The Persona 3 remake Reload should worry fans

It is obvious that Persona 3 Reload is such a tantalizing idea: bringing the series’ defining game up to the polish of Persona 5 RoyalIt allows the newly converted Persona fanbase to discover what it’s all about. When I wrote my review of the remaster, I mentioned that Persona is a special game. Persona 3 Portable It takes a lot of work, but it’s worth it to finish the story.

After playing just a tiny bit of the game in New York, I am concerned about its quality. Persona 3 Reload might struggle to strike the balance between being an “accurate” remake while still upholding what players would expect from a modern Persona title.

Image: Atlus/Sega

I’ll say that some of these feelings sprang from my surprise that Atlus is choosing to remake the original version of Persona 3. This was before 2009’s Persona 3 PortableThe game had a female protagonist with social connections and romantic options. The original Persona was never remade, even though each new version had a game-changing re-release, rendering the old version obsolete. The cynical part of me wonders if they’ll do the same thing with Reload —Three to five years after the male protagonist, add a woman. Persona 3 Reload Ultra Deluxe —This seems to be a recipe of frustration for fans.

Full Moon was the story’s first boss. I had to face it in the 30 minute demo. Menus are also updated to match the new visuals. Persona 5The. Persona 3’s blue-dominant color palette. It was great to see the Tartarus monorail and entrance hall with their new backgrounds, and at a faster frame rate. However, both were remarkably vacant.

Image: Atlus/Sega

Tartarus, the origin of Tartarus Persona 4’s dungeons, and is closer to Persona 5’s repetitive Mementos stages rather than its complex palaces, but seeing its hallways rendered from a new perspective — more of an over-the shoulder 3D rather than the original god’s-eye view — made the contrast rather stark. There just isn’t much going on in Tartarus. It’s a twisted version of a high school with a few enemy shadows lurking. It was so repetitious that I found it easy to get lost. In the train battle, my party is sent down long straight sections with little visual differentiation and just a few enemies in each section. The game is very similar to the original, but it’s bare by today’s standards. Persona 3 The game was less interesting than the later titles in the series but it is striking how much better this lack of substance looks when modernized.

Image: Atlus/Sega

The combat system was a combination of new and old. Thankfully, the demo defaulted to letting me control the actions of each of my party members off the bat, which wasn’t even an option in the entirety of the original Persona 3. The combat consisted of the same turn-based battles, with easily navigable menus — another credit to Persona 5’s new precedent. Physical damage still had three different types of damage (slashing, striking, and poking), a feature that was later dropped. I didn’t perform a baton pass, but was told by an Atlus representative that the feature has been added to battles. Shuffle Time (the post-battle rewards system in which players choose their loot by playing a shell game where they must shuffle cards) now allows me to pick the card that I want. And the strategy of targeting your opponent’s weaknesses with elemental magic or physical damage remains the same; it’s so familiar, in fact, that I was frustrated I couldn’t kill the final boss quickly. (She’s difficult, just like in the original, unless you’re like me and grind to over-prepare for every boss fight.)

I don’t want to extrapolate too much from my demo, because I didn’t see any aspects of the daytime gameplay — the school, social links, or after-school activities. One of the most common complaints I had when playing was that there were no social links or after-school activities. Persona 3 Portable’s remaster was the lack of variety in its daily-life segments when stacked up against the other games. Atlus will either stay true to the original text or incorporate the social and activity links that someone from another game would expect. Persona 5 will expect? Persona 3’s story is dark and impactful, but it was originally told within the confines of certain gameplay conceits. It worries me that staying true to the source material will prevent the RPG from being what I’m expecting.

Persona 3 Reload is out “early 2024,” and its announced platforms include PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. Xbox Game Pass will be able to purchase it.