Topic: Persona 3 Reload

Yeah having one party member set to auto focus on heal/support, and then full controlling the other three and just shifting backwards and forwards between them is probably why I am having an easier time with the onboarding of this game than I did with P4 and 5.

I seem to have developed a throat infection so... I never got to play as much P3R as I would've liked yesterday and spent quite a lot of time either spacing out or coughing my lungs up. Great way to start this game

I can't quite remember the numbers but so far I think my social links are

Lvl 2 Fool
Lvl 1 Magician
Lvl 1 Emperor
Lvl 3 Heirophant
Lvl 2 Chariot
Lvl 3 Strength
Lvl 4 Hermit

I'm also going to get Temperance, Justice and the Hanged man started. I've heard about the devil link but there's still some faffing about I need to do before actually unlocking it.

My Intelligence is at 2 and my Courage and Charm are both still at 1.

Sorry to hear that @HallowMoonshadow! Hope you feel better soon.

I ended up playing about 12 hours, will maybe play a little more before bed. I probably would have played more, but I'm also playing through the new Yakuza game as well. I should probably just pick a game and stick with one, but I can't help but keep bouncing from one to the other a few hours at a time.

Those 12 hours were enough to get me to mid June, I think I've cleared three bosses and am about to start my next Moon phase with two new party members.

All of my social stats are at 3. Think my highest social link is Hierophant at 9, have four or five at 1 I still need to advance.

Thanks @Pizzamorg I appreciate it! Feeling a bit better today.

Playing two massive JRPG's at the same time is kinda wild, especially after you came off of finishing Persona 5 recently AND was playing some of Persona 4 too.

I take it by the fact you've progressed that far and have saved Fuuka and got Mitsuru on the frontlines you're enjoying it a bit more?

Damn you certainly like Bunkichi and Mitsuko huh? They're pretty sweet to be fair. Also helps they're available pretty much every day!

... I take it by your new picture you've got a favourite from P3's cast hmm?

I literally went from BG3, into Persona 5, started chipping away at P4, then right into Infinite Wealth and then Reload. I am probably reaching some kind of critical burnout point, but right now I am surviving 😂

In terms of my feelings with the game, they have and haven't changed. I think the way it handles it's story, at least so far, is kind of strange. In P5 you are basically the centre of that world, in P4 you (at least to begin with, I dunno what happens later on) are sorta forcing yourself into the narrative but it still feels like you - the player - are still in the driving seat at all times, with the game carefully and gently steering you in the right direction.

In P3, however, I feel just sorta like a playable NPC, watching from the sidelines as everyone else does everything I should be doing and I am just sorta drifting through this aimless void. Part of the problem is only getting 20 or so floors to explore each month in Tartarus as you can very easily clear those in less than an hour in one sitting, and then have three plus weeks of life to just fill until the next boss battle, but I think it is also down to how the narrative is told, as well.

A certain future party member is teased really early on, and Junpei keeps talking to you about wanting to find out more about her and if they can convince her to join the team. I could find absolutely no way to push this narrative forward myself. He keeps talking about this like there is something I am supposed to be doing actively, but I seemed to just be trapped in a completely passive second gear here, until the game itself suddenly lurched this narrative forwards after weeks of meandering in game time.

There is this little mini arc about ghost stories at school, and one of your party members asks you to find out more about this. You would think this would then be a quest chain, where you would have objectives to go talk to certain people, find out clues and it would progress until you could put together your own argument with various dialogue options when you return back to the group meeting.

That isn't what happens, instead, you just walk around the school, you can choose to listen to people's conversations and maybe they will be talking about the ghost or whatever, but there is no way to actively involve yourself in this and no sense of this progressing in any sense and it concludes with basically a pop quiz that you can just guess the answers to at the end despite not involving yourself in this at all. If you guess the answers right the party member says something like 'I am so glad you took this seriously and investigated this for me' or something and I did absolutely nothing.

