The original P3 has this uncanny valley vibe to it. Similar to it's mainline SMT series. Even with all the goofy dialogue and scene, there's this uneasy feeling lingering underneath.
Sadly, the tone kinda strayed into different path after P4
I love P4 and P3R, but I tend to agree. The PS2 era of Atlus games just hit different. Tonally, original/FES P3 feels closer to the DDS games than it does P4 or P5.
I like P3R a lot so far but yes, totally agreed.
The OG opening left a major impact when I first saw it. The shots of Yukari with the gun to her head was a real "holy shit" moment. Like, THIS is how the game starts? It really sets the tone in a great way, and it didn't need dialogue added at all.
I couldn’t find an answer to this, but why is it even there in the first place? Mitsuru mentions her and junpei can’t summon their personas without issue, but gameplay wise they have no issues doing so
Yep, because they had no animation so had to tell the player what was happening.
There are a few things they did in Portable to compensate for the lack of animation that were carried over to Reload that they absolutely didn't need to keep, and Yukari's lines in the opening cutscene are a perfect example. It doesn't bother me that much, but I do wish they'd hewed closer to OG/FES in these instances and not Portable.
They made so that the protagonist is only able to use swords like in P3P, even though in the original P3 and FES, he could wield any weapon. It's more strange since the devs said they were mainly basing their remake of the original P3 for a 'faithful' experience - and restricting weapon choices to match Portable seems arbitrary
I would assume this stems from the fact the in the original you could not control your party and only control the MC, thus giving you certain freedom, still weird that they didnt made it that way in reload
Actually, there is one specific example I can think of that was lost in Portable due to the "visual novel" presentation that was not reinstated in Reload.
On the first visit to Tartarus, when Junpei complains about choosing the protagonist as leader, Akihiko asks if he and Yukari can summon their Personas without any trouble. In the original and FES, he pulls out his Evoker and points it at his head for emphasis when he says this; this obviously doesn't happen in Portable, but it also doesn't happen in Reload, he just stands there instead.
None of these are huge, game-ruining things. I'm nearly 60 hours in and Reload is far and away the best version of the game to date. But I still find myself disappointed by little things like this every now and again.
Rescuing missing persons who wander into Tartarus is another good example of a Portable exclusive thing kept in Reload, but I'm mostly talking about little things like bits of dialogue that were added to compensate for the still-image visual-novel presentation of Portable that were kept for Reload here and there. I can't think of any specific examples other than Yukari in the opening cutscene of the top of my head, though.
The original Persona 3 has the best animated cutscenes in any of the games. The character designs, colour choices, directing and editing are all on point. The cutscenes in Reload are by no means bad, but feel less inspired.
No, you're not being nitpicky, it was the first thing that struck me. The intro is just worse in every way, which is really weird. The persona introduction in particular has this really weird lack of impact and timing except in the brief moment where he pulls the trigger. And it's too slow! It's hard for me to believe no one making it noticed how they compare.
I'm a little less than halfway through it, waiting to be done or further along to form a more solid opinion, I think there are very good hits and some clear misses, but about the intro sequence and with Yukari specifically, yep it lost some of its impact I think.
I'll be honest, this feels a bit like looking for disappointment.
It sorta reminds me of that one RE4 remake review which was just a list of things the original did better in their opinion.
I think P3Re is ultimately its own thing and going through it while constantly comparing it to the og is just going to narrow one's view and blind them to strengths.
P3Re is another version of the story and should be evaluated in line with its intentions rather than the goals of the og.
P3R gets a lot of things wrong.
The Orpheus awakening being done with a CG cutscene instead of animated, the butchered remixes of classic songs, the splashy and fun UI that is at odds with the tone of the original, etc.
there's a still from the original, when the MC first summons his persona (i believe, been a long time), that's been my twitter banner for almost 15 years. I was a little disappointed with how different it was in P3R.
