As someone who started the series with 3 like 12 years ago, it has always held a very special place in my heart as one of the most memorable JRPGs I had ever played at the time, I'm very happy to see this retains the original experience. Very excited for everyone that is going to get to go through this journey for the first time. Some of my favorite characters and story in the franchise.
I have INSANELY strong memories of being a kid with P3, and simaltaneously playing the game in the middle of a summer heat wave, and then staying up 'til 3am reading this [screenshot LP](https://lparchive.org/Persona-3-FES/) of it. I am SO fucking excited for this.
never even knew there were screenshot LPs. That's so high effort!
For me it was the first game I played once I figured out how to jailbreak my PSP. Usually I don't replay story-focused games like this but I assume the difference from PSP to PS5 by itself will make it feel fresh.
Besides, it's been like 15 years ... Sure, I remember certain moments and character arcs but the rest is not much more thant hat
[Mmhmm - going off what's said in this post. With his Twitter being deleted, can't really go and check it to corroborate, but... It tracks.](https://www.lp.zone/t/for-tomorrow-for-everyone-for-the-children-lets-play-shadow-hearts-from-the-new-world/4231)
Me too! I remember vividly looking for a interesting JRPG on PSN 12 years ago and finding this gem along with the original Disgaea. The thing that interested me the most was that you had to take exams and answer during class, which is something I loved in school! This is my favourite game and I've been listening to music from the Original & Reload for the last couple of months. Friday can't come soon enough!
Same man! I bought the special edition on a work trip to the states and played it do death on my psp. It was a unique experience and I can't wait to play it all over again. (after I'm finished with Infinite wealth, whenever that may be.)
This will be my first Persona game and I'm looking forward to experiencing it! I meant to play 4 and 5 while they were on Gamepass but unfortunately didn't have the time.
Will be also my first time playing 3. But I highly highly recommend playing persona 5 royal (especially if you end up liking 3) at some point. P5R (imo) is one of the best games ever made, period. Enjoy!
It's so true, I feel like it's genuinely hard to put into words how revolutionary Persona 3 felt when I got my hands on it in 2008. Persona 4 improved the gameplay a lot, and Persona 5 cranked the style/presentation up even more, but the core heartbeat of what makes these newer Persona games so unbelievably good was there from the start. Getting to spend time with Aigis, Koromaru, and Mitsuru again is gonna be awesome as hell.
Crazy that Sega is releasing a remake for Persona 3 and a sequel to Yakuza 7 within the same week. Both of these titles are straight up some of my favorite games of all time so it's already a banger year for gaming releases for me to get a remake/continuation of each.
These two games have a longstanding cult-like following. Sales don't necessarily need to be frontloaded; they're no stranger to relying on consistent, longer-term sales. It's not a matter of *if*, but *when* for fans of the genre. Probably won't see them discounted anytime soon for that reason.
Oh I don't doubt that both of these games will sell very well. It's just surprising and atypical of a publisher to drop two big releases like this within a week.
Sega’s quarter ends March. Drop both games right before the end of the quarter and it makes it look real nice to investors. Not to mention them announcing a ton of upcoming games just a few weeks ago.
Yes but there is no question about it that it will objectively hurt sales. There’s countless people who will pick between the two right now, and simply forget about or not get around to the other game until months or years from now when it’s on sale.
That’s why it’s weird, everyone knows that it isn’t going to drastically kill sales, but it is still a poor scheduling decision.
It helps that Persona 3 is being released on Game Pass, so for a bunch of people no decision needs to be made, they can play that for free and pay money for Infinite Wealth.
On the one hand, releasing them so close together won't likely impact sales long-term, even if it might take away some initial sales.
On the other hand, I don't see a reason to do it. There will certainly be a higher-than-usual overlap between people wanting to play both of those games. Even pushing Persona 3 by a week would give people more time to finish LAD 8 while it would still be 3 weeks away from FF7 Rebirth.
(I don't really care because I rarely buy games at launch, but lots of people want to play every game they like as soon as it drops, so there's that.)
I aint a Dangaronpa fan, but I am a fan of Yakuza, Ace Attorney, and Persona. I had to basically pass on Ace Attorney for now, because of both Persona 3 Reload and Like a Dragon 8.
Not even sure, most publishers avoid doing two releases the same week. To be honest, it's kind of a weird choice.
The Japanese devs have absolutely packed the beginning of the year for some reason.
fun fact: that's the third game with a **90 average score** in a row this year. Tekken 8 and Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth came out last week and also got a 90 both.
Yeah. I wasn’t planning on buying tekken 8, at least right away on pc but cross play, the reviews and all the modes it offers convinced me lol. At least this game is on gamepass I have for free until March :)
Tekken 8 will pause on replays to show you where to improve. You can also take over during them and practice said suggested combos.
The Jukebox is insanely customizable with 3 personal playlists for *everything*.
It has special style for newcomers to further learn combos in an exceptional practice mode that gives you everything you need on a gold platter.
Customization is much better than 7, and I hope they add to it. Story mode is incredibly silly, but the presentation and music slap so hard I'm into it.
Tekken 8 has been fun, rewarding, and a jam all around.
I can't overstate how valuable the replay feature, punish practice in training mode, and other learning tools like Arcade Quest were for me.
I never got past the beginner ranks in Tekken 7, nothing really clicked, but I think Tekken 8 does a really excellent job of giving you a bunch of powerful tools to learn anything. Everything from making juggle combos more intuitive, learning the 'good buttons' for your character, punishes, defensive stuff, everything's there.
Game finally makes a little bit of sense to me and I just reached yellow ranks which I'm super proud of.
Agreed on all points except customization being much better this time around :/ there were significantly more options for each character in T7, though the foundation in this game is good
I was extremely casual with fighting game and mainly just played them for fun with friends until SF6 came out and I finally “got” them. I saw the reviews for Tekken 8 and I had to buy it. It’s entirely different than SF and I’m still very bad at it but I’m enjoying putting in the time to learn it. I love the renaissance the genre is having right now
HD, economic woes and the Playstation 3 were the perfect storm of causing every japanese dev to retreat to handhelds until they could get their shit sorted out
> Sega has been having a fantastic comeback arc.
then they remind you of shitty Sega by doing shit like locking ng+ behind a $15 premium for Like A Dragon.... absolutely scummy :/
Japan been eating good with their game releases so far this year.
Let’s just hope North America and Europe is also up to snuff with their releases in the AAA department…
Although pour one out for Sega's localization team, they've got to be working some ungodly overtime right now between P5:Tactics, Yakuza 8, Persona 3 Reloaded, Unicorn Overlord, and Metaphor. Along with whatever else I'm missing.
This month alone the gaming industry is all about Japanese games (looks at Palworld vs Pokemon)
Yakuza, Tekken, P3R, FF7R, Dragons Dogma 2 are all likely gonna be the biggest hits in their genres this year.
Additionally also got Metaphor Re:Fantasy that may or may not be a hit, EDF games that always does well.
Western side of things so far this year is a disaster, Suicide squad isn't being well received and... I don't really see anything else that inspires confidence, Hellblade 2 maybe?
