Persona 3: Reload
Developer P-Studio Publisher Sega, Atlus Format PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series Release 2024
Since the release of Persona 5 in 2016, Atlus has taken every opportunity to capitalise on its success through multiple spinoffs, rereleases and adaptations. With Persona 3: Reload, it finally seemed to be moving on – although, as we soon discover, this remake of the gritty PS2 roleplayer can be added to the long list of games influenced by the fifth entry.
That’s most immediately apparent in its visual overhaul, which seems a less comfortable fit for the older game’s darker tone. Persona 3 hardly lacked style; as such, it’s a pity that P-Studio has ignored its distinctive art direction, seeking instead to mimic the aesthetic of its most recent mainline entry. Indeed, almost every tweak from the original feels designed to bring it in line with modern Persona. You can rent software to boost your stats, just as you can rent books and movies in Persona 5. Party members can now use ultimate attacks to deal major damage, just like how Persona 5: Royal introduced tag-team attacks. You can even form a proper friendship with male party members, albeit to a more limited degree here.
Some adjustments are more welcome. The Dark Hour has been brought to life with superior lighting effects to better emphasise its moody palette. But opportunities to make bolder changes haven’t merely been squandered, they were seemingly never even on the table. The antagonists are still underdeveloped, boss fights slight, and the focus remains on clearing a repetitive 260-floor mega-dungeon. All of this means this doesn’t feel like the definitive edition of the game, which calls into question the necessity for a remake in the first place. Which isn’t to say that remakes are inherently a bad idea – we’ve seen plenty of good ones, after all – but it’s often hard to see how a creative imperative took precedence over a financial one.
The desire to conform to a new de facto aesthetic standard is hardly exclusive to Persona. Take Capcom’s 2023 remake of Resident Evil 4, which eschewed the original’s instantly identifiable palette to more closely resemble its two immediate predecessors – to the point where a casual observer might struggle to tell it apart from 2019’s Resident Evil 2. A similar approach seems to have been adopted for the forthcoming Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, the soupy greens of Tselinoyarsk giving way to something more realistic yet artistically uninspired. It’s a particularly disappointing development for a series as consistently stylish as Persona. There is nothing wrong with embracing technological progress, but surely games needn’t be quite so ashamed of their past.