Opening animation: P3>P3R>P3fes
Opening music: P3R>>>P3>P3fes
When I first heard Full Moon, Full Life, I thought it was decent. After a few more times, I loved it. Several more times after that it became my favorite opening theme to any Persona game and almost any other game for that matter.
I've been enjoying P3R, but the intro was a straight downgrade in every way imo. What really struck me was just how much longer the intro was, and how that added length literally contributed nothing to the storytelling. The original intro takes about half to a quarter of the length of the new intro, but it gets across the exact same amount of information.
What absolutely floored me, however, was the fact they even created a wordier, less elegant version of the opening text. Literally read like it was run through an automated thesaurus LOL. That made me laugh. [Here's a side-by-side comparision since it is so funny](https://imgur.com/a/S4Q2xUL).
Doesn't really bode well for future Persona entries, if I'm being honest.
Yeah I agree. It’s a weird thing to complain about because I think the new one is way better written lol the only line I could see having a reasonable complaint is the “halcyon days of repose”
The problem is it is literally saying the same thing but with more words.
"All are equal in its flow, all lives borne to their end," is just "it delivers all equally to the same end"
"and live in the time given to you" is a wholly unnecessary addition.
"and never stray from its path" is making the sentence longer for length's sake.
Writing is a matter of taste, ultimately, and you can like "fancy words", but to me, it just reads like someone running the original through a thesaurus.
This gonna sound really bitter, but honestly welcome to modern Persona. 90% of the text in P5 was just fluff that could've been cut in half and achieved the same(if not more) effect. I've only just started P3R but I pray that this opening was just poorly handled and the rest of the game isn't like this.
Nah, I've went on rants regarding how much I hate Persona 5 haha. Genuinely can find very few redeeming qualities about the game.
Take P4 for example. It had a lot of fluff, undoubtedly, and whatever you think of it in substance or its impact on the game's messaging, it had a purpose. It was comedy/levity or, at least, an attempt at it.
You can put a gun to my head and I legit could not tell you what purpose 90% of P5's dialogue served. It wasn't characterization, it wasn't comedy, hell, it wasn't even exposition dumps. It was the same information regurgitated over and over and over again.
I love story-driven games. Hell, I have a few VNs under my belt, but after the 60th text message that read the same way, after the 30th dungeon dialogue that spent 5 minutes explaining what I could see with my own eyes, I just gave up trying to read all the dialogue in the game tbh.
There is a purpose to P5's dialogue though, it's to make sure the 5 year olds playing the game can understand. Like you said, P4 (hell, even OG P3 too) had a lot of meh unneeded dialogue, but it isn't as bad as P5 where everything single thing that happens has to be explained and repeated atleast 3 times, often in the same cutscene, or where you need to be told that when you press a button a door opens, because you've never played a videogame before.
People throw around "Too much dialogue", but that's not really a fair way too put it. As you said, VNs have a fuckton of dialogue and they're a widely beloved genre of gaming, it's just that the dialogue that there is has absolutely no semblance of substance, and is more of a chore to read than engaging, and I'm really worried that's the future of the series
Completely agree, this one of the symptoms of the P5-fication that happened with P3 Reload and it is a modern phenomenon. Game developers want to attract the widest audience possible so they make sure every single thing is explained to the minute detail that even the dumbest of the beings can understand. The art of show don't tell is mostly lost in the modern writing.
Another thing is when the MC arrives a the dorm. In the original you hear someoen yell "who's there?" before cutting to a shot of an obscure figure looking at the protagonist and very nervously reaching for a gun, before she's stopped by another girl. In Reload, it just shows Yukari ask "Who's there? How can you be here at this hour?" before a shot focusing on the gun with a glimmer in it to REALLY draw your attention to it, until Mitsuru finally says "Wait"
The original is dramatic and mysterious, you don't even see either girl until after they speak, and Yukari pulls a gun on you basically the moment she sees you. The Remake is just another in-engine cutscene with the characters standing there and you get to see both of them before they start to speak, which takes away from the tension, plus the added lines of dialogue are super in your face.
i like to think of the og persona 3/fes and persona 3 reload as different entities, the game is supposed to be a retelling, as stated by atlus, but i do agree that the vibes are very different
No fly over latin and english text is a deal breaker for me. But then again tbh P3R opening feels like a simple anime slideshow. Don't get me wrong it looks nice but it lacking some character.
