Reviews out - seems like a hit.

www.ign.com/articles/persona-3-reload-review

If you are on a deck, some minor tweaks needed for a locked in 60 fps.

toucharcade.com/2024/01/30/persona-3-reload-steam-deck-review-graphics-performance-frame-rate-settings-pc-ps5-xbox/

All reviews are saying to looked the rough edges of the original, and fixed the problems.  No more needing to date people to finish their social links, more activities to do in offtime, Tartarus redone, claiming voice actors are better than the originals, moved towards a P5 design for interface, and other stuff.

Main negatives, tartarus still gets repetitive, FES content not present, cannot play a girl again, and combat can be a grind.  So basically this is the original game remade is the negative is what I am reading <.<  

That said there is one final criticism I totally agree with, for 70 bucks the day 0 DLC should have been free.  These are costumes from 4 and 5, and music from 4 and 5.  Does not bother me as I always used the P3 DLC for my characters or Halloween gear anyway.  

Still not preordering it, as never preorder, but providing any steam deck breaking bugs, I am all over this Friday.  Preorder it appears is P4 songs for free.

Hope when they release revised FES content later (as they been doing this shit for 25 years) we do not need to rebuy the game and can get it for cheap.

But for us P3 fans, this looks like the game we been waiting for, for a long, long time.

I'll be keeping tabs on it. I'm curious to see how much they've changed Tarturus beyond removing the fatigue mechanic. I've heard they've added new battle mechanics, there's more interaction between party members, there's more treasure and the zones themselves have been given a face-lift. However I'm curious to see how much that extends to enemies and improved the pacing of it. My biggest complaint with Persona 3 is how uneven the game felt and how progressing through Tarturus was far more difficult than the main game battles.

If you're charging $110 AUD, I expect more than a few QOL improvements and a face-lift.

Granted, I don't think you can legally access a home console version of Persona 3 on PS4/5. It's the PSP port or bust and a second hand copy will set you back $300+ I still have my copy fortunately and will likely give it another spin before I grab the remake.

Preloaded and ready to roll via XBOX Game Pass, we eating GOOD this weekend!

Damn, I just bought it but cannot preload it yet.

Looks like Tartarus is still not super fun, but a lot better than it was, and how you get the Personas to do the story battles. I am hoping with all the addictions, and a far easier time moving through it without fatigue or the awkward shadow targeting system it will be a lot less painful.

Price sucks, but they did basically redo the entire game engine, revoice it, and priced at what modern AAA games are selling for. If you do not want to buy it could get gamepass play it until you beat it, then buy the game used down the line. I considered this, but said fuck it, and just bought it outright to support the company and show remaking cult classics like this can be profitable to hope other remakes get done.

Jan 31, 2024 16:11:31 GMT Blindy said:

Preloaded and ready to roll via XBOX Game Pass, we eating GOOD this weekend!

Are you going to draw the blinds, stock up on mountain dew, hot pockets and save Chidori? If the game has that option, I'll pay $1000 and give up every weekend!

If you do not want to buy it could get gamepass play it until you beat it, then buy the game used down the line.

That would be the smart way to go about it, but I'm not that desperate to play it. Especially given how long it takes the game to get going, I'd be curious to check out streams, Resetera, reddit and of course this thread to see what the verdict is.

Jan 31, 2024 16:49:36 GMT Big Pete said:

Jan 31, 2024 16:11:31 GMT Blindy said:

Preloaded and ready to roll via XBOX Game Pass, we eating GOOD this weekend!

Are you going to draw the blinds, stock up on mountain dew, hot pockets and save Chidori? If the game has that option, I'll pay $1000 and give up every weekend!

If you do not want to buy it could get gamepass play it until you beat it, then buy the game used down the line.

That would be the smart way to go about it, but I'm not that desperate to play it. Especially given how long it takes the game to get going, I'd be curious to check out streams, Resetera, reddit and of course this thread to see what the verdict is.

I'm injecting those fucking shitty Ikutsuki puns straight into my veins. 

Still rolling Minaro/Mitsuru(I didn't get to romance her since I wasn't smart enough, not making the same mistake again)/Stupei/Yukari as my core 4. Fuuka can do whatever she wants with the analysis, think if I am able to, will play this on Hard mode. 

I am curious how the music and voice acting are. Certain characters like Takaya and Akihiko were just perfect, going to be tough to top their performances. 

Hopefully your Chase U calender arrives in time so you can figure out how to maximise all those social links! Don't forget to have the corresponding arcana in your party!

