Multi Persona 3 Reload

[Raine]

​

So, yay Game Pass and all that. Not really far in; probably only around 2 actual hours after three nights of turning it on for a bit. Just completed my first trip to Tartarus. En route to the police station with Junpei and Akihiko to meet up with Officer Kurosawa for that portion of the tutorial/introduction.

But, obviously, ya resident P3 stan here so boy do I have impressions and thoughts and comparisons already.

• The new voices are tripping me out! They aren't bad - you can get previews of several of the S. Link voices on your first trip to Gekkoukan. I really like some of them (Yuko! ), while others (Chihiro) are probably going to... take getting used to. This applies to the actual party too; Junpei's pretty spot on, but not hearing Liam O'Brien for Akihiko is jarring!
• I'm playing on the basic Xbox One slim I have at my desk. The frame rate and stuttering is ungodly bad. Not sure if that improves on other platforms - I'll try it on the Series X in the living room next weekend, maybe - but boy howdy is it distracting. Even besides the technical issues, the rigging of models and animations aren't super great or consistent. Yukari in particular is out here walking around like she either ain't got no hips, or they've been superglued in place. It's incredibly distracting.
• Cheap lighting tricks aside, I... actually think this straight up just looks worse than Persona 5. Like the stylized graphics on the menu, obviously, are a step down - this is a consequence of the basic design choice "let's just take Persona 5 and paint it blue" - but... it's everything. There's still some actual blockiness present with some of the Shadows I've fought so far.
• THE CAMERA FUCKING SUCKS. First, combined with the framerate, it's borderline giving me motion sickness. I miss the static backgrounds and fixed camera angles, if you can believe it. I don't feel like anything really "scales" correctly, and I'm not sure if that's a byproduct of making Dash (so, literally the ability for Minato to sprint anywhere) or Dash exists to try and quickly bandaid this problem away.
• The camera sucking makes exploring Tartarus kind of (more) miserable? Nothing, again, really feels like it's the right size? And part of this is definitely not being able to move the camera out far enough, so you're kind of right up in the hallway feeling a bit claustrophobic. And there isn't really a good reason for it, since all you do inside Tartarus is engage enemies and find treasure chests. Which...
• Enemies having 360 degrees of movement is kind of not great. Again I don't know if this is a consequence of Dash, or Dash exists to alleviate the problem. It's going to be a pain consistently sneaking up on enemies - and I feel that's going to be especially true of the Golden Hands on my return trip.
• Treasure Chests have cut-ins. Every time. I'm not sure they're possible to disable. Also, locked chests require a new item called Twilight Fragments to open - they give you one for free, not really sure how rare or limited these are, not really understanding then need to change this but it's whatever.
• THEY CHANGED THE LYRICS TO BITTER DANCE/IWATODAI DORM?! This is actually legitimately upsetting to me as one of the only people that still remembers this stupid bit of trivia. ...Honestly a lot of the music is kind of weird, too. Like it's "almost" the same, but not quite, and after hundreds of hours and multiple playthroughs it's... disorienting, maybe? Kind of getting the same nagging "wait that's not right..." idle thoughts the original PS3 remaster for Final Fantasy X gave me.
• Shuffle Time change is very strange. It's not a "Shuffle" at all anymore; you just manually select which card you want. It even tells you what your exact reward will be. It's interesting that the Sword now gives Skill Cards (exclusively?) and not equipment; I'm curious if this is a modeling consideration and there are just fewer weapons in the game period, or if they've made extensive changes to equipment and thus prioritized Skill Card acquisition to make the game more first-time friendly?

...I think that's probably it for now? Again, still very early going. And it's one of my favorite games of all time so naturally almost none of this will apply to/bother first-timers.

 

[Rachel]

I'm not playing it because they don't have the girl lmao

 

[Raine]

I'm not playing it because they don't have the girl lmao

Hah, yeah, it's been over 15 years since I've played as the guy (I'mma always call him Minato). Hoping they weren't too faithful to Vanilla/FES, 'cause a lot of his Social Links were... not good. Or, minimally, just made more sense if the character was a girl - like Tanaka totally would've gone after Kotone (FeMC), but why bother with Minato?

