' A bleak painful journey filled with trauma and tragedy, the hopes of life and friendship carry you '
Developer: Atlus
I have played prior persona releases such as 4 Golden on the PS Vita and 5 on PS4, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed, while I did think to go back and play the older games, I’ve heard they’ve aged poorly and QoL improvements the newer games have introduced have made the older games somewhat obsolete, with this game being a day and date game pass release I thought it’d be worth a pop. A note though, Reload is the 4th iteration of Persona 3, with the original 2006 release, a later enhanced version with FES and then 2009’s PSP game Portable, each has its own additions and refinements, even with 2024’s Reload it doesn’t include the ‘entire’ package.
The Persona franchise is a spin-off series of the mainline SMT game (Shin Megami Tensei), a more traditional play by the book J-RPG.
Like most RPG’s having stats based on attack, defence, speed, etc, Persona is unique in having skills based on social stats like Knowledge, charm and courage which can be levelled up by doing activities, hanging out with certain characters and school quizzes. Being high enough levelled in certain aspects can lead to some bizarre social moments like a high school student having enough charm to worm his way into a dingy nightclub with no one batting an eyelid and diffusing arguments with enough courage.
Social links can be formed with a lot of the cast in reload and are primary in helping strengthen your own Persona through the Arcana's each person owns, once you’ve set up a new social link you can receive messages at points during the day to further strengthen said bond by meeting at specific spots, there are 10 levels to a link and even a chance to enter a romantic bond with a few of the woman.
The majority of friendships you can make are well fleshed out and tell fascinating tales,
while a handful of them can feel half baked, most are entertaining enough to see through by themselves or feed into the broader message about finding purpose in life, from con saleman that have a change of heart to a young sports athlete who is competing with a purpose and a heartbreaking tale of a sick young man with a love for writing.
Before getting into the story and set-up, I want to address I am aware that parts of P3R story have been altered from the original release such as removing an infamous transphobic slur, there are still some that have been overlooked, a Student/Teacher relationship story beat and a social link following a Hallway clerk that shares very xenophobic views
It's disappointing to see that Atlus, even in the year 2024, is still strictly prohibiting same-sex relationships in their games this choice doesn't reflect the diversity of their fan base, which includes many members of the LGBTQ+ community. It's high time for them to change their stance and adopt a more inclusive approach that embraces diversity and equality. This policy makes it feel like the Nintendo of old, with its similar stigma in games like Fire Emblem and even Miitopia.
Straight away you can tell P3R has been influenced by Persona 5’s distinct style with the opening FMV movie, leading into some slick bold UI that Atlus has been using in all their games since 5, either it be the pause menu, battle commands or even monster compendium, Reload bleeds style and knows it does, each mainline Persona game utilizes a distinct colour palette throughout the entire game. Persona 4 employs the colour gold, Persona 5 uses red, and Persona 3 is themed with the colour blue.
Before starting the game, a warning is given about the presence of themes related to suicide, self-harm, and bullying. This sets the tone for what can be expected in the game. Personally, I find it refreshing to play a game that addresses and confronts difficult issues such as these. However, on the other hand, it leaves one pondering about the purpose of life when the credits hit.
You are in the shoes of a no-name mute, like series tradition, 10 years ago he lost both of his parents in a tragic accident, returns to Tatsumi Port island, soon after a minute-long intro cutscene you are left alone in the city as night falls and somethings wrong, with little to no explanation, the streets are baron of life and amongst them are these bizarre floating coffins all over the city, this is the Dark hour.
You meet Igor and he invites you into the velvet room to sign a mysterious contract, which then awakens your own Persona ‘Orpheus master of strings’ the next morning you are enrolled into Gekkoukan School where you meet Mitsuro Kiriji and learns that other students can also summon personas at will, by quite literally shooting yourself in the head with a gun called a Revoker, she invites you to join SEES (Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad), once you are settled in, you move into Iwatodai dorm campus, where only other SEE’s members can stay and you learn what the main objective of the team is, dedicated to defeating the 12 shadows that haunt Tatsumi at night, to destroy Tartarus and end the dark hour.
If you’ve not played a Persona game before essentially, they are a game of two halves, part dungeon crawler and other part social management sim, set over a whole calendar school year, you have to balance saving the world and building up social friendships in an addictive mix that is hard to put down from the get-go.
