i changed the title and thumbnail. i genuinely didn't think "missed the mark" would be taken as hostile. the aim was to come off critical, but not spiteful. that message didn't come across very well so i tried to go for something more accurate while still conveying that i'm going to be critical. i like to think my criticisms here were pretty tame here, and i hope i made it obvious that i do like this game. it just won't replace the original for me. (original p3 video: th-cam.com/video/J0wniLnpzmw/w-d-xo.html , patreon: www.patreon.com/bubbletea_)
I pretty much agree with everything in this video ngl, I really like Reload and find it interchangable with FES however the finer details of FES and it's old school experimental charm still hold it in place as my favorite.
I agree with almost everything you said here. There's a bunch of other stuff you could've rly dug in at For some reason people can't seem to understand the idea of critiquing something you love
Ya got me for the cutscene, it is true that they lacked of impact but my guess it that they did changed the scene to be more accomodated to a new public in a world full of technology and social net work. In 2008, there is less of that, and p3 was their Last change to KEEP on doing it. So they put everything they got. However it is true that i prefer ancient cutscene rather than the news one....
I kinda see reload how I see the resident evil remakes where you can make the argument that the remakes are better games but the original still has its own identity and provides a different experience while still being the same game at its core
I those are the games that make the concept of remakes feel odd to me Those games make the original not obsolete from from a user experience perspective they're better in universally better ways like less jank and more responsiveness, if p3r was just party control and better graphics everything else about to could stay the same and it would be better than p3
I agree which makes it more accessible but the game being less fun makes for a more compelling metaphor for depression. I don’t think games should have to be fun in a traditional sense if it’s in service of the themes of the story
One thing i really miss from the original is the small special animations from character models during some story events, like akihiko pulling out his evoker when explaining why the mc is the leader, or jumpei sitting at the stairs and drinking juice while waiting for the first full moon operation, or the mc holding aigis hand after the ryoji reveal
I'm glad someone else noticed too! Even in P4 the characters didn't have that many animations but you get to og P3 and you have Yukari over here with like a billion little subtle animations like her doing the little lean in teasing motion to the protag before she runs off to get her wallet.
i feel like it's gonna be really hard for them to fuck up P4, mostly since it's a lot harder to cut out as much content, and brighter more modern graphics will fit the game's aesthetic more
Originally I didn't really care about the voiced social links, because usually I can read the dialogue faster than they can speak it. But I found that it actually made me slow down and appreciate the scenes a lot more.
My most favorite part of the voiced stuff when near the last months where everyone was going thru there own things. It was like they wanted to convey to us that eventhough they are in the same room or same residents...they started to get there distance from eachother.
From what I've heard, the reason for a lot of the extra dialogue is because Reload is based on the Portable script, which has characters say more to compensate for the visual novel format. I haven't played it myself though, so your examples might not have been in P3P. I agree that some fluff from the script could've been cut though.
Yukari's lines from the opening scene are 100% lifted from Portable. And I believe the lines after Tartarus disappears are also from Portable There's also the exchange after the "Don't look up" line during the monorail full moon, which IIRC were recorded for the original, cut, then added back into Reload
I always got a bit emotional over Shinji in the original game but holy shit man his death scene went so fucking hard in Reload and it actually made me cry. Getting his final liked episode a bit later just adds salt to injury, knowing he had a promise to graduate with Akihiko and Mitsuru and he wanted to go back to school to keep the promise but died before he could do it made me so fucking sad.
I needed time to process when I didn't finish this one Monad dungeon. Apparently, they give one costume for Shinji. The way the game tells me thay Shinji is gone and I got the costume too late, it hits hard.
@@mikyeediaz120 this happened to me too! i had to put down the controller and walk away a bit. Even knowing the story, the improvements they made to Shinji's story made the loss even harder
If the Golden content is not included in the Persona 4 remake, then yeah ATLUS is doing the atlus. I don't want to hear people saying they removed the Golden content because it is accurate to the original because it sounds stupid.
@@fluke7506 I want the persona 4 remake to actually just be a graphical/battle remake off of Golden. Yes Yosuke being homophobic is annoying as a homo, but Sasuke voicing someone who has the persona Jiraiya is ICONIC
15:05 I disagree with this, with the baton pass in P5 I felt like it made the game way too easy with its stat increases, I’d rather just have the baton pass be a way of making extra turns
@@KonEl17 P3R felt like a better difficulty, with showtimes in P5R they happened automatically and more so when you were LOSING, essentially baby mode P3R has alot of stuff like strong ass spells that are broken but Theurgy’s being charged is so much better than Showtimes happening automatically, and all the confidant abilities also made the game baby mode, and Futaba protecting you from death was baby mode, previously stated baton pass stat increases were baby mode I played P3R on hard mode first run and man I loved the difficulty it was perfect
@@logogogo4872There's no way you think P5 is easier than P3R. Theurgy attacks ruin the game. It's essentially P5S showtimes but in a turn-based setting, which makes the game a joke. Also, how could Futaba's RNG be more OP than spamming Slphid Aura before every fight, lol.
I only played P3P once so I felt I really missed out on a lot of emotional segments like Shinjiro's death not being that impactful. However, they fixed that in P3 Reload immensely. There was this bit involving the frozen takoyaki in the fridge. I think if you waited more than a few days, an ally would take the frozen takoyaki and leave a note saying that they ate it and leave another item that resonated with their character, like Akihiko leaving a protein shake. However, I got distracted with Shinjiro's death and decided to check the fridge a few days after I stored some frozen takoyaki. And what I found was a very casual note from Shinjiro apologizing that he took the frozen takoyaki for some cooking ingredients and that he made up for it with some leftovers. That hit me WAY HARDER than it ever needed to that Shinjiro was gone for good after all those times cooking together like damn😭
That was me back when I first played FES when I didn't see the recording of Shinjiro watching TV with Koromaru then pretending to be asleep when the girls walked in until after he died.
Giving Shinji auto heatriser and debilitate in his move set is nasty work. Also the controller vibrates as he takes his final breath. That was neat. My play through of P3RE got hampered due to being lvl 99 but worth it since I saw Shinji at his best. There are things from the original that I wish P3RE kept, but I appreciate it for what it is. Even now, I still can’t believe I get to play this game.
I think a lot of people who grew up with/played P3 upwards of several years ago struggle to feel, through no fault of their own, just how utterly slow P3/P3F can feel to someone who was introduced to MegaTen as a whole through P4G or P5R. About 3 years ago I played both P4G and P5R and absolutely adored them and became obsessed with Persona, so I quickly became fascinated by P3 as it was lauded as the one with the best story. I tried and tried to play P3F but I just couldn't get it to grasp my attention and I just couldn't enjoy Tartarus, whether I wasn't playing it right or conditioned to expect Persona games to play differently following several P5R playthroughs. I've found several of my friends to be in the same boat, so we yearned for a P3 remake that would bring that story to the gameplay that made us fall in love with the franchise. After beating Reload, we've all come to find it to be our favorite game in the franchise, by far. While I 100% respect and acknowledge that there's a certain vibe attatched to the original (mostly through it's anime cutscenes) that wasn't, and never will be, truly replicated, I think seasoned reviewers of the series neglect just how different the idea of a Persona game is in the mind of modern fans, not to the crazy extent that causes disputes like "there needs to be a cast in college" or "remove social links," or other radical ideas, but the idea relating to the gameplay attached with our initial impressions that fascinated us and hooked us deeper into the franchise at large.
Frankly, FES is borderline unplayable for huge swathes of people who aren't diehard JRPG fans that grew up with it at this point. So many clunky design choices (which makes sense, first game in this style... but still) which can add to the atmosphere but frankly make it atrocious gameplay wise trying to go back to it.
as someone who's played fes and portable not to completion but halfway through each, reload is superior in nearly every way except the cut scene direction. its bat shit insane to think that fes didn't have direct commands. idgaf if you could "learn" how to play with that, it was miserable. portable mended this and I'm glad it was brought into reload as well. I am never going to use party commands in a game ever again
I started with P4 as my first MegaTen, then played P3 and really loved it, then I played P5, then P1, then P2, and I found that overall I enjoyed the older ones a lot better (2EP is now my favorite) and I had a blast playing through the original two Megami Tensei games on Famicom after I had finished my journey with Persona. I don't think its a matter of where you started with the series that will affect how you feel about them, its a matter of what you value in games.
The message I got from this was: "play both, you get the best of the old vibes and the new expansions" So thanks, now I have to 80 hour games on my backlog!
This is what I recommend to all new games that are getting amazing remakes, the remake is great and the og game is still great, one isn't necessarily there to replace the other, just play both and enjoy both, maybe you'll like a few things more in the new one or the old one, or swap between which is your favorite, I dont get why people fight and get so mad over remakes when most times they just improve on outdated things and are just as good as the original
I think I’ll do this. Loving the shit out of P3R (my first Psa game) and I’m willing to check out the og (I played it for like 5 hours then stopped, months before the remake announcement)
@Dimebag-wx2rs It's funny cause RE4 remake is the reason I started telling people this cause I saw so many people fight about it, when is actually really good but I can still go back and enjoy og RE4, but also loved the remake as it was just as fun and improved on certain characters
not really classic could be pirated for free and modded where new is egregious $70 + dlc for a weaker experience with prettier visuals but overall casualized making it worse
I feel like persona 3 reload being so incredibly faithful is a great thing. but on the other hand there were big missed opportunites. for example why couldnt the whole shinji ark from the movies happen in the game (showing up a month early and being a big brother figure for ken) As well as that the new link episodes are great but they Eat through so many time slots. and missing a link episode not letting you complete the rest of it is a HUGE L (did they seriously not learn from the FES ELLE-P dates?, and yes im aware you get multiple chances before theyre cut off) Even if it doesnt feel as faithful in some regards (cut features etc) i think its a good game but just short of great.
@@SwizzleMix i played it on gamepass. it was 100% worth the replay. I enjoyed it alot. Its a fantastic game but i feel like so much more couldve been better
Atlus from the beginning said it was going to be faithful. And at least it was more faithful than crap like Pokemon bdsp. Where people went "But where's platinum!" Where the "Faithful remake" wasn't even close to faithful. And actually could have gotten away with more.
For the link dates they kind of did the same thing for the twins and persona 5 Royal. Remember when you used to take them on field trips and if you missed one of them you could not finish them.
A few things about the cutscenes lacking subtlety. It’s not so much that reload decided to add new lines cause they didn’t think players would get it. It’s actually portable that added a lot of those things and reload takes from portables script more. Which I’m pretty sure was done because visual novel not as much on screen to show and not “tell” but yeah. For instance that scene where Makoto comes back after the battle with nyx and everyone gathering around saying how happy they are is taken straight from portable. And then there were other cutscenes where they just decided to do it like how the movies did it.
I wish one of those scenes from the movie was how they introduced aigis because in the original and reload its so lackluster. She shows up and then BAM. part of the party now. Barely any explanation on what she can do or her weapon capabilities. You see her shooting water out of her hand guns before you see bullets being fired.
With regards to the social links voice acting, I agree that making them all voiced goes a long way to make them better overall, in particular the Moon Social Link, somehow the eay he speaks about himself is very self deprecating and its conveyed much better that his eating habits is a way for him to escape his problems rather than true enjoyment
I think one of the reason multiple weapon types was removed and keep in mind this was removed in P3P was that there was such a huge gap between the MC and party members that legit it was better a lot of the time to ditch your party and solo everything. This was especially true as you unlocked stronger fusion spells. So in P3P the MC was heavily nerfed by being locked to only swords and fusion also became super lame because they were single use items. Reload rolled this back a bit by tying fusion spells to theurgy and allowing you to use any Persona in your compendium which I think is a better choice. With the addition of theurgy and personalities, they definitely want you to feel like your party members are contributing instead of being a burden which is how FES felt.
Even in original FES i eventually abandoned every party member besides 3 that I'd keep trained up for the final boss. Of which I basically solo'd anyways.
I genuinely don't see this perspective at all, the party isn't some burden 🤨 Even in FES functioning entirely on Ai they carry plenty of the weight in battle and can be great assists and DPS and you get way more opportunities to take action and buff with them around as well. Like obviously, the MC is strong as hell as they are in literally every persona game when you break the fusion system and make cracked personas, but taking away your party is not only going to slow your battles to a crawl but also give you less opportunity to do good buff rotations efficiently without letting the enemies do it themselves.
