Memento mori -- remember, you will not have enough time to complete all your Social Links if you focus on the old couple and their stupid persimmon tree the second you start the game. Do any of these kids even go to school!?
Apologies to FES devotees, but the "Persona 5-fication" of Persona 3 has, in my eyes, been nothing but a net gain. Sure, it's upsetting that the only other legally accessible version of Persona 3 is a ho-hum port of a compromised portable release, but I'm no stranger to the base game, and when stacking it up side-by-side with Reload, it's hard to not internalize the remake as being the superior way to play the game.
Pretty much every facet of the original is improved or otherwise preserved, and nothing has been downscaled or infringed upon in a manner I would view as harmful. That extends to giving the player direct control over their party, a choice that was originally made to suit Persona 3's themes of communication and bonding by treating each member of SEES as their own individual with their own will. You could largely avoid Mitsuru's habitual casting of Marin Karin by engaging with command presets, my issue is not with the AI. I just think having input over 25% of my team in battle makes the game a little too passive and boring. Well, not anymore. Now I have total control, me, and I'm using my newfound agency to... habitually cast Marin Karin-- wait what the hell
An expanded list of spells and abilities adds a lot more variety to combat, and having more input over how your Personas are built permits more strategic planning over the original's randomized inheritance. All quality-of-life changes that are more or less standard parts of the modern SMT experience, effectively bringing Persona 3 on par with Persona 5 and Shin Megami Tensei V. It is likewise as easy as those games, but being accessible to new audiences isn't necessarily a bad thing. I opted to play through Reload on hard and found the difficulty curve to be more enjoyable this way, though by the time you reach the end game you'll still likely be overpowered. Armageddon is basically the "bully The Reaper" button, and I feel a little bad about it, but that's free EXP so what're you gonna do?
Even the individual blocks of Tartarus, Persona 3's massive procedurally generated labyrinth, are fleshed out in a way that makes navigating less rote and tiresome... though it doesn't completely alleviate some of the tedium. This is perhaps one area where Reload is a bit too slavish to the original game. Enemy designs are turned over and recycled constantly, and the limited number of blocks ensures that even though the geometry is more varied, you'll still probably get sick of exploring before reaching a border floor.
Though I've seen people upset that Reload recasts everyone (except Tara Platt, who apparently had the one unassailable performance), I do think the new cast is excellent, and emotional beats that I found affecting when I played the original game were even more impactful despite anticipating them thanks in large part to better voice direction, more emotive character models, and more dynamic cinematography. I've seen mixed opinions on the soundtrack and changes to Persona 3's aesthetic, but I'm way into all of it. These are my favorite versions of familiar songs, I think the character portraits are a clear step up and I adore the hard lines segmenting areas of shading, I am 1,000% down with the water theming in the menus, and I think the new SEES uniforms are great and actually make the party feel like a well-backed force.
I also have nothing but praise for the new Not S. Links Reload adds, which provides the male members of SEES additional screentime for their individual stories to develop. I think this helps bond the player with each member of the core party even more than the original did, something that Persona 3's two sequels got right by giving each member their own dedicated Social Links. Strega and their ideology are also given a greater amount of time to develop, which helps build them as a credible threat and enhances their presence in the story.However, I must dock points for not being able to date Takaya, I can fix him
Reload might be me at my most defensive of remakes, and at my most insistent that changing material is not inherently bad. The few ways in which Reload does lack is still a noted step up from the original, and the content which is outright excluded is material I didn't care about anyway (I think The Answer is the closest any expanded content has come to essentially being an IGN "ending explained!" article, and unfathomably boring besides.) That said, I think it's possible to feel this way about Reload and still lament the fact that the original game is only accessible through piracy or by overpaying on the aftermarket, and that even more Persona 3 media is outright lost to time.
Apologies to FES devotees, but the "Persona 5-fication" of Persona 3 has, in my eyes, been nothing but a net gain. Sure, it's upsetting that the only other legally accessible version of Persona 3 is a ho-hum port of a compromised portable release, but I'm no stranger to the base game, and when stacking it up side-by-side with Reload, it's hard to not internalize the remake as being the superior way to play the game.
Pretty much every facet of the original is improved or otherwise preserved, and nothing has been downscaled or infringed upon in a manner I would view as harmful. That extends to giving the player direct control over their party, a choice that was originally made to suit Persona 3's themes of communication and bonding by treating each member of SEES as their own individual with their own will. You could largely avoid Mitsuru's habitual casting of Marin Karin by engaging with command presets, my issue is not with the AI. I just think having input over 25% of my team in battle makes the game a little too passive and boring. Well, not anymore. Now I have total control, me, and I'm using my newfound agency to... habitually cast Marin Karin-- wait what the hell
An expanded list of spells and abilities adds a lot more variety to combat, and having more input over how your Personas are built permits more strategic planning over the original's randomized inheritance. All quality-of-life changes that are more or less standard parts of the modern SMT experience, effectively bringing Persona 3 on par with Persona 5 and Shin Megami Tensei V. It is likewise as easy as those games, but being accessible to new audiences isn't necessarily a bad thing. I opted to play through Reload on hard and found the difficulty curve to be more enjoyable this way, though by the time you reach the end game you'll still likely be overpowered. Armageddon is basically the "bully The Reaper" button, and I feel a little bad about it, but that's free EXP so what're you gonna do?
