A really solid remake of my favorite game. It gets a lot right but also a few very important things wrong. Overall I highly recommend Persona 3 Reload, but it has issues that stop it from being the definitive version of Persona 3, at least in my mind.

The game's difficutly is so far toned down that it's essentially now non-existent. I loved how punishing the original Persona 3 / FES could be if you didn't play your cards right, but with Reload you get so many second chances and powerful abilities that the game is mindlessly easy for most fights. Combine that with the baton pass / shift mechanic from Persona 5 and you get a game thats original combat design breaks under the new additions. The enemies simply are not equipped to handle the vast amount of options at your disposal.

Reload also completely misses the mark with its tone and atmosphere. The original game felt dark and oppresive, whereas Reload is a lot more bright and friendly. It should have stayed true to the original game's art direction and mood much more than it did. This applies especially to the animated cutscenes, they really dropped the ball with most of those. They look fine, great even, but they lost all of the original game's energy and edge. Nowhere is this more apparent than the first cutscene when you start the game. It's as if the soul was sucked straight out and they only copied the very base surface elements. The scene conveys what it has to for the story, but doesn't have any of the depth that the original cutscene had, not even close.

Another big misstep was with the music. A lot of the tracks from the original were butchered in Reload. Not to say they sound bad now, but if you listen to both back to back you can easily tell the original music is on average much better than Reload's. I think it has to do with the mixing for the most part, but I don't have enough musical vocubulary to describe it accurately. The original game just sounds cleaner and more definable. If you want an example, look up the track 'Living With Determination' and listen to both versions. In Reload the track comes on way too thick and it becomes almost comedic at times when it plays in game. On top of that the mixing is off to where it sounds like there's a strange white noise over a lot of the track. The original version is much clearer sounding and pulls off the emotions the track is meant to convery much better, at least in my opinion. Music is subjective so your mileage may vary on this point.

I still love Persona 3 Reload and it's honestly more enjoyable to play a lot of the time. The new voice actors are good, voiced social links especially are amazing, the menus and UI are top tier, and the graphics are mostly great.

However, I don't think this remake captures the essence of the original game / FES. If you want the true Persona 3 experience go emulate FES on PCSX2. You can mod in party control if you're so inclined, along with a lot of graphical updates and QOL fixes. If you just want to play a modern Persona game though, then you can't go wrong with Reload. Despite my flaws with it I still consider it to be my second favorite game of all time right there next to Persona 3 FES in first place.