I don't even need reviews for this game considering I was always going to get it but I still watch for the entertainment factor.

@BacklogBattle

5 ай бұрын

Thanks for your support! Hope you like the “new style” of reviews I’m trying out here!

“Pulling your PS2 out of your garage for old times sake” is a line that has hit too close to home as I’ve contemplated doing this for Dragon Quest VIII.

As someone who played FES and P3P, I have to say this is a worthy successor. The improvements, new features, and extra content made my experience fresh. Familiar yet fresh is the best take I can give this game.

While I was initially pretty down that P3R wasn't going to be a single, all-inclusive definitive version, looking at what it is not unfairly undercuts what the team accomplished here. I feel like this is gonna be looked at alongside Star Ocean The Second Story R and Mario RPG, like those, it really feels like a lot of love for the source material was poured into this game

Persona 3 Reload is my first Persona 3 experience and it's been fantastic so far!

That rewind function is such a good QOL addition. I still can't believe how many versions of Persona 3 there are, it's crazy. Awesome review, Alex!

I’m happy with this game so far. I originally skipped on P3, and then when I finally decided to try it, my PS3 died. And I refuse to try P3P because I don’t like the whole visual novel thing.

Alex, love the energy you bring to your reviews. When you are passionate about a game it really shows, and leads me to adding yet another game to my ever growing wish list.

I've played persona 3 once, the 1st one. So this would feel like a new experience as i barely remember that 1st playthrough. With that said, this is probably 4th in my playlist. Currently, playing gloomhaven, will most likely return to baldur's gate 3/triangle strategy and i am slightly excited for unicorn overlord.

I played Persona 3 a few times now, beat Persona 3 FES once and P3P 4 times, 2 back on my psp and 2 with the re-release on ps5, one of my favorites games of all time and im having a blast with P3 Reload, definitely gonna play it at least one more time when finish my actual run

I'm excited for this game. I was introduced with P5R. I've never been played or was ever interested in anime style game besides DBZ back in the day. I decided to get p5r randomly and I was absolutely blown away. I've never heard of persona games growing up, maybe bc I never gave anime games any attention, but man. I felt like I've been missing out this whole time. I'm excited for this game and I can't wait to purchase it.

Great review! I am so excited to finally try Persona 3 and this is how I'l be playing it!

I agree this game is defo for fans who’s only played persona 5 etc.

Three playthroughs of Persona 3 for me (twice through P3P and once through P3FES). You're absolutely right: This remake wasn't intended for Persona fans like you and me. But I'll be darned if I didn't buy it anyway! And it's fantastic, definitely one of the best remakes I've ever played. The shiny facelift is welcome and the new voice cast of the main characters does a worthy job breathing new life into these characters. (The voice acting quality of the newly voiced side characters are hit-and-miss, in my opinion.) LOVE the new and improved Tartarus! I'm usually like you, blasting through all the floors I can in a single night and calling it good, but I've found myself going back in a few extra times just to break up the pace of the social stuff. Also appreciate this version of the baton pass and the new Theurgy skills. Having said that, if you're a seasoned player, those gameplay mechanics make the game significantly easier! Now, the one thing I expected to love was the new(ish) soundtrack. And I do love the brand new songs. However, I'm not as into the re-recordings with the new lead singer as I thought I would be...on the old songs, her voice is breathy and I don't care for her tone (keep in mind that I'm a vocalist, music teacher, and choral conductor, so I'm picky.) I think it's funny you mentioned "Burn My Bread" because my ears hear that more in the re-recording than the original. Anyway, I liked how you tackled this review differently than you usually would. Excellent as usual!

@BacklogBattle

5 ай бұрын

Thank you! Really happy you noticed the differences!

Persona 5 was my first Persona and then I played P4 Golden on my Vita a while later. I was gonng do P3P when it came out again but got busy on many other games and then this got announced. I persoanlly am glad I waited because I liked the shifting and Theurgy etc. I am only in August right now but having a blast

I played FES twice and P before this game. I do agree with you about for someone thats already experienced this multiple times, it's really not all that for me cause it's just the same game. But it does make me excited for P6 if they can use this as a stepping stone

I commented on the post before I even watched the video, I was that excited. I’ll leave the comment here 😂 Persona 3 is my favorite characters and theme in the series.This remake might just be my overall favorite persona/SMT game. I love the flow of the game, hours fly by playing it haha.

@BacklogBattle

5 ай бұрын

Awesome! Also, I wanted to know what you thought of the video? I’m experimenting a new kind of editing that uses gameplay very minimally since you said that you don’t watch reviews so you don’t get spoiled. I’m hoping to balance out live action with gameplay so you won’t have to worry about spoilers. Any thoughts?