It has been like 20 years since I played this so remember very little. Not clue who I will be taking but I usually go all girl. Fuck Ken he will be benched this entire playthrough. Romance will likely be Fuuka or Mitsuru since I never did either of them. Did Takeba, Elizabeth and Aigis in my prior playthroughs.

I am hoping for adjustable difficulty to do the moons on regular then the rest on easy. Will just make tartarus not so tedious. I longer care about hardcore challenges, and will balance to whatever feels good for me.

Plan to do several playthroughs back to back to do social links and what not. Usually act like a right cunt the second time through to see reactions since I do not need to try to get stat ups and shit.

Preloaded now. LETMEIN!!!

8 hours left!!!

Feb 1, 2024 20:13:38 GMT c said:

8 hours left!!!

Big loophole with XBOX is you can set your time to New Zealand and essentially play it a day earlier than when it drops. Which is what I am planning to do. Have to do a personal errand but other than that, tonight we feast.  

This Loophole works for anything on the XBOX market.

Yeah people been on it for a few days on twitch now. I will start tomorrow.

From what I seen it is pretty damn faithful and feels so familiar even after all these years.

We live!!!

Putzed around a bit, looks amazing. Feels right and is cool seeing so much from the original redone.

Steamdeck struggles with the strip mall and gets very laggy. Likely need to tweak settings and turn off shadows or reflections.  Or just needs a patch for PC.  Some believing ray tracing is forced on with no option to turn it off.

If any of you are on a Steam Deck, they are rolling out a fix soon for Persona 3. Stuttering was due to the way the Steam Deck handles ray tracing.

Progress report, c? How far into it are you? Noticing any changes between it and the original or has it been too long between drinks?

I'm 5 hours in and am absolutely loving this game.

- The UI looks so slick, they took the stylish Persona 5 UI(The menu, the victory posing) and made it into Persona 3. The all out attack looks SO much better and when a character is the final person to attack, they're the one sorta leading the way in the victory sorta like Persona 5.

- The music has me bobbing my head. They gave the "Unavoidable Attack/STREGA theme" music to when you first awaken to Orpheus! I like the remix music, there's a different battle theme for surprise attack, neutral attack and when you get the jump.

- The voice acting I was worried about but it's really good. Junpei's new VA fits to a tee and I even like the bits and pieces of Alexis Le's MC shouts of his Persona. He sounds identical to one of the characters from Master Detective Archives: Rain Code whose name I am forgetting. Akihiko feels sorta like a drop off but he hasn't been on much and I think Itkutski has a more serious voice this time around vs the likable voice he got in the original. I can't stop seeing Boss(A.I. The Somnium Files) in Mitsuru, it sounds like her word for word and that's a good thing! Same voice actress(Allegra Clark). Yukari has a deeper voice a bit in this one, more mature if that makes sense. The banter between her and Junpei still works.

I reached as high as I can in Tartatus before you can't progress further so it's social linking and stat increasing(I have to go after Intelligence for Mitsuru and for the dreaded exam segments). 1 day only which means we're playing with house money for the rest of the days to build social links/increase attributes. IIRC my 1st playthrough I had to make a few trips and waste nights on completing Tartarus so already off to a good start. You have to really be good with supplies(Especially SP) to make deep runs, already was running on fumes by the end. 

Playing on hard mode, didn't do Merciless mode. Game is actually a good enough challenge, you still have to exploit weaknesses for extra turns but this is far from cruise control, the enemy will pick on the weaker characters and kill em off most of the time. Love having full control of my team, the only way to play these games.

Game is so much easier this time. Deterministic inheritance of skills, total party control, extra sources of gold, no fatigue, delayed reaper and no shuffling in shuffle takes out so much of the tedium and areas where the game just fucked you utterly. Freedom to level attributes as you wish is very helpful. Def helps the Mitsuru rush. I remember how bad it was in the OG game.

I am still early as I was waiting to see how people fixed the insane stuttering in areas on the steam deck, but now I got it fixed up game runs flawlessly.

I am on EZ difficulty as I do not want it to be hard while I am fucking with hardware configs while waiting for patches, but will do NG+ on merciless if it is still double damage to and from enemies, which is EZ mode for Persona vets in P5.

Tartarus is so much better too in this with all the new crap in it, and how much more cash you get.  Curious how many floors it has and if they adjusted the later segments.  280 floors was crazy.  But should be so easy to speedrun things if desired.