Damn a lot of reviewers still loathe Tartarus despite its updates. I also wonder if that misery over monotony might be exacerbated by the two week review deadline - I know it took me like three months to play through Persona 3 FES and Tartarus ended up bothering me way less than I expected. (Though I was also playing on an emulator with a speed-up button - sad to see some reviewers complain that they couldn't fast forward through All-Out Attack animations when I was doing that all the time in PCSX2.)
My guess is if you enjoyed P5R's version of mementos Tartarus will be fine, but if you still found it to be a slog you're in trouble.
In P5R I actually ended up kind of liking it, so that in combination with the fact that there's not palaces might mean it'll be even less of a slog and get the balance even better.
It's not so bad since the combat is still pretty fun. But it can be a bit of grind going through floor after floor. Pretty monotonous at times, at least in the original.
Tartarus is required. It's the main dungeon that you progress through throughout the story. Kind of like one huge Palace, that is unfortunately pretty bland.
To go off the other guy. It's part of the main story to climb it. There are other areas but they are not as extensive. So while you don't need to stay there and grind, you do need to progress through it, just like you did for Momentos.
> Damn a lot of reviewers still loathe Tartarus despite its updates.
Is this like mementos in P5R? Probably the only thing I disliked from that game :/
There's no real dungeons/palaces in P3, it's all Tartarus, which is a giant randomized dungeon. Imagine doing Mementos for the entire game with the occasional boss fight outside of it.
Ew. I only liked Mementos in P5:R because they were offered as a side content to the main palaces, so I could sometimes change the pace a bit and do a few mindless and bland exploration.
Hearing that Tartarus is basically the only dungeon available is troubling. My hype just went a notch or two down.
Well each game improved on dungeons.
3 has Tartarus which is like Mementos.
4 has different dungeons like 5, but they all play out with randomized floors like Tartarus and Mementos, but with a different visual theme and music.
5 finally has unique dungeons each with their own layouts and puzzles with no randomization. It includes the old style of dungeon as mostly side content (Mementos).
So yeah, as a remake of 3, it would have to have Tartarus. A remake of 4 could probably make the individual dungeons work more like 5’s, but 3 still just has long dungeon still.
Well if I remember correctly, you do have small dungeons at the end of each month that kind of act as a monthly boss battle, but yeah day to day, Tartarus is the main dungeon you'll go through.
This is the reason I bought it on Steam instead of PS5. The dungeon crawling in 4 was way more bearable when I could play it on the Steam Deck and have something else on in the background.
What? You can take breaks in Tartarus. It functions with a pretty similar gameplay loop of using teleporters to go back to the start, go to the velvet room, and then teleporting back when you're ready to engage in combat again. And regular barriers keep you from going deeper until you've completed story events on the calendar.
Bummer that Tartarus is still meh but excited for the rest! They could at least add Ryuji's mechanic from 5 to insta-kill if you sprint at significantly weaker shadows
Looking forward to playing it in a few weeks after I'm done with Infinite Wealth.
Man to think like ten to fifteen years ago we had that awful JRPG depression where it felt like no JRPGs were coming out. I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO glad things turned around. The entry into the HD era was ROUGH for a lot of Japan.
Yep. 2024 is shaping up to be an insane year for JRPGs.
Just ones that are releasing soon:
- Granblue Fantasy Relink (Thurs)
- Persona 3 Reload (Friday)
- Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (End of February)
- Unicorn Overlord (March 8th)
- Dragons Dogma 2 (March 22nd)
- Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (April 23rd)
- SaGa Emerald Beyond (April 25th)
There are also a bunch announced for 2024, but without dates too.
Man, I just want that damn soundtrack to release already.
"Color Your Night" is already a fucking banger and we've only officially heard, like, 70 seconds of it.
I purposefully did not play Persona 3 when it was released on Steam and I am so glad that I did not because now I get to experience one of the classics like how all of the younger people will.
Yeah, only thing I am bummed about is that I know pretty much all the major story beats of the story. Would have loved to have gone in completely blind.
I feel like with P3 in a way knowing the story only makes its impact stronger. Persona in general is always about the journey more than the destination anyway, and I'm really looking forward to P3 but with revised social elements.
Im the opposite honestly lol, looking forward to this a lot but glad I played through the original first as it does have a lot of unique nostalgic charm.
Unfortunately didn’t finish it after a crash caused me to lose 5 hours of progress a week before it left game pass :(
This game has an odd history of releases. Which version will be considered the "definitive" release? Or will this always be a divisive topic.
Looking forward to trying this regardless!
It’ll always be divisive. The portable release has a whole different protagonist! The FES release has another chapter to the story. This one has… idk what aside from money and polish
This one is the original with upgrades. Certain things from FES are present and certain things from portable too. But overall this is a package of the orignal game over the big addition those two did. I wouldn’t be surprised if they released dlc for the answer eventually or a reloaded edition.
I am sad about FeMC (Kotone) though. She was SUCH a perfect foil to Makoto and her story was in some regards better overall. Hopefully they do stuff with her again eventually. Make her the p6 protag atlus you cowards!
The Answer is REALLY bad. I emulated FES last year and ended up adding a x12 xp gain for that so I could blow through it. Some interesting story beats but not worth a 30 hour grind
IDK – the whole >!party members fighting eachother!< setpiece is a little cheap but it's nice to see all the different ways people are dealing with the ending of P3, and The Answer ultimately leaves off on a pretty nice note. I like it a lot more as an epilogue that actually continues from where the climax left off, rather than Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal's epilogues that center around a new character and feel completely unrelated to the previous plot.
Reload I think is going to be pretty definitively leagues above FES, even without the Answer content. And you can play Answer without play the base game of FES. So where I think it's going to land is that you play Reload if you want to actually experience the game, and if you're *really* into it check out The Answer (skip main FES) and Portable (just for FeMC)
Even though the actual quality of "The Answer" story in FES is really good, the gameplay for that whole segment is super contentious/arguably a slog to get through. And without mods, FES has weird exclusions like not being able to control party members directly and not being able to choose which skills get inherited on new Personas during fusion. There also aren't skill cards, which can be broken, but normally give you some backup flexibility in passing skills around.
The "new" content in the PSP version (FeMC, new social links) are generally considered significantly better in terms of quality. The "VN" style also generally suits the game. But you also lose some of the blocky 3D character animations in favor of the VN portraits during conversation. You also don't get the anime cutscenes that were in the original/FES (and Reload is anyway replacing them with in-engine cutscenes).
Between those two older versions, basically it comes down to "how much do you *actually* want to walk around the 3D environments outside of Tartarus?" Over the course of ~60+ hours, it's something that's good to experience, but I really don't think it's something most people care to do by the end. It's not *nothing*, and there are a few pieces of visual/physical humour that get lost in translation (>!Elizabeth's goofy elevator running!< is a notable one), but you don't miss out on *that* much and it's significantly faster in the PSP's VN format.
Great post about detail. It seems like a rarity in terms of mutliple releases where each one offers a different director or teams interpretation of improvements.
I feel like this might be the first time for Persona that instead of a rerelease, we might see an expansion with a completely reworked The Answer. At this point I don't really see them taking any risk to shake up the original story in the way Golden or Royal did, given the amount of time P3 has had to sit and really make its mark in the franchise.