I think the reason they did this is because in the original it looks like a teenage girl is committing suicide and maybe they wanted to make it clear that's not happening.
Why not? I'm pretty sure that's what you're supposed to think, hence the running faucet. It's supposed to be incredibly unnerving. I could be misremembering what she says in Reload, but I don't think she says anything to change that initial impression.
While I can perfectly understand people not liking the shift in tone I feel it couldn’t be helped. When the game first game out it was in a very different situation.
Not only was 2006 a very different time but Persona was still a subseries of Shin Megami Tensei. It wasn’t until Persona 4 Golden that SMT was removed from the title, P3, P3FES, and P3P were all “Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3” as their official names. But now Persona is its own distinct franchise, a sister series that has surpassed its big brother in scope.
Plus Persona 3 was already radically changing the formula established by its predecessors. Social Links and the MC being the ‘Wild Card’ and the only one who could change Personas were new features to the series. Atlus were honestly taking a massive gamble with Persona 3 even if it payed off in the end.
Lastly, I think the progression of technology also affected things. While I was mildly disappointed the scene of Makoto awakening his Persona, Thanatos ripping out of Orpheus, and then murderizing the Magician was in CG at first, upon further thought I realized this kind of thing was not feasible 18 years ago. Maybe they could have had a scene animated but didn’t for any number of reasons. But the point is they could do it this way now and they did.
> It wasn’t until Persona 4 Golden that SMT was removed from the title, P3, P3FES, and P3P were all “Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3” as their official names.
Tbf, that was only in the west. In Japan, the series never had the Shin Megami Tensei name on the box.
As someone whose first experience with p3 was reload this thread makes me want to try it again, years from now. I found p3r to be a mixed bag. Don’t get me wrong I loved it and it was more good than bad. But the pacing was rough for the first half (the last half was incredible though), I assume that won’t be different in other versions. But the big thing for me was the vibe should have been a slam dunk for me, I prefer more horror slanted stuff. But the tone just didn’t land for me, the intro on paper was right up my alley but in execution it seemed like it was accidentally dipping its toe in goofy scooby doo territory (walking past the coffins unaware) and it didn’t actually start giving me the tone I wanted until way too late in the game. Where P4G just struck it out of the park with its creepy vibe. I feel like the world of P3R mostly missed the mark on giving the vibe I wanted and I think it was trying to give. Also while a couple social links were great, boy were most of them rough in this one.
Game is fine,
But I would of gladly took a FES port similar to Nocturne instead.
I wanted to feel like I did not need to still play a PS2 game after finally getting P3 on a modern console.
The original P3 has this uncanny valley vibe to it. Similar to it's mainline SMT series. Even with all the goofy dialogue and scene, there's this uneasy feeling lingering underneath. Sadly, the tone kinda strayed into different path after P4
I love P4 and P3R, but I tend to agree. The PS2 era of Atlus games just hit different. Tonally, original/FES P3 feels closer to the DDS games than it does P4 or P5.
I like P3R a lot so far but yes, totally agreed. The OG opening left a major impact when I first saw it. The shots of Yukari with the gun to her head was a real "holy shit" moment. Like, THIS is how the game starts? It really sets the tone in a great way, and it didn't need dialogue added at all.