Allegedly they've added scenes throughout the game to flesh out the male party members, but... we'll see how well that goes. At the very least I know Minato ain't forcing himself into Shinjiro's room for some hanky panky, so really, what good is he?

...Also really, really hoping the game doesn't force you into relationships with your female S. Links like Vanilla does.

 

[The Eye in the Sky!]

I had thought it looked worse than P5, mostly because it is an old game reskinned. I feel like that has to do with it, plus taking assets directly from P5 and recoloring them instead of building their own UI, which they weren't going to do.

I literally have only turned the game on to start a save file. I've been enjoying LAD: Infinite Wealth too much to switch between the two. I've never played P3 (I have FES somewhere in my house) so I have zero expectations. Can't wait to see where it lands in the series for me. Some claim its the best, it has a massive uphill battle to dethrone P5 for me.

 

[Jon]

I'm in the middle of May and pushing as far as I can through Tartarus. I never got to play the original because of the platforms they were on, but it feels like P5 in a lot of ways so far.

I suppose getting to floor 43 before I add my fourth party member is good, right? lol

 

[VashTheStampede]

The new voices are tripping me out! They aren't bad - you can get previews of several of the S. Link voices on your first trip to Gekkoukan. I really like some of them (Yuko! ), while others (Chihiro) are probably going to... take getting used to. This applies to the actual party too; Junpei's pretty spot on, but not hearing Liam O'Brien for Akihiko is jarring!

I was most concerned with Akihiko coming into this because Liam absolutely crushed it in the original...and I felt that way well before I actually started paying attention to voice actors.

I am overall pretty okay with the new VA crew. New Akihiko seems to really hit the right tone so I'm already getting used to it.

New Chairman is 1000% better than the original.

The only one I'm not thrilled with is new Mitsuru but that also might just be because Teenage Hormone Machine Vash uhhhh really liked her.

• I'm playing on the basic Xbox One slim I have at my desk. The frame rate and stuttering is ungodly bad. Not sure if that improves on other platforms - I'll try it on the Series X in the living room next weekend, maybe - but boy howdy is it distracting. Even besides the technical issues, the rigging of models and animations aren't super great or consistent. Yukari in particular is out here walking around like she either ain't got no hips, or they've been superglued in place. It's incredibly distracting.
• Cheap lighting tricks aside, I... actually think this straight up just looks worse than Persona 5. Like the stylized graphics on the menu, obviously, are a step down - this is a consequence of the basic design choice "let's just take Persona 5 and paint it blue" - but... it's everything. There's still some actual blockiness present with some of the Shadows I've fought so far.
• THE CAMERA FUCKING SUCKS. First, combined with the framerate, it's borderline giving me motion sickness. I miss the static backgrounds and fixed camera angles, if you can believe it. I don't feel like anything really "scales" correctly, and I'm not sure if that's a byproduct of making Dash (so, literally the ability for Minato to sprint anywhere) or Dash exists to try and quickly bandaid this problem away.
• The camera sucking makes exploring Tartarus kind of (more) miserable? Nothing, again, really feels like it's the right size? And part of this is definitely not being able to move the camera out far enough, so you're kind of right up in the hallway feeling a bit claustrophobic. And there isn't really a good reason for it, since all you do inside Tartarus is engage enemies and find treasure chests. Which...

Been playing on XSX and it feels and looks great to me...but I've never really been the one to notice or care about framerate and such. YMMV. Plus the last time I played this game was P3P just a couple years ago, so it's a huge step up for my brain.

• Enemies having 360 degrees of movement is kind of not great. Again I don't know if this is a consequence of Dash, or Dash exists to alleviate the problem. It's going to be a pain consistently sneaking up on enemies - and I feel that's going to be especially true of the Golden Hands on my return trip.
• Treasure Chests have cut-ins. Every time. I'm not sure they're possible to disable. Also, locked chests require a new item called Twilight Fragments to open - they give you one for free, not really sure how rare or limited these are, not really understanding then need to change this but it's whatever.

