Persona 3, for better or worse, is a relic of its time. First released for thePS2in 2006 before receiving updates in the form of FES and Portable, the RPG behemoth helped to establish the high school social simulator/challenging dungeon crawler Persona is now known as the world over. It combines an excellent battle system and the gothic atmosphere of Shin Megami Tensei into a contemporary experience of youth where at every turn you are considered an outsider, struggling to fit in and fight back against society.
Persona 4and5would build on these themes with larger than life settings and characters in its mixture of urban and rural landscapes, but Persona 3 has always felt different. It came at a perfect place and time, during the infancy of internet discourse, and as digital technology began to leave the analogue world behind.
The closest visual sibling to Persona 3 Reload is Persona 3: Dancing In Moonlight, a rhythm game spin-off that launched several years ago for the PS4 and PS Vita.
It is a melancholic psychological horror ripe with an array of garish hairstyles and snazzy flip-phones, imbued by the fuzzy static of a CRT TV on its very last legs. Dragging Persona 3 kicking and screaming into the future is both a blessing and a curse. Reload is exceptional, but in striving for a modern coat of paint, it leaves behind much of what made its identity so iconic in the first place.
Remastered Destruction
This remake has been long requested by fans, and achieves everything you’d expect it to. It recreates the entire experience in Unreal Engine 4, basing the majority of its aesthetic on the clean and stylish look of Persona 5. Character designs are updated with appropriate flair, while environments are much brighter and cleaner than ever before. But in some places, Persona 3 Reload can feel surprisingly barren and devoid of personality.
Your dormitory, the space you return to each and every night before jumping into Tartarus, or to spend time with friends in the quiet hours of each evening, especially suffers here. It has no soul, and this dwindling character can be seen as you roam the corridors of Gekkoukan High School or venture down to Iwatodai Mall for a spot of shopping. The music, characters, and general mechanics remain intact - while often enhanced - but it seems my nostalgic bond to the original makes it hard to appreciate what Atlus has done here, or at the very least view it as the definitive version of this emo classic.
Much like Persona 5, the menus this time around are drop-dead gorgeous, swapping harsh snaps between sections with a drowning motif that never gets old.
Fortunately, the lacking soul of its visuals is easy to overlook after a dozen or so hours, and soon become the norm in this updated vision. It lacks the additions found in FES or Portable, but Reload still manages to tell a complete tale with characters I already admired. To see them brought to life with updated designs and stellar new vocal performances made them all the stronger. Atlus may have hindered its artistic vision in the jump to Unreal, but beneath it all awaits the same beating heart of emotion built of poignant themes and exceptional character arcs that made the game what it was 18 years ago.
Nothing has been unnecessarily updated to avoid offence, although Junpei Iori is noticeably far less of a weird pervert this time around. Instead, additional scenes and expanded social links allow Persona 3 to reach its true potential in terms of storytelling, taking its morbidly hopeful ideas further than ever before.
I’d often find myself doing laps around campus after class to make sure I didn’t miss any optional conversations, although your upgraded mobile phone does a great job of letting you know if and when anyone in your social circle wants to catch up. It’s the same for familiar shopkeepers and businesses - you’ll receive contextual alerts for new items in stock, social links or pings for part-time work, one of many stellar qualities of life improvements.
Of course, a significant chunk of your time will be spent battling Shadows in a massive tower known as Tartarus, a strange monument that only emerges during the Dark Hour. Persona 3 is an infamously grindy and repetitive game with regard to its dungeon design, and Reload is keenly aware of this shortcoming. The battle system is immaculate, and easily the dominant enhancement Reload brings to the table.
What is most impressive, though, is how similar its foundations are all these years later. You still control a quartet of high schoolers capable of summoning badass Persona, each of whom is outfitted with elemental strengths and weaknesses which play an integral part in the rock-paper-scissors pacing of each encounter. It becomes routine after a while, although a new mechanic known as ‘Theurgy’ adds a welcome sense of spectacle.
After filling up a gauge by fulfilling certain parameters, such as dealing critical attacks and healing your allies, characters can perform devastating actions or healing spells that shift battle in your favour if used correctly.
Each attack is gorgeously animated and personally befitting of each character. Mitsuru Kirijo will slide across the battlefield on a plane of ice before she slices her opponent into ribbons, culminating as she rises to a frozen throne and taunts her enemies from above. Yukari on the other hand, dishes out a flurry of arrows before leaping into the air to fire a singular ray of energy down onto her opponents. You have several special moves at your disposal, capable of unlocking and equipping new offerings at the Velvet Room as you fuse Persona or take Elizabeth out on dates in the human world.
Sadly, Tartarus itself is still consistently repetitive in both its visual design and layout. It’s been spiced up with the addition of destructible parts of the environment that offer spoils alongside a larger number of treasure chests and challenging enemies, but you are still entering a floor, seeking out an exit, and grinding onward until you reach a teleporter.
It’s amazing to see more consistent character conversations unfold as you explore, and new buffs afforded by Fuuka that allow you to avoid enemies, but suddenly losing a battle or having to climb several floors all over again isn’t fun, it’s frustrating. The game is also a smidge easier this time around too, with the Hard difficulty setting matching the Normal setting compared to the PS2 original. It’s still plenty challenging though, so don’t worry.
Reload doesn’t reinvent the Persona 3 wheel so much as upgrades its engine before thrusting it back onto the road. The experience I played as a teenager is relatively intact, right down to the 2009 setting and its period approach to high school life. It oozes nostalgic comfort in its expression of youth and betterment of oneself, even if the darker aspects of its visual design and character work don’t always gel with the excessive style borrowed from newer entries in the series.
Atlus is trying to bring its gothic masterpiece obediently in step with what Persona has become, even if that means leaving behind its defining traits. For an RPG that has made a name for itself by firmly rebelling against all expectations set upon it, it’s disheartening to see Persona 3 Reload happily tow the line.
Inconsistent graphics and the lack of a female protagonist we had in Portable aside, however, this remains a solid means of enjoying one of the finest RPGs of the past two decades. Its writing is sharper, combat is more satisfying, and it brings this world to life in ways that just weren’t possible several generations ago. Reload might lack its signature rough edge, but those coming around for the first time will find plenty to love.