There are also multiple occasions where characters end up in hospital, in any other game, you would assume this would be done so the player and these characters could have some one on one time, and those characters could be advanced and fleshed out. If that is how it works here, I could find absolutely no way to visit these characters, so instead these characters just sorta vanish off screen for a while and I am getting third hand updates as party members tell me about how other party members went to the hospital.

I dunno, I just think this is such a weird way to handle this story.

I also find it really odd (and maybe this changes later) that I am like two months into my time in this world, and I have had one hang out with Junpei, one with Akihiko and a couple of group study sessions. Was hanging out with your party something that came in after P3 or something? Because like I can appreciate the design of characters, or their vocal performances, but I feel absolutely nothing for my party because I talk to them for a few seconds a day.

At this point in P5 and P4 hours of my game time was spent just spending time with my core party, and as much as it is nice to say go to basketball practice to flesh out the life sim side of things, it is the core party that matters and the ones you want to spend the most time with. The absence of that here, or the odd barriers to entry, means everyone in my P3 party just feels like a one note cardboard cut out of a person. And again, I am happy to be wrong here and for this to change further in, but I feel like even if it does change, it feels like a wasted opportunity to not do it from the beginning, as that approach worked so well for me in P4 and P5.

All that being said, while I think P3 has the least engaging world / loop out of the three Persona games I have played, as someone with possibly undiagnosed ADHD, there is something just really satisfying about chipping away at a Persona game, for me. Even if its something as silly as remembering I agreed to walk someone home from school, there is always an objective in front you in a Persona game, so it just makes it really easy for me to sit down and watch as a couple of hours disappear.

And, whenever I do get to go back to Tartarus again, I usually end up having a great time. I personally like the lower level of difficulty. The presentation and animations for everything is just absolutely gorgeous. I unlocked the ultimate attack thing - Theurgy I think its called? and the animations is just jaw to the floor wonderful. Playing for a while with a team of three, then finally getting a full team of four and just seeing how combat so magically clicks into place as you shift between everyone, it is just a joy.

And as you perfectly executed a strategy and topple a tough enemy with a dazzling display of gorgeous animations, it is easy to forget about all the narrative stumbles that got you here.

Could you put all the story stuff in spoiler tags @Pizzamorg?

AgentCooper & Bentleyma are completely new to the game like yourself (Nevermind anyone else who comes to take a look at the topic) and I'd hate for them to get spoiled on future events whenever they get round to playing it!

As for what you actually said in regards to Persona 3... Well...

Ya have to remember Persona 3 was a complete reinvention of the series. Persona 1 was first person dungeon crawler and the Persona 2 duology were standard JRPG's. No social link/daily life stuff.

It was in 2006 after a six year hiatus that they came out with P3, completely reinventing the series and started it on the path that's made it into a beloved seies.

Granted it's now 2024 and this IS a remake of an 18 year old game... But this ain't a FF7 remake, it's keeping itself pretty dang faithful to the original, warts and all.

I'm not quite sure how much you'd like me to say really... But for now I'll just say this.

They added the "Link episodes" in P3R because you couldn't get social links with any of the male party characters (P3 Portable changed this with the FeMC) and It's a slow burn for the plot. Plus you should already get the dynamic of the group that they're really only together to fight towards a common goal of defeating shadows and ending the dark hour. They aren't suddenly BFF's like the investigation Team or the Phantom Thieves.

What would you count as a spoiler @HallowMoonshadow? I kept it all vague, took out all details and names intentionally as to not spoil anything, so I'm not sure what you think I let slip above? I'll get it hidden once I know! 😁

It is admittedly very vague with how you've gone about it but you're still hinting at future events @Pizzamorg with paragraphs 4-7.

What people count as spoilers seems to vary wildly from person to person (Not that I think Cooper or Bentleyma would be particularly bothered by what you've wrote)... it's just better to be safe then sorry ya know?