@d_shuffles

5 ай бұрын

@@BacklogBattle oh wow you really notice me 🥺😭 Sorry I haven’t been as active lately too! I’ve always loved your editing style and you do tend to keep gameplay to early parts of games! So I’d say you don’t have to change the format you have. I’ve just developed a weird pet peeve over pre release footage, sometimes even trailers show a lot. To my own fault I sometimes set up expectations for a game prior to actually playing it, which isn’t fair to the devs. All I mean to say is some games I just want to take it all in when I play haha. On the flip side of this, your videos have introduced me to a new personal favorite, the Trails series! I might not have jumped on for Trails from Zero if I didn’t see your passion in the coverage for it, that’s what sold me on it haha. Sorry for the long response 😅 Anyways I just want to say keep up the great work Alex! 🙏🏻

I play P3P male and the female route, then Persona 3 FES(though I never beat The Answer), and like 2 months ago I beat P3P Female again on my Switch and I'm still loving P3R. I'm weird I guess lol I know what's gonna happen but I feel like there's so much new additions and story scenes that make it more of a new experience for me. Like the character invites and such, how Tartarus is now, the extra voice acting and the added voice acting to the Social Links which gives them so much more character and more fun to spend time with, and just the style of it. I'm still in July as of writing this comment but I'm really looking forward to seeing the rest of the game! Definitely deserves it's 1mil sales. ^_^ Oh if they remake P4, especially with the Golden stuff added, that would be SO awesome since P4G is still my most favorite Persona game(with P5R a close 2nd but that's mostly due to Futaba tbh lol). I look forward to what other Persona stuff Atlus has in store for us.

I’m really enjoying my first time playing P3. I’m still pretty early, but the loop does have some addictive and interesting elements. I also want to see where the story goes.

Definitely know it's a banger and will buy. And goes straight into the backlog 😅

@BacklogBattle

5 ай бұрын

The backlog battle is real!

I've only beaten the game once on PS2 along with FES. I think I'm gonna get to this sometime later this year or early next year. If they remake 4 that would be awesome but I played it so many times I'm worried I will get bored of that quickly.

this is my third iteration of persona 3 (p3p, fes, reload). I have to say that I love it so much. It shows the talent of the studio and the love and care that they have for this franchise as a whole. I thought the little tweaks to the game made it so much better and easier to play because it did feel like a p5 game (the combat as a whole just makes more sense and adds fluidity to the game). Overall love this game and I hope p4 gets a remake/remastered version too

Ive beaten p4 and 5, but only ever got to the first full moon in 3. Im now 25 hours in reload and im loving it. The story is picking up and getting really interesting. If you like jrpgs its a must play.

I was planning to play the recent Persona 3 port, but this will be my first time with Persona 3 instead.

I actually started to play P3 Portable that came out last year on PC... Only to then hear this version was coming and after getting a couple months into the story in that version, decided to hold off for this version. I've now played a decent amount of P3R and the tweaks add a lot to the gameplay which is awesome... But... I do miss a few things the earlier version had. Much like you I miss the female protag and feel it deserves to be added as DLC. Though I've said that was my biggest thing I had wanted before P3R even came out. All said this is a great version that feels a lot better in terms of actual gameplay making use of the things that have been added in the meantime for the series.

Great review. I also played persona 3 and all ver many time. After all, discovering this game as a 12y old was eye opening to me. I didnt understand english but i knew it was my type of game. I'm still currently playing reload. I was afraid of the new dub acting cast, but they mostly nailed it! Even tho i know the story and i even prefer the fem MC, i'm having a blast playing this!

10:15 Interesting Note: P3-Reload is significantly larger than the P5R game download. This is especially significant because JRPGs traditionally seek to be as small of a download size as possible. Even massive ones are often half the sie of the latest sports game or shooter. I would say that P3 is actually better looking than P5 with more complex effects and 3d models. This may be the most technically impressive persona game.

As someone who's played P3 like 6 times now, going through all its versions. I really love how P3R approaches P3 in a different way, the tone is a bit different and honestly a lot more fun because of it. I'm sure some purists may not like some of the changes, but as someone open to them I really love it. I think it translates some of its ideas a lot better, it also utilizes elements from the movies, which I always felt would be really perfect to include in the game.

@BacklogBattle

5 ай бұрын

I’ve never seen the movies! What elements did this borrow from them?

I have beat P4, four times and P5 twice. P3 is great. This is my first run through it and love it. P4 is still my favorite.