Will likely go super hard on this during the week.

///

Reason in the old runs you needed to split up Tartarus was the fatigue.  It make it very hard to slowly progress through floors.  Could speedrun but if you fought you would get fatigued pretty quick.  Also the more persona games you play the more will just figure out the weaknesses almost instantly.  Picking what reward you want from the shuffle and all the gold stuff allowing you to get geared faster and better also make tartarus much easier to do in one go.

Just beat the 1st major boss, Priestess. Holy shit they made this harder. Maybe the difficulty I am on makes it tougher but this boss never gave me an issue in the original but the time limit gimmick it has is ruthless. You are given 30 minutes rather than the 10(?) minutes but the boss has an ability she uses twice to cut the time in half basically so she can chop time from like 27 minutes to 13 then from 10 to 5 before mercifully stopping. All the while summoning different versions of an enemy, which isn't prone to one weaknesses.

Actually died to the boss fight and the 2nd try I won with 10 seconds to spare. Had to use 2 balms of life. I wasn't under leveled either, I got to the Tartarus end point at the point & time.

Not gotten to the moon yet, but did hit the limit to Tartarus. Working on social links now.

Did plan on working on better personas before the moon as I remember them being much harder than floor bosses. Hoping to put together a crit hit persona like I used for Royale if possible in this one.  And well, having good personas early generally means you can have one or two really strong ones through most of the game by transferring the core skills up selectively.

Moved back to normal difficult and did the first boss easily. Those adds summoned with no weakness were weak against pierce, and I had pierce skill. Pretty much wreck him if you could hit the weaknesses of the adds and use media once in a while.

Also if you not noticed the part time job gives cash, charm and courage. Assume are still rushing academics, so this will be a good way to build up the other two.

I just beat the 2nd big boss which was an absolute joke compared to the 1st one. That means Fuuka is my scout and MITSURU is on the team and she absolutely wrecks.

What is insane with this game is there's so much new stuff, this Theulgy thing is brand new to the Remake. It is a meter you build up through various methods(Yukari gets her from healing which is stupid good and can unleash ALMIGHTY wind elemental attack! Mitsuru gets shafted with hers where she has to status inflict to build hers up but Marin Karin lol, haven't seen the rest. I got the Jack Bros team attack which is almighty damage and potential knock down chance, that's what I get for demon compendium both Jack Frost & Pyro Jack together, cannot wait to see that shit).

LOVING this game, it just gets better and better. The fact I only need 1-2 runs to clear a Tartarus run is so friggin big for developments for my attributes at night. 

Feb 6, 2024 3:40:49 GMT Blindy said:

I just beat the 2nd big boss which was an absolute joke compared to the 1st one. That means Fuuka is my scout and MITSURU is on the team and she absolutely wrecks.

What is insane with this game is there's so much new stuff, this Theulgy thing is brand new to the Remake. It is a meter you build up through various methods(Yukari gets her from healing which is stupid good and can unleash ALMIGHTY wind elemental attack! Mitsuru gets shafted with hers where she has to status inflict to build hers up but Marin Karin lol, haven't seen the rest. I got the Jack Bros team attack which is almighty damage and potential knock down chance, that's what I get for demon compendium both Jack Frost & Pyro Jack together, cannot wait to see that shit).

LOVING this game, it just gets better and better. The fact I only need 1-2 runs to clear a Tartarus run is so friggin big for developments for my attributes at night. 

SuperDerek brought Theulgy up in his review and I thought it was a fun way to connect Reload to the original. Now you understand why Mitsuru was constantly spamming Marin Karin in the OG.

From memory, clearing Tarturus in one evening was never an issue since you could always go back to the lobby once you unlocked a short-cut to restore health. Then in Persona 4, they tied that perk into a social link which I never bothered to upgrade in my playthrough despite it being one of the most useful.

It may have been a more miserable experience in the OG. From memory, I'd use the MC to scout rooms and unlock all the short-cuts, avoding every encounter I could. Then I'd do as little grinding as possible to make sure the team was strong enough to take on the bosses. Rinse and repeat until I was ready, then grind everyone until they're exhausted, making sure I could get as much exp into the MC as possible.

I haven't been able to get Persona 4's Heaven or Persona 3's Mass Destruction out of my head. I don't like what Reloaded did to Mass Destruction, still a great track, but it's a downgrade compared to the original.

Still right after the first boss as not had time to play.