The reason they took away the multiple weapon system for P3P was time and resources. If they wanted to add it they would have to animate and model every single weapon type for the FEMC model, and that is pretty time consuming for a basic port.
hmm i think they should keep it but making it unlockable in the tartarus or night activites. would be pretty neat. we have mc training other weapon while conversing with other party member why they are specialized in that weapon
One of my nitpick with the Nyx Avatar final battle was the environment. Like with everything in Reload during the Dark Hour, everything is so green. In the original, the top of Tartarus was very grey, dull, and lifeless. It really added to the atmosphere that this is the end. Life is ending. But they made the top of Tartarus like everywhere else. Just green and vibrant.
I’d argue it’s less vibrant and more just bright. Kinda like how the rainbow block was painful to look at. It’s mean to contrast with Nyx’s red and black look. Kind of like a black hole in there middle of an overly bright place. I can see what they were going for.
Wow looks like the P3R fanbase is full of the same 'fans' whose first game was P5. I'm sorry there's so much toxicity from these clowns under here. Your review was definitely fair and I agree with you 100%
I have to agree with you on the cutscene direction. In general, I think the aesthetics were polished a bit too much and they lost the edge of the original. The og cutscenes kinda looking like serial experiments lain was something I really liked. Imo it felt like they were trying to make a game adaptation of the movies (aesthetic wise) rather than the ps2 game. Besides that and gameplay being a bit too easy, I don't have any other major gripes and I think it was a pretty faithful adaptation of my favorite game. I didn't ask for it, but I'm glad it exists.
Such a nice way to express an valid opinion and sure reload could've been better but what we got is great and he definitely shows that from shinji to link episodes to the water design...etc Thank you for the vid goat
One thing that really confuses me about new the additions to reload is the way they handled platonic relationships. Not the ones you get if you reject them at the end of rank 9, those make perfect sense in the difference between romantic and platonic, but the ones you get for ignoring their feelings in rank 7 or 8 For those who don't know, this game has "romance flags" before the obvious one at rank 9, if you give some specific answers during those moments the game gives you an alternate rank 8 and 9 (and the same rank 10 platonic you get for reject them if you get the decision at rank 9) instead of the original from previous versions, and those new scenes were honestly pretty good (at least the ones i got, i don't know if some girls don't have them or if i just missed them). Some of those scenes really helped raising my opinion on certain characters, especially Yuko. I used to call Yuko's SL "2 incomplete SLs" because of some writing decisions that i always found odd, and the new rank 8 completely changed that perspective, to the point i now really like her SL. Which brings me to my problem. Why are these new scenes missable? and why do i have to choose that i don't like a girl, to get a scene that made me like the girl? It's a little backward in my opinion, i don't get to know a character as much because i'm interested on that character? that logic really confuses me. I don't really care about the romance part of persona, and even so i was still confused why they choose to handle the new scenes that way. My main theory is that they considered doing changes to the social links, but they were afraid of not being a "faithful remake" and they just hid these new scenes instead, and if that's the case, it's a little disappointing, as some of P3 Sls could use some changes. Also as a separate thing to say, great video, it's really refreshing to see someone pointing at the negatives of a game in a way i can clearly see you care about the game, instead of just doing it for the sake of being negative.
Yeah I wish they fixed Nozomi’s SL. He’s ok until the cult becomes relevant. Little cringe but kinda fun. But once the cult is introduced he goes from a person I wouldn’t mind hanging out with to being someone I refuse to spend time with. It sucks cus his issues with food and his trauma are good things that could’ve been handled way better. Better than Odagiri at least, I stopped hanging with him rank 2
@@BelBelle468 I'm perfectly find with SLs being someone who i wouldn't hang out normally, as long as their story and/or writing is good enough to keep me invested on learning more about them. In fact, i find it more enjoyable that way, otherwise it would get kind of repetitive. However, i do agree Nozomi's SL has some problem. First time i played i was really invested in his story, but once it gets to the cult part the SL becomes a mess of pacing + having to many plot points without giving enough attention to anything. Odagiri's SL is pretty decent. My only real issue is that i feel like the ending relies a lot in the friendship between him and the MC, and that part is not exposed enough during the SL itself, other than that i like his story.
Personal gripes aside, I'm so glad that they cooked with how they tackled the ending of 3 in the remake. Having Aigis' monologue play over a fully rendered cutscene pushed the feels into overdrive. And thank god they nailed the Memories of You remix.
I feel like the clickbaity title doesn't do this video justice. People will assume you're a FES fanboy blindly hating on P3R for existing. Something to the tone of "the ups and downs of Persona 3 Reload" probably would've been better?
i didn’t watch it because i thought he was just hating to hate, i see a lot of videos like that. in this case, it actually does the opposite because wont want to sit thru a 50min video of someone rage baiting
I may enjoy reload more but honestly I think it's pretty fair to say that some of the originals personality was lost in translation, be it from the difficulty being toned down to the lack of more abstract and artistic imagery, as well as many other points you listed. Those aspects were part of P3's identity, and that identity is what made it stand out from the crowd, it's even partially the reason why Persona even exists as a series today, so it's not a stretch to be disappointed some of that has been toned down or outright removed. Great video homie, special thanks to you too for making such great content ❤
Just wondering: how does everyone feel about Yukari's new voice actor/portrayal? To me, it feels her like recasting was the most controversial with some people not liking how nice she is now and others saying it's an improvement and she's more likable now. Personally, Reload was my first time experiencing this game so I didn't have any pre-conceived notion of her going in, but I ended up really liking her, if you couldn't tell. I know the reason most people don't like how nice she is in Reload is because her sass showed her grief but I think she's still a compelling character and her grief is still shown in her attitude. It's clear that her cheery personality is just a facade she puts on to hide her inner turmoil. While she's popular at school and mentions her off screen friends, she doesn't really seem close with any of them. This is likely because she doesn't want to feel lonely but also can't connect with any of them or show them her true self, but she can with Makoto when she learns that his parents are also dead. Something I didn't even catch on my first playthrough is that the hotel mission gives some insight into the issues she's bottling up at that point in the story. The hotel definitely reminds her of her mom which she mentions "throwing herself at men" to Mitsuru during the Kyoto trip. Yukari clearly values deep, sincere love a lot and that combined with her respect for her dad is what lead to her hatred for her mom. So when the Lovers tried to force her to sleep with Makoto, her feelings boiled over, causing her to blow up at the Lovers and her theurgy gauge to immediately fill up. Maybe I'm reading too deep into that scene but I thought it was a neat way to build character, as that mission also shows her stubbornness when it comes to Junpei's teasing. I also think the reduction of her sass is over exaggerated just a bit. She's still pretty snappy with Junpei and is still really passive aggressive with Mitsuru for the first half of the game. Overall, I liked her in Reload and I think I liked her the same way she was intended to be liked in the original game.
This is all subjective of course but my issue with the personality changes in Reload is that it makes the group dynamic more bland and sterile. Yukari lost her semi savage mean girl energy in Reload. That energy created a very entertaining dynamic between her and junpei in FES. Their FES dynamic helped carry things while the plot took its very sweet time to take off. It's been so attenuated in Reload that when she does refer to Junpei as Stupei, it almost feels out of character. Their general dislike toward one another in Reload feels unnecessary because there's no narrative purpose or weight behind it. Junpei feels more like a musical theater kid in Reload. Gross. That used to be my favorite character in the series RIP. Akihiko lost his 1 dimensional righteous stoicism to become more of a goofy boi like Junpei! All ingredients designed to craft a story for the P5 16-25 year old mainstream audience.
with scenes that are basically the same with the new English voice actors, specifically yukari, just don’t hit the same. They make Yukari sound way too nicer making her lose her snarkiness. So whenever there is a scene of dialogue that’s kept from the older games they just sound out of place (for example the stupei line just sounds out of place/character for her with the new VA and the voice direction) especially with her interacting with other characters ESPECIALLY with junpei. Like the other reply said reload makes it where these conversations don’t have much weight to them with how they toned down characters (yukari) and even how they overtuned characters (junpei, like some scenes and dialogue just sound too happy? For example a hospital scene with chidori in the original junpei sounds more mellow when talking with her. In reload he sounds like how he would talk with the MC.)
I honestly think very little changed with Yukari. The main difference is the original’s voice direction with Michelle Ruff, she uses her voice to make Yukari sound very firm so she comes off sassier. Heather Gonzalez doesn’t read her lines with the same firmness so she reads a bit more “delicate”, and maybe that creates this idea of Yukari coming off “nicer” but the sassiness is still very much present in my eyes
I personally prefer the newer portrayal, since the original made her come off as your typical bitchy mean girl and her moments where she tries to be nicer are forced and half-assed in a misguided attempt to make her look good. In the original she felt like someone who'd hold a grudge against you over something insignificant. This one falls more in line with the original Japanese characterization, whereas the original missed the mark with wanting you to sympathize and connect with her, but failing miserably, because she can't be happy unless she puts someone else down.
Something about the cutscenes and the added talking I noticed (and the script in general) is that a lot of it is based on Portable (aka, the one that added dialogue to make up for a lack of cutscenes). So they probably based Reload’s script off of Portable’s which is why the scenes are like that.
Not being able to choose clubs is my biggest gripe with the game. Minato being in kendo makes so much more sense than being in track. Especially sense Atlus made his weapon a sword. It also gives ample reason why he is one of the best in the club, given his nightly/multi-weekly/once-monthly excursions into tartarus, getting genuine experience and being so much better than everyone else who only knows what they were taught. Although the star social link and being "rivals" in kendo never made sense to me, unless the guy was just walking around at night pucking fights with everyone using a bat like a sword. And it makes more sense for him to be in a music club considering he never takes out his damn headphones unless the plot demands it, or hes directly talking to someone. And i also like to think he has a genuine interest in music, so the music club is kind of an introduction to being a musician in a sense.
Taking away choice is a painful adjustment to make. I know people these days prefer the MCs to be more pre-defined characters, but it’s in the options where players like you and I can pick something different because it makes more sense to us as individual players. Homogenized content that was originally varied kinda blows
Im so glad he discussed the direction of the cutscenes. In fairness all of them arnt bad per say but, the first cutscene is just embarrassing. For some reason they overact when yukari is like "just put it to my head... And pull the trigger...THERE IS NO WAY I CANT!" It just sounds like they were overdoing the bit for some reason. And the awakening scene is just bad. Not much redeeming there. Its just animated poorly since its WAY too smooth. And they removed all the flair with how scary Thanatos is. But its a fine game overall, but I just wish it could have been perfect.
@@digimonlover1632 Overall tone of new awakening is more "look how cool and kind I am, I am so powerful that my physical body can't handle it" instead of "I think that this can help us survive, but I guess I kinda like that edgy shi- oh, something is *really really* wrong" that was before
31:44 God THANK YOU for putting into words what I struggle to. It's not like the scenes were completely wrong but they just lack the weight of the original
The irony is that the dated FES version with older tech was able to portray emotion artistically than the modern version of the game (Reload). Soooo grateful to see others picking up on this as well. Glad to see that people aren't NPCs or robots lol
The subtlety and pacing giving room for the scene to breath really helps bring out the full atmosphere and mood of the situations that the characters find themselves in. Kinda sad that most people won't see them unless they actively go back to look at them now.
@@kazuMT You must be high because reload actually has facial expressions. While every fes cut scene has someone looking confused with their mouth open.
If there is one thing i hate about reload is that every single time you find a chest, the stairs, a teleporter, ANYTHING in tartarus. The Party will keep saying one of the five lines programmed in. Every. Single. Time. They will not shut up and apparently there is no option to lower the odds of these lines popping up.
@@Noname72105 if it counts, I played quite a bit of Tarturus with just Makoto, Junpei and Yukari early on. Those line will start to repeat when only having those two available with you the more you play.
totally agree on cutscenes some of new were just goofy, like the one from roof (yukari was literally bitchslapped and yeeted across half the roof) you've shown or fuuka's awakening (don't remember specifics, but something made me laugh too hard)
Great video! As someone who came into the series with P5R and had learned at least the basic story of P3 from videos, I really have been looking forward to hearing refined takes on how this version changed things, for better and for worse. You absolutely provided that so thank you for helping me contextualize the wonderful time I had with Reload! All that said, even as someone who had never seen the original cutscenes before, the one feeling I couldn't shake while playing through the story parts of the game is that I might have been missing something; that maybe the feelings and emotional mood from the original weren't fully represented. Super glad you helped me resolve that notion via well developed critique!
