The battle system uses the tried and true turn-based Shin Megami Tensei from every Persona game. You need to use attacks enemies are weak against to enable your team to dogpile in and beat them to a pulp with an all-out attack.

This game would also lay the foundation for Persona’s journey into becoming the popular franchise it is today.

You will earn 5 points per note (15 points for 3 notes) depending on the action you take, and to rank up, you need to earn a certain amount of points. If you have a Persona in your deck with the same arcana the Social Link is, you will get a 1.51 multiplier to any points you earn. It is highly suggested to take advantage of this to rank up as fast as possible.

Plenty is different back in the outside world, too. First and foremost, I can physically run around 3D city streets and classroom hallways, as opposed to moving a cursor to callout bubbles in a relatively static environment like in past Persona 3 iterations. In general, the camera maintains a tighter shot, making bouncing around locations feel more intimate and nearly first-person.

Persona 3 Reload shows there's still a novelty to balancing normal life and relationships with the duties of defeating shadows in the Dark Hour – a mysterious 25th hour where time stops as monstrous forces come out, humans turn into coffins, and your school transforms into a deranged 250-floor tower.

If my main character goes down and the other party members are still alive, then why should I not be given the option to revive them? After Soul Hackers 2 and Persona 5 Tactica ditched this rule and incorporated smarter and more logical penalties for not keeping the main character alive, I thought Atlus had finally decided to remove it from future mainline Persona titles.

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.

In my playthrough that ran more than an hour, though, I didn't feel at all like Reload was covering the same ground, even if it basically is. The added gameplay elements, updated graphics, tweaked areas and social links compel me to sink another handful of months into getting to the bottom of Apathy Syndrome with the S.E.E.S. crew.

I was so glad the Fatigue system had been removed for Persona 3 Reload. This meant that as long as I had enough healing supplies to keep my characters’ health and Spirit Points full, I could spend as much time as I wanted in Tartarus without worrying about arbitrary systems forcing me to leave.

In August 2023, a further Famitsu interview was conducted between Wada, Niitsuma, Yamaguchi and composer Atsushi Kitajoh. They elaborated on the development process of remaking the game's assets, stating that the character models from Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight (2018), which marked the first time many Persona 3 elements were fully rendered in high-definition, were used as a base for corresponding models in Reload. However, the Reload assets were otherwise produced from scratch with various adjustments, such as Aigis having her proportions altered to emphasize her unique physical traits as a cybernetic being compared to the regular human characters.

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In addition, the technical performance of Persona 3 Reload on Xbox Series X is of a high standard. The game ran smoothly during my playthrough at a 1080p resolution and 60 FPS persona 3 reload gameplay with no framerate drops.

This was the first entry in the Persona series to use the school calendar system and social sim elements as a foundation to move through its story, planning activities during the day and going dungeon crawling at night.

While these two segments may feel somewhat separate, your social interactions during the day will often have an impact on your stats and relationships in the combat and dungeon-exploring elements of Persona 3 Reload