Even the individual blocks of Tartarus, Persona 3's massive procedurally generated labyrinth, are fleshed out in a way that makes navigating less rote and tiresome... though it doesn't completely alleviate some of the tedium. This is perhaps one area where Reload is a bit too slavish to the original game. Enemy designs are turned over and recycled constantly, and the limited number of blocks ensures that even though the geometry is more varied, you'll still probably get sick of exploring before reaching a border floor.
Though I've seen people upset that Reload recasts everyone (except Tara Platt, who apparently had the one unassailable performance), I do think the new cast is excellent, and emotional beats that I found affecting when I played the original game were even more impactful despite anticipating them thanks in large part to better voice direction, more emotive character models, and more dynamic cinematography. I've seen mixed opinions on the soundtrack and changes to Persona 3's aesthetic, but I'm way into all of it. These are my favorite versions of familiar songs, I think the character portraits are a clear step up and I adore the hard lines segmenting areas of shading, I am 1,000% down with the water theming in the menus, and I think the new SEES uniforms are great and actually make the party feel like a well-backed force.
I also have nothing but praise for the new Not S. Links Reload adds, which provides the male members of SEES additional screentime for their individual stories to develop. I think this helps bond the player with each member of the core party even more than the original did, something that Persona 3's two sequels got right by giving each member their own dedicated Social Links. Strega and their ideology are also given a greater amount of time to develop, which helps build them as a credible threat and enhances their presence in the story.
Reload might be me at my most defensive of remakes, and at my most insistent that changing material is not inherently bad. The few ways in which Reload does lack is still a noted step up from the original, and the content which is outright excluded is material I didn't care about anyway (I think The Answer is the closest any expanded content has come to essentially being an IGN "ending explained!" article, and unfathomably boring besides.) That said, I think it's possible to feel this way about Reload and still lament the fact that the original game is only accessible through piracy or by overpaying on the aftermarket, and that even more Persona 3 media is outright lost to time.
11 Comments
@PhantasM_ Thank you! Honestly I probably could've written a lot more, but I was trying to sneak this in between work. Don't tell anyone, i really need this job
Very nice review. I'm currently playing through Persona 3 for the very first time via Reloaded, precisely because my friend (a big of P3), told me it's the best version.
Many, many FES fans out there think that's a sacrilege though, and I just think they are having a hard time separating their emotional bias. The content is the same, just the form is a little different, and without playing FES, I don't even know the differences - I sure do know about stuff like the fatigue system, and the AI-controller party in a turn-based RPG, and I'm glad I don't have to deal with that. No matter how many times I get told "you just use the tactics! it's thematically consistent!", the mere idea sounds silly to me.
Many, many FES fans out there think that's a sacrilege though, and I just think they are having a hard time separating their emotional bias. The content is the same, just the form is a little different, and without playing FES, I don't even know the differences - I sure do know about stuff like the fatigue system, and the AI-controller party in a turn-based RPG, and I'm glad I don't have to deal with that. No matter how many times I get told "you just use the tactics! it's thematically consistent!", the mere idea sounds silly to me.
And sidenote, I've already maxed out the old couple, am in September, I did hang out with them a couple of times in school days, you're telling me I'm screwed then? Goddammit. This game takes so many school days away from me!
@Artur FES Thank you! I think the fatigue and tactics systems made sense for the game Atlus was making at the time, but I enjoy the changes Reload makes and found it to be an overall very additive remake. What few things were cut (largely mechanical) are parts that I think Reload is better off without, though if there's one major piece of dropped content from FES, it's The Answer. I understand people want the most complete version of Persona 3 possible, but speaking strictly personally, I don't like The Answer and I'm not mourning its loss.
@artur tactics actually works surprisingly well as long as you engage with the mechanic, been playing fes and yeah the memes that say it's broken are inaccurate
@artur apparently so, I did it in fes too so you're not alone but its really strict with its social links
@Artur I was mostly being facetious. It's a time management thing. Persona 3 restricts the school S Links quite a bit, so the ones outside of school are best saved for when you're on break or your other S Links are unavailable prior to exams. I forgot about that so I dumped a bunch of time in those and had days I just burned as a consequence. Even then, I was short from maxing all S Links by only four days. In fact, you do need to rush through the first few parts of their S Link early to get Bebe.
I think it I had any qualms with the things that were added to Persona 3, my main one could be summed up mostly as: I dont think Tartartus, of all the Persona dungeons, needed more content. I feel like Tartarus accounts for like 2/3rds of my playtime and while I felt very refreshed by a more simple dungeon crawling experience it just really doesnt need to be as long as it is.
@_YALP I think that's a totally fair criticism. There were definitely a few points where I felt my time in there was dragging. I wouldn't have minded if they departed more from the procedural nature of Tartarus and made bespoke dungeons of each block, or added more blocks with smaller floor counts to diversify the landscape. Monad helps, but even Monad passages repeat the same enemies and start to get a bit predictable, which is just a consequence of randomly generating them.
That said, I think what I would've preferred out of Tartarus would've also been a lot more than what Reload sets out to do.
That said, I think what I would've preferred out of Tartarus would've also been a lot more than what Reload sets out to do.
Itd be hard to change Tartarus without fundamentally changing the game itself so in this case I would have been fine with "less equals more" in terms of additiona. Maybe Monad passages could have outright replaced some blocks, maintaining the general floor count (and therefore the overall quantity of time required of Tartarus) - cuz as it stands now it just feels like Tartarus' absurd floor count was inflated to an even more absurd number and thats not the direction it really needed to go.
Phantasm
1 month ago