Loved the video! Your videos are always so consistently high quality. I pretty much have the same opinions on Reload with it’s issues. The difficulty with the very recent games will always be a big issue for me sadly and due to p5 being so popular and easy I worry all future Atlus games will share the same fate. I loved the AI tactics in FES, my first Portable playthrough confused me a lot when I realised you could use direct commands. Reload is still a great game but I will always love FES more. One thing that completely ruined the games difficulty for me in my reload challenge run was realising how many bosses are just scripted patterns, almost all of them even including Nyx are 100% pattern based and the same with the Fortune wheel, which spins 7 times each time being the same result in an order then it gives up and uses wind only. It honestly feels like Atlus are scared to make a hard game anymore. I also noticed you used my footage which made me very happy. Might seem dumb but as someones content that I really enjoy even playing a small part towards it made my day seeing it. If you’re ever doing a video and need any other footage feel free to use any of it!
I personally don't mind reload being easier. Imo, it definitely had less frustrating gameplay aspects than FES, so I will probably never play that version. I much prefer portable and reload. However, I understand
Yeah, the voice acting really carried the SLs on their backs. The old couple were so wholesome and bruh IT MADE MY HEART BLEED FOR NOZOMI LIKE WTF (he may have a very warped vision of himself and people around him, partly thanks to cult brainwashing, but at least it didn't feel I was enabling him as much as Kenji or Kazushi). And c'mon, what else could I say about Akinari that hasn't been said already? Special mention to his Japanese VA Hirofumi Nojima btw. Same boat with you about Tanaka, it made me despise him. But hey, that means the VAs did their job, in spades. The cutscenes direction was obviously not gonna be the same because, as you have said in your previous videos, Persona 3 is a reflection of early 2000s anime and that's not something we're gonna see replicated with today's animation. And they didn't exactly "dumb down the scenes", Reload uses P3P's script, which detracted from the more show-don't-tell scenes from P3/FES given P3P's VN presentation anyways. With that said, I'm curious as to how they're gonna make Episode Aigis: The Answer's most famous bosses look (you know which 2 I'm talking about) since the anime cutscenes were done by Wit Studio, because let's just say a certain anime under Wit Studio's belt makes me think Atlus picked them especifically because of that anime. What was it again? Uhm, something about... an "attack" and a... "titan"?
Another thing that was removed was how your teams would react when you changed their gear. Espeally with hi-cut armor. Like Yukari would get pissed if you have her that but it you were her boyfriend at that time she would be embarrassed but still do it for you. Kinda sucks that’s not in reload
I think Theurgy’s are a great mechanic and makes party members unique. However they are so busted and not balanced. I think the fact that all of them ignore enemy weaknesses puts too much into the player’s favor. Just the fact that you use the theurgy meter instead of using SP is already a good perk, ignoring weaknesses is just overkill. Yukari and Mitsuru by far have the best Theurgy’s besides Makoto since their conditions are ridiculously easy and trivializes the difficulty. I think if you had to consider an enemy’s weakness before using the theurgy, it would’ve been a much better system, considering in the later game, most characters have almighty damage theurgy’s so it would’ve been an excellent reward for going out of your way to rank up their dorm activities.
The only one with an Almighty Theurgy (other than MC) is Mitsuru. The rest get physical/elemental or support second Theurgies. Theurgies were conceived so your party members would always be able to contribute somehow in battle even if their normal kit was unfit for the current battle. To be honest being able to ignore weakness is fine. They could've balanced them another way, such as nerfing their damage, not letting skills boost them, not letting a Theurgy be able to crit/inflict knockdown (unless specifically noted like Jack Brothers) or just making them something you have to actively improve over the game, such as through hanging out with them ala Confidant skills in P5 or something.
@@tsf9600 Thanks for the correction. You brought up some good points. I still stand on Theurgy’s should consider enemy weaknesses but I like your idea of nerfing the damage output a bit. That way, if you want boosted damage, you’ll have to buff and concentrate and use some SP to maximize its effectiveness. Considering by late game, SP management is not a problem.
The edge was great in og p3, it sugarcoats a lot of the scary spectacle had. And the lighting in Reload is also weird, very colorful, as in P5 colorful but that might be just me. Nostalgia can be one hell of a thing but these are the points I stand on. Outside of that Reload is great imo
The only issue is the tone shift, it's a to bright when it should give a more dull or melancholy feel. And they made the game to easy those are pretty much the only issues, oh they should have added more things to do at night. Edited. Why remove the choice of what school sport to play then remove Kendo but also take different weapons for the MC. Was it so difficult to say hey i use a sword in Tartarus maybe we shiuld keep the Kendo class a an option lol.
With social links being fully voiced now, they probably cut that choice down since they'd otherwise need to voice several not doubled but tripled up sets of dialog for two full and one partial link (it affects Hayase and Yuko as well) It's the same with not usually offering the gender option - they don't put the effort into these things. They say they'd rather focus on polishing the content they *do* include. We definitely needed more things at night. Imho the link episodes should've been night-exclusive (atleast mostly) since there's often just nothing to do at night.
Since 5 started the trend of the party getting "mission uniforms" for when they visit their respective alternate worlds, I can't help but wonder what they'll have the Investigation Team wear in the TV World, if they even give them uniforms in a hypothetical 4 remake. Persona 5 had that whole symbolic comic book-esque costumes deal, & 3R has that secret agent aesthetic to it. Maybe instead of the uniformity of the SEES fits, everyone will get more unique stuff. Like Chie could wear gi pants with her jacket, Yosuke could get a Naruto-ish fusion of shinobi gear & streetwear. It's cool to imagine.
As you mentioned, these critiques didn't really affect my enjoyment as a 'first time' persona 3 player, but it is really interesting to see what long time fans thought of this game. Personally loved it, but I totally get the issues everyone has with this game; it isn't perfect. I do plan on going back and playing portable and FES just because playing the games in reverse order sounds kinda fun, and I really just wanna play a 'hard' version of this game. Great video though
I think Moon could have been a night time social link with the strip open at night. They’d have to explain being away from his family but Star could have been a night social link too.
The way I see it, I think it's cool there are now 3 amazing versions of P3, FES, Portable, and Reload and they all offer different but equally valid ways to experience the game and there's a reason to play all 3. Which I think is cooler than had Reload just invalidated the other two
I think you hit it pretty much on the mark. Many cutscenes while decent lacked the impact of their original counterparts, Theurgy's trivializing the late game, but a decent overall game with both points in favor and against. It almost felt like the developers themselves feel that the fan base for the modern Persona series would dislike too many elements of the original, so the forsook them in favor of mechanics from P5. I would never call it a bad game, it just doesn't hit the heights FES does. Also I hope that future Persona games forsake party social links in favor of Link events, it gives the party reason to have development happen outside of social links which the games past P3 sorely lack.
Persona fanboys be like: *a min video criticizes certain aspects of the game drops "OmG yOU ARe SuCh A bAd COnTEnt CrEaTOr lOoK tHEre iS nO coMMEnts!!!1111"
I was very surprised by the way Junpei's "death" was handled. The way they present it to you is so good... I genuinely thought I did something wrong or skipped some important task before that day. I genuinely thought bro was dying xD
The Original was more Avant-garde in it's presentation they definitely made reload more skewed towards a general audience. Which does suck but I really do think reloads extra moments with the characters in the daily life segments really does make you feel like you've lived with these characters. Hoping P6 keeps up with that because I think it's the best thing about reload other than looking very pretty most of the time.
i feel the same way you do about the cutscenes, the abstract nature and the direction that trusts the audience is so lost in the remake - and im worried the answer is gonna be worse in that regard. I can see why they'd write it in this fashion tho, media literacy is basically dead these days LOL
I still find the 3D cutscene for the awakening to be really lame and janky in reload. It's like the animator ran out of time to make it really good. I was really excited to see a stylized 3d version of that shot of thanatos swiping his sword with a red background behind him before it cuts to a shot where the magician arcana shadow's mask is cleaved in half sigh... Aside from some of the cutscenes overall the remake is alright
I don't fully agree with the criticisms or the conclusion (I am someone who sees P3R as the best version of P3), but this is the fairest I've seen any critic of this game be to P3R with mostly pretty good criticisms that are well-substantiated. Take that thumbs-up fam and keep up the good work.
i agree with most your criticisms (although, keep in mind, before reload, i had only played p3fes for about 20 hours, so idk if my opinion holds any weight) i still do think p3 reload is amazing and deserves the praise its gotten. banger video regardless though
@@ShadowOfMassDestruction I get what you mean, I just enjoy nuanced discussions about games I enjoy. Whether I did or didn’t agree the opinions are welcome nonetheless imo.
@@Tasty_Tango45 I'm sorry but Snickety's take on the remake was borderline childish. I love some of his content and know he can do so much better. But he chose to do a lazy rage bait video, with inaccurate information just because he hates remakes. I agree that it's important to have different perspectives and I think this video did a great job for the most part explaining some of its criticisms
Very good video. Though I personally enjoy Reload more than the original, I'm happy that you actually gave a good explanation as to why you view things differently instead of just "New thing bad; old thing good".
@@bubbletea_ No problem. I just really dislike it, when people talk about bad things in modern games and it boils down to "It was different in the original", without ever explaining WHY the change was bad. Especially, since most of the time, it's people complaining about things being "easier" nowadays. And then the "easier" part, is stuff like you can now select skills when fusing Personas, instead of clicking back and fourth for half an hour until you get what you want. The older version is not "harder", this doesn't take any skill, it's just a good QoL-change that makes you waste less time. Stuff like that, is what I'm fed up with and I'm glad you managed to avoid falling into that pitfall.
This comment doesn’t really have anything to do with personal 3 reload or anything IN the video, so ignore this if you want. That’s a lot of dislikes… it’s funny how people complain about “nostalgists” when a game gets remastered/remade but then immediately turn around when someone makes a review and criticizes the “new” thing and get mad at them for not 100% liking it. These people who always complain about people not liking something new are just as annoying as the people they complain about
I think what the dev team said applies on the Reload development a lot. They wanted to bring the game back remade, but they also wanted to soon focus on the new persona title. So this game was developed to meet the wishes the players had but wasn't as fully realized as P3FES due to resources and they had to cut some content out. I'm personally fine with this and in the end this gives the player another new experience when going back to the original games.
Anyone else feel like there is simply not enough space to explore in the areas outside of the dungeon? I understand that this isn't an open world but places like Paulownia Mall still had a fixed camera and very little real estate, felt very claustrophobic.
Honestly, this was a really nice video. As someone who loves and cherishes every incarnation of Persona 3 I was initially worried by the title that it was going to be an hour long fest picking apart Reload regardless of it's merit but I can genuinely see the amount of heart and thought that's gone into it and for the most part I do feel the same way. I think Reload is a fantastic version of Persona 3 and easily the most accessible but it's within the small details FES still holds the highest regard for me. What I am most looking forward to though is the Answer because if there's any part of FES could use the benefits of the kind of additions Reload has bought to the table it's Episode Aegis. If they can further flesh out and establish the emotions of the cast and the conflict at the heart of the story I think it could really shine in a way it's never had the chance to.
I like your point with the dialogue of each social link. It's great to see each person seem more human, and even though I don't have to read the dialogue for them, I still like to follow along with what they're saying
I think my biggest disappointment with Reload is that it has a lack of attention to detail a lot of the time. An early game example is the Priestess bossfight, in all the original versions of the game her tendrils are attached to the monorail, because like, she's controlling it. Meanwhile in Reload she's just floating in the middle of the room which is so bizarre to me. And another example at the end of the game was particularly aggravating to me. In every other version of the story when Makoto goes up to seal Nyx, he leaves his evoker behind. Which I always understood as a symbolic gesture of him fully accepting death and no longer needing to prove his resolve. But in Reload he carries it up with him, which is a pretty big thematic blunder, but it gets worse because a flashback with Aigis in the ending has her clutching his evoker on top of Tartarus, which never happened so this omission creates a continuity error as well. I also think the game's difficulty got a hard nerf which I found kinda unfortunate. The Tartarus guardians are Already nerfed compared to their original counterparts, but then you have so many more options to play with that make it a joke. I Breezed through the game on Merciless but the original games are still a bit of a struggle on normal, so I think the difficulty was a bit overcorrected. The original bosses were sorta like a puzzle that you needed the right team load out to effectively combat, but as you touch on the solution to most guardians now is just. Theurgy. Like take the last guardian the Jotun of Grief who was immune to all elements except Pierce damage, and loved to use rage on your party. So you could approach this fight in 3 ways, use almighty, use [element] break skills, or bring your entire pierce damage crew and Let it rage you. In Reload I couldn't even tell you what it's equivalent even Did because it was over before the concept of the fight got off the ground. But I did notice it had much less resistances. The story bosses as well as Elizabeth are all improvements though and I just wish Theurgies didn't also broke most of those in half too.