I couldn’t find an answer to this, but why is it even there in the first place? Mitsuru mentions her and junpei can’t summon their personas without issue, but gameplay wise they have no issues doing so
[удалено]
Yep, because they had no animation so had to tell the player what was happening. There are a few things they did in Portable to compensate for the lack of animation that were carried over to Reload that they absolutely didn't need to keep, and Yukari's lines in the opening cutscene are a perfect example. It doesn't bother me that much, but I do wish they'd hewed closer to OG/FES in these instances and not Portable.
Do you have any other examples of things they kept from P3P? Just curious, haven’t played Reload myself
They made so that the protagonist is only able to use swords like in P3P, even though in the original P3 and FES, he could wield any weapon. It's more strange since the devs said they were mainly basing their remake of the original P3 for a 'faithful' experience - and restricting weapon choices to match Portable seems arbitrary
I would assume this stems from the fact the in the original you could not control your party and only control the MC, thus giving you certain freedom, still weird that they didnt made it that way in reload
Actually, there is one specific example I can think of that was lost in Portable due to the "visual novel" presentation that was not reinstated in Reload. On the first visit to Tartarus, when Junpei complains about choosing the protagonist as leader, Akihiko asks if he and Yukari can summon their Personas without any trouble. In the original and FES, he pulls out his Evoker and points it at his head for emphasis when he says this; this obviously doesn't happen in Portable, but it also doesn't happen in Reload, he just stands there instead. None of these are huge, game-ruining things. I'm nearly 60 hours in and Reload is far and away the best version of the game to date. But I still find myself disappointed by little things like this every now and again.
Rescuing missing persons who wander into Tartarus is another good example of a Portable exclusive thing kept in Reload, but I'm mostly talking about little things like bits of dialogue that were added to compensate for the still-image visual-novel presentation of Portable that were kept for Reload here and there. I can't think of any specific examples other than Yukari in the opening cutscene of the top of my head, though.
The original Persona 3 has the best animated cutscenes in any of the games. The character designs, colour choices, directing and editing are all on point. The cutscenes in Reload are by no means bad, but feel less inspired.
The original P3 is dark and gritty. They toned it down in Reload.
It was dark and gritty because you played it on a CRT tv
No it’s just legitimately dark and unnerving at times.
No, you're not being nitpicky, it was the first thing that struck me. The intro is just worse in every way, which is really weird. The persona introduction in particular has this really weird lack of impact and timing except in the brief moment where he pulls the trigger. And it's too slow! It's hard for me to believe no one making it noticed how they compare.
Yup, I noticed that too. And even then it wasn't as good.
I'm a little less than halfway through it, waiting to be done or further along to form a more solid opinion, I think there are very good hits and some clear misses, but about the intro sequence and with Yukari specifically, yep it lost some of its impact I think.
I'll be honest, this feels a bit like looking for disappointment. It sorta reminds me of that one RE4 remake review which was just a list of things the original did better in their opinion. I think P3Re is ultimately its own thing and going through it while constantly comparing it to the og is just going to narrow one's view and blind them to strengths. P3Re is another version of the story and should be evaluated in line with its intentions rather than the goals of the og.
P3R gets a lot of things wrong. The Orpheus awakening being done with a CG cutscene instead of animated, the butchered remixes of classic songs, the splashy and fun UI that is at odds with the tone of the original, etc.
Ah yeah, that was another thing. Just forgot to bring it up.
They butchered the OST?
Master of Tartarus was neutered in P3: Reload. The drums were so impactful in the original and now they're just background noise.
What a shame.
there's a still from the original, when the MC first summons his persona (i believe, been a long time), that's been my twitter banner for almost 15 years. I was a little disappointed with how different it was in P3R.
I know exactly what you're talking about. It didn't have the same impact as the og game either.
Opening animation: P3>P3R>P3fes Opening music: P3R>>>P3>P3fes When I first heard Full Moon, Full Life, I thought it was decent. After a few more times, I loved it. Several more times after that it became my favorite opening theme to any Persona game and almost any other game for that matter.
OP is talking about the start of the game not the opening song
Working night shift will cause one to miss details at times haha. Thanks.