Yeah, these have been a bummer but hasn't really hurt my feelings much. Yet.

• THEY CHANGED THE LYRICS TO BITTER DANCE/IWATODAI DORM?! This is actually legitimately upsetting to me as one of the only people that still remembers this stupid bit of trivia. ...Honestly a lot of the music is kind of weird, too. Like it's "almost" the same, but not quite, and after hundreds of hours and multiple playthroughs it's... disorienting, maybe? Kind of getting the same nagging "wait that's not right..." idle thoughts the original PS3 remaster for Final Fantasy X gave me.
  

ok you're probably the only person i know who will understand my feelings when i say i got instictively ANGRY AS HELL when the lyric changes hit me. I was all ready to start vibing along to that familiar music and it was so good...and then the words started and oh man that crushed me a bit.

• Shuffle Time change is very strange. It's not a "Shuffle" at all anymore; you just manually select which card you want. It even tells you what your exact reward will be. It's interesting that the Sword now gives Skill Cards (exclusively?) and not equipment; I'm curious if this is a modeling consideration and there are just fewer weapons in the game period, or if they've made extensive changes to equipment and thus prioritized Skill Card acquisition to make the game more first-time friendly?

I should have anticipated the Shuffle Time minigame getting tossed after they wrecked it in P4 but it still made me a little sad.

All told though, seeing my favorite Persona (and top 10 favorite game ever) get this treatment OVERALL warms my heart a bit. I never thought I'd see the day.

 

[Raine]

I had thought it looked worse than P5, mostly because it is an old game reskinned. I feel like that has to do with it, plus taking assets directly from P5 and recoloring them instead of building their own UI, which they weren't going to do.

They have Sega money now! They should've done it, the cowards.

...Especially since leakers/insiders are saying - gasp! - that Persona 4's getting the remake treatment too. Also, legitimate gasp: So is... Persona 2?!

I've never played P3 (I have FES somewhere in my house) so I have zero expectations. Can't wait to see where it lands in the series for me. Some claim its the best, it has a massive uphill battle to dethrone P5 for me.

Zero expectations is best. P3 is an intentional slow burn, so, it will take time to get moving. But it's also the type to constantly drop breadcrumbs and clues - in everything from the NPCs around town to the day-to-day interactions - that you can use to figure out what's happening at your own pace if you get restless.

Whether it succeeds or not, P3 intends to be metacommentary on the nature of life and death. Those trigger warnings at the start here in Reload are there with good reason - it's not just a bunch of teenage edgelords aiming fake guns at their head all the time.

I suppose getting to floor 43 before I add my fourth party member is good, right? lol

Probably better I don't answer that!

For the most part, Tartarus is optional. How far you climb and how quickly you do it are more a byproduct of how strong you want your characters to be, and also there are requests in the Velvet Room (eventually) that require things like obtaining items from certain floors or maybe finding a person or two that wound up in there somehow.

 

[Jon]

Probably better I don't answer that!

For the most part, Tartarus is optional. How far you climb and how quickly you do it are more a byproduct of how strong you want your characters to be, and also there are requests in the Velvet Room (eventually) that require things like obtaining items from certain floors or maybe finding a person or two that wound up in there somehow.

Fair, and I appreciate the no spoilers thing. I hate spoilers, so I read these threads with a little trepidation. I'm sure storyline spoilers, we're all kind enough to hide. But I like to participate in convos as I go.

I'm enjoying it so far, though.

 

[Raine]

The only one I'm not thrilled with is new Mitsuru but that also might just be because Teenage Hormone Machine Vash uhhhh really liked her.

Oh noo, a Mitsuru fan!

I adore her boots. But that's all the more reason I'm a basic Yukari aficionado; too much overlap with Mitsuru. Ice is my favorite element, too, so... that's awkward for party composition! I've ended up with a max or near-max stat Parvati with Bufu-type spells as my primary Persona for like every playthrough I've done past the vanilla release.