I'd have to agree with your points about the scene direction, for me at least it is the biggest issue I have with the remake. After multiple instances of noticing the remake choosing to show less and tell more, only to culminate into arguably the most beautiful and emotional scene in the game (34:58) getting gutted for exposition mush, it certainly soured my opinion for a good while after I played it despite what I loved about the remake
I finally truly got into the series last year and played portable and its one of if not my favorite games, and this game i think is something i love equally, with each having things i like and dislike, but i think its still has the roots of what made the original so great to me
Im gonna be real, persona 5 is my favorite in the series, with 3 being second. I love fes, beat it twice, and you'd think I'd love p3r, but I dunno, I feel completely unmotivated to keep going.
even though ı completely dıslıke persona 5 ı agree wıth what you saıd though ı know why ı feel that persona 3 reload ıs easıer and lackıng fes content and ımprovements so ın a way ınferıor
33:01 Where'd you get that from? You know it's not a real gun because you played the original. I've been watching a few other people's channeks who haven't and they all assumed it was real. Every single last one of them. This section just sounds very nitpicky.
she did not sound like someone about to shoot an actual gun to her head. she sounded like she was only going experience something temporarily painful, but still hard to do/something someone would not normally do. like touch a hot stove or something. the direction of the original scene was more tense and actually made you think she was gonna do it. here she drops the gun after just a few seconds. if other people were still convinced it was a real gun... good i guess? but i doubt it convinced many people she was actually going to pull the trigger for real. agree to disagree.
I hard agree with the cutscene direction critique. They are dramatically worse than the original and are way less artistically interesting. I hope there is or will be a mod that replaces the scenes with the originals even though they may be less “modern”
The talk about shinji was on point, i've never had to stop playing a game because of how emotional i got until the end of his linked episode. Literally saved the game and stopped playing for the day. Phenominal writing.
hey bubbletea, does the sword and wand statue in the school, the mural in reload say the same thing as in the OG and FES? "Two in harmoney beats one in perfection" That quote has always stayed with me ever since 2008 playing the OG.
I believe it does. There’s also a Tarturus dialogue for Mitsuru late in the game where she reflects on the phrase and how she finds it to be accurate in practice
I don't think so, it's one of the first things I examined and instead of having the quote, it just said something about a couple of statues being there.
Thank you for touching on the lack of "edge" in P3R! This is something that seriously bothered me when discussing with friends during the hype of P3R. Rather than in game though, I'm talking about music. P3R has this whole "chill lofi playlist" vibe to it's songs, which is not bad on a separate standard. But P3's OG music is SO EDGY. It has a funk and spark that P3R just does not match up on.
I'll leave some of my own opinions not really mentioned in the video down here in the replies. It's inevitable for a game built ground up. But holy shit the dorm lighting. Home base, new features, rewards for spending time there, and good GOD it just was not done justice. It seems like a lack of time or an incredible oversight last second.
P5 faceless characters. I love that more space is taken up in P3R. It gives the story more volume and really makes every area feel a little more personal to the player. But a lot of cutscenes with randoms being so lesser in detail makes it hard to take it serious. I don't want completely personable characters, but at least given a similar amount of even facial details as the main characters. I like the emphasis on how much they don't matter, but I wish they were even slightly given the amount of hair/face details as the main characters. I only ever really felt like there was space taken up at the last month of the game. The cult posters and increase in apathy syndrome only then started to really shift the environment for me. In the rest of the game they just didn't really make a difference.
I've spent 100 hours playing reload and I don't think i've had that much fun with the gameplay when i played FES. However i completly agree that the cutescenes direction (mainly the anime ones) was not on par with the older ones and the game's vibe was not that eerie anymore, i felt this the most during the whole Nyx fight and it's a shame the climax wasn't done justice. Still, i'm glad reload exists and i love the game.. plus the game's last scene was beautiful
You were definitely more tame than I thought you'd be. I agree with a majority of what you said. The new "Slice of Life" mechanics that were added are the best parts about Reload, imo. I like the voice acting, I like all the new gimmicks, and I LOVE the new interactions with the SEES members (especiallt the boys). I still prefer the SEES team dynamic to P4 and P5's cast. The new SoL content does a fine job at showing their development as a team, going from a polite distance to a real JRPG party. It just feels more natural compared to P4/P5. I'm not done with Reload yet (I've just played P3 multiple times). So far I'm still a mixed bag on it. I like a lot of things about it (and I'll always welcome more Shinji content) but it doesn't feel...Fulfilling? I don't know how to describe it. I've replayed P3 so many times and every time, going through Tartarus and the Moon Shadows felt like victory after victory. I don't have that feeling in Reload, and I dont know why.
@PhantomAkira5 it is balanced, same with therugys being added, its that its still more balanced towards being easier for newcomers since p5 was easy as well and most people just want to see the "amazing story" that their friends tell them about, but dont want to be stuck grinding or dying to a boss over and over, granted I know thers multiple difficulties to choose from to avoid this but idk thats just the direction they took
@@PhantomAkira5fes versıon of the game only showed dıffıculty because of bullshıt resıstences ı never had ıssues wıth uncontrollable party members and answer had better desıgned bosses than end game maın game whıch was utter bullshıt
Wow you summarised everything exactly how I thought, honestly you are my favourite persona creator and it genuinely makes me happy that I can find videos that are so grounded and agreeable
as a og persona 3 player, my favorite edition has to be reload! i do agree though that the cutscenes were the biggest downfall and i missed the melancholy feeling of the Orginal. the og cutscenes brought so much more emotion out of me and i think reload cutscenes are way too bright, instead of making the cutscenes greener they should’ve made them darker. i loved all the little details in reload which made me more emotional though, reload also made me appreciate certain characters more such as junpei and ryoji, i never liked ryoji in the orginal but after seeing all the new cutscenes and little details, he easily became my favorite persona character of all time. to me reload is absolutely fantastic however some of the vibes from the orginal doesn’t hit for me. the lighting in reload is too bright sometimes and it definitely needed to be toned down. i also feel like akihiko is a bit different (not voice wise but in general his writing) i also wish yukari was meaner, she was so blunt in the orginal and she doesn’t feel the same to me 🙁 i wish she was more blunt and i feel like mitsuru was a bit meaner to akihiko in reload
i also wish some of the movie content was included in reload. i wouldve loves to see that one scene with yukari and her persona going berserk to really say how the arrival of nyx truly affected everyone involved. i wouldve also loves to see some of the movie ryoji scenes as well
great video as always, i always appreciated how you'd talk about some of fes's nicher/less talked about gameplay stuff like the bonus effects from store bought equipment, and how tartarus's structure works within the game's loop, hearing you call tartarus a 'playground' was so cathartic!!
Something that's definitely a lot more subjective but still bothered me was the music Tracks like Mass Destruction, Unavoidable Battle, and even the FINAL BOSS THEME for one reason or another are just super limp in Reload compared to the original Once again, a totally subjective observation on my part, but its just still there regardless.
The DLC for Answer just released and holy shit $35 dollars for what was considered the most mid Expansion story in all the persona games. Atlus really gouging peoples wallets.
In a culture where we have trigger warnings on every stupid thing, and you sounding like you're one of the guys in favor of it, kind of ridiculous to complain that they downplay the whole pointing guns at your head thing that ... Honestly shocked they didn't change it completely
Aside some from comments being dogshit (as expected from seeing how bad it was on other sites), I’m glad at how respectful people are. It’s possible for guys to prefer the original game over the remake, folks! It’s called subjectivity ;) Anyway, I’m in the game section of this video and I’ve been agreeing with a lot he’s saying so far, despite feeling that p3r is something I’d play over fes. I might not see some of the stuff as major as he does lol but I can get it a lot.
I think your opinion's pretty grounded, and I understand where you're coming from, but I just can't rightly put P3FES in front of P3R with how much smoother playing Reload was compared to FES, personally. This game was a joy to play throughout. It lacked all of the frustrating elements that FES had, and added characterization and bonding that was sorely needed for Shinji, Strega, and the male party members. To me, this is the definitive way to play Persona 3.
i changed the title and thumbnail. i genuinely didn't think "missed the mark" would be taken as hostile. the aim was to come off critical, but not spiteful. that message didn't come across very well so i tried to go for something more accurate while still conveying that i'm going to be critical. i like to think my criticisms here were pretty tame here, and i hope i made it obvious that i do like this game. it just won't replace the original for me. (original p3 video: th-cam.com/video/J0wniLnpzmw/w-d-xo.html , patreon: www.patreon.com/bubbletea_)
I pretty much agree with everything in this video ngl, I really like Reload and find it interchangable with FES however the finer details of FES and it's old school experimental charm still hold it in place as my favorite.
@@ShadowOfMassDestructionfacts
I agree with almost everything you said here. There's a bunch of other stuff you could've rly dug in at
For some reason people can't seem to understand the idea of critiquing something you love
In original getting to level 99 add our hp and pc to 999😂😂😂 not in reload 😢😢😢.
Ya got me for the cutscene, it is true that they lacked of impact but my guess it that they did changed the scene to be more accomodated to a new public in a world full of technology and social net work. In 2008, there is less of that, and p3 was their Last change to KEEP on doing it. So they put everything they got. However it is true that i prefer ancient cutscene rather than the news one....
I kinda see reload how I see the resident evil remakes where you can make the argument that the remakes are better games but the original still has its own identity and provides a different experience while still being the same game at its core
Definitely not the same level of quality as the Resident Evil remakes though
@@athoremI’ve been loving it more turn the original
This is the best take I’ve seen so far. Reload is its own experience just as much as it is a remake of the original in my eyes
But RE1 remake is better than the OG tho. Like it is what P3 Reload should have been
I those are the games that make the concept of remakes feel odd to me
Those games make the original not obsolete from from a user experience perspective they're better in universally better ways like less jank and more responsiveness, if p3r was just party control and better graphics everything else about to could stay the same and it would be better than p3
As a fan of fes and portable, I say this with the upmost sincerity… reload is the amazing persona 3 story, but the game is actually fun to play 🤯
Way more fun then I had playing fes that’s for sure
the only issue i had is i felt we should of included more simbolism of suicide to get the message of how finite life is and why should value it.
@@SergioBocanegra Chidori
I agree which makes it more accessible but the game being less fun makes for a more compelling metaphor for depression. I don’t think games should have to be fun in a traditional sense if it’s in service of the themes of the story
@@SergioBocanegrathe games themes are about as subtle as a brick to the face
One thing i really miss from the original is the small special animations from character models during some story events, like akihiko pulling out his evoker when explaining why the mc is the leader, or jumpei sitting at the stairs and drinking juice while waiting for the first full moon operation, or the mc holding aigis hand after the ryoji reveal
I'm glad someone else noticed too! Even in P4 the characters didn't have that many animations but you get to og P3 and you have Yukari over here with like a billion little subtle animations like her doing the little lean in teasing motion to the protag before she runs off to get her wallet.
what's bizzare is a lot of those animations are left in the files but unused in reload
@@Bidderuni it is weird, makes me think some parts of development were probably rushed
Makoto not grabbing Aigis' hand in reload is still bothering me
Can someone tell me when the aigis hand hold was in the original? I cannot remember for the life of me
A few years later:
How Persona 4 Rewind Failed to BROADCAST the Magic of The Original
Persona 4 rewind is such a hard name
@@AWOCENWhat about Persona 4 ReRun?
@@AWOCENMakes it sound like a trashy late night MTV show fueled by celeb rumors, which is very much on theme with the Midnight Channel
@@ShadowOfMassDestruction Not a competition here. They both slap.
i feel like it's gonna be really hard for them to fuck up P4, mostly since it's a lot harder to cut out as much content, and brighter more modern graphics will fit the game's aesthetic more
Originally I didn't really care about the voiced social links, because usually I can read the dialogue faster than they can speak it. But I found that it actually made me slow down and appreciate the scenes a lot more.