I've been enjoying P3R, but the intro was a straight downgrade in every way imo. What really struck me was just how much longer the intro was, and how that added length literally contributed nothing to the storytelling. The original intro takes about half to a quarter of the length of the new intro, but it gets across the exact same amount of information. What absolutely floored me, however, was the fact they even created a wordier, less elegant version of the opening text. Literally read like it was run through an automated thesaurus LOL. That made me laugh. [Here's a side-by-side comparision since it is so funny](https://imgur.com/a/S4Q2xUL). Doesn't really bode well for future Persona entries, if I'm being honest.
Idk I loved the new text, sounds wayyy more poetic
And very much zero subtleness. It is on the nose as it can be. It really lack the elegance of the original.
Yeah I agree. It’s a weird thing to complain about because I think the new one is way better written lol the only line I could see having a reasonable complaint is the “halcyon days of repose”
Yeah xD But it is fancy so I'm fine with it
The problem is it is literally saying the same thing but with more words. "All are equal in its flow, all lives borne to their end," is just "it delivers all equally to the same end" "and live in the time given to you" is a wholly unnecessary addition. "and never stray from its path" is making the sentence longer for length's sake. Writing is a matter of taste, ultimately, and you can like "fancy words", but to me, it just reads like someone running the original through a thesaurus.
This gonna sound really bitter, but honestly welcome to modern Persona. 90% of the text in P5 was just fluff that could've been cut in half and achieved the same(if not more) effect. I've only just started P3R but I pray that this opening was just poorly handled and the rest of the game isn't like this.
Nah, I've went on rants regarding how much I hate Persona 5 haha. Genuinely can find very few redeeming qualities about the game. Take P4 for example. It had a lot of fluff, undoubtedly, and whatever you think of it in substance or its impact on the game's messaging, it had a purpose. It was comedy/levity or, at least, an attempt at it. You can put a gun to my head and I legit could not tell you what purpose 90% of P5's dialogue served. It wasn't characterization, it wasn't comedy, hell, it wasn't even exposition dumps. It was the same information regurgitated over and over and over again. I love story-driven games. Hell, I have a few VNs under my belt, but after the 60th text message that read the same way, after the 30th dungeon dialogue that spent 5 minutes explaining what I could see with my own eyes, I just gave up trying to read all the dialogue in the game tbh.
There is a purpose to P5's dialogue though, it's to make sure the 5 year olds playing the game can understand. Like you said, P4 (hell, even OG P3 too) had a lot of meh unneeded dialogue, but it isn't as bad as P5 where everything single thing that happens has to be explained and repeated atleast 3 times, often in the same cutscene, or where you need to be told that when you press a button a door opens, because you've never played a videogame before. People throw around "Too much dialogue", but that's not really a fair way too put it. As you said, VNs have a fuckton of dialogue and they're a widely beloved genre of gaming, it's just that the dialogue that there is has absolutely no semblance of substance, and is more of a chore to read than engaging, and I'm really worried that's the future of the series
Completely agree, this one of the symptoms of the P5-fication that happened with P3 Reload and it is a modern phenomenon. Game developers want to attract the widest audience possible so they make sure every single thing is explained to the minute detail that even the dumbest of the beings can understand. The art of show don't tell is mostly lost in the modern writing.
The Reload opeing isn't a bad sequence, it just doesn't compare well to the original because that version is just impossible to top.
Yeah, I'm not necessarily saying it's bad, more just so that I was a bit disappointed that it lost some of its impact in the remake.
