[10] The player is unable to contact the Navigator (between Mitsuru Kirijo and later Fuuka Yamagishi) in Tartarus to change the dungeon's background music like in the original game, nor is the player able to direct the party to split up and find hidden Treasures and Shadows scattered on the current floor. The party is also able to either walk or fully sprint when traversing the dungeon, but doing the latter also increases the chance that Shadows patrolling the current floor are alerted to the party's presence.[11]

For me, the most potentially exciting changes to life outside of hunting Shadows were made inside the dorm that make it feel like the main character actually co-exists there with a half-dozen classmates. The rooftop, the kitchen, Fuuka's DVD player, and the bookshelf are all now available to use in one's free time for gardening, cooking, or watching movies, or reading with a friend or reading to improve your three character traits.

I absolutely love this game. As a person who played both the original fes and portable, I can definitely recommend both new comers to the persona franchise, and OG's who have been curious about the remake. I loved it, and I can't wait for The Answer.

These new scenes and side stories add additional depth to the main plot and made me love the characters even more as they added further depth to their personal histories and psyches than the original game did.

All those additions become part of the daily routine and add a genuine texture to characters I thought I knew so well already. But the tangible reward comes in the form of combat perks like permanent stat buffs and status effects, and more substantially, extra Theurgy attacks – basically new Limit Break-style moves that each party member can unleash. It's one convincing way for the power of friendship to be made manifest.

Quality of life improvements like text messages help keep track of what's available daily during the day and night, and the online activity tracker gives you an idea of what other players have prioritized. Both are clutch for quickly deducing what's important and discovering much of the new content that bolsters Persona 3's existing world.

Finally, we have the inclusion of the brand-new Theurgy mechanic. Theurgies are special super-moves that characters can activate after filling up a gauge by attacking an enemy or fulfilling special conditions.

Largely, Persona 3 Reload follows the base game rather closely. As a member of the SEES, you will explore Tartarus, the altered form of the school that is now a dungeon that changes nightly.

Revisiting this story in 2024 through the lens of Persona 3 Reload put a lot of things into perspective. In too brief a period of time, I experienced what it’s like to lose the people you hold dearest and see those loved ones pass with dreams unfulfilled. I’ve also faced my own mortality with health conditions brought on by simply drawing the short straw when I was born. Persona 3 has taken on an entirely new meaning for me, even as the story remains the same.

While attending Gekkoukan High School, the in-class questions from the subject teachers have been redone from scratch, with non-e being repurposed from the original game. Exploration both around Tatsumi Port Island and within Tartarus is now done from a third-person perspective with the camera now being positioned directly behind the protagonist, and now enables free camera control for the player to get better views of their surroundings. The overworld map is now fully persona 3 reload gameplay rendered in 3D, and has an additional button prompt for displaying information on the protagonist's current location, or other areas they can visit. Expanding on Persona 3 Portable's fast travel function, the player is also able to immediately fast-travel to any specific location within the highlighted area directly from the map itself as opposed to within the location.

Status Aliments can be given to almost every character, except for some enemies and bosses. I created this section for a quick reference because I can never remember what these do accurately.

Reload even makes a concerted effort to address the fact that none of the male party members previously had Social Link routes. While they're not traditionally structured, distinct opportunities to spend time with them now pop up throughout the story and eventually lead to revelatory moments for those characters. Since these are freshly written for Reload, there's a noticeable contrast in quality compared to the original social sim conversations, making me wish the old dialogue had been punched up to match the heights of these new interactions.

All these exciting combat encounters, Tartarus floors to blitz through, and heartfelt moments tucked away in the social aspects of Persona 3 Reload provide a rich context for what this game is really about: finding purpose. For as goofy and irreverent as Persona 3 may be, its greatest strength is its emotional sincerity.

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