My most favorite part of the voiced stuff when near the last months where everyone was going thru there own things. It was like they wanted to convey to us that eventhough they are in the same room or same residents...they started to get there distance from eachother.
especially the sun social link
From what I've heard, the reason for a lot of the extra dialogue is because Reload is based on the Portable script, which has characters say more to compensate for the visual novel format. I haven't played it myself though, so your examples might not have been in P3P. I agree that some fluff from the script could've been cut though.
Yeah in p3p the characters have to explain what’s happening since all the animated cutscene are missing
that and bloating the game to incentivize its over price of $70 + dlc
thats the real reason
Yukari's lines from the opening scene are 100% lifted from Portable. And I believe the lines after Tartarus disappears are also from Portable
There's also the exchange after the "Don't look up" line during the monorail full moon, which IIRC were recorded for the original, cut, then added back into Reload
I always got a bit emotional over Shinji in the original game but holy shit man his death scene went so fucking hard in Reload and it actually made me cry. Getting his final liked episode a bit later just adds salt to injury, knowing he had a promise to graduate with Akihiko and Mitsuru and he wanted to go back to school to keep the promise but died before he could do it made me so fucking sad.
Spoiler much?
I needed time to process when I didn't finish this one Monad dungeon. Apparently, they give one costume for Shinji. The way the game tells me thay Shinji is gone and I got the costume too late, it hits hard.
@@hazelbagels024why are you watching this video in the first place? Getting spoiled is on YOU.
@@mikyeediaz120 same thing happened to me, the only monad dungoen i forgot to do before the next full moon aswell. i just slumped into my chair lmao
@@mikyeediaz120 this happened to me too! i had to put down the controller and walk away a bit. Even knowing the story, the improvements they made to Shinji's story made the loss even harder
I shudder to think of a Persona 4 remake solely because of the reactions of Persona 4 fans
The rage will clog up reddit for years
I don't think reddit will survive that long lol.
I think a P4 remake would actually work better then this P3R. P4 and P5 are more alike then then P3 is.
if they make the game actually good (they change it)
the persona 4 fans go beserks
if they change nothing
the persona 4 fans go beserk
If the Golden content is not included in the Persona 4 remake, then yeah ATLUS is doing the atlus. I don't want to hear people saying they removed the Golden content because it is accurate to the original because it sounds stupid.
@@fluke7506 I want the persona 4 remake to actually just be a graphical/battle remake off of Golden. Yes Yosuke being homophobic is annoying as a homo, but Sasuke voicing someone who has the persona Jiraiya is ICONIC
15:05 I disagree with this, with the baton pass in P5 I felt like it made the game way too easy with its stat increases, I’d rather just have the baton pass be a way of making extra turns
Honestly P5 was easy and P5R even easier, been the trend since P3
@@KonEl17 P3R felt like a better difficulty, with showtimes in P5R they happened automatically and more so when you were LOSING, essentially baby mode
P3R has alot of stuff like strong ass spells that are broken but Theurgy’s being charged is so much better than Showtimes happening automatically, and all the confidant abilities also made the game baby mode, and Futaba protecting you from death was baby mode, previously stated baton pass stat increases were baby mode
I played P3R on hard mode first run and man I loved the difficulty it was perfect
@@logogogo4872
Then Okumura happens, and MERCILESS becomes the easiest difficulty.
@@catalyst539 exactly
when your game becomes easy even on the hardest difficulty thats the biggest sign theres a problem 😭
@@logogogo4872There's no way you think P5 is easier than P3R. Theurgy attacks ruin the game. It's essentially P5S showtimes but in a turn-based setting, which makes the game a joke. Also, how could Futaba's RNG be more OP than spamming Slphid Aura before every fight, lol.
There are romance flags that trigger the platonic or love routes so there is actually a third route were Mitsuru for example doesn’t have a confession
do you have any video of it? cant find anything
Someone didn't get the joke. The joke is that nobody would ever want platonic mitsuru
@@reksraven yeah I did not 😭😭
@@reksravenI'm the John Cena here to ask you *Are You Sure About That?*
@@reksraven I do. I love the 3 routes
I only played P3P once so I felt I really missed out on a lot of emotional segments like Shinjiro's death not being that impactful. However, they fixed that in P3 Reload immensely. There was this bit involving the frozen takoyaki in the fridge. I think if you waited more than a few days, an ally would take the frozen takoyaki and leave a note saying that they ate it and leave another item that resonated with their character, like Akihiko leaving a protein shake.
However, I got distracted with Shinjiro's death and decided to check the fridge a few days after I stored some frozen takoyaki. And what I found was a very casual note from Shinjiro apologizing that he took the frozen takoyaki for some cooking ingredients and that he made up for it with some leftovers. That hit me WAY HARDER than it ever needed to that Shinjiro was gone for good after all those times cooking together like damn😭
That was me back when I first played FES when I didn't see the recording of Shinjiro watching TV with Koromaru then pretending to be asleep when the girls walked in until after he died.
Ikutsuki took mine. He left a Precious Egg, but... of all the people.
Giving Shinji auto heatriser and debilitate in his move set is nasty work. Also the controller vibrates as he takes his final breath. That was neat. My play through of P3RE got hampered due to being lvl 99 but worth it since I saw Shinji at his best.
There are things from the original that I wish P3RE kept, but I appreciate it for what it is. Even now, I still can’t believe I get to play this game.
I think a lot of people who grew up with/played P3 upwards of several years ago struggle to feel, through no fault of their own, just how utterly slow P3/P3F can feel to someone who was introduced to MegaTen as a whole through P4G or P5R. About 3 years ago I played both P4G and P5R and absolutely adored them and became obsessed with Persona, so I quickly became fascinated by P3 as it was lauded as the one with the best story. I tried and tried to play P3F but I just couldn't get it to grasp my attention and I just couldn't enjoy Tartarus, whether I wasn't playing it right or conditioned to expect Persona games to play differently following several P5R playthroughs. I've found several of my friends to be in the same boat, so we yearned for a P3 remake that would bring that story to the gameplay that made us fall in love with the franchise. After beating Reload, we've all come to find it to be our favorite game in the franchise, by far. While I 100% respect and acknowledge that there's a certain vibe attatched to the original (mostly through it's anime cutscenes) that wasn't, and never will be, truly replicated, I think seasoned reviewers of the series neglect just how different the idea of a Persona game is in the mind of modern fans, not to the crazy extent that causes disputes like "there needs to be a cast in college" or "remove social links," or other radical ideas, but the idea relating to the gameplay attached with our initial impressions that fascinated us and hooked us deeper into the franchise at large.
Frankly, FES is borderline unplayable for huge swathes of people who aren't diehard JRPG fans that grew up with it at this point. So many clunky design choices (which makes sense, first game in this style... but still) which can add to the atmosphere but frankly make it atrocious gameplay wise trying to go back to it.
I agree with the stuff about the cutscene direction though, that was straight up superior in FES.
as someone who's played fes and portable not to completion but halfway through each, reload is superior in nearly every way except the cut scene direction. its bat shit insane to think that fes didn't have direct commands. idgaf if you could "learn" how to play with that, it was miserable. portable mended this and I'm glad it was brought into reload as well. I am never going to use party commands in a game ever again
It's like quick sprints in P4 vs. Long marathon runs to prep for in Tartarus. A full moon to prep for.
I started with P4 as my first MegaTen, then played P3 and really loved it, then I played P5, then P1, then P2, and I found that overall I enjoyed the older ones a lot better (2EP is now my favorite) and I had a blast playing through the original two Megami Tensei games on Famicom after I had finished my journey with Persona.
I don't think its a matter of where you started with the series that will affect how you feel about them, its a matter of what you value in games.
The message I got from this was: "play both, you get the best of the old vibes and the new expansions"
So thanks, now I have to 80 hour games on my backlog!
This is what I recommend to all new games that are getting amazing remakes, the remake is great and the og game is still great, one isn't necessarily there to replace the other, just play both and enjoy both, maybe you'll like a few things more in the new one or the old one, or swap between which is your favorite, I dont get why people fight and get so mad over remakes when most times they just improve on outdated things and are just as good as the original
I think I’ll do this. Loving the shit out of P3R (my first Psa game) and I’m willing to check out the og (I played it for like 5 hours then stopped, months before the remake announcement)
@@kuroganeyukia579I feel this about RE4R. Some remakes earn their place
@Dimebag-wx2rs It's funny cause RE4 remake is the reason I started telling people this cause I saw so many people fight about it, when is actually really good but I can still go back and enjoy og RE4, but also loved the remake as it was just as fun and improved on certain characters
not really
classic could be pirated for free and modded where new is egregious $70 + dlc for a weaker experience with prettier visuals but overall casualized making it worse
I feel like persona 3 reload being so incredibly faithful is a great thing.
but on the other hand there were big missed opportunites.
for example why couldnt the whole shinji ark from the movies happen in the game (showing up a month early and being a big brother figure for ken)
As well as that the new link episodes are great but they Eat through so many time slots.
and missing a link episode not letting you complete the rest of it is a HUGE L (did they seriously not learn from the FES ELLE-P dates?, and yes im aware you get multiple chances before theyre cut off)
Even if it doesnt feel as faithful in some regards (cut features etc)
i think its a good game but just short of great.
Yeah seriously, I skipped over this because I already played P3. Why should I pay $70 + tip to play it again?
@@SwizzleMix i played it on gamepass.
it was 100% worth the replay.
I enjoyed it alot.
Its a fantastic game but i feel like so much more couldve been better
@@SwizzleMixthis is more like hey new people play and old people new paint.
Atlus from the beginning said it was going to be faithful. And at least it was more faithful than crap like Pokemon bdsp. Where people went "But where's platinum!" Where the "Faithful remake" wasn't even close to faithful. And actually could have gotten away with more.
For the link dates they kind of did the same thing for the twins and persona 5 Royal. Remember when you used to take them on field trips and if you missed one of them you could not finish them.
A few things about the cutscenes lacking subtlety. It’s not so much that reload decided to add new lines cause they didn’t think players would get it. It’s actually portable that added a lot of those things and reload takes from portables script more.
Which I’m pretty sure was done because visual novel not as much on screen to show and not “tell” but yeah.
For instance that scene where Makoto comes back after the battle with nyx and everyone gathering around saying how happy they are is taken straight from portable.
And then there were other cutscenes where they just decided to do it like how the movies did it.
I wish one of those scenes from the movie was how they introduced aigis because in the original and reload its so lackluster. She shows up and then BAM. part of the party now. Barely any explanation on what she can do or her weapon capabilities. You see her shooting water out of her hand guns before you see bullets being fired.
With regards to the social links voice acting, I agree that making them all voiced goes a long way to make them better overall, in particular the Moon Social Link, somehow the eay he speaks about himself is very self deprecating and its conveyed much better that his eating habits is a way for him to escape his problems rather than true enjoyment
A review that actually gives valid criticism on the game instead of blatantly hating on it, what a rare sight especially in the persona community
I think one of the reason multiple weapon types was removed and keep in mind this was removed in P3P was that there was such a huge gap between the MC and party members that legit it was better a lot of the time to ditch your party and solo everything. This was especially true as you unlocked stronger fusion spells. So in P3P the MC was heavily nerfed by being locked to only swords and fusion also became super lame because they were single use items. Reload rolled this back a bit by tying fusion spells to theurgy and allowing you to use any Persona in your compendium which I think is a better choice. With the addition of theurgy and personalities, they definitely want you to feel like your party members are contributing instead of being a burden which is how FES felt.
Even in original FES i eventually abandoned every party member besides 3 that I'd keep trained up for the final boss. Of which I basically solo'd anyways.
I genuinely don't see this perspective at all, the party isn't some burden 🤨
Even in FES functioning entirely on Ai they carry plenty of the weight in battle and can be great assists and DPS and you get way more opportunities to take action and buff with them around as well.
Like obviously, the MC is strong as hell as they are in literally every persona game when you break the fusion system and make cracked personas, but taking away your party is not only going to slow your battles to a crawl but also give you less opportunity to do good buff rotations efficiently without letting the enemies do it themselves.
The reason they took away the multiple weapon system for P3P was time and resources. If they wanted to add it they would have to animate and model every single weapon type for the FEMC model, and that is pretty time consuming for a basic port.
