If someone told you there were 25 hours in a day, would you believe it? That’s the premise of Persona 3 Reload. Persona 3 Reload is the newest game in the Persona series. It does an amazing job of giving a fresh take on the story from the original game while adding its own flair. In terms of gameplay, it’s a turn-based game mixed with life simulator and dungeon crawler aspects. What’s a Persona game, or any video game for that matter, without its soundtrack? It has a very groovy soundtrack that both Persona fans and music fans can enjoy. Its most popular song is “It’s Going Down Now”; as recently as two months ago, it had 26 million plays on Spotify alone.
The soundtrack leans towards more Japanese hip hop and R&B, as well as some somber songs tied in. The soundtrack has many people involved in it, but the vocals are made possible by Lotus Juice and Azumi Takahashi. The characters are also relatable, and the story flows so that you care about what happens to these characters. In the world of Persona 3, there is an extra hour after midnight called the Dark Hour. During the Dark Hour, creatures called shadows loom around and prey on people. For most people, they are put into coffins, meant to represent them being unconscious and unaware during that extra hour. For other people, like our main cast, they are conscious and fight these shadows with what is called a persona. A persona is meant to represent its user’s inner strength.
In June 2023, a new Persona game was announced. It wasn’t a port, but rather a remake. The Persona series is known for its remakes. Persona 1, 2, and 3 had remakes on the PSP. Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal were remakes of the original Persona 4 and 5 but with more content. Finally, on February 2nd, 2024, Persona 3 Reload was released.
Prior to Persona 3 Reload, the Persona series hadn’t seen a new release in the franchise since the spinoff game, Persona 5 Tactica. The three mainline games (the most popular ones) were Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal, which were ported to Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC on January 19th, 2023. While these games were absolutely phenomenal, they were already on older hardware. Persona 3 Portable was on the PlayStation Portable and was originally released on July 6th, 2010, and by now, it was already on major emulators like PPSSPP. A similar thing can be said for Persona 4 Golden because it was released on June 24th, 2012, for the PlayStation Vita. Another similarity between these two games is that there was already a PlayStation Vita emulator called Vita3K. Finally, Persona 5 Royal was originally released on October 31st, 2019, for the PlayStation 4, and like the previous two games, an emulator was available to play the game for free. While the ports were great for Xbox and Nintendo Switch players, PC players weren’t too worried since there were emulators available. On top of that, these weren’t exactly new games; these were preexisting games that were brought to other consoles.
Overall, the game is an amazing reentry and does an amazing job of modernizing the game. Its story and characters are interesting and make you feel something for each character, and there is something to love in each arc of the story.