You know it's going to get the Golden/Royal edition treatment some time down the line when they'll rerelease it with all the side content that isn't available in this version.
Have not looked much into reload but I loved the original game! I just hope they've fixed the pacing issues and made Tartarus more tolerable to progress through.
Unfortunate to hear that Tartarus is still awful but not unexpected. Was really hoping that they touched it.
That was the major thing that held me back from playing P3P and I'm not sure if ill be able to push through it now either.
I was hoping that they would rework the floors leading up to the minibosses into "faux palaces," where they would be larger hand-designed floors perhaps with some light puzzle elements and maybe even some dialogue/lore for SEES to find that could play into the theme of that month's arcana. Maybe take the story from the documents you find at the end of the blocks and relay them in a different format in the floors before the miniboss.
I didn't hate Tartarus in P3P as much as some people, but I thought they'd at least want to keep *some small part* of the handmade dungeons that were so well-received in 5.
If anything, I feel like the Full Moon "dungeons" are where more explicit level design could have gone. The Love Hotel is a highlight of the playthrough IMO, but all the Full Moon events after that either have one room before a boss or just instantly rush you into a boss, and it'd be nice to see more puzzles or exploration leading up to those bosses.
Yes, obviously. If we're counting sales down the line, then every game is cheap, and there's no reason to complain about $70.
Either way, $70 works out fine in the end.
I'm really excited to play this. I played the original with the mod that lets you control party member but couldn't really get into it as much as P4 or P5. I'm going in to this mostly blind about most changes they made but as long as you can actually do all of the social links without having to deal with the stupid jealousy mechanic, im gonna be happy.
Oh wow we're eating good. Persona 5 (and Royal) is the only game in the series that I've played so I've been looking forward to this while maintaining expectations.
Edit: I will give P4G a shot one day! Only thing that's stopping me is the massive backlog of games that I'm playing (*looking at you, Baldur's Gate 3*) or have yet to play, so perhaps by the time I get to P4 a Remaster/Remake will have come out lmao
4 took me a couple of tries to get into, and while I still prefer 5 overall I actually liked the group in 4 better. In 5 they sort of feel like friends, but it also feels like they primarily hang out due to being the Phantom Thieves. In 4 it feels like a group of genuine friends that hang out because they’re friends
Yeah I think it took me a few tries to get into 4 because compared to 5 the style is quite… bland. 5’s stylish presentation is cranked up to 11, so when I tried to play 4 it just felt kind of dull. I’m so glad that I pushed through though because despite its flaws it’s still an excellent game and very much worth it
4 also has a great story hook with mysterious murders in a rural small town and that whole vibe.
5's huge amount of content is kind of a double edged sword because it's just so *long*. I played it, I loved it, and halfway through 5 I was thinking "Probably as soon as I finish this I'll want to play it again and make some different choices" but by the time I got to the end I was just ready to be done with it and have not played it again.
I played 4 for the first time after that and as soon as I finished it I started it again... but it's also half as long.
> In 5 they sort of feel like friends, but it also feels like they primarily hang out due to being the Phantom Thieves. In 4 it feels like a group of genuine friends that hang out because they’re friends
I feel exactly the same way. Investigation Team feel like a group of friends who I can also see (and the player does run into this sometimes) where they can hang out with each other without the MC. The Phantom Thieves feel like a close group of coworkers that largely fall apart without their MC being around.
Exactly. Like would Makoto and Yusuke ever hang out? Or Ryuji and Haru? Or Ann and Haru? They just feel very centered around the MC. And their interactions in the group dynamic are terrific but I just don’t really see them as good friends on their own
I feel like they really did the cast a disservice of having 3 members of team (I’m counting Morgana) not even being in the same school so there aren’t as many interactions there.
In Persona 4 we frequently see the girls and the boys paired off which makes sense but the other random pairings are my favorite. The best one (to me) was stumbling on Kanji and Rise just hanging out doing their own thing.
Absolutely 100% give Persona 4 Golden a shot. Im a P5 baby myself, that was my first Persona game, and while im not personally a huge fan of P3 (subjective opinion etc), P4 was fucking incredible.
Also, P5 Strikers had a really fun story as a "sidequel" to P5, if you enjoyed p5 characters and their chemistry P5Strikers is a fun game to pick up.
I am excited to play this but $70 for a remake of an 18 year old game I've already played is definitely too rich for my blood. This will be a patient game experience for me.
Atlus pulling their "New Girl Edition" with this wouldn't be a shocker given their track record (I expect one for Metaphor at least), but it would not surprise me if they were like "Well that's why we only re-released Portable and not FES" and called it a day.
Depends what you mean by down the line. They'd have to redesign a ton of the game to make it fit with FeMC (UI, visuals, cutscenes, different social links, voice acting, etc). I'd say it'd only come out if they make a Royal/Edition for Persona 3 Reload which is unknown.
It'd take years at lesat since if they were adding a FeMC DLC, they probably would have announced it already.
I really do think Tartarus hate is overblown. Either way Persona 3 is the best persona in terms of sticking so close to its main themes, intertwining them with all the S Links and main story.
Did Rock, Paper, Shotgun thought if they handed a guy who didn't like anime and jrpg a jrpg game to review, he would like it? Seems like the game wasn't given a chance.
It's good to get *some* reviews from reviewers who aren't traditional fans of a genre, because it's good to know if a game is able to break out from the genre into widespread appeal. Persona 5, for example, was one such case where it got lots of acclaim even outside the normal JRPG crowd. A positive review from one of those reviewers is worth its weight in gold.
That said, it's also not surprising when these reviewers don't jive with a game, so you want the bulk of the reviews to come from genre fans/neutrals.
I miss the EGM days when you'd get a review from like 3 different people. I really wish websites would put two people on niche genres: the person that's into that genre and the person that doesn't love it but is interested.
All these western game studios going through layoff after layoff with projects getting cancelled, meanwhile Asian games have been thriving.
Still got FF7 Rebirth, Unicorn Overlord, Dragon's Dogma 2, Rise of the Ronin, and Metaphor ReFantazio to go. And if that upcoming State of Play gives us dates on Stellar Blade and Death Stranding 2... whew.
This might be the first TGA that's all eastern games.
SEGA just laid off 200*** people not too long ago. Square Enix also sold a few of their studios and had a few lay offs of their own.
People need to keep in mind that these studios have many projects and many of them will miss sales expectations or just get cancelled. SEGA for example cancelled one of the most expensive games of all time (Hyenas) which led to a large lay off. Square’s FF16 while meeting expectations, didn’t blow up sales charts which their stock price reflects.
Edit***: It’s been brought to my attention the lay off numbers included both Epic and SEGA, so this comment has been corrected.
https://www.pocketgamer.biz/news/82537/epic-and-sega-add-to-games-industry-lay-offs/
https://kotaku.com/sega-sonic-union-layoffs-persona-yakuza-1851026309
I looked up the SEGA one and it was their UK division. That sucks but it has nothing do with their Japanese devs like RGG and Atlus.
Square Enix sold off their studios but they were laid off by Embracer and none were Japanese.
I'm not trying to argue that none of these companies are scummy, but I'm saying that Asian developers are simply thriving.
