Review: Persona 3 Reload – Episode Aigis is the search for an answer

At least for me, Persona 3 Reload From Atlus is one of the most worthy games of 2024. Not only did it give a second wind to an already notable RPG, it also showed an outstanding work to a generation of players who may have already grown accustomed to pure action RPGs.

When Atlus announced its post-launch plans for Persona 3 Reload I realized that all kinds of comments from the community were going to come up: “the game is incomplete”, “I’d rather buy the final version” and so on. I don’t blame them, really, because this case could very well be a bit like Asura’s Wrath, whose ending is a DLC.

Beyond the obvious and that this DLC can be elevated, Episode Aigis comes to strengthen the story of Persona 3 Reloadas well as delivering levels that truly have an absurd difficulty. It’s not like Atlus is going to patch or adjust this section, however, there will be more than one person who will have a hard time playing this downloadable content.

Atlus invested heavily in the season pass for this game, put in a lot of content – ​​some better than the others – and gave it what Persona fans wanted. The only thing that bothers me with this series of games is that sometimes they remind me how old I am because you finally simulate the life of 16-year-olds… And my knees already hurt… I’m not up to that kind of running anymore.

Well, the story can continue…

Without going into details, when you finish Persona 3 Reload You realize that everything is over, that it is time to cry and that everything must have a closure. But Episode Aigis is a continuation and with a certainly interesting plot since a kind of hope is rekindled and you believe that things can be different.

The context is that SEES is going to split up and everyone is already putting down their weapons and moving on with life beyond the dorm after everything they’ve been through. Yes, it seems like a kind of bitter goodbye, but for some strange reason, everyone is stuck on March 31st and can’t get out of it. It’s not like Groundhog Day or a repeating loop, it’s actually being trapped and with nowhere to go.

On the other hand, it is also important to note that the narrative development follows Aigis and that a visitor comes for her. At first you think that things are under control, but everything gets complicated and you end up entangled in a new scenario. Because Tartarus is already behind us, what follows is a certainly hard dungeon exploration.

In its execution, Episode Aigis offers more than just a narrative context, it’s about going from one dungeon to another until you get tired or reach the end. This proposal fully fulfills its idea and makes it enjoyable for fans. Personally, I think it lacks a bit more narrative, but as the game presents it to us, it’s fine.

Sometimes I thought I wouldn’t get any further because the game didn’t want to

Epise Aigis of Persona 3 Reload It’s more of a gameplay challenge than a narrative or after-school type of game, because in the context you’re locked in your dorm and now you have to resolve a conflict in order to move forward and get out of that March 31st loop.

This means that you will end up doing one level after another and sometimes you will have some fairly transcendental conversations with some members of the surviving group. Because if there is one thing that has taught us Persona 3 Reload is that his team of characters is more like a kind of suicide squad.

As I mentioned, here you won’t have to form interpersonal relationships with other characters in the game – specifically from the school – it’s more of a kind of challenge in which you must defeat those shadows and creatures that appeared for the first time in Tartarus.

The constant duels, the difficulty of each level and the challenge are enough motivation to go as far as possible. Here I no longer felt the pressure of school, the connections with other characters and so on because I was carrying out a mission, a very dangerous one.

You almost started from scratch

As I mentioned, Episode Aigis is more about combat and saving the day than just dungeon crawling. There isn’t much room for story, it’s more of a “let’s go beat the bad guys up so they cry” kind of thing and then complete the mission at the end (admittedly, going deeper into the story will only lead to spoilers).

Now, you’re not going to carry over your save data, because you’ve lost all of your level. What is noticeable is that there seems to have been some sort of adjustment to some characters. Some of them hit less hard than in the base game, as if they had been nerfed.

What is true is that Episode Aigis does feel much heavier than the base game, and it’s specifically because you start from scratch and the joke is that you have to endure all those labyrinths that are waiting for you over and over again. Come on, this DLC was close to becoming a Rogue Like, but fortunately it didn’t.

The game already challenged me and that was fine. In the regular campaign you could go without putting too much pressure on yourself and get through it without a problem and in Episode Aigis, Persona 3 Reload Yes, it gets interesting and, to a certain extent, frustrating. But, this was something that the game needed, a much more challenging difficulty, especially if there is not as much (yes there is) narrative involved.

It’s a DLC to get through and deal with loss

Well, the elephant in the room Persona 3 Reload – Episode Aigis It’s that you have to deal with the loss of a very special character and somehow the rest of the protagonists in this story have to get by. Of course, it’s not like they do it in the best way, but they do it.

There are certain aspects of the story that converge here. Many moments of remembrance, introspection and thinking that it was the best for everyone and what you are carrying out has a new purpose. Whatever it is for each one, the suicide squad of Persona 3 Reload It’s very emotional and it feels great to interact with them again.

What is a fact is that the experience can be very demanding, tiring and you can surely end up very tired if you rush the gaming experience. I think the best thing you can do is play Episode Aigis very calmly and enjoy it for what it is, so that you don’t get the better of FOMO.

If the base game of Persona 3 Reload It was fairly accessible, but here you can already tell that they wanted to see you suffer and get you going when it came to playing. To that I must add that there are enough motivators to advance, from the musical aspect that is unmatched to the animation. A delight!

Should you buy the Persona 3 Reload DLC?

The most die-hard fans of Persona 3 They will feel that justice has finally been done to them as this content was trapped in Persona 3 FES from the PS2 and now it’s been revamped for a generation of gamers who probably didn’t even know about it. What is certain is that the narrative has had some adjustments to give more context to what happens to the characters.

Episode Aigis fully fulfills the difficult task of extending the story of Persona 3 ReloadThe challenge of each level to overcome, the high difficulty, the quality of the music and the rest of the details make this DLC something of great value to the consumer.

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We played Persona 3 Reload – Episode Aigis on PC with a code provided by an Atlus representative in our region.