Unfortunately this isn’t the actual reason why they didn’t add the other types it’s mainly because they didn’t/couldn’t model them for Femc
hmm i think they should keep it but making it unlockable in the tartarus or night activites. would be pretty neat. we have mc training other weapon while conversing with other party member why they are specialized in that weapon
One of my nitpick with the Nyx Avatar final battle was the environment. Like with everything in Reload during the Dark Hour, everything is so green. In the original, the top of Tartarus was very grey, dull, and lifeless. It really added to the atmosphere that this is the end. Life is ending. But they made the top of Tartarus like everywhere else. Just green and vibrant.
I’d argue it’s less vibrant and more just bright. Kinda like how the rainbow block was painful to look at. It’s mean to contrast with Nyx’s red and black look. Kind of like a black hole in there middle of an overly bright place. I can see what they were going for.
because of 10/4 i like the ability to change weapons instead of certain weapons becoming pointless
Wow looks like the P3R fanbase is full of the same 'fans' whose first game was P5. I'm sorry there's so much toxicity from these clowns under here. Your review was definitely fair and I agree with you 100%
I have to agree with you on the cutscene direction. In general, I think the aesthetics were polished a bit too much and they lost the edge of the original. The og cutscenes kinda looking like serial experiments lain was something I really liked. Imo it felt like they were trying to make a game adaptation of the movies (aesthetic wise) rather than the ps2 game.
Besides that and gameplay being a bit too easy, I don't have any other major gripes and I think it was a pretty faithful adaptation of my favorite game. I didn't ask for it, but I'm glad it exists.
Such a nice way to express an valid opinion and sure reload could've been better but what we got is great and he definitely shows that from shinji to link episodes to the water design...etc
Thank you for the vid goat
One thing that really confuses me about new the additions to reload is the way they handled platonic relationships.
Not the ones you get if you reject them at the end of rank 9, those make perfect sense in the difference between romantic and platonic, but the ones you get for ignoring their feelings in rank 7 or 8
For those who don't know, this game has "romance flags" before the obvious one at rank 9, if you give some specific answers during those moments the game gives you an alternate rank 8 and 9 (and the same rank 10 platonic you get for reject them if you get the decision at rank 9) instead of the original from previous versions, and those new scenes were honestly pretty good (at least the ones i got, i don't know if some girls don't have them or if i just missed them).
Some of those scenes really helped raising my opinion on certain characters, especially Yuko. I used to call Yuko's SL "2 incomplete SLs" because of some writing decisions that i always found odd, and the new rank 8 completely changed that perspective, to the point i now really like her SL.
Which brings me to my problem. Why are these new scenes missable? and why do i have to choose that i don't like a girl, to get a scene that made me like the girl?
It's a little backward in my opinion, i don't get to know a character as much because i'm interested on that character? that logic really confuses me. I don't really care about the romance part of persona, and even so i was still confused why they choose to handle the new scenes that way.
My main theory is that they considered doing changes to the social links, but they were afraid of not being a "faithful remake" and they just hid these new scenes instead, and if that's the case, it's a little disappointing, as some of P3 Sls could use some changes.
Also as a separate thing to say, great video, it's really refreshing to see someone pointing at the negatives of a game in a way i can clearly see you care about the game, instead of just doing it for the sake of being negative.
Yeah I wish they fixed Nozomi’s SL. He’s ok until the cult becomes relevant. Little cringe but kinda fun.
But once the cult is introduced he goes from a person I wouldn’t mind hanging out with to being someone I refuse to spend time with. It sucks cus his issues with food and his trauma are good things that could’ve been handled way better.
Better than Odagiri at least, I stopped hanging with him rank 2
@@BelBelle468 I'm perfectly find with SLs being someone who i wouldn't hang out normally, as long as their story and/or writing is good enough to keep me invested on learning more about them. In fact, i find it more enjoyable that way, otherwise it would get kind of repetitive.
However, i do agree Nozomi's SL has some problem. First time i played i was really invested in his story, but once it gets to the cult part the SL becomes a mess of pacing + having to many plot points without giving enough attention to anything.
Odagiri's SL is pretty decent. My only real issue is that i feel like the ending relies a lot in the friendship between him and the MC, and that part is not exposed enough during the SL itself, other than that i like his story.
Personal gripes aside, I'm so glad that they cooked with how they tackled the ending of 3 in the remake. Having Aigis' monologue play over a fully rendered cutscene pushed the feels into overdrive. And thank god they nailed the Memories of You remix.
I feel like the clickbaity title doesn't do this video justice. People will assume you're a FES fanboy blindly hating on P3R for existing. Something to the tone of "the ups and downs of Persona 3 Reload" probably would've been better?
Agreed, the title definitely feels misleading when this video is mostly pretty grounded.
"Missed the mark... for me" would even be a tad better
@@MaxusFox23 Yeah , like did it really miss the point?
i didn’t watch it because i thought he was just hating to hate, i see a lot of videos like that. in this case, it actually does the opposite because wont want to sit thru a 50min video of someone rage baiting
@@WeWantBearsstill the same thing
So as I said repeatedly to my friend reload is simultaneously worse and better than p3
thank you P3R because now people recognise my chidori cosplay
I may enjoy reload more but honestly I think it's pretty fair to say that some of the originals personality was lost in translation, be it from the difficulty being toned down to the lack of more abstract and artistic imagery, as well as many other points you listed.
Those aspects were part of P3's identity, and that identity is what made it stand out from the crowd, it's even partially the reason why Persona even exists as a series today, so it's not a stretch to be disappointed some of that has been toned down or outright removed.
Great video homie, special thanks to you too for making such great content ❤
Just wondering: how does everyone feel about Yukari's new voice actor/portrayal? To me, it feels her like recasting was the most controversial with some people not liking how nice she is now and others saying it's an improvement and she's more likable now.
Personally, Reload was my first time experiencing this game so I didn't have any pre-conceived notion of her going in, but I ended up really liking her, if you couldn't tell. I know the reason most people don't like how nice she is in Reload is because her sass showed her grief but I think she's still a compelling character and her grief is still shown in her attitude.
It's clear that her cheery personality is just a facade she puts on to hide her inner turmoil. While she's popular at school and mentions her off screen friends, she doesn't really seem close with any of them. This is likely because she doesn't want to feel lonely but also can't connect with any of them or show them her true self, but she can with Makoto when she learns that his parents are also dead.
Something I didn't even catch on my first playthrough is that the hotel mission gives some insight into the issues she's bottling up at that point in the story. The hotel definitely reminds her of her mom which she mentions "throwing herself at men" to Mitsuru during the Kyoto trip. Yukari clearly values deep, sincere love a lot and that combined with her respect for her dad is what lead to her hatred for her mom. So when the Lovers tried to force her to sleep with Makoto, her feelings boiled over, causing her to blow up at the Lovers and her theurgy gauge to immediately fill up. Maybe I'm reading too deep into that scene but I thought it was a neat way to build character, as that mission also shows her stubbornness when it comes to Junpei's teasing.
I also think the reduction of her sass is over exaggerated just a bit. She's still pretty snappy with Junpei and is still really passive aggressive with Mitsuru for the first half of the game. Overall, I liked her in Reload and I think I liked her the same way she was intended to be liked in the original game.
This is all subjective of course but my issue with the personality changes in Reload is that it makes the group dynamic more bland and sterile. Yukari lost her semi savage mean girl energy in Reload. That energy created a very entertaining dynamic between her and junpei in FES. Their FES dynamic helped carry things while the plot took its very sweet time to take off. It's been so attenuated in Reload that when she does refer to Junpei as Stupei, it almost feels out of character.
Their general dislike toward one another in Reload feels unnecessary because there's no narrative purpose or weight behind it.
Junpei feels more like a musical theater kid in Reload. Gross. That used to be my favorite character in the series RIP.
Akihiko lost his 1 dimensional righteous stoicism to become more of a goofy boi like Junpei!
All ingredients designed to craft a story for the P5 16-25 year old mainstream audience.
with scenes that are basically the same with the new English voice actors, specifically yukari, just don’t hit the same. They make Yukari sound way too nicer making her lose her snarkiness. So whenever there is a scene of dialogue that’s kept from the older games they just sound out of place (for example the stupei line just sounds out of place/character for her with the new VA and the voice direction) especially with her interacting with other characters ESPECIALLY with junpei. Like the other reply said reload makes it where these conversations don’t have much weight to them with how they toned down characters (yukari) and even how they overtuned characters (junpei, like some scenes and dialogue just sound too happy? For example a hospital scene with chidori in the original junpei sounds more mellow when talking with her. In reload he sounds like how he would talk with the MC.)
I honestly think very little changed with Yukari. The main difference is the original’s voice direction with Michelle Ruff, she uses her voice to make Yukari sound very firm so she comes off sassier. Heather Gonzalez doesn’t read her lines with the same firmness so she reads a bit more “delicate”, and maybe that creates this idea of Yukari coming off “nicer” but the sassiness is still very much present in my eyes
I personally prefer the newer portrayal, since the original made her come off as your typical bitchy mean girl and her moments where she tries to be nicer are forced and half-assed in a misguided attempt to make her look good. In the original she felt like someone who'd hold a grudge against you over something insignificant. This one falls more in line with the original Japanese characterization, whereas the original missed the mark with wanting you to sympathize and connect with her, but failing miserably, because she can't be happy unless she puts someone else down.
Something about the cutscenes and the added talking I noticed (and the script in general) is that a lot of it is based on Portable (aka, the one that added dialogue to make up for a lack of cutscenes).
So they probably based Reload’s script off of Portable’s which is why the scenes are like that.
Not being able to choose clubs is my biggest gripe with the game.
Minato being in kendo makes so much more sense than being in track. Especially sense Atlus made his weapon a sword.
It also gives ample reason why he is one of the best in the club, given his nightly/multi-weekly/once-monthly excursions into tartarus, getting genuine experience and being so much better than everyone else who only knows what they were taught.
Although the star social link and being "rivals" in kendo never made sense to me, unless the guy was just walking around at night pucking fights with everyone using a bat like a sword.
And it makes more sense for him to be in a music club considering he never takes out his damn headphones unless the plot demands it, or hes directly talking to someone.
And i also like to think he has a genuine interest in music, so the music club is kind of an introduction to being a musician in a sense.
Taking away choice is a painful adjustment to make. I know people these days prefer the MCs to be more pre-defined characters, but it’s in the options where players like you and I can pick something different because it makes more sense to us as individual players. Homogenized content that was originally varied kinda blows
Minato who?
@@n0tf1sh40 Minato Arisato is the original name of Yuki Makoto in the persona 3 manga. Hardcore fans who read the manga call him minato.
Im so glad he discussed the direction of the cutscenes. In fairness all of them arnt bad per say but, the first cutscene is just embarrassing. For some reason they overact when yukari is like "just put it to my head... And pull the trigger...THERE IS NO WAY I CANT!" It just sounds like they were overdoing the bit for some reason. And the awakening scene is just bad. Not much redeeming there. Its just animated poorly since its WAY too smooth. And they removed all the flair with how scary Thanatos is. But its a fine game overall, but I just wish it could have been perfect.
Using p3p script as a base for reload backfired heavily on many scenes
@@losharikovedI don’t see how since I think they’re pretty good.
Imagine thinking that the awakening scene is bad because it’s too smooth. You have nostalgia goggles on.
@@digimonlover1632 p3p broke "show not tell" rule a lot of times out of necessity, reload is breaking it just because p3p did
@@digimonlover1632 Overall tone of new awakening is more "look how cool and kind I am, I am so powerful that my physical body can't handle it" instead of "I think that this can help us survive, but I guess I kinda like that edgy shi- oh, something is *really really* wrong" that was before
31:44 God THANK YOU for putting into words what I struggle to. It's not like the scenes were completely wrong but they just lack the weight of the original
The irony is that the dated FES version with older tech was able to portray emotion artistically than the modern version of the game (Reload). Soooo grateful to see others picking up on this as well. Glad to see that people aren't NPCs or robots lol
The subtlety and pacing giving room for the scene to breath really helps bring out the full atmosphere and mood of the situations that the characters find themselves in. Kinda sad that most people won't see them unless they actively go back to look at them now.
@@kazuMT aint no way ur calling people npcs
What weight? You think bad animation has weight?