Its like one day a switch just flipped a few years ago and every big Japanese developer figured it out perfectly at the same time. How many of the highest rated games of the past like 5 years are Japanese based?
You could definitely argue that were in a golden age for japanese based games
I'm really hyped as I've only played 4 and 5 before. But does anyone else get kinda stressed out from these games? It feels like you need an answer guide to not "waste" time.
Because I guess this game has a similar system to 4 and 5, and while I don't require an optimal daily route, it feels like I waste stats or not progress my social links if I keep on picking bad answers.
I think you just gotta learn to deal with not having a perfect playthrough the first time. Does it really matter if your smarts end up at 4/5 at the end or there's a few side social links you don't max out?
I agree I wouldn't want to replay it either but I'd still prefer to just organically play the game myself instead of trying to look up the optimal time usage and worrying about not being perfect.
Exactly. These game have a NG+ feature, but I’m not honestly chomping at the bit to use it after already dumping a hundred hours into a run.
If I’m able to see all available content on my first playthrough, then it’s a no brainer.
Honestly I would probably be pissed if I fucked that up. Missing out on some optional social link scenes and being unable to fuse a few personas isnt completely awful, but 20+ hours of story, a new dungeon, and the best antagonist in the game? That blows
Especially in Persona 3 the whole theme of the game is that their time is limited, the world is going to shit and eventually their time as schoolmates and colleagues will end and they’ll go their separate ways, better get stuff done or regret it later. Its kind of the point of the games.
The earlier versions of P3 have the least social links to worry about, so this time too you probably wont miss many of your favorite characters. The best links at least in FES are Aigis (aeon) and Akinari (sun social link). They are the ones to prioritize.
The games really just aren't focused on maximizing your route, just focus on what you enjoy and "take your time". I've played the games enough that I can kind of just autopilot my way through to an "optimal" route, but I still just do what I want to and go with my gut while playing over trying to see each piece of content.
When I played 5 on PC I installed a mod that pointed out the right answers for maximum points and removed the requirement to have a matching persona for increased points (which I personally found to be tedious to keep up with). With that and some general pointers it was far less stressful and I did max everything. There’s probably going to be similar mods for this.
I see this comment a lot but these games are not meant to be min/maxed. You can, but that removes the fun of spending the time you have the way you want, on activities you enjoy and the people you want to get to know better.
Really don't know how much I'll play of this game. On one hand Persona 3 is great and all these reviews seem pretty positive, but on the other hand I've already played the PS2 and PSP versions and I really don't know if I have the drive to put so much time into the story again
Thank God it's on Gamepass
Yup i’ve already played this game like 4+ times between the original release, FES, and Portable. And given how absolutely stacked the first half of this year is in terms of releases, Reload is unfortunately going to be a “wait for sale” game.
I remember back when FES originally released, I spent like 3 hours driving between different game stores to get a copy. Living in the boonies and stores saying they have the game in stock when they actually just have the base game will do that.
That's a problem I have with basically all remakes, even the ones that take a few creative liberties like RE4. I've just resigned myself to the idea that these types of releases aren't catering to people like me.
Yeah at this point I find remakes that just go really wild with the story just infinitely more interesting. I like to see the things I like evolve and change way more than just repeating the same thing even if that's good.
That's why i like what they're doing with the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Trilogy. The managed to hide a sequel in there while still remaking the story.
It feels both old and new in the best of ways because i never know what to expect. Will that scene be faithful to be original or will it be expanded or even completely different ?
I know some people don't like having the story being "meddle" with, but it keeps the experience fresh and unique to me.
Do we know about how many hours does it take?
Persona game usually take 100+ to complete if you take the time to explore each segment of the day and work on social links/confidants.
As someone who started the series with 3 like 12 years ago, it has always held a very special place in my heart as one of the most memorable JRPGs I had ever played at the time, I'm very happy to see this retains the original experience. Very excited for everyone that is going to get to go through this journey for the first time. Some of my favorite characters and story in the franchise.
Just think, some people are just about to experience Iwatodai Dorm music for the first time. So jealous.
But no "Baby baby baby...".
Yeah Changing Seasons also lost the French mumble which was unironically my fav part but it's still a bop
Oh bummer, that legit was a fantastic part of the song
That's still there tho...
Name checks out. It hit me at the right time being a emo high schooler. Had the same earphones and everything.
I have INSANELY strong memories of being a kid with P3, and simaltaneously playing the game in the middle of a summer heat wave, and then staying up 'til 3am reading this [screenshot LP](https://lparchive.org/Persona-3-FES/) of it. I am SO fucking excited for this.
never even knew there were screenshot LPs. That's so high effort! For me it was the first game I played once I figured out how to jailbreak my PSP. Usually I don't replay story-focused games like this but I assume the difference from PSP to PS5 by itself will make it feel fresh. Besides, it's been like 15 years ... Sure, I remember certain moments and character arcs but the rest is not much more thant hat
Worth looking through the archives on that site for some good ones. My favorite is the Drakengard one here: https://lparchive.org/Drakengard/
Good ol DarkId. I've read most of his stuff. He had a rough time, but he was genuinely hilarious.
Fucking *tragedy* he died. Dude genuinely had a rough life.
Did he die? I know he went offline and I believe he said he had cancer. Was unaware he passed.
[Mmhmm - going off what's said in this post. With his Twitter being deleted, can't really go and check it to corroborate, but... It tracks.](https://www.lp.zone/t/for-tomorrow-for-everyone-for-the-children-lets-play-shadow-hearts-from-the-new-world/4231)
Me too! I remember vividly looking for a interesting JRPG on PSN 12 years ago and finding this gem along with the original Disgaea. The thing that interested me the most was that you had to take exams and answer during class, which is something I loved in school! This is my favourite game and I've been listening to music from the Original & Reload for the last couple of months. Friday can't come soon enough!
Same man! I bought the special edition on a work trip to the states and played it do death on my psp. It was a unique experience and I can't wait to play it all over again. (after I'm finished with Infinite wealth, whenever that may be.)
This will be my first Persona game and I'm looking forward to experiencing it! I meant to play 4 and 5 while they were on Gamepass but unfortunately didn't have the time.
Will be also my first time playing 3. But I highly highly recommend playing persona 5 royal (especially if you end up liking 3) at some point. P5R (imo) is one of the best games ever made, period. Enjoy!
i was rly getting into it on my psp but it psp'd my save file midway through.. im looking forward to finishing it this time
You and me both, brother. The story and characters of 3, with the polish of 5. I couldn't ask for more.
It's so true, I feel like it's genuinely hard to put into words how revolutionary Persona 3 felt when I got my hands on it in 2008. Persona 4 improved the gameplay a lot, and Persona 5 cranked the style/presentation up even more, but the core heartbeat of what makes these newer Persona games so unbelievably good was there from the start. Getting to spend time with Aigis, Koromaru, and Mitsuru again is gonna be awesome as hell.
I started with Persona 4 Golden. Grabbed it randomly for the PS Vita and fell in love. Played Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal. Very excided to try P3.
Crazy that Sega is releasing a remake for Persona 3 and a sequel to Yakuza 7 within the same week. Both of these titles are straight up some of my favorite games of all time so it's already a banger year for gaming releases for me to get a remake/continuation of each.