I own every iteration of Persona 3 released so far. That's why I am waiting until Persona 3 Reload goes on sale before I pick it up. I've played through Persona 3 once, FES once, and got most of the way through P3P before stopping. I can't justify spending over $90 on a game I've played through several times already. That said, FES was my favourite version of the game. I did not get on well with the storybook presentation of P3 Portable, and there was 0 wiggle room for activities in the original P3.

@BacklogBattle

5 ай бұрын

This is the first one that I didn’t have to pay for 😅

I haven't needed the rewind function because I clear each Tartarus area the first day a new path opens up, same as what you seem to do. So far overall I'm enjoying Tartarus more than visiting the same shops over and over again, and the kind of weak social link stories. I do kind of feel like, well, I have to wait 30 more days for the story to move along and the inbetween can get a little boring. But the game does get better and better as it goes along.

@BacklogBattle

5 ай бұрын

Your experience is basically the same as mine 😉

I already played FES and then P3P like 1.5 times. I think I'm good.

I am absolutely loving this game!! I've played Persona 3 already but this release makes it feel fresh! All the new gameplay features and voiced Social Links are awesome!!

I've played through Persona 3 FES twice and P3P four times since 2010 and for whatever reason, I have always historically stalled out or gotten distracted by the time I reach January. Thus, I am in the strange position of really enjoying the gameplay, world and characters of P3, as evidenced by the hundreds of hours I've spent on it with both the male and female protagonists. Yet at the same time, I've also never beaten P3. Thus, I'm really looking forward to playing through Persona 3 Reload. Both to re-experience this phenomenal game with a fresh new coat of paint, and to finally play it through to the end :)

@76golong73

5 ай бұрын

But, January is when you finally get to hang out with Aigis!!

@GentlemanGamer94

5 ай бұрын

@@76golong73 Yep, I don't get it either. Especially since aigis is also my favorite P3 Character! Go figure, huh? 😂

At its core it's still the best of the 'modern style' Personas (so 3,4,5) and the new graphics make it look very pretty indeed I like most of the additions and changes especially the Modam doors (or whatever they're called) but some of the after fight screens get a little old after you've seen the 10,000 or so times Not entirely sure about the new voice cast but that is a quality thing as they're all particularly good more they sound like the originals but not which is a little jarring to my ears I personally still lean to P3P being my preferred version but that is largely because I can play it on a handheld that fits in my pocket as opposed to the modern behemoths So an excellent game, made prettier with only slight niggles which if you haven't been playing it for 15 years (or whatever it is) you're not even going to notice

It is great but i don‘t get why they removed the Swim and Kendo Team social link.

@BacklogBattle

5 ай бұрын

Probably has something to do with the SLs being fully voiced now, so referencing different sports would require different voice lines

As the game reuses at least some of the anime bits, I figure the expense of reanimating these scenes with a female character is the reason they dropped her. As for playthroughs, I did two 1st runs with PSP, am in the middle pf two playthroughs for the remaster, and in the middle of reload... and that's not counting a NG+ or two.

Ill play this after I finish like a dragon infinite wealth 😊

I really do think the only people that don't care about the lack of the female protagonist not being in this version and/or the lack of the answer stuff is just me and my friend because I personally never cared about the female character at all and the answer stuff just makes me angry from a plot standpoint. Not to mention they did say that this was supposed to be a more faithful remake so that explains the lack of the female protagonist. Plus this version still sold like gangbusters anyway so it's a very moot point lol. I am pretty happy that this actually exists because the last time I played persona 3 was the PSP version and that was years ago and even when it was remastered and I use the term loosely on modern platforms, I refused to buy it because when compared to Royal and golden, P3P just felt not enticing and it still had all the issues that it previously had that wasn't updated. Now with reload it does every single thing that we should have had last year but I'm glad that it exists now and the new voice cast they do a really good job which definitely explains why we've had so many interviews with the new cast and some of which even commented how it was a very nervous experience since they were gonna be voicing these legendary characters. And I like that tremendously along with Lotus juice having more songs in the soundtrack because oh man I know this is subjective but I definitely love the new versions of these songs and I am still humming the new player advantage theme. Overall while the game has the same plot, character beats and social links, it just looks, plays and feels alot better then the prior versions and that includes the new mechanics added in and social links FINALLY having voice acting! That last one made me very happy obviously but great job with the review Alex, I would always do two days of Tarurus runs and after that just do whatever and finally funny that it is Valentine's Day and you have Mitsuru in the thumbnail lol. Anyway soild work!

This game is amazing, It’s my first playthrough of P3 although I already know the story playing it really slaps! It might even convince me that it’s better than P5 but occasionally I can still feel the outdatedness of the game even though it’s a remake.