Saw an interview saying remasters of P2 (both parts) and P4 are in the works. P4 baffles me as P4's PC port is amazing. But P2 absolutely needs a remaster.  Neither will be a remake, which makes the P4 stuff even weirder.  All I can think of is they mean they are working on a console port of it.

No word yet on P6.  But it has to be in the works.  P6 however will have a new team on it as the Persona team moved on to make Metaphor.  

///

P3 building up was so much more complicated. Shuffle face down, no shift to capitalize on knockdowns, the melee attacks were hard to aim so less advantages in fights, no random junk to sell, so money was always tight and the reaper showed up far faster.

Tartarus old strat def was to speedrun it, unlock shortcut, then grind up to kill boss. With all the changes, now it is better to just do the floors and build up naturally. Frankly I never considered it that hard to do as the floor bosses were easy compared to the arcana shadows.

Def feel like most of the changed music is a step down. Wish we had an option for classic music. Mass Destruction def is one of the best songs in the series.

Almost at the second moon now. Tartarus so pretty. Love that the blocks seem actually varied this time around, something they normally are really not in these games. Hit the second block before the room.

For some reason also totally forgot you get four people in your party, I seemed to remember only three. Makes things so much easier even if I am getting my ass beat by the floor bosses now for power fusing personas instead of getting up actual ones for fighting.

That fortune reading for rare personas was a really cool feature too. Great for powerleveling.

Still in a rough gold spot and need to grind out a good chunk for my stat upgrading.

So far once I turned off raytracing game is smooth as hell on my steam deck. Believe a patch too fixes the main issue with the game's reflections on the steam deck OS level comes out soon.

Spent last night grinding in Tartarus, on my way to the 3rd moon. It got to the point that I have the shadows running from me in certain portions of the run. I don't want to waste my night without fully maximizing which is why I wish there was shared EXP for people that ride the bench, that might have been the lone QOL aspect I wish Atlus did here but I get it.

Basically once Mitsuru joins you, you have to leave someone behind so I don't want any of the 5 core people to fall terribly behind so despite Junpei maybe being the odd man out, his agi spells still have purpose even if he's strength>magic. So Mitsuru rode bench and fell behind to the others before I took her in replacing Yukari. I basically want to get rid of all of my MP and exhausted everyone before I leave Tartarus, especially on hard difficulty where grinding for levels/personas have importance.

Trying to get my traits to 4's(I got courage but still working on Intelligence/Charm), since I think social links open up at night IIRC if you get the traits up. Got few links to 6's and 7's so wrapping things up nicely there.

The SEES advantage music gets replayed so much since I am jumping these shadows like 95% of the time. Exploring tartarus and grinding is tailor made for podcast catching up or music/album listening to. Or stream watching. 

Oh shit, not gotten to where shared XP would be a thing. Rotating members gonna have to be a thing I guess.

I def have zero intention of min maxing as I would rather play two runs, than one run feeling like I need to get everything perfect. Also feels like this game you can target grind XP pretty well with cards and rare shadows.

Two days before the second moon and at 2-2-3 for social links. Doing ladies man stuff to working up the girls I have access too. Generally do the girls first playthrough, then guys second. Have a bunch of links at four, with a handful at 1.

Need to figure out how to better spend my nights as now it is mostly working, which I guess is good, but also really boring.

Past the second moon easily and grinding out Elizabeth's shit. Pain in the ass grinding low level chests looking for the crappy sword she wants. I am swapping Junpei, Aki and Mitsuru for leveling. One just gets left behind each run.

Also think I am dating Chihiro now, not entirely sure. Was who I was planning to date as I love Justice personas. But looks like it is real subtle when you move into dating if I am. Cue was at rank 5 it seems which also is very early.

Just unlocked the dorm stuff, it is super cool. Really makes the team feel more like a family.

Hit floor 60 in Tartarus. Really need a physical Persona for when I start to run two teams, as healing health is far cheaper in terms of items than healing SP. Physical Persona usually are the harder ones to build while fusing, at least for me. Buffers, ailment and magic all good at, but physical always feels like you lose important shit on fuses.

Remembering now how much of a grind Elizabeth's FES quests got to be. For a game that was not supposed to have FES content, there is a whole lot in here. Guessing they just meant the Answer, which I assume has to be DLC. They got the engine, should not be too hard to pound that out and charge $30 for it.

Was announced earlier game sold a million copies making it the best launch title Atlus ever had.  Whole lot of people gonna be horrified next week or so when they get to the point characters are straight out murdered Merica style.