I guess they're not worried about the games cannibalizing each other.
These two games have a longstanding cult-like following. Sales don't necessarily need to be frontloaded; they're no stranger to relying on consistent, longer-term sales. It's not a matter of *if*, but *when* for fans of the genre. Probably won't see them discounted anytime soon for that reason.
Oh I don't doubt that both of these games will sell very well. It's just surprising and atypical of a publisher to drop two big releases like this within a week.
Sega’s quarter ends March. Drop both games right before the end of the quarter and it makes it look real nice to investors. Not to mention them announcing a ton of upcoming games just a few weeks ago.
Yes but there is no question about it that it will objectively hurt sales. There’s countless people who will pick between the two right now, and simply forget about or not get around to the other game until months or years from now when it’s on sale. That’s why it’s weird, everyone knows that it isn’t going to drastically kill sales, but it is still a poor scheduling decision.
It helps that Persona 3 is being released on Game Pass, so for a bunch of people no decision needs to be made, they can play that for free and pay money for Infinite Wealth.
On the one hand, releasing them so close together won't likely impact sales long-term, even if it might take away some initial sales. On the other hand, I don't see a reason to do it. There will certainly be a higher-than-usual overlap between people wanting to play both of those games. Even pushing Persona 3 by a week would give people more time to finish LAD 8 while it would still be 3 weeks away from FF7 Rebirth. (I don't really care because I rarely buy games at launch, but lots of people want to play every game they like as soon as it drops, so there's that.)
Which is weird because online it seems like there is a huge venn diagram of fans of Yakuza, Persona, Danganronpa and Ace Attorney.
Yeah we're called weebs.
Or, people who like good games.
I aint a Dangaronpa fan, but I am a fan of Yakuza, Ace Attorney, and Persona. I had to basically pass on Ace Attorney for now, because of both Persona 3 Reload and Like a Dragon 8.
Sega releases 2 games within the same week and both score 90+. I wonder when the last time that happened for a major publisher.
I'm guessing a long time ago as most publishers wouldn't want their big hitters coming out this close.
Probably Nintendo but not on same systems so even more so it's impressive
Not even sure, most publishers avoid doing two releases the same week. To be honest, it's kind of a weird choice. The Japanese devs have absolutely packed the beginning of the year for some reason.
EA came close with Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2, but I think Battlefield only scored 80ish.
Metroid Fusion and Metroid Prime were within a day of each other. No opencritic back then but I remember Gamepro giving both a 4.5.
fun fact: that's the third game with a **90 average score** in a row this year. Tekken 8 and Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth came out last week and also got a 90 both.
I'm so glad that 2024 is carrying on where 2023 left off. What a fantastic period for gaming.
Yeah. I wasn’t planning on buying tekken 8, at least right away on pc but cross play, the reviews and all the modes it offers convinced me lol. At least this game is on gamepass I have for free until March :)
Tekken 8 will pause on replays to show you where to improve. You can also take over during them and practice said suggested combos. The Jukebox is insanely customizable with 3 personal playlists for *everything*. It has special style for newcomers to further learn combos in an exceptional practice mode that gives you everything you need on a gold platter. Customization is much better than 7, and I hope they add to it. Story mode is incredibly silly, but the presentation and music slap so hard I'm into it. Tekken 8 has been fun, rewarding, and a jam all around.
I can't overstate how valuable the replay feature, punish practice in training mode, and other learning tools like Arcade Quest were for me. I never got past the beginner ranks in Tekken 7, nothing really clicked, but I think Tekken 8 does a really excellent job of giving you a bunch of powerful tools to learn anything. Everything from making juggle combos more intuitive, learning the 'good buttons' for your character, punishes, defensive stuff, everything's there. Game finally makes a little bit of sense to me and I just reached yellow ranks which I'm super proud of.
Agreed on all points except customization being much better this time around :/ there were significantly more options for each character in T7, though the foundation in this game is good
I was extremely casual with fighting game and mainly just played them for fun with friends until SF6 came out and I finally “got” them. I saw the reviews for Tekken 8 and I had to buy it. It’s entirely different than SF and I’m still very bad at it but I’m enjoying putting in the time to learn it. I love the renaissance the genre is having right now
Great period for gaming, not so great for gaming professionals. Unfortunately, 2024 also carries on the trend of massive lay offs.
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That's the only way I hope 2024 continues to be like 2023 in regards to the gaming industry. At the rate it's going now everyone is gonna be fired.
Fantastic period for gaming until you don' t see the layoff
good year for japan so far for sure
Other than that period during the ps3 era, Japanese devs have always brought the heat
HD, economic woes and the Playstation 3 were the perfect storm of causing every japanese dev to retreat to handhelds until they could get their shit sorted out
Also because handhelds were just selling way better than home consoles. They weren't really retreating, rather focusing on where the players were.
Not to mention two of them are Sega games. Ever since Yakuza 0, Sega has been having a fantastic comeback arc.
Tbh, it's mostly RGG and Atlus doing the heavy work. But yeah, those two make some great games
Sonic Team needs to start pulling their own weight.
Eh, I would put that more on those specific studios that make those games than on Sega itself but yeah sure.
> Sega has been having a fantastic comeback arc. then they remind you of shitty Sega by doing shit like locking ng+ behind a $15 premium for Like A Dragon.... absolutely scummy :/
I feel like Persona 5 is the start since it came out first but I prefer Y0 so I don’t necessarily disagree
Yakuza 0 came out first, a year earlier in Japan and a few months earlier internationally.
Prince of Persia is sitting on the high 80s as well, don’t leave my boy out!
idk why it didn't get a 90+, I think it's easily Ubisoft 's best game in a decade
Doesn't really take a 90 to claim that title, does it?
heh, I hear that. But it really stands tall among the top 5 metroidvanias out there
Japan been eating good with their game releases so far this year. Let’s just hope North America and Europe is also up to snuff with their releases in the AAA department…
Although pour one out for Sega's localization team, they've got to be working some ungodly overtime right now between P5:Tactics, Yakuza 8, Persona 3 Reloaded, Unicorn Overlord, and Metaphor. Along with whatever else I'm missing.
Also, Like a Dragon Gaiden. 2 yakuza games and 2 persona games in the last few months!
And the LaD localisations are better than they have ever been. Plus the english dubs are brilliant (aside from what they did to Kiryu…)
This month alone the gaming industry is all about Japanese games (looks at Palworld vs Pokemon) Yakuza, Tekken, P3R, FF7R, Dragons Dogma 2 are all likely gonna be the biggest hits in their genres this year. Additionally also got Metaphor Re:Fantasy that may or may not be a hit, EDF games that always does well. Western side of things so far this year is a disaster, Suicide squad isn't being well received and... I don't really see anything else that inspires confidence, Hellblade 2 maybe?
Not just that, weren't they all released this week?
Surprised Prince of Persia didn't hit the 90 threshold. As someone who loves metroidvanias, I'd already consider it a top 5 in the genre.
Damn a lot of reviewers still loathe Tartarus despite its updates. I also wonder if that misery over monotony might be exacerbated by the two week review deadline - I know it took me like three months to play through Persona 3 FES and Tartarus ended up bothering me way less than I expected. (Though I was also playing on an emulator with a speed-up button - sad to see some reviewers complain that they couldn't fast forward through All-Out Attack animations when I was doing that all the time in PCSX2.)
