4. I cannot believe they traded out good comic relief in the form of Elizabeth and Aigis for annoying mascots such as Teddy and to an extent Morgana. Aigis especially is endlessly funny when she is first introduced, for example the scenes of her interpreting for Korumaru, and is my favourite character in the game. Her character arc was so endearing as we watch her embrace her humanity and attempt to figure out the clumsy, haphazard process that is living. Her monologue at the end was beautiful too, but I will get into that later.

I was completely caught off guard by Shinjiro’s death partway through, as the game smartly misleads you, introducing him as the last playable party member, and only giving you a short amount of time to spend with him, I think about a month of in-game time. However, the way in which it is handled was tragic and memorable. I cannot think of another game that made me care so much about a fictional character’s death, this is largely thanks to the pseudo social link episode for him that you can participate in, which really develops him and makes you empathise for him, as something obviously terrible is eating away at him. I love the way in which these scenes cryptically allude to events in the past that led to his abandoning S.E.E.S, whilst leaving you in the dark enough so that when the big reveal later happens it still has the necessary impact, in other words I had to draw my own hazy conclusions to the actions and attitudes of Persona 3’s characters before the game abruptly confronts you with these devastating truths.

Out of the three modern Persona games, this easily has the best portrayal of opposing Persona users. Every time they were on screen was a treat, and the first boss fight against them is built up to excellently, seeing their cut-ins and use of shift, to coordinate was just magnificent. The scenes between the protagonist and Takaya help illustrate his motives and mindset, as he tries to cajole you into preserving the Dark Hour. Through these scenes you come to understand how someone who awakened to this power could become warped by it and subsequently refuse to give it up, as they believe being stripped of it would be a fate worse than death, and an utter waste of a gift bestowed upon them by some higher power.

One of the biggest improvements Reload makes, is fully voiced social links. The social link system is so fundamental to Persona’s identity so seeing it get this treatment was great, the dialogue being voiced makes even the boring ones a lot more compelling, and truly elevates the best social links such as Akinari’s to greater heights. I really hope we see this carry over into Persona 6. It is interesting that the social links roster is not so dominated by your party members as in other entries, unfortunately the quality of the social links is not as strong here. However, a few, namely Akinari’s, which I mentioned earlier make up for the shortcomings of others.

As for gameplay, this is a Persona game through and through. The fusion of life-sim and dungeon crawler is what makes these games so special and addictive to play. I had a lot of fun going through Tartarus, however on hard difficulty it was mostly quite easy which is a shame when in the original was characteristically difficult. This is partly my fault for playing on ‘Hard,’ but from what I have heard even ‘Merciless’ is not much of a step up. During my playthrough I derived a lot of fulfilment fusing and optimising my Personas, however I do wish there were some way to release Personas without leaving the Velvet Room, as having to watch the door opening animation multiple times at one instance was inconvenient.

Even though most encounters were steam-rolls, hitting weakness’s and optimising your moves to defeat shadows in the least number of turns never loses its lustre, it also helps that Reload has extravagant and stylish visuals and this is no more apparent than during its combat. This is definitely Atlus’s most striking rendition of turn based combat, I like the way the party runs into battle, the animation that transitions exploration to combat is seamless. As soon as you initiate your first battle in Reload you will be absolutely overwhelmed by what is displayed, the lighting and reflections are gorgeous, each skill is visceral and vibrant, cut ins are breathtaking, as are the amazing animation’s that play during shift, especially Yukari’s, my god, I always shift to her because of how expressive it is. All out attacks are importantly very satisfying, I love watching the party run up on a shadow before it transfers to the enchanting splash screens that close out each encounter. In many ways this is the definitive version of turn-based combat in a Persona game.