Thank you @HallowMoonshadow! I've added spoiler tags into the stuff I think you are referencing, let me know if it is all okay now.

No worries all good @Pizzamorg. 👍

Well I'm too sick to go to work and can barely speak at all now so... That's fun. Oh well. Hopefully after a few good days of rest I'll be back to playing P3R sometime soon.

Hope everyone who's playing this has a good time with it!

I am not a huge fan of the sexist bent in a lot of Atlus' writing, but I gotta admit, they knew what they were doing with Kirijo's victory screen saying 'Kneel Before Me', or Junpei saying he liked Kirijo as a nav as her voice felt like she was 'stepping on him'. The protag also gets to say something similar as well 💀💀💀

So I just experienced my first Link Episode and I'm seriously so happy that Atlus addressed one of my main gripes with the original game, i.e. the lack of interactions with your party members. I mean, who thought it was a good idea to have a game about being social and then not letting you hang out with your closest friends. Even though it's not a Social Link, I'll take this. At least I get to freaking hang out with my party members.

Also, having each Social Link voiced now is such a great addition. It makes me care much more about the characters.

I've also gotten to the second part of Tartarus. Wow, I'm very impressed by the changes they've made to this place. So basically, each part of Tartarus is going to look completely different, which is a huge improvement in my opinion. I mean, exploring a dungeon that's inspired by H.R. Giger is so cool.

Personally one of my biggest complaints with the game is how little time I spend with my core party outside of battle. But then I'm not coming from a frame of reference of playing base P3 to know how bad it was before, I'm comparing it to 4 and 5 where to me this was handled significantly better.

Luckily at the end of June you unlock mini hang outs at the dorm, they say they offer various benefits I haven't seen those yet, but I've just appreciated being able to spend time with my party finally

Appreciate the sensitivity surrounding spoilers. Now I’m feeling a little more human I am going to try and make a start this week.

Apologies if this has already been covered, but as somebody who's played Portable (about four years ago) and rarely replays JRPGs, I'm really on the fence about picking the game up. I know there's some new stuff, but the game very much looks the same at its core. That's no bad thing, as P3 is probably my favourite in the series, but just wondering what others in a similar boat have felt.

As an aside, I did replay the first 10 hours or so of Xenoblade Definitive Edition (another favourite) but I got my real satisfaction there from the new story content.

@mcdreamer P3 is my least favourite title in the series by a mile as Portable was such an underwhelming experience. But Reload is much better. The fact that you can actually walk around now and see the characters as well as their facial expressions make the game much more immersive than the visual novel that Portable was. There are also cutscenes, more songs (I can't stop listening to the opening song!) and voice overs for Social Links, which also drastically increases the immersion. I mean, I barely cared about the Social Links in Portable as most of them felt so generic. But adding a voice to their character makes their interactions more captivating and at times emotional. Tartarus has also been improved with vastly different dungeon designs for each section. Combat has also been improved as the remake has borrowed the baton pass mechanic from P5, which makes battles much more enjoyable. Further, there are more events that let you interact with your party members. Link Episodes allow you to hang out with one of the party members and before midterms, you can even study with your party members and these are all voiced with funny conversations.

Those are the major improvements from Portable that I've encountered so far from my 10 hours of playtime. The remake has vastly improved upon the original and is absolutely worth playing. Whether or not I'll like it more than P4G and P5R remains to be seen. They'll have to do much more for me to like it more than those two games. I still haven't noticed any new story events, but they should be coming soon. That's another thing the original severely lacked in compared to P4G and P5R.

Also, you shouldn't look at it like "there's some new stuff". Individually speaking, each of these additions/improvements may not be worth much. But putting them together and you get a completely different experience. It's like the jump from P5 to P5R. P5R is a completely different experience from P5 as they've made so many changes to the core game. In the case of P3R, more interactions with party members makes me like them more. New catchy songs means the game sticks with me all day. Better combat makes the game more fun. The more additions/improvements there are, the more differently you're going to feel about the game.