While we're on that subject: Yukari looks great. I'm not sure she really looks like a teenager anymore? But, one of her portraits caught me off guard in a good way.

Been playing on XSX and it feels and looks great to me...but I've never really been the one to notice or care about framerate and such. YMMV.

That's usually the case for me. I can easily tell the difference between 30 and 60 FPS, but generally it doesn't bother me. Hell, full-blown screen tearing doesn't really bug me too much after spending so much time with janky games over the decades. Something about this one is pushing the wrong buttons though!

Will definitely download it in the living room before hitting the road, and maybe get around to trying it out there.

ok you're probably the only person i know who will understand my feelings when i say i got instictively ANGRY AS HELL when the lyric changes hit me. I was all ready to start vibing along to that familiar music and it was so good...and then the words started and oh man that crushed me a bit.

Yeah, totally. I even waited - but "Some Dance, While I Put You in a Trance" and "Move Yo Body, Move Yo Body, Make Sure You Don't Hurt Nobody" never came.

...I'm sure the new lyrics will grow on me. Like another fungus. But still, pour one the fuck out y'all.

Spoiler: YouTube links

All told though, seeing my favorite Persona (and top 10 favorite game ever) get this treatment OVERALL warms my heart a bit. I never thought I'd see the day.

Fair, and I appreciate the no spoilers thing. I hate spoilers, so I read these threads with a little trepidation. I'm sure storyline spoilers, we're all kind enough to hide. But I like to participate in convos as I go.

I'm enjoying it so far, though.

Good!

I figure for the most part, Vash and I are just along for the ride. Not expecting any noteworthy changes to anything so marking everything is quick and easy.

 

[VashTheStampede]

P3R has already sold over 1 million copies and is the fastest selling Atlus game ever.

I feel oddly proud.

 

[Raine]

P3 is an amazing game and deserves the success.

Unfortunately I'm a stubborn ass person so I'm not counting for 2 copies as I otherwise would have been.



Just entered Tartarus on 4/21, first night it's available. Operation: Get Rich is now underway! ...'Cause, as I'm going to attempt to max everything in one playthrough, I'm gonna need a tooon of cash for the arcade and such. I know Vanilla was ridiculously hard to do this on, FES was more reasonable, and P3P was a breeze - so let's see how this goes.

 

[VashTheStampede]

Yep, been farming those Coin Cards myself lol

 

[Jon]

I meant to mention this, but on PS5 there is absolutely no performance issues whatsoever... but that M.2 SSD in the PS5 is... very good.

 

[Raine]

Possibly either the Xbone Slim (w/ SSD thrown in) not being up to snuff, or my SSD starting to crap out. Womp womp.

Good news for everyone else, though!



Made it to Floor 11; was out of SP like halfway through Floor 8. But I'm both stubborn and tenacious, so I pressed onwards. And then also killed the boss using nothing but physical attacks and whatever healing items I had because I can! Got something like 25k Yen liquid, no idea what any of these items are worth sales-wise but got tons of those. Hopefully that's enough for a while (and hopefully Tired/Cold exists so I can abuse Edogawa for free +Courage )

Also the game definitely, absolutely doesn't think anyone is stupid/insane enough to do this. One of the chests after the Floor 11 boss is locked and requires 3 Twilight Fragments to open (also the clock requires 7 Twilight Fragments to use, WTF Atlus), and there was another locked chest - are those random? IDK - on like Floor 7 or 8 that I needed 1 Twilight Fragment for. And all I've received thus far was the free one you get on your bed, so I don't even know where they come from yet.

 

[Jon]

And all I've received thus far was the free one you get on your bed, so I don't even know where they come from yet.

You're familiar with the original so this isn't likely a spoiler to you, but in case:

Spoiler

You get them primarily from the girl in the velvet room. Forgot her name. Accomplishing tasks she hands over a bunch. Some from her quests too. And I found one lying around the map too.

 

[Raine]

Ahh, that would make sense.

...Also has interesting implications.

Don't worry, you won't forget her name once you start delving deeper into her requests.

 

[Jon]

Fair enough. I am just used to the twins from P5. Is it Elizabeth? Is it always Elizabeth?