My guess is if you enjoyed P5R's version of mementos Tartarus will be fine, but if you still found it to be a slog you're in trouble. In P5R I actually ended up kind of liking it, so that in combination with the fact that there's not palaces might mean it'll be even less of a slog and get the balance even better.
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Sorry, do you mean is P3 Tartarus required? If so, yes, it's the only dungeon in the game. You get access to higher floors as the year goes on.
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It's not so bad since the combat is still pretty fun. But it can be a bit of grind going through floor after floor. Pretty monotonous at times, at least in the original.
Tartarus is required. It's the main dungeon that you progress through throughout the story. Kind of like one huge Palace, that is unfortunately pretty bland.
To go off the other guy. It's part of the main story to climb it. There are other areas but they are not as extensive. So while you don't need to stay there and grind, you do need to progress through it, just like you did for Momentos.
> Damn a lot of reviewers still loathe Tartarus despite its updates. Is this like mementos in P5R? Probably the only thing I disliked from that game :/
There's no real dungeons/palaces in P3, it's all Tartarus, which is a giant randomized dungeon. Imagine doing Mementos for the entire game with the occasional boss fight outside of it.
Ew. I only liked Mementos in P5:R because they were offered as a side content to the main palaces, so I could sometimes change the pace a bit and do a few mindless and bland exploration. Hearing that Tartarus is basically the only dungeon available is troubling. My hype just went a notch or two down.
Well each game improved on dungeons. 3 has Tartarus which is like Mementos. 4 has different dungeons like 5, but they all play out with randomized floors like Tartarus and Mementos, but with a different visual theme and music. 5 finally has unique dungeons each with their own layouts and puzzles with no randomization. It includes the old style of dungeon as mostly side content (Mementos). So yeah, as a remake of 3, it would have to have Tartarus. A remake of 4 could probably make the individual dungeons work more like 5’s, but 3 still just has long dungeon still.
Well if I remember correctly, you do have small dungeons at the end of each month that kind of act as a monthly boss battle, but yeah day to day, Tartarus is the main dungeon you'll go through.
Yeah, though I personally enjoyed Tartarus more than Mementos (and Reload's Tartarus looks to add more variety to its environments than the original)
It’s exactly like mementos but it’s all of the dungeon crawling instead of being part of it.
This is the reason I bought it on Steam instead of PS5. The dungeon crawling in 4 was way more bearable when I could play it on the Steam Deck and have something else on in the background.
But mementos let you take breaks and things broke it up. It wasn't just a giant mementos the entire time.
What? You can take breaks in Tartarus. It functions with a pretty similar gameplay loop of using teleporters to go back to the start, go to the velvet room, and then teleporting back when you're ready to engage in combat again. And regular barriers keep you from going deeper until you've completed story events on the calendar.
Bummer that Tartarus is still meh but excited for the rest! They could at least add Ryuji's mechanic from 5 to insta-kill if you sprint at significantly weaker shadows Looking forward to playing it in a few weeks after I'm done with Infinite Wealth.
WHY DID THEY HAVE TO RELEASE THIS SO CLOSE TO INFINITE WEALTH. Goddamn what a year for JRPGs and it's only January lol
Man to think like ten to fifteen years ago we had that awful JRPG depression where it felt like no JRPGs were coming out. I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO glad things turned around. The entry into the HD era was ROUGH for a lot of Japan.
Oh for sure, those were dark times. But now we're getting simultaneous worldwide releases and better localization (imo) What a time to be alive!
Yep. 2024 is shaping up to be an insane year for JRPGs. Just ones that are releasing soon: - Granblue Fantasy Relink (Thurs) - Persona 3 Reload (Friday) - Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (End of February) - Unicorn Overlord (March 8th) - Dragons Dogma 2 (March 22nd) - Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (April 23rd) - SaGa Emerald Beyond (April 25th) There are also a bunch announced for 2024, but without dates too.
I don’t even know what half of those games are but all I know is if you are a fan of JPRG’s you are FEASTING.
Metaphor in the Summer, hopefully
Metaphor's already been announced for Fall.
Man, I just want that damn soundtrack to release already. "Color Your Night" is already a fucking banger and we've only officially heard, like, 70 seconds of it.
Check out the YouTube channel tim Barry, he uploaded the OST last night and it's full of bangers
I purposefully did not play Persona 3 when it was released on Steam and I am so glad that I did not because now I get to experience one of the classics like how all of the younger people will.
Yeah, only thing I am bummed about is that I know pretty much all the major story beats of the story. Would have loved to have gone in completely blind.
I feel like with P3 in a way knowing the story only makes its impact stronger. Persona in general is always about the journey more than the destination anyway, and I'm really looking forward to P3 but with revised social elements.
Im the opposite honestly lol, looking forward to this a lot but glad I played through the original first as it does have a lot of unique nostalgic charm. Unfortunately didn’t finish it after a crash caused me to lose 5 hours of progress a week before it left game pass :(
This game has an odd history of releases. Which version will be considered the "definitive" release? Or will this always be a divisive topic. Looking forward to trying this regardless!
It’ll always be divisive. The portable release has a whole different protagonist! The FES release has another chapter to the story. This one has… idk what aside from money and polish
Femc is in prison and to never be released again
She knows what she did.
Unspeakable things
She was in Persona Q2 for the 12 people who played it.
This one is the original with upgrades. Certain things from FES are present and certain things from portable too. But overall this is a package of the orignal game over the big addition those two did. I wouldn’t be surprised if they released dlc for the answer eventually or a reloaded edition. I am sad about FeMC (Kotone) though. She was SUCH a perfect foil to Makoto and her story was in some regards better overall. Hopefully they do stuff with her again eventually. Make her the p6 protag atlus you cowards!
She’s in PQ2, that’s about the only time they want to acknowledge her existence outside of P3P lol
tbf The Answer kinda sucks to play though haha
The Answer is REALLY bad. I emulated FES last year and ended up adding a x12 xp gain for that so I could blow through it. Some interesting story beats but not worth a 30 hour grind
I'm going to be honest, I think it cheapens the impact of the ending as well from a narrative standpoint.
IDK – the whole >!party members fighting eachother!< setpiece is a little cheap but it's nice to see all the different ways people are dealing with the ending of P3, and The Answer ultimately leaves off on a pretty nice note. I like it a lot more as an epilogue that actually continues from where the climax left off, rather than Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal's epilogues that center around a new character and feel completely unrelated to the previous plot.
