Additionally, for those who are looking for fearsome adversaries to reach an even greater glory, they can also look forward to player-versus-player battles that will go down in the history books if they so choose to wage them.

Persona 3 Reload retains its core hybrid of traditional role-playing and social simulation gameplay, but is overhauled aesthetically, graphically and mechanically to integrate systems and features that have been introduced to the Persona series since the original Persona 3's release, specifically deriving from quality-of-life improvements first implemented in Persona 5 (2016). In addition to foundational overhauls, Reload refines numerous elements of its graphical user interface to reflect the updated presentation of subsequent entries. For story-sensitive tasks, objective descriptions have been added below the display for the date, time of day and moon phase that list actions that must be performed to progress the narrative, which is functionally similar to Persona 5's heads-up display.

Create and customize your character and their progression using a unique eastern combat system inspired by Wuxia (Martial Arts & Chivalry tales originating in China) with multiple familiar and exotic weapons and skills to unlock and upgrade.

The pacing feels leagues more conterraneo with other shiny distractions to hold attention, including crystalized Shadow energy stalagmites to smash and grab items from and chests that, to open, need expendable bits called Twilight Fragments, which are scattered throughout Tartarus and the real world. Even these seemingly simple additions drastically improve the tempo of moving through the many floors of Tartarus.

There are also some new gameplay features as part of Persona 3 Reload that weren’t in the original games. You can now access a communal kitchen, a DVD player, a library of books, and a small garden.

If my main character goes down and the other party members are still alive, then why should I not be given the option to revive them? After Soul Hackers 2 and Persona 5 Tactica ditched this rule and incorporated smarter and more logical penalties for not keeping the main character alive, I thought Atlus had finally decided to remove it from future mainline Persona titles.

Persona 3 was the first game in the Persona series to adopt this unorthodox persona 3 reload gameplay gameplay formula, and sadly, some of it hasn’t aged well compared to its sequels or its PlayStation Portable counterpart, Persona 3 Portable.

All these exciting combat encounters, Tartarus floors to blitz through, and heartfelt moments tucked away in the social aspects of Persona 3 Reload provide a rich context for what this game is really about: finding purpose. For as goofy and irreverent as Persona 3 may be, its greatest strength is its emotional sincerity.

And, of course, the glue that binds any Persona game together is its music. At this point, it feels routine to sing the praises of an Atlus soundtrack, but Persona 3 Reload is a case worth examining because of its fusion of the new and old, and the storytelling embedded in the songs themselves. In the mid 2000s, it stood out for having a wild mix of funky J-pop and the nu metal rap rock trend that was prevelant in the years leading up to its release. Yet that’s what has made it stand the test of time; there’s just nothing like it and the more time has gone on, the more it has been ingrained in Persona 3’s identity.

In August 2023, a further Famitsu interview was conducted between Wada, Niitsuma, Yamaguchi and composer Atsushi Kitajoh. They elaborated on the development process of remaking the game's assets, stating that the character models from Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight (2018), which marked the first time many Persona 3 elements were fully rendered in high-definition, were used as a base for corresponding models in Reload. However, the Reload assets were otherwise produced from scratch with various adjustments, such as Aigis having her proportions altered to emphasize her unique physical traits as a cybernetic being compared to the regular human characters.

On top of all that, you also juggle your ordinary life as a high school student during the day and a monster hunter during the Dark Hour.

New gameplay additions to the social simulation and role-playing portions of the game were introduced in Reload. The Iwatodai Dorm where the main party resides outside classes has been expanded upon with multiple activities to perform beyond the original game. The protagonist is now able to strike individual conversations with every dorm resident, cook food with resuscitative abilities in the dorm's kitchen, garden and tend plants on the dorm's roof by feeding them nutrients periodically, rent out films to watch using a DVD player, as well as borrow and read books provided to the dorm by the school.

Plus, the desktop computer that sits in the lobby is also usable to juice personality stats. Yamaguchi and Niitsuma acknowledged that the dorm was always a special environment for these games, and the effort they put into creating a home-y, social space gives the S.E.E.S. HQ a welcome warmth against the game's largely bleak main narrative.

While unapproachable at first glance, beneath the gruff exterior is a gentle heart and a knack for cooking. He even has a soft spot for animals, doting on Koromaru when no one is looking.