 

[Raine]

Yeah, Elizabeth is always Igor's assistant for P3's male protagonist. With P3P's FeMC, I believe she can either choose Elizabeth or opt for Theodore - Elizabeth's younger brother.

Don't Google any of this, obviously.

 

[Rachel]

Lmao this game is so old the mc has...w-wired headphones

 

[VashTheStampede]

*puts away his wired headphones he literally just pulled out for the trip he's about to go on*

Hahaha yeah so old what a loser...

 

[Rachel]

lol wearing wired right now but it's by CHOICE damn it

 

[Raine]

My second-to-last pair of cheap, wired Sony ear plugs died last year and I was devastated. Haven't been able to really find anything in recent years that lets me dangle them off of my helix, so I dread the day this last pair gives up the ghost.

Airpod battery life is horrible! Gotta use two different sets just to make it through the damn shift sometimes, even with them in the charge pod over lunch break.



In game news, they nerfed Edogawa!? You can only visit him the day immediately after you visit Tartarus at night; since I went in on the first night, and Kenji's dumb ass tutorial busts the following day... Womp womp.

The items I received were also not worth a damn. So ~25k for climbing to 11F, since the bosses didn't drop sellable loot and the item boxes after them didn't give anything good either. From a min-max perspective, Atlus is just being a bunch of dicks here with all of these changes.

 

[VashTheStampede]

i can't bring myself to spend that much money on tiny things I will inevitably lose or won't fit well or would make me own an apple product

 

[Raine]

I, for one, blame my partner. She won't believe me that Apple is the sux.


On the subject of obsolete tech/WHAT FUCKING YEAR IS IT, though:

 

[Jon]

On the subject of obsolete tech/WHAT FUCKING YEAR IS IT, though:

I was a little shocked after P5 has 20XX as it's date, this one is legit saying 2009.

 

[Jon]

Spoiler

Mitsuro saying that she wasn't hiding anything from the group because the information she had didn't seem relevant, then proceeding to tell the group that her father essentially created Tartarus and the Dark Hour....

HOW THE HELL DID THAT NEVER SEEM RELEVANT! Lol... that's like the DEFINITION of relevant.

 

[VashTheStampede]

That's nepo babies for ya

 

[Raine]

Spoiler

Mitsuro saying that she wasn't hiding anything from the group because the information she had didn't seem relevant, then proceeding to tell the group that her father essentially created Tartarus and the Dark Hour....

HOW THE HELL DID THAT NEVER SEEM RELEVANT! Lol... that's like the DEFINITION of relevant.

Perspective is a motherfucker.

Spoiler: Early spoiler comments

Which do we think is more dangerous: Breaking into her father's belongings and searching for clues, or invading an otherworldly death tower filled to the brim with horrible monsters?

Sort of makes you wonder how much in the way of street smarts some of these nerds actually have.

 

[The Eye in the Sky!]

lol wearing wired right now but it's by CHOICE damn it

Lol. I had to bust out an old pair of headphones to play on the Playstation Portal because it doesn't support bluetooth headphones so it's not so dated!

also - Google pixel bud pros ftw. I love these things.

 

[Raine]

Couldn't play over the weekend, but maybe tomorrow night. In the meantime Google's still stalking the fuck outta me and trying to inflict emotional damage.

 

[Jon]

Welp.... I finished the game and missed platinum by one Elizabeth request. Color me angry about that........ A whole other playthrough for ONE request...

 

[Raine]

Assuming they haven't changed much since FES/P3P, you can functionally burn through the game in NG+ in like... 5~6 hours? By just returning home and going to sleep every day. Not sure how much tinkering the requests would take, but, it could be a lot worse. Still sucks though!

 

[Jon]

Assuming they haven't changed much since FES/P3P, you can functionally burn through the game in NG+ in like... 5~6 hours? By just returning home and going to sleep every day. Not sure how much tinkering the requests would take, but, it could be a lot worse. Still sucks though!