The battle system has 4 basic actions when entering combat, all of them are pretty self-explanatory but the interesting option is Persona, which allows you to summon one to help aid in battle with type-specific moves. Unique to the main protagonist he can weld up to 10 different personas so he has the ability to be able to overcome any battle.
Like Persona’s sister series SMT, exploiting an enemy's weakness is the aim of the game, my knowledge through Pokémon’s type matchups did not help me in the slightest when it came to battling the shadows, weaknesses are learnt through trial and error, going through the motions and casting spell after spell until you find the right one can be a slog sometimes but after you’ve found it, just pressing the shoulder button on your controller will act as a hotkey for said move for quick battles, facing a horde of enemies can seem daunting at first but if you can strike an enemy's weakness you can shift to another teammate that has another foes weakness.
When you down an enemy in combat you can activate an ‘all-out attack’, which then leads into a snazzy reel showing all your teammates ambushing the fallen foe and piling the damage onto them, this is a key strategy against overcoming stronger shadows, later on you gain access to theurgy attacks which are built up through a special meter, every member of your team has multiple unique theurgy attacks which also have flashy cutscenes, they vary from physical attacks to boosting stats or recovering HP and SP.
Like everything else in Persona 3 reload, combat oozes style with how snappy battles can become when linking each system together in perfect harmony.
It's slightly disappointing to be greeted with a still image of a map with only a few locations to explore when you were expecting to have the freedom to explore Tatsumi Port island. However, with the available fast travel locales, you can explore vibrant and bustling places packed with personality.
Not only can you travel to the campus, school, train station, and two separate malls, but these malls feature multiple shops where you can buy everything from potions, weapons, and gear to flowers to grow on the rooftop back at the student dorm.
Moreover, some shops offer part-time jobs that pay a little and, more importantly, boost your social stats. During the school term, a few more new shops open up, and you'll spend a considerable amount of time in Tatsumi when growing social links with new pals.
When you are acquainted with Igor and Elizabeth, you are welcome to enter the mysterious blue door that can be found in a hidden back street in the mall or at the base of Tartarus, Elizabeth will give you side quests, they vary with general targets you’ll reach during a natural playthrough like fusing a certain amount of new persona or gifting her a key item, most of these are very mundane and the reward is never really worth the effort, the main reason you will want to enter the velvet room is fusing your newly acquired Persona! No matter the combination most persona are compatible with each other and do inherit moves by doing so, each persona falls under a different Arcana type which correlates with matching social links and when done right will receive bonus exp when fused.
As you work to stop the dark hour and Tartarus, you stumble across mysterious persona users that before being formally introduced, you know they mean trouble. This rag-tag group go by the name of Strega who make their intentions known right away, embracing the dark hour and letting fate decide who is worthy, throughout the entire year city folk are brainwashed with hearsay and rumours ultimately leading into creating a cult.
You are a school student so obviously a substantial portion of your playtime in the P3R takes place at Gekkoukan High School and spans over six days of the week! You will spend most of every week waking up early in the morning and heading straight to school.
On alternate days, you will attend classroom sessions where the teacher will ask you general knowledge questions. Correctly answering these questions will not only boost your charm but also help you improve your overall academic performance. Moreover, it's worth mentioning that the lessons may seem repetitive, but it's essential to remember the answers as they will be reused in the end-of-semester exams. So, make sure to pay attention in class and study hard to excel in your academics.
During downtime in between lessons, you are free to roam the campus and partake in extra-curricular clubs such as arts, running, etc which boost certain social stats where you will also come to form special bonds with other students.
like most schools there’s always gossip amongst students, most days you overhear conversations about worrying tales and rumours going on in Tatsumi city, that either add context or foreshadow later mysteries.
Every evening you will go back to Iwataki dorm and have the opportunity to spend quality time with other SEE members in activities such as cooking which results in leftovers that you can use in battles, watching tv which boosts certain social stats or spending a cold night ‘shooting the shit’ with friends on the rooftop pulling weeds, while these aren’t compulsory they do lead into some endearing scenes.
