Having played and enjoyed both P4G and P5R, I’ve always wanted to play Persona 3 at some point, but due to its age and lack of polish compared to games that I usually play, I’ve put off playing it for some time.

Fortunately, Atlus came out with P3R out of absolutely nowhere and now me and many Persona fans who’ve always wanted to play Persona 3 are able to play a faithful recreation of it that’s up to par with today’s triple A standards.

(+) It’s incredibly faithful to the original. Aside from the exclusion of Persona 3’s The Answer and the option to play as a female MC, you’re pretty much playing the best possible Persona 3 experience Atlus has to offer.
(+) In my opinion, the voice acting performance in P3R is MUCH better than that in the original P3, this may be due to the better quality of audio able to be produced today as well as higher voice acting standards, but I’ve listened to both casts and I’d much prefer this cast over the original.
(+) MAJOR graphical and animation upgrade over the original, with major improvements to character models, shadows and tartarus, as well as their movements and animations. Not to mention the breathtaking UI that makes going to the menu so incredibly fun.
(+) The game is incredibly optimized for PC and runs as smooth as butter with little to no loading time. Throughout my 100-hour plus playthrough I’ve experienced 0 bugs or crashes and consistently had above 60 fps on the highest graphical settings.
(+) As you would expect from an Atlus game, this game has a phenomenal soundtrack that’s so catchy and memorable that I had mass destruction on repeat on my playlist during gym workouts.
(+) I believe the setting and theme of this game is far better than that of P4G and P5R, characters in P3R are faced with more serious topics such as coping with the loss of loved ones, grit and resilience against impossible odds, and even having the courage and bravery to look death in the eyes. Plus, evokers are just so damn cool, I never get tired of the summoning animations.
(+) A VERY LENGTHY CAMPAIGN, many gaming websites claimed that P3R only takes 60 - 80 hours to beat, but from my experience and many others, P3R’s campaign takes roughly over 100 hours to complete. I’d say it’s well worth the price.

(-) That being said, the campaign being very long is also kind of a double-edged sword, as most of the time you would be doing pretty much the same things over and over again, you’ll start to get bored during certain points in the game, especially when your option of activities progressively decreases as you get closer and closer to the end.
(-) IMO, the game is too easy on normal and even hard difficulty, there’s just way too many game mechanics that swing battles in the player’s favor. Between ambushes, baton passes, arcana cards, and theurgy skills, there’s just too many ways to circumvent any form of difficulty in terms of combat. The only challenge comes from figuring out a shadow’s affinities during your first encounter with it or if you’re just straight up under-leveled due to not taking the time to farm, but even then, Fuuka has skills that mitigate those hurdles.
(-) There’s a major imbalance in the activities available for you to do during the day and those available to you during the night, particularly when it comes to social links. I get that this is understandable because night time should be prioritized for Tartarus explorations, but imo they’ve overtuned it a bit to the point where you’re so overwhelmed with what you should do during the day that you’re left confused as to what you could do (besides Tartarus) during the night.
(-) Social links have little to no bearing on main story dialogues and vice versa. You could establish a relationship with one of the characters during a social link, but outside of that there’s pretty much little to no change in their dialogue or cutscenes. On the other hand, if a character experienced something significant in the main story that should’ve altered their personality or behavior towards you, they’ll just forget all that and return to their personality during your social link. It’s such a shame and it makes social links feel so disconnected from the main story.
(-) Speaking of social links, I really do not like some of the social links in this game. There are some characters who are straight up ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and sometimes even crooks who you’ll spend your time with, and as you can guess, they’ll spew some egotistical and self-serving dialogue that a likeable character probably wouldn’t say. Now, rather than discouraging your character from indulging their behavior, the game unfortunately encourages you to indulge them by giving you more social link points if you choose dialogue options that aligns with their views and beliefs. I don’t know what Atlus is trying to teach their players with this design choice, but I personally dislike it, even if they do redeem themselves by the end of the social link. Instead of these guys I would have preferred social links with the male members of SEES like Junpei & Akihiko.

Overall, even though I had many gripes about this game, it’s still a staple and well worth your time and money. It may not be for everyone, but if you’ve been hesitant about trying any Atlus’ games, Persona 3 Reload is a solid entryway into the Persona series.
(8/10)