@Zakemaster

5 ай бұрын

Yeah, it’s a loyal remake, so a lot of its core design still feels pretty dated even despite the shiny new paint and cool additions. It’s still a fantastic game, and easily has my favorite story of the modern Personas. The new gameplay features just make it more approachable now (even if it does make the game substantially easier now in turn)

@Jylstin

5 ай бұрын

@@Zakemaster im in September now and im ABSOLUTELY Loving the Vibes but the During battles it can get pretty rough especially with Tough Enemies with no weakness, THEURGY ATTACKS ARE LIFE SAVERS

@Zakemaster

5 ай бұрын

@@Jylstin theurgy attacks really are incredibly powerful. And for enemies without weaknesses, the key is to try and secure critical hits or afflict the enemy with something like freeze that’ll guarantee a crit on your next attack. I’m glad you’re enjoying the vibes. It really is a very special game. Hopefully you enjoy what’s left of it.

@Jylstin

5 ай бұрын

@@Zakemaster Yeah but theres always very low chances that shock, freeze and critical hits will land, Even Rebellion doesn't get critical often. Really does make me feel the luck stat is unbelievably important

I will get my hands on P3R and when I do, I'm probably getting it on PS4. Why? Free PS5 upgrade.

I just wish there was some way to get a better ending. I didn't like the endings in the original game. Those same endings are still present in this one. That really takes away from my desire to replay. Still a good game.

This game is for people that started the series with P4G and P5. I believe they will remake persona 1 and 2 as well now that the series is a mainstream hit.

Hahahaha I too is that person that complete tartarus in one night then use that time to increase social stat and social links. Man.... back in the day, P3 is harder than Reload.

Really want a switch release 😞

I love the game, but if you hated p3p you probably aren't going to like p3r cuz at its core gameplay wise it is mostly the same game so alot of people who dislike p3p are probably going to dislike p3r. I can't speak for p3 fes cuz I never played p3 fes.

No fem MC hurts so I'll probably wait for that inevitable expansion. I know they said there wouldn't be but here's hoping. I just enjoy playing as female characters more for some reason. Bored of the basic dude doing dude stuff with bro friends lol.

I played the original all those years ago, and loved it, and was looking forward to this. I’ve got 50 hours in it, and so far, I have to say that I think it’s very, very overrated, especially with a $107 aus price tag. To the point where it’s blowing my mind that more journalists aren’t pointing out its cons. The battles are repetitive and too easy, the story is lacking and spread out, the writing is meh, and the characters are insanely boring and scenes awkward, and it has a heap of features chucked into it that don’t really enhance the game; probably to fill out the length of the game and modernise it. It is however a very streamlined, slick, and approachable game.

I really want to play this because I loved P5 but seriously what's with all the 🔫 to the 😵 stuff? As someone who struggles with thoughts of self harm this seems volatile maybe...

I have mixed feelings about Persona 3 Reload. While I'm not surprised that it's been remade for modern times and all, and that things have been fixed for the better given P4 and P5 existing, there's something about this game's existence that feels kinda... scummy? I can't put my finger on it, something about it simply doesn't feel right. But nevertheless I am glad that you are enjoying it, as for me I plan on avoiding it.

@BacklogBattle

5 ай бұрын

There’s a lot of weird catch 22s with this game’s existence, and I often think about what would happen if FFVII’s Remake had the same approach. Would the same complaints about a prettier 20+ year old game be lobbed towards it? Or would more people excuse it because it’s more beloved?

Persona 3 reload has been a good time, but tartarus is a really boring space to travel in.

@Zakemaster

5 ай бұрын

While I agree that Tartarus isn’t the best, it’s still better here than in any of the prior versions of the games. So I guess my past suffering through previous versions make this version’s Tartarus feel so much better that it alleviates some of the boredom.

Seems a bit pricey for a 20 year old game with a lick of paint.

@BacklogBattle

5 ай бұрын

I do wonder if FFVII Remake took a similar approach if this kind of complaint would apply to it still, given how so many were against all the changes

@sonictelephone1526

5 ай бұрын

@BacklogBattle Yes and no. FF7 remake was built from the ground up and was fantastic mechanically, but why did they need to F around with the story 😡

Something about this persona felt like a downgrade and it's weird like the character portraits felt less emotion filled and I don't like that they took stuff out. but the colors are brighter is great and dungeons look and feelbetter The voice acting in my opinion was not as good as the original I still think Fes was the best.

@BacklogBattle

5 ай бұрын

The portraits are actually similar to the originals. In fact, they even react now when the originals didn’t! To be clear, I'm talking about the combat portraits. I don't really call the talking heads such.