Persona 3 Reload (PlayStation 5) Review

Over the years I have dabbled in the Persona series, and plenty of games that borrow heavily from Persona.

One game I haven’t gone back to though is Persona 3. Luckily for me, I got to play a more enhanced version now as my first experience, and this game is excellent.

If you haven’t played Persona 3 yet, let me tell you it’s dark. Like really freaking dark.

The protagonist is a teen whose parents died.  Later on he gets attacked by some monsters and this awakens his Persona. This results in him joining the SEES who are a bunch of students who fight these monsters and explore a super mysterious tower. The plot twists and turns, and gets way freaking darker. The Persona games have some strange tones at times, but they tend to be a bit more bright and bubbly. This one on the other hand, while having some great JRPG humor, stays dark throughout.

It’s tough to say how the gameplay compares to the original without having played it. What I can say is it doesn’t feel like a really old game.
The gameplay feels like it belongs in a current-gen release. It’s a giant slice of JRPG battles paired with a whole lot of relationship development. There’s not too much to say about the combat itself. It’s just damn fine JRPG action, with character switching thrown in to mix things up.
You’ll burn a lot of your playtime on side activities to build these relationships. What always nags at me is the limited amount of time in each day to fit them all in. I get paranoid about missing stuff, or missing specific moments that could screw me over later. If you’re new to the series, my advice is to chill and just do what you want. There’s heaps of time in the day. Enjoy what unfolds in front of you, even if you’re annoyingly paranoid like me.

The game, as far as PS2 remakes go, looks stunning.

The graphical overhaul, it doesn’t look necessarily like a brand spanking new game but it looks a far cry from a ported PS2 game. The character models look a bit flat, but the detail looks really good.

The scenery, the background, and the general style look amazing.
It all adds up to a damn good looking game. Some of the animation during exploration can be a bit janky, but hell, plenty of games in 2024 have that problem. The voice acting is good enough, and the soundtrack is absolutely top notch.

If you haven’t played Persona yet, Persona 3 Reload is a damn good place to start. Just make sure you move on to Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royale afterwards, because the series is fantastic. Just trust me, check it out.