I’m Still Playing Persona 3 Reload Hundreds of Hours Later

Persona 3 Reload learned a lot from Persona 5. This is most evident in the art style of the portraits, but even the gameplay had some of Persona 5’s soul in it. Where Persona 5 Royal added the “Showtime” feature to create climaxes even during regular battles, P3R implemented the “Theurgy” attack. These Theurgies were not only exciting and incredibly satisfying to use (take that, Reaper!), but they were also seamlessly added into the game’s story and deepened each party member’s character.

This remake also had its own attempts at being stylish like Persona 5 Royal did, albeit a more muted route was taken. Perhaps, this is not a lesson learned specifically from Persona 5, but rather the result of the natural progression of games and menus throughout the times. The simple menus that were the norm back in the 2000s simply will not do anymore, and thus the “stylish” menus that Reload has are simply a consequence of making a game in the current generation. Visually, Persona 3 Reload set itself apart with its iconic blue palette. If I really had to nitpick with the artistic choices for this game, I would point out the lack of significance that the “water” theme has on the game’s main story. The water theme was only relevant in one part of the game (where we meet Aigis) and that could also have easily happened anywhere else and the beach served as more of a backdrop if anything. At least in Persona 5, the wanted posters we see in the menus made sense for the Phantom Thieves. There were images of the menu and logo in early development, and the “shattered glass” theme would have been the most cohesive choice in my opinion. We even see a remnant of this theme in the party menu.

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The original P3, like the other entries in the series, was brought to life by a timeless soundtrack. Luckily for those who enjoyed the music of the original game, Lotus Juice himself came back to remake the old soundtrack and even add new ones. I genuinely thought there would be more discourse caused by the change from “bay-be” to “bay-bi” in Mass Destruction, but the player base seems to simply be thankful for all of the bangers that we got (shoutout to you, Color Your Night!)

The visual and auditory identity that P3R has, combined with the tried-and-tested elemental turn-based combat of the series, complement the grittiest story the recent mainline Persona games have seen. Some areas of the game might be off, like the dialogue or the pacing, but it did do its best in being as faithful of a remake as possible. The biggest victim of this is the Social Links, as their stories seemed too isolated from the main story and the progression of the protagonist’s relationship with them did not feel natural. They did get rid of the Social Link reversing or breaking, though.

After Hundreds of Hours, Why Am I Still Here?

It’s voiced. This may be a given for modern games, and gamers might have been spoiled by recent titles like Baldur’s Gate 3, but Persona 3 Reload being fully voiced breathes so much life into the characters. The voice actresses for the Japanese dubs did amazing in reprising their roles, but the English voiceover was phenomenal. The cast was perfect, and we were even treated to cameos from some of the original S.E.E.S. voice actors and even the Phantom Thieves.

I finished my first run at 74.5 hours, and this was an authentic run. I fully got to know the characters, the story, and the gameplay intimately with this amount of hours invested in my first run. However, I know I missed a lot of things in this run. My Compendium was not complete, my Social Links were not maxed, and a certain secret boss was yet to be beaten. This brought me to start a New Game Plus run, which was a lot more generous than I was expecting it to be. Nonetheless, I completed this run, blazing through most of the dialogue that I’ve already seen. Lo and behold, my Compendium sat at 99% because I forgot to hang out with some of the S.E.E.S. boys despite the wealth of free time I had due to having my maxed-out Social Stats carry over from my previous run. This became the catalyst for my third run. Was it that serious? No, it wasn’t. Was I looking for an excuse to do another run? Definitely. If it wasn’t maxing out the Compendium, it would have been maxing out Persona stats to 99 by spamming the arcade and using Incenses all day.

Is there hundreds of hours of content hidden behind Persona 3 Reload? Ironically, my answer is no. After the first run, you already would have discovered a respectable majority of the game. But I found myself not playing for new content, but having a game where I could just run around talking to NPCs and whacking shadows with half of my brain turned off.

I’ve heard rumors of a special item you receive when you beat the game on Merciless difficulty and how it could be an item that would unlock something in the upcoming “The Answer” DLC. Will I get that done? Who knows. Maybe I’ll wait for the FEMC mod for a fresh experience.

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