@@kazuMT You must be high because reload actually has facial expressions. While every fes cut scene has someone looking confused with their mouth open.
If there is one thing i hate about reload is that every single time you find a chest, the stairs, a teleporter, ANYTHING in tartarus. The Party will keep saying one of the five lines programmed in.
Every. Single. Time.
They will not shut up and apparently there is no option to lower the odds of these lines popping up.
Oh look, a treasure chest!
@@Noname72105 if it counts, I played quite a bit of Tarturus with just Makoto, Junpei and Yukari early on.
Those line will start to repeat when only having those two available with you the more you play.
totally agree on cutscenes
some of new were just goofy, like the one from roof (yukari was literally bitchslapped and yeeted across half the roof) you've shown or fuuka's awakening (don't remember specifics, but something made me laugh too hard)
Great video! As someone who came into the series with P5R and had learned at least the basic story of P3 from videos, I really have been looking forward to hearing refined takes on how this version changed things, for better and for worse. You absolutely provided that so thank you for helping me contextualize the wonderful time I had with Reload! All that said, even as someone who had never seen the original cutscenes before, the one feeling I couldn't shake while playing through the story parts of the game is that I might have been missing something; that maybe the feelings and emotional mood from the original weren't fully represented. Super glad you helped me resolve that notion via well developed critique!
Loved the video! Your videos are always so consistently high quality. I pretty much have the same opinions on Reload with it’s issues. The difficulty with the very recent games will always be a big issue for me sadly and due to p5 being so popular and easy I worry all future Atlus games will share the same fate. I loved the AI tactics in FES, my first Portable playthrough confused me a lot when I realised you could use direct commands. Reload is still a great game but I will always love FES more.
One thing that completely ruined the games difficulty for me in my reload challenge run was realising how many bosses are just scripted patterns, almost all of them even including Nyx are 100% pattern based and the same with the Fortune wheel, which spins 7 times each time being the same result in an order then it gives up and uses wind only. It honestly feels like Atlus are scared to make a hard game anymore.
I also noticed you used my footage which made me very happy. Might seem dumb but as someones content that I really enjoy even playing a small part towards it made my day seeing it. If you’re ever doing a video and need any other footage feel free to use any of it!
I personally don't mind reload being easier. Imo, it definitely had less frustrating gameplay aspects than FES, so I will probably never play that version. I much prefer portable and reload. However, I understand
Yeah, the voice acting really carried the SLs on their backs. The old couple were so wholesome and bruh IT MADE MY HEART BLEED FOR NOZOMI LIKE WTF (he may have a very warped vision of himself and people around him, partly thanks to cult brainwashing, but at least it didn't feel I was enabling him as much as Kenji or Kazushi).
And c'mon, what else could I say about Akinari that hasn't been said already? Special mention to his Japanese VA Hirofumi Nojima btw.
Same boat with you about Tanaka, it made me despise him. But hey, that means the VAs did their job, in spades.
The cutscenes direction was obviously not gonna be the same because, as you have said in your previous videos, Persona 3 is a reflection of early 2000s anime and that's not something we're gonna see replicated with today's animation. And they didn't exactly "dumb down the scenes", Reload uses P3P's script, which detracted from the more show-don't-tell scenes from P3/FES given P3P's VN presentation anyways.
With that said, I'm curious as to how they're gonna make Episode Aigis: The Answer's most famous bosses look (you know which 2 I'm talking about) since the anime cutscenes were done by Wit Studio, because let's just say a certain anime under Wit Studio's belt makes me think Atlus picked them especifically because of that anime.
What was it again? Uhm, something about... an "attack" and a... "titan"?
Another thing that was removed was how your teams would react when you changed their gear. Espeally with hi-cut armor. Like Yukari would get pissed if you have her that but it you were her boyfriend at that time she would be embarrassed but still do it for you. Kinda sucks that’s not in reload
This feature was partially cut in P5R as well :(
Lots of unused dialogue for costumes.
I just finished the game like an hour ago im still crying and the first thing recommended to me by youtube is how the game missed the mark lol
Lmao
I think Theurgy’s are a great mechanic and makes party members unique. However they are so busted and not balanced. I think the fact that all of them ignore enemy weaknesses puts too much into the player’s favor. Just the fact that you use the theurgy meter instead of using SP is already a good perk, ignoring weaknesses is just overkill. Yukari and Mitsuru by far have the best Theurgy’s besides Makoto since their conditions are ridiculously easy and trivializes the difficulty. I think if you had to consider an enemy’s weakness before using the theurgy, it would’ve been a much better system, considering in the later game, most characters have almighty damage theurgy’s so it would’ve been an excellent reward for going out of your way to rank up their dorm activities.
The only one with an Almighty Theurgy (other than MC) is Mitsuru. The rest get physical/elemental or support second Theurgies. Theurgies were conceived so your party members would always be able to contribute somehow in battle even if their normal kit was unfit for the current battle.
To be honest being able to ignore weakness is fine. They could've balanced them another way, such as nerfing their damage, not letting skills boost them, not letting a Theurgy be able to crit/inflict knockdown (unless specifically noted like Jack Brothers) or just making them something you have to actively improve over the game, such as through hanging out with them ala Confidant skills in P5 or something.
@@tsf9600 Thanks for the correction. You brought up some good points. I still stand on Theurgy’s should consider enemy weaknesses but I like your idea of nerfing the damage output a bit. That way, if you want boosted damage, you’ll have to buff and concentrate and use some SP to maximize its effectiveness. Considering by late game, SP management is not a problem.
The edge was great in og p3, it sugarcoats a lot of the scary spectacle had. And the lighting in Reload is also weird, very colorful, as in P5 colorful but that might be just me. Nostalgia can be one hell of a thing but these are the points I stand on.
Outside of that Reload is great imo
The only issue is the tone shift, it's a to bright when it should give a more dull or melancholy feel. And they made the game to easy those are pretty much the only issues, oh they should have added more things to do at night.
Edited. Why remove the choice of what school sport to play then remove Kendo but also take different weapons for the MC. Was it so difficult to say hey i use a sword in Tartarus maybe we shiuld keep the Kendo class a an option lol.
With social links being fully voiced now, they probably cut that choice down since they'd otherwise need to voice several not doubled but tripled up sets of dialog for two full and one partial link (it affects Hayase and Yuko as well)
It's the same with not usually offering the gender option - they don't put the effort into these things. They say they'd rather focus on polishing the content they *do* include.
We definitely needed more things at night. Imho the link episodes should've been night-exclusive (atleast mostly) since there's often just nothing to do at night.
Since 5 started the trend of the party getting "mission uniforms" for when they visit their respective alternate worlds, I can't help but wonder what they'll have the Investigation Team wear in the TV World, if they even give them uniforms in a hypothetical 4 remake.
Persona 5 had that whole symbolic comic book-esque costumes deal, & 3R has that secret agent aesthetic to it.
Maybe instead of the uniformity of the SEES fits, everyone will get more unique stuff. Like Chie could wear gi pants with her jacket, Yosuke could get a Naruto-ish fusion of shinobi gear & streetwear. It's cool to imagine.
So happy to see an entire section dedicated to the greatest sees member
As you mentioned, these critiques didn't really affect my enjoyment as a 'first time' persona 3 player, but it is really interesting to see what long time fans thought of this game. Personally loved it, but I totally get the issues everyone has with this game; it isn't perfect. I do plan on going back and playing portable and FES just because playing the games in reverse order sounds kinda fun, and I really just wanna play a 'hard' version of this game. Great video though
If only they moved some social links to the night time slot.
I think Moon could have been a night time social link with the strip open at night. They’d have to explain being away from his family but Star could have been a night social link too.
@@Asianwaste Also the old couple, maybe Maya but you'd lose out on there only being two Sunday SLs
The way I see it, I think it's cool there are now 3 amazing versions of P3, FES, Portable, and Reload and they all offer different but equally valid ways to experience the game and there's a reason to play all 3. Which I think is cooler than had Reload just invalidated the other two
I think you hit it pretty much on the mark. Many cutscenes while decent lacked the impact of their original counterparts, Theurgy's trivializing the late game, but a decent overall game with both points in favor and against. It almost felt like the developers themselves feel that the fan base for the modern Persona series would dislike too many elements of the original, so the forsook them in favor of mechanics from P5. I would never call it a bad game, it just doesn't hit the heights FES does.
Also I hope that future Persona games forsake party social links in favor of Link events, it gives the party reason to have development happen outside of social links which the games past P3 sorely lack.
50:18 the "vignette"? I think that's what that 'distortion' you were zooming in to highlight is.
0 views 0 comments, bro fell off
Maybe bc it was posted like 40 mins ago 💀
Damn in like 40 minutes
Commenting one min after the vid came out. Nasty work
Agreed. Bros career lasted about as long as Akihikos lil sis
Persona fanboys be like:
*a min video criticizes certain aspects of the game drops
"OmG yOU ARe SuCh A bAd COnTEnt CrEaTOr lOoK tHEre iS nO coMMEnts!!!1111"
I was very surprised by the way Junpei's "death" was handled. The way they present it to you is so good... I genuinely thought I did something wrong or skipped some important task before that day. I genuinely thought bro was dying xD
The Original was more Avant-garde in it's presentation they definitely made reload more skewed towards a general audience. Which does suck but I really do think reloads extra moments with the characters in the daily life segments really does make you feel like you've lived with these characters. Hoping P6 keeps up with that because I think it's the best thing about reload other than looking very pretty most of the time.
i feel the same way you do about the cutscenes, the abstract nature and the direction that trusts the audience is so lost in the remake - and im worried the answer is gonna be worse in that regard. I can see why they'd write it in this fashion tho, media literacy is basically dead these days LOL
Dude you are so based. You're always choosing to speak the language of facts when it comes to persona series even if it's just your opinion.
I still find the 3D cutscene for the awakening to be really lame and janky in reload. It's like the animator ran out of time to make it really good. I was really excited to see a stylized 3d version of that shot of thanatos swiping his sword with a red background behind him before it cuts to a shot where the magician arcana shadow's mask is cleaved in half sigh... Aside from some of the cutscenes overall the remake is alright
I don't fully agree with the criticisms or the conclusion (I am someone who sees P3R as the best version of P3), but this is the fairest I've seen any critic of this game be to P3R with mostly pretty good criticisms that are well-substantiated.
Take that thumbs-up fam and keep up the good work.
i agree with most your criticisms (although, keep in mind, before reload, i had only played p3fes for about 20 hours, so idk if my opinion holds any weight) i still do think p3 reload is amazing and deserves the praise its gotten. banger video regardless though
First Snickety Slice, now BubbleTea, it’s refreshing to see different opinions on something that is so continually praised over and over.
Snickety Slice was very hyperbolic though, BubbleTea was very fair and had very valid complaints that even I agree with.
@@ShadowOfMassDestruction
I get what you mean, I just enjoy nuanced discussions about games I enjoy. Whether I did or didn’t agree the opinions are welcome nonetheless imo.
@@Tasty_Tango45 I'm sorry but Snickety's take on the remake was borderline childish. I love some of his content and know he can do so much better. But he chose to do a lazy rage bait video, with inaccurate information just because he hates remakes. I agree that it's important to have different perspectives and I think this video did a great job for the most part explaining some of its criticisms
Very good video. Though I personally enjoy Reload more than the original, I'm happy that you actually gave a good explanation as to why you view things differently instead of just "New thing bad; old thing good".
thank you
@@bubbletea_ No problem. I just really dislike it, when people talk about bad things in modern games and it boils down to "It was different in the original", without ever explaining WHY the change was bad.
Especially, since most of the time, it's people complaining about things being "easier" nowadays. And then the "easier" part, is stuff like you can now select skills when fusing Personas, instead of clicking back and fourth for half an hour until you get what you want. The older version is not "harder", this doesn't take any skill, it's just a good QoL-change that makes you waste less time. Stuff like that, is what I'm fed up with and I'm glad you managed to avoid falling into that pitfall.
This comment doesn’t really have anything to do with personal 3 reload or anything IN the video, so ignore this if you want.
That’s a lot of dislikes… it’s funny how people complain about “nostalgists” when a game gets remastered/remade but then immediately turn around when someone makes a review and criticizes the “new” thing and get mad at them for not 100% liking it.
