5/5 ★ – asoola's review of Persona 3 Reload.

Who would’ve thought I would be back writing about Persona 3 story? If you read my review for Persona 3 Portable then you already know how much I love this game, its story and the themes it covers. It’s been almost a year since I played Persona 3 Portable and now it’s 2024 and I’m back to say that the remake lives up to the hype it’s so well done and they did the story and characters justice! (Side note while I didn’t talk about it in a review here I did finish Makoto Yuki’s route in June 7th 2024 in Persona 3 Portable) The story and its themes from start to end remains the same with obviously better animated cutscenes and better 3D scenes so I’ll say what I said before the story is written very beautifully and the themes about life, death, bonds and one’s purpose hit even harder in this game because of how much they improved the game with better animated cutscenes and 3D scenes as I said before! I’ll talk about spoilers more but I just wanted to say how much the story is written well and how much I love it first. Before I dive into spoilers let’s talk about the new things they added Linked Episodes! I always felt what Makoto Yuki route was missing was him feeling connected to certain characters if that makes sense! He’s able to connect and befriend not only the male SEES members in these Linked Episode but also Ryoji Mochizuki! I really loved the Linked Episodes because Makoto Yuki definitely feels like a friend to those characters now and not only that but the Linked Episodes told stories about the characters I didn’t know before and I really loved that the way they expand more on the characters and the way everything feels right and not out of place and written well is the reason I love this new feature! While this character isn’t Makoto’s friend I did appreciate the new Linked Episode for Takaya from Strega and it also expands on not only his character but also Jin’s and I love that! Speaking of friends while the Social Links aren’t new I appreciate the dev team deciding to add friendship scenes to the female characters that are a romantic option I saw each one (except Yukari’s) and I loved all of them the one I liked the most is Aigis’s friendship scene and Chihiro’s friendship scene but like I said all of them are well done and fit the female characters. 🫶🏽 One more thing about the Social Links I love how they’re voiced now that’s a good change I hope every Persona game from now on will have fully voiced Social Links! I’m not quite sure if they changed much about some dialogue or the script in someone’s Social Link (Kenji) but I started liking some characters I didn’t like way more now so I feel like they did something right! All of the Social Links I did were well done and I loved each one I’m glad Reload made me love the Social Links in Makoto’s route! Now it’s time for spoilers if you never played a single Persona 3 game (the original, fes, portable, or reload) it’s time for you to stop reading and go play the game if you want. 👍🏽 Now I can talk about spoilers! The themes of life, death, bonds and one’s purpose still hit me and affect me the way I still relate to certain things discussed in the game just goes to show how well done the remake is I absolutely love these themes and how each character relate to these themes like I said before Yukari and Aigis are the highlight characters for me in the game but I love all of the characters. Before I dive into the ending now that I revisited the story and I can’t quite remember if Igor said that in Portable but I do think “The Answer to Life’s Greatest Question” is protecting what you hold dear for Makoto Yuki anyway I only realized that because Igor said “Perhaps you can save those you hold dear, from that which cannot be defeated.” when creating the Universe Arcana! Again not sure if he said that in the original I’m quite forgetful but I think the question would be something like “What is the meaning of your life?” Or something along these lines! And for Makoto the meaning of his life was to protect the people he holds dear! Before I go to the ending as someone that loves the Nyx Avatar boss so much I was so excited and happy when I saw how well done it is in reload! The new attacks and the animation each time the arcana changes 10/10! Anyway now the ending… first when SEES remember the promise I cried the new animated scene and the way their friendship is so strong makes me love their friendship even more and second I definitely love the improved ending in reload it’s the same as the original kinda but the way they did and portrayed the Aigis’s speech and the options you make as Makoto in that scene yeah I cried… And the way now you see what Makoto saw last before he closed his eyes that made me cry so much. ☹️ I just love how new and improved everything feels and how emotional it made me, Makoto Yuki started the game looking grim however in the end he was smiling he died but he’s smiling because he protected what mattered to him how could you not love him as a protagonist? He’s such a well written protagonist and his story will always make me emotional. 🫶🏽 The entire story and the characters are amazing and the story’s impact on me as a person will always remain with me! Now that I’m done with the emotional part of the review it’s time to talk about the soundtrack the new tracks feel fresh but they still sound and remind you of Persona 3 and the new vocalist did a great job singing the songs especially Memories of You and that violin that plays in Memories of You I cried even more the soundtrack is handled with so much care and they somehow managed to make it sound even better and almost the same as the original Persona 3 soundtrack! Well that’s all for my review, Persona 3 Reload is easily one of my favorite games now and all of the changes or new things that were included were well done and it’s definitely a game I’ll never forget! 🩵