Atlus is ready to release the complete remake of the third episode of the Persona series, defined by many as the best: we are talking about Persona 3. With Persona 3 Reload a pretty good restyling operation was carried out, to the point of dusting off a classic to make it known (also) to new generations of players.
Published for the first time eighteen years ago on PlayStation 2 (and then also returned to PSP), Atlus has now decided to modernize Persona 3 thanks to a net “boost” donated by Persona 5 but leaving characters, social and mechanical themes intact, going hand in hand with a technical sector it's a superfine combat system.
Welcome back to Gekkoukan High School
The story, basically, is the same as seen in the original game: we will take on the role of a first year student who has just transferred to Gekkoukan Highhigh school in the imaginary town of Tatsumi, a quiet Japanese province which however seems to hide shady secrets. The living beings of this “smiling” town are in fact transformed into coffins, and the Shadows they roam free in the Tartar, a tower dungeon that appears near the school. Persona 3 therefore puts us in the shoes of a high school student who will discover feelings such as love, friendship and a sense of responsibility.
The boy is soon attacked by the Shadowscreatures that move at night and feed on the minds of their victims, whose attack awakens in him the power of his Persona, Orpheus. But that's not all: others too his companions of school, including Mitsuru, Akihiko and Yukari, they share this power with himjoining the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (also known as SEES), a group that decides to wage a fight against the mysterious creatures that have invaded the city.
In addition to bringing back one of the best turn-based combat systems ever, the Atlus remake has revised and Fixed clashes of Persona 3 to make them even more exciting and fluidsjust like Persona 5. The duels in Tartarus are in fact quicker – including the challenges against the bosses – even if the difficulty was clearly retouched downward.
The possibility of controlling all the party members, unlike what happened in the original release and in Persona 3 FES, makes the game system always fresh and never boring, although the phases within Tartarus are perhaps those that suffer the most of the weight of the years, due to a certain underlying repetitiveness.
Also noteworthy Theurgya technique very similar to Limit Breaks Final Fantasy, thanks to which a bar loads differently depending on the character and is capable of releasing a substantial amount of damage and more. THE dialogues with the various NPCs are another key point of Persona 3 Reload, although giving the wrong answer will (almost) never ruin a relationship with a given character. The Cchat with the inhabitants of Tatsumi make it clear that they are participants in a world that has so much to say and to offer, so much so that the quantity of different characters and personalities that our protagonist will encounter during his adventure is surprising.
Technical sidethe remake of Persona 3 has been totally modernized, but without overwhelming the aesthetics original: blue is once again the predominant color (just as red is the predominant of the fifth), with Unreal Engine 4 which – although at times old – still manages to give its satisfaction, thanks also and above all to a over the top artistic direction. Characters and enemies have in fact been almost completely redesigned, as well as some new anime-style interlude scenes that adapt very well to the context. Last but not least, the new user interfacewhich is absolutely punctual and never confusing.
Don't call it a remaster
The makeover therefore boasts a system of lighting comparable to that of Persona 5, in addition to a camera positioned behind the protagonist. What Shigenori Soejima and the rest of the team have put together is therefore absolutely in line with what fans would expect to play. We tried the game on Xbox Serieswith 60 frames per second (compared to 30 in the original) and one 4K resolution. Every area we explored was always crowded with a large number of non-player characters, and all the graphical flaws of the old version are gone.
In terms of soundtrack and speech, both the music that the dialogues (available in both Japanese and English), they will do the delight of fans historians, just as there is no shortage of subtitles in Italianwhich will help more in understanding the rich and substantial plot of the game (being excellently written and translated into our language).
In short, Persona 3 Reload is the definitive edition of a masterpiece, with small – very small – flaws on the narrative and content front. The decision of do not include “TheAnswer” (i.e. an unpublished story chapter lasting over 30 hours and placed immediately after the conclusion of the main campaign) could make some people turn up their noses, just as the choice to cut out the female protagonist of Persona 3 Portable does not find the approval of the biggest fans.
After all, considering the enormous amount of content, dialogues and battles, Atlus has done it with this remake an unmissable gift both to fans of Persona 3 and to those who will be approaching this timeless classic JRPG for the first time. And it's not much, you can bet on it.
#Persona #Reload #Review #return #classic