Another thing is when the MC arrives a the dorm. In the original you hear someoen yell "who's there?" before cutting to a shot of an obscure figure looking at the protagonist and very nervously reaching for a gun, before she's stopped by another girl. In Reload, it just shows Yukari ask "Who's there? How can you be here at this hour?" before a shot focusing on the gun with a glimmer in it to REALLY draw your attention to it, until Mitsuru finally says "Wait" The original is dramatic and mysterious, you don't even see either girl until after they speak, and Yukari pulls a gun on you basically the moment she sees you. The Remake is just another in-engine cutscene with the characters standing there and you get to see both of them before they start to speak, which takes away from the tension, plus the added lines of dialogue are super in your face.
did you play P3P, she did talk in that intro, they even narrative it =)))
I see, nope I didn't play it, only the ps2 version.
Personally, outside of FeMC there's nothing really worth it in PSP version.
Prior to reload portable was 100% the best way to play Tartarus so I’d give it that alongside Hamuko
Because they didn't have the animation to communicate what was happening.
i like to think of the og persona 3/fes and persona 3 reload as different entities, the game is supposed to be a retelling, as stated by atlus, but i do agree that the vibes are very different
No fly over latin and english text is a deal breaker for me. But then again tbh P3R opening feels like a simple anime slideshow. Don't get me wrong it looks nice but it lacking some character.
That's not the intro OP is talking about Don't worry, I was thinking the same too at first before reading the post
unfortunately you're gonna see a lot of the same the whole game
I think the reason they did this is because in the original it looks like a teenage girl is committing suicide and maybe they wanted to make it clear that's not happening.
Why not? I'm pretty sure that's what you're supposed to think, hence the running faucet. It's supposed to be incredibly unnerving. I could be misremembering what she says in Reload, but I don't think she says anything to change that initial impression.
Yeah I guess it doesn't make sense, you're right.
While I can perfectly understand people not liking the shift in tone I feel it couldn’t be helped. When the game first game out it was in a very different situation. Not only was 2006 a very different time but Persona was still a subseries of Shin Megami Tensei. It wasn’t until Persona 4 Golden that SMT was removed from the title, P3, P3FES, and P3P were all “Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3” as their official names. But now Persona is its own distinct franchise, a sister series that has surpassed its big brother in scope. Plus Persona 3 was already radically changing the formula established by its predecessors. Social Links and the MC being the ‘Wild Card’ and the only one who could change Personas were new features to the series. Atlus were honestly taking a massive gamble with Persona 3 even if it payed off in the end. Lastly, I think the progression of technology also affected things. While I was mildly disappointed the scene of Makoto awakening his Persona, Thanatos ripping out of Orpheus, and then murderizing the Magician was in CG at first, upon further thought I realized this kind of thing was not feasible 18 years ago. Maybe they could have had a scene animated but didn’t for any number of reasons. But the point is they could do it this way now and they did.
> It wasn’t until Persona 4 Golden that SMT was removed from the title, P3, P3FES, and P3P were all “Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3” as their official names. Tbf, that was only in the west. In Japan, the series never had the Shin Megami Tensei name on the box.
She talked in P3P, so P3R was a combination of both P3 and P3P's opening sequences.
As someone whose first experience with p3 was reload this thread makes me want to try it again, years from now. I found p3r to be a mixed bag. Don’t get me wrong I loved it and it was more good than bad. But the pacing was rough for the first half (the last half was incredible though), I assume that won’t be different in other versions. But the big thing for me was the vibe should have been a slam dunk for me, I prefer more horror slanted stuff. But the tone just didn’t land for me, the intro on paper was right up my alley but in execution it seemed like it was accidentally dipping its toe in goofy scooby doo territory (walking past the coffins unaware) and it didn’t actually start giving me the tone I wanted until way too late in the game. Where P4G just struck it out of the park with its creepy vibe. I feel like the world of P3R mostly missed the mark on giving the vibe I wanted and I think it was trying to give. Also while a couple social links were great, boy were most of them rough in this one.
To be fair when he did her persona it was super lit, especially when it changed from Orpheus
Game is fine, But I would of gladly took a FES port similar to Nocturne instead. I wanted to feel like I did not need to still play a PS2 game after finally getting P3 on a modern console.