Preview: Persona 3 Reload has new mechanics and familiar city vibes

If there’s one thing that makes Persona games special, it’s their ability to make typically banal moments in RPGs feel enthralling.

Back in August, I had the chance to demo Persona 3 Reload. During that session, I got to check out the game’s dungeon crawling and one of the early boss fights, both of which impressed me. But one piece of Persona 3 Reload I didn’t get to test was its social systems, which is arguably what makes a modern Persona game… well, Persona. Turn-based combat is fun and all, but spending time with your virtual friends and eating ramen at night just ties the whole experience together.

Fortunately, this was the exact part of Persona 3 Reload I got to try out at another recent event held by Sega/Atlus. Loading a save file in what seemed to be the early-to-mid game, I had an hour to do basically whatever I wanted in Tatsumi Port Island. The experience was mostly what I expected, which I mean in the most enthusiastic way possible. But it’s the stuff I didn’t expect that really caught my attention.

Explore the space

I began my session with Persona 3 Reload in my main character’s homeroom at school. I immediately walked out the door and decided to explore.

Like any good Persona game, I quickly found a ton of different distractions and Social Link events that I could spend my in-game afternoon on. However, I mostly wanted to get a lay of the land first. As I mentioned in my last write-up, I never got around to finishing Persona 3 back in the day. Yet, like riding a bike, I started planning my in-game week like I’d last played a Persona game three days ago. I talked to everyone, ran everywhere, and felt like I generally knew where everything was pretty fast.

This might sound like I was wasting my time, but the game actually rewarded me for my effort. I wound up finding a lot of items called Twilight Fragments littered everywhere I looked. From what I understand, these items are kind of like keys. You’ll use them to open special treasure chests in dungeons, so they’re very worthwhile to gather up. Or at least they will be in the full game.

Deciding how I wanted to spend my time afterwards was a breeze. With a single button press, I could open my cell phone and see text messages from anyone and anything that wanted my attention. My notable Social Link options were all there, in addition to local restaurants advertising what they offered that day. Even better, I could fast-travel to each person or place just by selecting the message they sent.

It’s all rather seamless, which is a huge boon considering how long Persona games typically run. But all things considered, I knew who I wanted to first spend time with almost immediately.

Hanging out with the bros

I decided to hang out with my buddy Junpei in what is, to my knowledge, a new feature of this remake. Certain key characters, like Junpei, lacked Social Links in the original game. So Persona 3 Reload kind of rectifies this by adding new events where you can get to know them better. While these aren’t literally Social Links, they do feel almost identical in practice. The only major difference is that your responses in conversation don’t appear to impact any hidden relationship stats.

My reward for hanging out with Junpei was a stat boost for his Persona. A good enough prize for sure, though I wonder if minmaxers will forego events like these to focus solely on Social Links instead. Boxing king Akihiko also had a unique event I subsequently triggered that evening, which involved him getting into a brawl with some troublemakers to save a couple damsels in distress.

I’m curious if these events will lead to wider, overarching stories the way Social Links usually do. They’re fine as standalone sequences, but it’d be nice to explore these characters on a deeper level too. Either way, it was nice to spice up my night life with something other than my usual ramen and hamburgers.

Even the Social Link events that were from the original game felt livelier than I remembered. This is 100% due to these scenes being fully voiced, which really helped each character come to life. The leading characters are impressively performed, and even minor characters like Kenji and Chihiro felt memorable. Every actor seemed to bring their A-game, which is an absolute boon in a title as text-heavy as this.

Promote Theurgy

Though I spent most of my time with Persona 3 Reload’s social elements, I did get some dungeon exploration in too. Entering Tartarus gave me a slick anime cutscene of the protagonists showing off some newly acquired gear with the “SEES” branding, which will probably be more impactful when I see it in context. But even out of context, it was neat.

However, the cooler new addition to the game was right around the corner.

Not long after I started my time in the dungeon, my party members were separated. My protagonist and fellow party member Yukari entered a scripted battle shortly after, in which the hero was knocked down with a critical hit almost immediately. Compelled to act, Yukari proceeded to heal me and used a new kind of move: Theurgy. This is essentially a limit break, which for Yukari was a strong Wind attack that ignored enemy resistances.

In my last preview, I discussed the “Shift” mechanic, which worked like a backported version of Persona 5’s Baton Pass. Similarly, Theurgy was described to me by a representative of Sega as akin to Persona 5’s Showtime attacks. That said, I liked that Theurgy builds depending on each character’s strengths. For example, Yukari can charge her Theurgy gauge by healing party members, leaning into her role as the party’s healer.

I didn’t have much of a chance to experiment with this mechanic, but its inclusion felt worthwhile nonetheless. Optimistically, I hope the Theurgy system will spice up the battle system and lead to new battle tactics. But even if it’s just some cool new signature attacks for everyone, it’s still a welcome feature.

Feeling the time melt away

After my visit to Tartarus, I started to unlock even more new systems back at the dorm. From what I could gather, it appeared that I had the option to do some gardening on the roof, watch DVDs, or even cook some food. Also, I could pick any of my party members to bring along for these activities, which I was fully prepared to explore. But, alas, by this point in my session, my time had just about ran out. I’ll need to wait for the full game to see what these features bring to the table.

Maybe that was a failure of my own time management, but the thing is… I really didn’t feel like an hour had passed by. I felt so caught up in Persona 3 Reload’s gameplay that I honestly thought I had twenty more minutes. Persona games have a way of devouring your time, and Reload clearly follows that trend. That rhythm of social elements and RPG dungeon crawling is just hypnotic, and it took only a couple minutes for this remake to put me under its spell.

I do have some misgivings with Persona’s Social Link formula, which I discussed in detail last year if you want to read me ramble a bit more. So whether Persona 3 Reload can enthrall me for dozens upon dozens of hours is certainly still up in the air. However, based on my sessions with the game so far, I do have high hopes for the final product. Everything looks sleek, sounds great, and plays smoothly. I’ve had a great time demoing this one, and all that’s left now is waiting to see if the final product can maintain that momentum.

Of course, we don’t have to wait long now to see how this one will shake out. Persona 3 Reload launches for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on February 2.