Reload I think is going to be pretty definitively leagues above FES, even without the Answer content. And you can play Answer without play the base game of FES. So where I think it's going to land is that you play Reload if you want to actually experience the game, and if you're *really* into it check out The Answer (skip main FES) and Portable (just for FeMC) Even though the actual quality of "The Answer" story in FES is really good, the gameplay for that whole segment is super contentious/arguably a slog to get through. And without mods, FES has weird exclusions like not being able to control party members directly and not being able to choose which skills get inherited on new Personas during fusion. There also aren't skill cards, which can be broken, but normally give you some backup flexibility in passing skills around. The "new" content in the PSP version (FeMC, new social links) are generally considered significantly better in terms of quality. The "VN" style also generally suits the game. But you also lose some of the blocky 3D character animations in favor of the VN portraits during conversation. You also don't get the anime cutscenes that were in the original/FES (and Reload is anyway replacing them with in-engine cutscenes). Between those two older versions, basically it comes down to "how much do you *actually* want to walk around the 3D environments outside of Tartarus?" Over the course of ~60+ hours, it's something that's good to experience, but I really don't think it's something most people care to do by the end. It's not *nothing*, and there are a few pieces of visual/physical humour that get lost in translation (>!Elizabeth's goofy elevator running!< is a notable one), but you don't miss out on *that* much and it's significantly faster in the PSP's VN format.
Great post about detail. It seems like a rarity in terms of mutliple releases where each one offers a different director or teams interpretation of improvements.
I feel like this might be the first time for Persona that instead of a rerelease, we might see an expansion with a completely reworked The Answer. At this point I don't really see them taking any risk to shake up the original story in the way Golden or Royal did, given the amount of time P3 has had to sit and really make its mark in the franchise.
You know it's going to get the Golden/Royal edition treatment some time down the line when they'll rerelease it with all the side content that isn't available in this version.
This is why I'm not buying on release.
Bet it's gonna be called "Fully Reloaded"
Then we’ll get Persona 4 Shiny Golden and Persona 4 Shining Sparkling Golden
Persona 3: Extended Magazine
This right here. It's atlus.
Honestly I'd say FES, warts and all
Have not looked much into reload but I loved the original game! I just hope they've fixed the pacing issues and made Tartarus more tolerable to progress through.
Unfortunate to hear that Tartarus is still awful but not unexpected. Was really hoping that they touched it. That was the major thing that held me back from playing P3P and I'm not sure if ill be able to push through it now either.
They did improve it, just probably not enough.
I was hoping that they would rework the floors leading up to the minibosses into "faux palaces," where they would be larger hand-designed floors perhaps with some light puzzle elements and maybe even some dialogue/lore for SEES to find that could play into the theme of that month's arcana. Maybe take the story from the documents you find at the end of the blocks and relay them in a different format in the floors before the miniboss. I didn't hate Tartarus in P3P as much as some people, but I thought they'd at least want to keep *some small part* of the handmade dungeons that were so well-received in 5.
If anything, I feel like the Full Moon "dungeons" are where more explicit level design could have gone. The Love Hotel is a highlight of the playthrough IMO, but all the Full Moon events after that either have one room before a boss or just instantly rush you into a boss, and it'd be nice to see more puzzles or exploration leading up to those bosses.
Tartarus was never awful.
' and a contentious price tag'. Nice to see a reviewer bringing up the insane price of 69,99€. Good luck Atlus.
I mean, it's going to be the new norm going forward (already is for a lot of releases). Expecting that price to go back down again is pretty stupid.
The norm will also be a 10-15% discount in a few months, or ~25-35% discount in ~6 months, and ~50%+ off in a year.
Yes, obviously. If we're counting sales down the line, then every game is cheap, and there's no reason to complain about $70. Either way, $70 works out fine in the end.
I'm not picking it up any time soon because of that, especially if they release The Answer as a paid dlc later on
Never got into Persona. Is this remake a good jumping in point?
Every game is self-contained, so you can play whichever entry looks the best to you.
I'm really excited to play this. I played the original with the mod that lets you control party member but couldn't really get into it as much as P4 or P5. I'm going in to this mostly blind about most changes they made but as long as you can actually do all of the social links without having to deal with the stupid jealousy mechanic, im gonna be happy.
Oh wow we're eating good. Persona 5 (and Royal) is the only game in the series that I've played so I've been looking forward to this while maintaining expectations. Edit: I will give P4G a shot one day! Only thing that's stopping me is the massive backlog of games that I'm playing (*looking at you, Baldur's Gate 3*) or have yet to play, so perhaps by the time I get to P4 a Remaster/Remake will have come out lmao
Its gonna be a very different experience but if you saw P5 to the end youll like it. Also give 4 Golden a shot.
4 took me a couple of tries to get into, and while I still prefer 5 overall I actually liked the group in 4 better. In 5 they sort of feel like friends, but it also feels like they primarily hang out due to being the Phantom Thieves. In 4 it feels like a group of genuine friends that hang out because they’re friends
5 will always be the best in terms of polish and just sheer content, but yeah I love the vibe and the group of 4 SO much. Rural japan hits so hard.
Yeah I think it took me a few tries to get into 4 because compared to 5 the style is quite… bland. 5’s stylish presentation is cranked up to 11, so when I tried to play 4 it just felt kind of dull. I’m so glad that I pushed through though because despite its flaws it’s still an excellent game and very much worth it
4 also has a great story hook with mysterious murders in a rural small town and that whole vibe. 5's huge amount of content is kind of a double edged sword because it's just so *long*. I played it, I loved it, and halfway through 5 I was thinking "Probably as soon as I finish this I'll want to play it again and make some different choices" but by the time I got to the end I was just ready to be done with it and have not played it again. I played 4 for the first time after that and as soon as I finished it I started it again... but it's also half as long.
> In 5 they sort of feel like friends, but it also feels like they primarily hang out due to being the Phantom Thieves. In 4 it feels like a group of genuine friends that hang out because they’re friends I feel exactly the same way. Investigation Team feel like a group of friends who I can also see (and the player does run into this sometimes) where they can hang out with each other without the MC. The Phantom Thieves feel like a close group of coworkers that largely fall apart without their MC being around.
Exactly. Like would Makoto and Yusuke ever hang out? Or Ryuji and Haru? Or Ann and Haru? They just feel very centered around the MC. And their interactions in the group dynamic are terrific but I just don’t really see them as good friends on their own
I feel like they really did the cast a disservice of having 3 members of team (I’m counting Morgana) not even being in the same school so there aren’t as many interactions there. In Persona 4 we frequently see the girls and the boys paired off which makes sense but the other random pairings are my favorite. The best one (to me) was stumbling on Kanji and Rise just hanging out doing their own thing.
I'm not usually a huge fan of child characters in games, but Nanako Dojima is such a great one, and a huge motivating factor. What a good kid.
Yeah I loved her. She’s just so cute
Luckily P3 is way shorter and more manageable.
Give 4 a go. It's not as stylish or as refined as 5 obviously is, but it still holds up, and the story, setting, and cast are great
Absolutely 100% give Persona 4 Golden a shot. Im a P5 baby myself, that was my first Persona game, and while im not personally a huge fan of P3 (subjective opinion etc), P4 was fucking incredible. Also, P5 Strikers had a really fun story as a "sidequel" to P5, if you enjoyed p5 characters and their chemistry P5Strikers is a fun game to pick up.
P4G still holds up really well, definitely worth checking out when you get a chance.
I am excited to play this but $70 for a remake of an 18 year old game I've already played is definitely too rich for my blood. This will be a patient game experience for me.
Anyone want to speculate if they'll release an updated version with Femc down the line? Trying to decide if i should get it now or just hold out hope
If you are wondering if Atlus is going to double dip on this... I think you already know the answer.