These people who always complain about people not liking something new are just as annoying as the people they complain about
I think what the dev team said applies on the Reload development a lot. They wanted to bring the game back remade, but they also wanted to soon focus on the new persona title. So this game was developed to meet the wishes the players had but wasn't as fully realized as P3FES due to resources and they had to cut some content out. I'm personally fine with this and in the end this gives the player another new experience when going back to the original games.
Memento mori folks. Live your life to the fullest, forget reading comments on social media and take this moment to engage with someone you care about.
My biggest complaint is that they removed the hug during Aigis rank 9 social link, despite being present in the game files. We've been robbed.
The voice lines added to that anime cutscenes come from p3p as it did not havr them and needed to add context for the replacement vn style scenes.
Anyone else feel like there is simply not enough space to explore in the areas outside of the dungeon? I understand that this isn't an open world but places like Paulownia Mall still had a fixed camera and very little real estate, felt very claustrophobic.
Oh I waited so much for this😻
// Damn I want an early SEES spin off wt Mitsuru, Aki and Shinji soooo much
Finally a proper and well written critique
Honestly, this was a really nice video. As someone who loves and cherishes every incarnation of Persona 3 I was initially worried by the title that it was going to be an hour long fest picking apart Reload regardless of it's merit but I can genuinely see the amount of heart and thought that's gone into it and for the most part I do feel the same way. I think Reload is a fantastic version of Persona 3 and easily the most accessible but it's within the small details FES still holds the highest regard for me.
What I am most looking forward to though is the Answer because if there's any part of FES could use the benefits of the kind of additions Reload has bought to the table it's Episode Aegis. If they can further flesh out and establish the emotions of the cast and the conflict at the heart of the story I think it could really shine in a way it's never had the chance to.
I´ve been waiting for this!
Can't wait for "Persona 3 Portable Reload" rumors to start popping up in the next few years. Great video bestie, keep up the great work!
I like your point with the dialogue of each social link. It's great to see each person seem more human, and even though I don't have to read the dialogue for them, I still like to follow along with what they're saying
I think my biggest disappointment with Reload is that it has a lack of attention to detail a lot of the time. An early game example is the Priestess bossfight, in all the original versions of the game her tendrils are attached to the monorail, because like, she's controlling it. Meanwhile in Reload she's just floating in the middle of the room which is so bizarre to me. And another example at the end of the game was particularly aggravating to me. In every other version of the story when Makoto goes up to seal Nyx, he leaves his evoker behind. Which I always understood as a symbolic gesture of him fully accepting death and no longer needing to prove his resolve. But in Reload he carries it up with him, which is a pretty big thematic blunder, but it gets worse because a flashback with Aigis in the ending has her clutching his evoker on top of Tartarus, which never happened so this omission creates a continuity error as well.
I also think the game's difficulty got a hard nerf which I found kinda unfortunate. The Tartarus guardians are Already nerfed compared to their original counterparts, but then you have so many more options to play with that make it a joke. I Breezed through the game on Merciless but the original games are still a bit of a struggle on normal, so I think the difficulty was a bit overcorrected. The original bosses were sorta like a puzzle that you needed the right team load out to effectively combat, but as you touch on the solution to most guardians now is just. Theurgy. Like take the last guardian the Jotun of Grief who was immune to all elements except Pierce damage, and loved to use rage on your party. So you could approach this fight in 3 ways, use almighty, use [element] break skills, or bring your entire pierce damage crew and Let it rage you. In Reload I couldn't even tell you what it's equivalent even Did because it was over before the concept of the fight got off the ground. But I did notice it had much less resistances.
The story bosses as well as Elizabeth are all improvements though and I just wish Theurgies didn't also broke most of those in half too.
I'd have to agree with your points about the scene direction, for me at least it is the biggest issue I have with the remake. After multiple instances of noticing the remake choosing to show less and tell more, only to culminate into arguably the most beautiful and emotional scene in the game (34:58) getting gutted for exposition mush, it certainly soured my opinion for a good while after I played it despite what I loved about the remake
I finally truly got into the series last year and played portable and its one of if not my favorite games, and this game i think is something i love equally, with each having things i like and dislike, but i think its still has the roots of what made the original so great to me
Im gonna be real, persona 5 is my favorite in the series, with 3 being second. I love fes, beat it twice, and you'd think I'd love p3r, but I dunno, I feel completely unmotivated to keep going.
even though ı completely dıslıke persona 5 ı agree wıth what you saıd though ı know why ı feel that persona 3 reload ıs easıer and lackıng fes content and ımprovements so ın a way ınferıor
33:01 Where'd you get that from? You know it's not a real gun because you played the original. I've been watching a few other people's channeks who haven't and they all assumed it was real. Every single last one of them. This section just sounds very nitpicky.
she did not sound like someone about to shoot an actual gun to her head. she sounded like she was only going experience something temporarily painful, but still hard to do/something someone would not normally do. like touch a hot stove or something. the direction of the original scene was more tense and actually made you think she was gonna do it. here she drops the gun after just a few seconds.
if other people were still convinced it was a real gun... good i guess? but i doubt it convinced many people she was actually going to pull the trigger for real. agree to disagree.
I hard agree with the cutscene direction critique. They are dramatically worse than the original and are way less artistically interesting. I hope there is or will be a mod that replaces the scenes with the originals even though they may be less “modern”
The atlus meat riders are all over the comment section, be careful
Lol
The talk about shinji was on point, i've never had to stop playing a game because of how emotional i got until the end of his linked episode. Literally saved the game and stopped playing for the day. Phenominal writing.
You were one of the reasons i gave p3fes ai tactics a chance
And i'm glad i did
Mitsuru never uses marin karin when i dont want her to
hey bubbletea, does the sword and wand statue in the school, the mural in reload say the same thing as in the OG and FES?
"Two in harmoney beats one in perfection"
That quote has always stayed with me ever since 2008 playing the OG.
I believe it does. There’s also a Tarturus dialogue for Mitsuru late in the game where she reflects on the phrase and how she finds it to be accurate in practice
I don't think so, it's one of the first things I examined and instead of having the quote, it just said something about a couple of statues being there.
Thank you for touching on the lack of "edge" in P3R! This is something that seriously bothered me when discussing with friends during the hype of P3R. Rather than in game though, I'm talking about music. P3R has this whole "chill lofi playlist" vibe to it's songs, which is not bad on a separate standard. But P3's OG music is SO EDGY. It has a funk and spark that P3R just does not match up on.
I'll leave some of my own opinions not really mentioned in the video down here in the replies. It's inevitable for a game built ground up. But holy shit the dorm lighting. Home base, new features, rewards for spending time there, and good GOD it just was not done justice. It seems like a lack of time or an incredible oversight last second.
P5 faceless characters. I love that more space is taken up in P3R. It gives the story more volume and really makes every area feel a little more personal to the player. But a lot of cutscenes with randoms being so lesser in detail makes it hard to take it serious. I don't want completely personable characters, but at least given a similar amount of even facial details as the main characters. I like the emphasis on how much they don't matter, but I wish they were even slightly given the amount of hair/face details as the main characters. I only ever really felt like there was space taken up at the last month of the game. The cult posters and increase in apathy syndrome only then started to really shift the environment for me. In the rest of the game they just didn't really make a difference.
I was watching one of your videos when I got the notification a new video came out
I've spent 100 hours playing reload and I don't think i've had that much fun with the gameplay when i played FES.
However i completly agree that the cutescenes direction (mainly the anime ones) was not on par with the older ones and the game's vibe was not that eerie anymore, i felt this the most during the whole Nyx fight and it's a shame the climax wasn't done justice. Still, i'm glad reload exists and i love the game.. plus the game's last scene was beautiful
You were definitely more tame than I thought you'd be. I agree with a majority of what you said.
The new "Slice of Life" mechanics that were added are the best parts about Reload, imo. I like the voice acting, I like all the new gimmicks, and I LOVE the new interactions with the SEES members (especiallt the boys).
I still prefer the SEES team dynamic to P4 and P5's cast. The new SoL content does a fine job at showing their development as a team, going from a polite distance to a real JRPG party. It just feels more natural compared to P4/P5.
I'm not done with Reload yet (I've just played P3 multiple times). So far I'm still a mixed bag on it. I like a lot of things about it (and I'll always welcome more Shinji content) but it doesn't feel...Fulfilling? I don't know how to describe it. I've replayed P3 so many times and every time, going through Tartarus and the Moon Shadows felt like victory after victory. I don't have that feeling in Reload, and I dont know why.
Prolly cause of the difference in difficulty. P3R allows you to control your party members, and the game was not balanced with that change in mind.
@PhantomAkira5 it is balanced, same with therugys being added, its that its still more balanced towards being easier for newcomers since p5 was easy as well and most people just want to see the "amazing story" that their friends tell them about, but dont want to be stuck grinding or dying to a boss over and over, granted I know thers multiple difficulties to choose from to avoid this but idk thats just the direction they took
@@kuroganeyukia579 Leaning towards easier gameplay is the opposite of balanced
@@PhantomAkira5fes versıon of the game only showed dıffıculty because of bullshıt resıstences ı never had ıssues wıth uncontrollable party members
and answer had better desıgned bosses than end game maın game whıch was utter bullshıt
@@LTDLetsPlays If you've never had issues with uncontrollable party members I should prolly steal a lottery ticket from you lmao
Wow you summarised everything exactly how I thought, honestly you are my favourite persona creator and it genuinely makes me happy that I can find videos that are so grounded and agreeable
Platonic ending for Mitsuru's Social Link doesn't exist? Good.
as a og persona 3 player, my favorite edition has to be reload! i do agree though that the cutscenes were the biggest downfall and i missed the melancholy feeling of the Orginal. the og cutscenes brought so much more emotion out of me and i think reload cutscenes are way too bright, instead of making the cutscenes greener they should’ve made them darker. i loved all the little details in reload which made me more emotional though, reload also made me appreciate certain characters more such as junpei and ryoji, i never liked ryoji in the orginal but after seeing all the new cutscenes and little details, he easily became my favorite persona character of all time. to me reload is absolutely fantastic however some of the vibes from the orginal doesn’t hit for me. the lighting in reload is too bright sometimes and it definitely needed to be toned down. i also feel like akihiko is a bit different (not voice wise but in general his writing) i also wish yukari was meaner, she was so blunt in the orginal and she doesn’t feel the same to me 🙁 i wish she was more blunt and i feel like mitsuru was a bit meaner to akihiko in reload
i also wish some of the movie content was included in reload. i wouldve loves to see that one scene with yukari and her persona going berserk to really say how the arrival of nyx truly affected everyone involved. i wouldve also loves to see some of the movie ryoji scenes as well
great video as always, i always appreciated how you'd talk about some of fes's nicher/less talked about gameplay stuff like the bonus effects from store bought equipment, and how tartarus's structure works within the game's loop, hearing you call tartarus a 'playground' was so cathartic!!
Next year: Why Persona 6 wasn't as good as Persona 5.
Fr
Fr, the fandom always shitting the new entry and loving it when the newest entry released!
Something that's definitely a lot more subjective but still bothered me was the music
Tracks like Mass Destruction, Unavoidable Battle, and even the FINAL BOSS THEME for one reason or another are just super limp in Reload compared to the original
Once again, a totally subjective observation on my part, but its just still there regardless.
The DLC for Answer just released and holy shit $35 dollars for what was considered the most mid Expansion story in all the persona games. Atlus really gouging peoples wallets.
In a culture where we have trigger warnings on every stupid thing, and you sounding like you're one of the guys in favor of it, kind of ridiculous to complain that they downplay the whole pointing guns at your head thing that ... Honestly shocked they didn't change it completely
Aside some from comments being dogshit (as expected from seeing how bad it was on other sites), I’m glad at how respectful people are. It’s possible for guys to prefer the original game over the remake, folks! It’s called subjectivity ;)
Anyway, I’m in the game section of this video and I’ve been agreeing with a lot he’s saying so far, despite feeling that p3r is something I’d play over fes. I might not see some of the stuff as major as he does lol but I can get it a lot.
I think your opinion's pretty grounded, and I understand where you're coming from, but I just can't rightly put P3FES in front of P3R with how much smoother playing Reload was compared to FES, personally. This game was a joy to play throughout. It lacked all of the frustrating elements that FES had, and added characterization and bonding that was sorely needed for Shinji, Strega, and the male party members. To me, this is the definitive way to play Persona 3.
this is a really great video, ive not finished reload but I've played fes like 6+ times. you're spitting.