Persona 3 Reload’s soundtrack is a constant delight. Everything you do is accompanied by distinctive music, which lends itself to building the identity of these spaces. From the bombastic ‘Mass Destruction’ to the bouncy ‘Iwatodai Dorm.’ Additionally, the tone in key scenes can be efficiently conveyed and amplified, for example, in the use of the devastating ‘This is How it Should Be’ to the melancholic but hopeful ‘Living with Determination’ in key story beats. The use of music in these games is very liberal, there is rarely a moment spent without it, however I believe the application of it really elevates the experience. Also, I never found myself tiring of any of the tracks, which is a testament to its calibre.

The ending to Persona 3 is so evocative. I half knew what was coming but I was still surprised by the beauty in its execution. The final cutscene is intimately framed, as Aigis gives her heart-wrenching monologue about living, and how she will go on doing so even without you, perfectly highlighting the core themes the story explores. In this moment you really feel the special bond between them, and how she is grieving deeply for you. ‘I Will Protect You’ augments this scene perfectly. As everything draws to a close, ‘Memories of You’ swells up melancholically, leaving you with a profound sense of closure to this wonderful journey.

This review has been all over the place, but I am simply happy to have captured, somewhat messily, the aspects I appreciated most in this fantastic game.

I found the pacing of the story to be quite slow even in comparison to the original, however that may be because I played part I of the main scenario across many days, missing days even. On the contrary I finished part II in just one day without much interruption. The story is basically an expansion on Morgana’s backstory which we see as a flashback in Door VIII told with very minimal visuals. This time around the story is fleshed out further, with dialog and character sprites, which are drawn anew here and look much improved. It is told in a more intimate way, largely from Jacopo’s point of view, so we get to see some new scenes in part II regarding his journey into Lordship and consequent moral decline. The game does just about enough to convince you that it is possible for Jacopo to undergo such a severe change in character across the duration of the game. It was fascinating though, to see this transformation, to see Jacopo bound by the strains of power and consequently undone by it. Odilon was endearing, his relationship with Jacopo felt authentic and fatherly, subsequently his death was the perfect device to justify Jacopo’s future bitterness and depravity. Although this felt justifiable, what didn’t was the drastic dissimilarity between Jacopo’s internal monologue and subsequent actions regarding Morgana in the latter half of part II, even in his current mindset this felt unbelievable, and I don’t like how he acts like his time spent at the brothel was eons ago, anyway it felt like a major plot contrivance to me. Experiencing the ending first hand was brutal but anyone playing this already knew what was coming.

Part I does see some significant changes too, such as the introduction of three new characters: Gratien, Ceren and Lord Barnier. Their presence in the narrative does help keep things from becoming a complete bore as the trajectory of the story remains unchanged. I particularly like the characterisation of Lord Barnier, he is utterly insane and quite the memorable villain. I also really enjoyed seeing Morgana and Jacopo’s relationship blossom here, their back and forth was always engaging, and their growth felt organic. The standout scenes between them being when he first treats Morgana with the ointment and when he shelters her after she runs away from the brothel. Unfortunately, the first part is plagued with a lot of drivel dialogue in my opinion, which does drag it down for me.

The soundtrack whilst having some great additions, such as He Love You, doesn’t possess the same variety as the original game, with a lot less vocally orientated tracks which were usually the standout in the main entry. That said, the new piano tracks, which are the most prominently used are excellent, namely Singing the Glow of Sunrise, even if they just aren’t as distinctive as songs like Cicio in the previous entry. However, I do recognise the narrative and tonal reasons behind the inclusion of more sombre paired backed piano tracks in favour of the more dramatic, spectral and gothic tracks from the original game. On another note, I was baffled when certain other tracks played, as these start off sounding incredibly like royalty-free music before progressing into something different further in. I’m not sure if I’m just going crazy but I’m convinced they used melodies from some well-known royalty free music to build off whilst keeping these in at the beginning of the final versions, which is quite the bizarre decision if that is the case, doesn’t exactly do wonders for immersion but maybe the composer(s) thought it was funny I don’t know.

In conclusion I think Requiem for Innocence is worth playing if are a die-hard fan of the main game, however it is not at all essential. It doesn’t really do much to further the story and is missing the element of mystery and non-linearity in its narrative that made The House in Fata Morgana so engaging and original.