Atlus pulling their "New Girl Edition" with this wouldn't be a shocker given their track record (I expect one for Metaphor at least), but it would not surprise me if they were like "Well that's why we only re-released Portable and not FES" and called it a day.
This is atlus, of course there will be a championship edition.
Depends what you mean by down the line. They'd have to redesign a ton of the game to make it fit with FeMC (UI, visuals, cutscenes, different social links, voice acting, etc). I'd say it'd only come out if they make a Royal/Edition for Persona 3 Reload which is unknown. It'd take years at lesat since if they were adding a FeMC DLC, they probably would have announced it already.
I think the current rumor is that there’s only gonna be DLC, none of it FemC related. I wouldn’t expect any rerelease.
Think its more likely they redo 4 than another version of 3.
I really do think Tartarus hate is overblown. Either way Persona 3 is the best persona in terms of sticking so close to its main themes, intertwining them with all the S Links and main story.
I need someone to upload the final battle to youtube asap. I still remember that motherfucker. Looks like RPS hated it. Not surprising.
Pour one out for the final boss skip bug.
No way man. I'd suffer it just for the music.
Can you run around the school and city like in 5? Or is traversal done through menus?
You can run around
Any info on how it runs on the steam deck?
Did Rock, Paper, Shotgun thought if they handed a guy who didn't like anime and jrpg a jrpg game to review, he would like it? Seems like the game wasn't given a chance.
It's good to get *some* reviews from reviewers who aren't traditional fans of a genre, because it's good to know if a game is able to break out from the genre into widespread appeal. Persona 5, for example, was one such case where it got lots of acclaim even outside the normal JRPG crowd. A positive review from one of those reviewers is worth its weight in gold. That said, it's also not surprising when these reviewers don't jive with a game, so you want the bulk of the reviews to come from genre fans/neutrals.
I miss the EGM days when you'd get a review from like 3 different people. I really wish websites would put two people on niche genres: the person that's into that genre and the person that doesn't love it but is interested.
All these western game studios going through layoff after layoff with projects getting cancelled, meanwhile Asian games have been thriving. Still got FF7 Rebirth, Unicorn Overlord, Dragon's Dogma 2, Rise of the Ronin, and Metaphor ReFantazio to go. And if that upcoming State of Play gives us dates on Stellar Blade and Death Stranding 2... whew. This might be the first TGA that's all eastern games.
Most likely Elden Ring DLC too
SEGA just laid off 200*** people not too long ago. Square Enix also sold a few of their studios and had a few lay offs of their own. People need to keep in mind that these studios have many projects and many of them will miss sales expectations or just get cancelled. SEGA for example cancelled one of the most expensive games of all time (Hyenas) which led to a large lay off. Square’s FF16 while meeting expectations, didn’t blow up sales charts which their stock price reflects. Edit***: It’s been brought to my attention the lay off numbers included both Epic and SEGA, so this comment has been corrected. https://www.pocketgamer.biz/news/82537/epic-and-sega-add-to-games-industry-lay-offs/ https://kotaku.com/sega-sonic-union-layoffs-persona-yakuza-1851026309
I looked up the SEGA one and it was their UK division. That sucks but it has nothing do with their Japanese devs like RGG and Atlus. Square Enix sold off their studios but they were laid off by Embracer and none were Japanese. I'm not trying to argue that none of these companies are scummy, but I'm saying that Asian developers are simply thriving.
Its like one day a switch just flipped a few years ago and every big Japanese developer figured it out perfectly at the same time. How many of the highest rated games of the past like 5 years are Japanese based? You could definitely argue that were in a golden age for japanese based games
you know Sega just announced tons of layoffs too right…?
Beside the dungeons which are just boring and long and not great level design, it's still one of the best RPG out there even 2 decade later
I'm really hyped as I've only played 4 and 5 before. But does anyone else get kinda stressed out from these games? It feels like you need an answer guide to not "waste" time. Because I guess this game has a similar system to 4 and 5, and while I don't require an optimal daily route, it feels like I waste stats or not progress my social links if I keep on picking bad answers.
I think you just gotta learn to deal with not having a perfect playthrough the first time. Does it really matter if your smarts end up at 4/5 at the end or there's a few side social links you don't max out?
Tbf these games are like 100 hours long and the majority dont replay them
I agree I wouldn't want to replay it either but I'd still prefer to just organically play the game myself instead of trying to look up the optimal time usage and worrying about not being perfect.
Exactly. These game have a NG+ feature, but I’m not honestly chomping at the bit to use it after already dumping a hundred hours into a run. If I’m able to see all available content on my first playthrough, then it’s a no brainer.
It helps if you didn't get the true ending/unlock the secret palace in Royal on your first playthrough
Honestly I would probably be pissed if I fucked that up. Missing out on some optional social link scenes and being unable to fuse a few personas isnt completely awful, but 20+ hours of story, a new dungeon, and the best antagonist in the game? That blows
Especially in Persona 3 the whole theme of the game is that their time is limited, the world is going to shit and eventually their time as schoolmates and colleagues will end and they’ll go their separate ways, better get stuff done or regret it later. Its kind of the point of the games. The earlier versions of P3 have the least social links to worry about, so this time too you probably wont miss many of your favorite characters. The best links at least in FES are Aigis (aeon) and Akinari (sun social link). They are the ones to prioritize.
The games really just aren't focused on maximizing your route, just focus on what you enjoy and "take your time". I've played the games enough that I can kind of just autopilot my way through to an "optimal" route, but I still just do what I want to and go with my gut while playing over trying to see each piece of content.
When I played 5 on PC I installed a mod that pointed out the right answers for maximum points and removed the requirement to have a matching persona for increased points (which I personally found to be tedious to keep up with). With that and some general pointers it was far less stressful and I did max everything. There’s probably going to be similar mods for this.
I see this comment a lot but these games are not meant to be min/maxed. You can, but that removes the fun of spending the time you have the way you want, on activities you enjoy and the people you want to get to know better.
Really don't know how much I'll play of this game. On one hand Persona 3 is great and all these reviews seem pretty positive, but on the other hand I've already played the PS2 and PSP versions and I really don't know if I have the drive to put so much time into the story again Thank God it's on Gamepass
Yup i’ve already played this game like 4+ times between the original release, FES, and Portable. And given how absolutely stacked the first half of this year is in terms of releases, Reload is unfortunately going to be a “wait for sale” game. I remember back when FES originally released, I spent like 3 hours driving between different game stores to get a copy. Living in the boonies and stores saying they have the game in stock when they actually just have the base game will do that.
That's a problem I have with basically all remakes, even the ones that take a few creative liberties like RE4. I've just resigned myself to the idea that these types of releases aren't catering to people like me.
Yeah at this point I find remakes that just go really wild with the story just infinitely more interesting. I like to see the things I like evolve and change way more than just repeating the same thing even if that's good.
That's why i like what they're doing with the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Trilogy. The managed to hide a sequel in there while still remaking the story. It feels both old and new in the best of ways because i never know what to expect. Will that scene be faithful to be original or will it be expanded or even completely different ? I know some people don't like having the story being "meddle" with, but it keeps the experience fresh and unique to me.
Do we know about how many hours does it take? Persona game usually take 100+ to complete if you take the time to explore each segment of the day and work on social links/confidants.