Every day when midnight beckons so does the dark hour and with that Tartarus appears, A 250+ floored labyrinth above the school, as you painstakingly grind through the randomly generated rooms that are split up across 6 different special variants, which unlike persona 4 and 5 is the only dungeon you enter, it shares a lot of similarities to persona 5’s mementos,
Before you enter the gargantuan tower, you can choose 3 other teammates to come with, each player will have their own ride or die posse and with nearly 10 members in SEE’s to choose from, forgotten crew can fall behind in gaining levels but Reload has a cool feature that allows you to boost under-levelled members if you come across a special green door while venturing through, there is a limit to only gaining a max of 13 levels in a sitting but who doesn’t like free exp.
Early on exploring the unknown, it can get pretty difficult if you are running low on healing items and getting too big for your boots going too deep, even if you think you are capable of beating Tartarus in 1 night or even a few, the game has barriers which only unlock after progressing further in the calendar year, usually, you can tell when you are reaching said point by the ever present mid-bosses the game throws at you trying to thwart your progress.
When getting deep into Tartarus, seeing multiple different enemies thrown your way, it is best to shake up the team to exploit weaknesses and help with battling the tedious and monotonous feelings of having long periods in Tartarus, as being Ko’d in battle does happen to even the most well-equipped warriors and starting from the bottom all over again kills motivation for anyone.
There are chests littered on every floor in Tartarus, while most have money or sellable junk, you will come across locked chests which depending on how many locks it has corresponds with the rarity of the reward, like series tradition the EXP gold mines the Gold hands make a return, when chasing these fast nimble sleuths down, you have to be extra careful and efficient with taking it down as it will flee within about two turns, they are basically the equivalence of metal slimes from the Dragon Quest games and shouldn’t be passed up anytime you have the opportunity.
As you spend a decent chunk of time in Tartarus, and revisiting it on the regular, progressing through already trodden grounds, Reload while giving you a behemoth task of climbing the labyrinth does respect your time and sparsely places teleporters on certain floors, when I had to retread in Tartarus, I found myself listening to a podcast or watching a video while doing this, which itself isn’t a great compliment.
Big red monad doors can appear and inside feature a mid-boss that really shows the battle system in the best light, once you have bested the foe they will leave rare loot that can be used towards upgrading weapons and best of all you are now blessed with being able to skip a couple of floors upwards.
My biggest criticism with P3R is how overwhelming Tartarus can be as a task, other than major story beats you aren't forced to go back necessarily but entering Tartarus is the only way you can gain EXP and with constant formidable battles on the horizon I found myself feeling like it was necessary to grind away to not later be hitting a brick wall, this is alleviated with some reason to go back with Elizabeth contacting you about missing people somewhere in the tower.
Shoji Meguro, the composer of the original Persona 3 music, returns to give a new life to tracks from 2006. In RPGs, the battle song is crucial as you'll be hearing it for countless hours. P3R has a handful of different catchy and diverse tracks, while writing this review I’ve been relistening to the OST, I’m excited for it to come to streaming services down the line so I can add a handful of my favourites.
The music changes each passing season throughout the year, matching perfectly with the game's visual changes. Persona games are well-known for their vocal tracks, and P3R doesn't disappoint on that front. Lotus Juice, the artist, returns to feature on several songs ranging from soul, rap, rock, and even dream pop. with any lengthy RPG, you'll remember songs regardless of whether bad or good, but luckily, with Reload, it's the former.
upon beating the game I was surprised to notice a few of the vocal tracks lyrically talk deeply about themes of the story in P3R which with added context now really helps sell the overall message Persona 3 sets out to tell.
I don't usually get emotionally invested in many video game storylines, the last one that really hit me was the end of Spiderman (2018). When I was reaching the conclusion of
Reload's story, I was taken aback by the character's resolutions and the finality of it all, to not be worried about the end and to enjoy the journey, during the closing couple of hours I did piece together what was about to happen but that didn't stop it hitting right in the feels when it did show.
Without a doubt, P3R is a fantastic game, from its simple but engaging battle system, well likable cast of misfits, to a dark story that touches on revenge, regret and acceptance but more than all that, life and death, it kept me enamoured from beginning to end, while it does take a fair few hours for the ball to start rolling, Persona 3 Reload is a journey that I recommend to any RPG fan.
I’m eagerly looking forward to Metaphor Fantazia later this year!
Played on: Xbox Gamepass
Hours to beat: 70 hours
Pros:
Oozes style
Fantastic story
Quick snappy combat
Memorable soundtrack
Cons:
Tartarus can become a drag
Rating: 9/10
Comments