Reload was a much-anticipated remake and imo it didn't fail to deliver. While it didn't fix my main problem with Persona 3, which is its story pacing, it was never going to fix that anyway as it's actually a pretty faithful remake. Even then, it still does the original much justice--particularly talking about the ending here.

The changes and additions they made, however, are all excellent and appreciated. Stuff like extra scenes to flesh out a certain character, and the hangouts with your male patty members since they don't have social links in this game, really add to the experience. And stuff like fully voiced social links, I hope are the series standard going forward--they add a new depth to Social Links that I wasn't aware that I was missing. Because of the added voices, many of the characters--even some Social Link ones--became new favorites for me.

Really, if you want to play Persona 3, just play this. Yeah it doesn't have FeMC but if you're looking to play P3, especially for your first time, you're going to want to play this version. It's probably the closest we're getting to a "definitive" version.

This was really fun! Probably the first time I actually enjoyed 2D Mario since NSMBWii. There are some complaints I have (Bowser Jr. being every palace boss is kind of lame) but overall it was very very solid, with high points being the level design and some of the Wonder effects.

I played this game with friends so there was another element added to gameplay, mainly the fact that the camera only focuses on one person (as opposed to the camera zooming out massively in NSMB Wii (U)), and I'm not completely sure how I feel about it still. Most of the time it was fine, other times some stages became hard to play as the person who the camera was focusing on would just move at a completely different pace than the rest of us, leading us all to get killed haha. But it's not enough to detract from the score, I think.

If this is how 2D Mario will be going forward, I'll definitely play the next entry.