I have agonized over the review of Persona 3 Reload like almost no other video game piece I have written, and as such, this review comes quite a ways after its release on the Switch 2.

And why is that, you might ask? It’s simple, really - what the heck do you say about the game at this point that hasn’t already been said?

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You see, I try to have something original to add to the conversation about a piece if I can. Maybe it’s the context of what it was like playing a game back when it was originally released, or perhaps weighing whether or not a game is approachable for newcomers to a genre (myself included), that sort of thing. But Persona 3 Reload is difficult to find an open lane for because the highway is jam-packed.

Persona 3 Reload is the latest release for the vaunted Persona franchise and for the third entry itself, now available on the Switch 2. If you’re reading this article, you’re probably familiar with Persona, the now seemingly inescapable role-playing game franchise that branched off from the Shin Megami Tensei series. The games have been popular for a long time in Japan, of course, but the series has seemingly hit a new level of visibility and popularity worldwide (or at least in predominantly English-speaking regions) since the release of Persona 5.

By this point, you probably know the tempo of these titles. By da,y you play as a young student doing all the things young students do: attending classes, talking with your peers, engaging in extracurriculars, and navigating the minefield of growing autonomy and hormonal chaos that the transition to full adulthood entails. By night, you wield awesome power in the form of Personas to battle unspeakable horrors and protect innocent people from the predations of nefarious forces alongside a team of plucky friends and allies with their own strengths and weaknesses. You have limited daylight hours to form connections with other characters, and who you choose will determine not only which stories you see but also which Personas you have access to or increase in power.

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This creates a steady loop throughout much of the game. Wake up, go to school, handle a random event or three, choose someone to spend time with, then when night falls, head into battle against monsters before finally sleeping and doing it all again the next day. As the calendar dates progress, new events will unlock, and more branching options will present themselves, all vying for your limited time. You have some freedom in between, like which shops to visit or parts of town to explore, but you are largely confined to this steady pattern of school by day and dungeon by night.

This loop sounds familiar to many of you because Persona was so successful at this format that it has become an industry standard at this point. Future Persona titles and countless imitators have taken the school and social bonds and combat formula and implemented it in a variety of ways, to various degrees of success, but at this point, it is as much an institution as the classic format of battling monsters in fields before resting in an inn and saving at a church.

Add to that the fact that Persona 3 has been released in a variety of forms over the past two decades. Between the original Persona 3, the FES rerelease, the port to PSP, and now the Reload, there have been countless ways for people to experience this venerable title across nearly every platform you can think of. Heck, this isn’t even the first release of Persona 3 Reload – it came out last year for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, and this version hitting the Nintendo Switch 2 is merely the latest release (and I would bet not the last).

It’s hard for me to imagine a person is reading this who hasn’t played some version of Persona 3 already, or heard its praises sung by countless friends and randos in comment sections throughout the years. What is new to add? What can I impart that all those others haven’t?

Well, not much in novel observations, I’m afraid. But maybe that’s okay. I’m simply here to announce that I’ve joined the choir: Persona 3 Reload is a really great game, and all the things people say about it are true.

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There is a reason this title became such a phenomenon and has remained relevant and in constant stages of re-release for close to twenty years. It’s a great game. An exemplary title that exemplifies all the aspects of roleplaying games that adherents have come to know and love, only now in a slick and stylish modern rework that dazzles so brilliantly you forget it’s older than most of the people playing it. Persona 3 Reload is a deep gameplay experience with memorable characters, an evocative hook, and a presentation style that makes even the most mundane menu navigation a blast. The voice acting is quite strong, too, even as someone who doesn’t often enjoy voice acting in wordier titles. Not to mention the soundtrack is a catalog of stellar hits, a key component to any role-playing game’s success.

Persona 3 Reload looks and plays tremendously. The character story progressions are somewhat linear, but you have the agency to pick and choose who to focus on and for how long. Dungeon progression is as short or as grindy as you want it to be, and the game does a great job of focusing your attention and always giving you just enough to do without leaving you lost or bewildered. The steady rhythm, compelling writing, and gorgeous animations that play during and after battles make it easy to find the balance you want between story and gameplay or shift it on the fly as you see fit. As part of my nightly play ritual, I sometimes found myself chatting up characters for an hour without ever picking up a blade, while other nights I could just as easily clear five floors of Tartarus without so much as opening a dialogue box.

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Speaking of, the two big tentpole elements of the gameplay are Personas and Tartarus. Personas are often compared to Pokémon, but with a slightly more haunting tone, and that’s for good reason. They are add-ons to your character who bring elemental effects and unique abilities, and they can be progressed, customized, and shifted around to your heart’s content. Batling monsters often involves not just aiming for victory but navigating elemental resistances to set up the big all-out-attack popoff to end a fight to maximize your rewards from even the most minor encounter. Tartarus, on the other hand, is the main dungeon of the game, a randomly generated staircase of strange environs that you navigate between your days at school and clubs. You will spend a lot of time here fighting beasties, opening chests, and checking your mini-map.

These features are excellent, but they also act as sticking points that keep me from giving the game a perfect score. Personas can be a bit fiddly, and while you aren’t required to invest all of your time in modifying these spirit helpers, I did not find the time spent modifying them all that enjoyable. I imagine the more mad-scientist-inclined among you will delight in your creations.

Tartarus has a few of its own bugbears as well. The random generation of dungeons implies a lot more variety than what it actually is in practice. Most levels are impossible to distinguish from one another and, beyond the initial wow factor of seeing a new region’s palette for the first time, they feel very tedious to grind through. You wander a lot of the same hallways in an extended purgatory that is distinctly flavorless compared to the rest of Persona 3 Reload’s inspired presentation.

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The above two factors are also more evident at the start of the game than at the end of it. The early hours – at least for a series newcomer like myself – dragged a bit. Somewhere around the 8-10 hour mark, the game really got its hooks in me, which is a drop in the bucket when you consider the overall length of the game. But there is a bit of an upfront investment that, while certainly not atypical of longer role-playing games, is not the most welcoming either.

These are very minor nitpicks to what is otherwise a terrific game. Persona 3 Reload’s bones are nearly 20 years old, but it easily competes with or beats many modern titles for sheer depth, beauty, and fun. It’s a game that is fun to play, full of resonant themes and interesting characters, and a feast for the eyes and ears. Persona 3 Reload sets a high bar for other remastering projects that I don’t see being topped any time soon.

Sometimes all there is to add is: yeah, it’s as good as they say.