Yeah, the issue is it's one of the last requests. I missed it by one day >.>

So I need to play though most of it again and do all the requests. My HOPE is some of the ones like defeat X shadows or fuse X personas get completed automagically since personas carry into NG+. We'll see, but all I'll have to really do is get that one request done... I have nothing else to play till FF7 Remake, so I should get this before then I think.

 

[Raine]

Yeah, the issue is it's one of the last requests. I missed it by one day >.>

Can the Rewind feature help? I'm still only like ~10 hours into the game, so I dunno how far back Rewind can go or anything like that. Or what days the Requests start or end, for that matter.

 

[Jon]

Can the Rewind feature help? I'm still only like ~10 hours into the game, so I dunno how far back Rewind can go or anything like that. Or what days the Requests start or end, for that matter.

Nope, because it triggered off a different request. I had to visit a teacher until he gave an item, but I didn't think it would take EIGHT! visits. So I timed it wrong by a day and by the time I got it, I had missed the timing of the last request.

And they only give 15 save slots and I learned long ago to save often in persona games.... so all my save slots were in the last 15 days. So my only other choice was one save slot back from August... but at that points, I was better off just playing over.

 

[VashTheStampede]

modzzzz

 

[Jon]

modzzzz

Bruh, they gotta make more money off this with DLC at some point! Shhhhhhh!!!!!!!

 

[Raine]

DLC? Pfft.

Whole new $70 game.

Been callin' that shit since they first started dropping details on Reload.


In semi-related news, SMTV Complete seems to be a real thing after all. Switch and PlayStation, minimally.

 

[VashTheStampede]

DLC? Pfft.

Whole new $70 game.

Been callin' that shit since they first started dropping details on Reload.

That's why I'm very glad that I get to play Reload on Game Pass and then I'll drop my cash on Reload Pink here in a couple years.

Spoiler: Persona 3 Spoilers

 

[VashTheStampede]

 

[VashTheStampede]

 

[Raine]

That is absolutely a Yukari response, my word!


I'm back on my shit about staring at walls watching paint dry (or playing with image tomfoolery), so I haven't booted P3R back up in like two weeks.

 

[Quagmire]

I will probably play this one day. I need to finish Baldurs Gate 3 and then Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth will be my next big game, and perhaps just perhaps this. P3 is my favorite Persona game

 

[The Eye in the Sky!]

I just started the game last night. I forgot how much I love the gameplay loop.

My kids named the main character Buckethead Bob. So it's amusing.

 

[VashTheStampede]

 

[MC74]

That reminds me, the next time I switch back over to my Series X, I should download this game from Game Pass and give it a go.

 

[Raine]

Oh, speaking of Game Pass.

Apparently people with Ultimate are getting the DLC Expansion Pass, including The Answer, for free*. So that's... pretty fuckin' rad. Microsoft must be pretty serious about their Sega partnership still.

Persona 3 Reload Expansion Pass announced, includes ‘Episode Aigis: The Answer’

ATLUS has announced the Persona 3 Reload Expansion Pass, which will culminate with the story expansion “Episode Aigis: The Answer” in September. It will also be available for Xbox Game …

www.gematsu.com

 

[MC74]

Oh, speaking of Game Pass.

Apparently people with Ultimate are getting the DLC Expansion Pass, including The Answer, for free*. So that's... pretty fuckin' rad. Microsoft must be pretty series about their Sega partnership still.

Persona 3 Reload Expansion Pass announced, includes ‘Episode Aigis: The Answer’

ATLUS has announced the Persona 3 Reload Expansion Pass, which will culminate with the story expansion “Episode Aigis: The Answer” in September. It will also be available for Xbox Game …

www.gematsu.com

OMG, that's sick! Makes me more excited to jump right into it!

 

[MC74]

I have it installed on my Series X. Hoping I can get around to playing it soon.

 

[The Eye in the Sky!]

I just finished it... Hoo boy was that ending something. Wasn't expecting it to go as hard as it did. It doesn't surpass 5 but it comes really close.

The whole final months with aigis taking a bigger role was so good. Loved the cast as a whole. Might be the best in the series.