‘Persona 3 Reload’ review: pull the trigger on this must-play marvel

As the wintry dregs of February set in, Persona 3 Reload offers the perfect escape. In the role-playing game’s sunny setting, the fictional Japanese town of Tatsumi Port Island, there are new friends to meet and plenty of ramen to scoff. What more could you ask for? Just, er, don’t leave the house after midnight – and ignore those floating coffins.

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A ground-up remake of 2006’s Persona 3, Reload follows a high-schooler who’s just moved to the area. They soon discover the Dark Hour, a supernatural “hidden hour” that takes place at midnight. Every night, monstrous Shadows roam free, regular folk turn into coffins, and the local school transforms into Tartarus, a tower of impossible proportions. The only people aware of the Dark Hour are the Specialised Extracurricular Execution Squad (SEES), a band of students who use powers of their own – called Personas – to keep unwitting townspeople safe.

While investigating the Dark Hour, you’ll also need to keep up with regular student life, and each day you’re given a certain amount of time to spend. While the sun’s up you’ll attend Gekkoukan High School, hang out with friends, and drag yourself through the occasional midterms. By night, you delve into Tartarus to face Shadows in turn-based combat, unearthing the tower’s mysteries while levelling up your party.

Combat is fought with a mix of standard weapons and Personas – think Pokémon, except they’re summoned by putting a modified gun to your head and pulling the trigger, and instead of cute animals they’re usually an odd mix of Greek gods and Old Testament angels.

Shadows and Personas have their own strengths and weaknesses, which makes combat a violent guessing game – you’ll hurl lightning bolts and fireballs until something knocks them over, then pile on with heavy-hitting four-person attacks. For bigger fights, you also have Theurgy – abilities that take a while to charge up, but offer powerful attacks or team-wide buffs. At first, combat is fun, especially in larger boss battles where you need to put more thought into strategy. But the formula grows stale when you’ve been fighting for tens of hours, and the thrill of battle turns into a repetitive necessity.

The real joy of Reload is its slice-of-life elements. As soon as school is finished, you’re given two time periods – after school and evening – to do what you like. You might grab dinner with a pal and then study before bed, or instead practice with the high school track team before heading into Tartarus at midnight. It’s a cracking formula, and it’s dangerously easy to play for just one more day, then another… and one after that.

The best way to spend this time is with the characters of Tatsumi Port Island. Every major person you meet begins with a Social Bond, which is levelled up by hanging out and getting to know them. Doing so eventually unlocks a unique Persona, but these parts of the game are about the journey, not the destination. No two bonds are alike – storylines range from light-hearted culinary disasters to supporting an alcoholic Buddhist monk – and you’re quickly juggling 10 of these stories at once, loitering in Paulownia Mall while trying to decide who to spend time with.

These Social Bonds offer some cracking stories to keep you glued to your screen, but there’s also a phenomenal main plot, which follows SEES investigating why the Dark Hour and Tartarus exist while trying to put a stop to the phenomenon. Along the way you’ll laugh (yes, a knife-wielding dog joins SEES), cry, then cry some more. Some brutal gut-punch twists make this significantly darker than both Persona 4 and 5, and themes of grief and mortality are eloquently explored within bigger mysteries.

Between Shadow battles, dinner dates, and exams, there’s a lot going on in Reload. It’s all tied together with a supreme sense of style. The Dark Hour, illuminated by the sickly green glow of a gigantic moon, is over-the-top gothic goodness, while the soundtrack is crammed with J-pop bangers. Up-tempo ‘It’s Going Down Now’ is one of the series’ best battle themes, and a catchy After School track that arrives later in the game will have your head-bopping every time you leave the classroom.

As the sum of its parts, Reload is phenomenal as both a remake and a standalone game. Tatsumi Port Island looks gorgeous, and a stunning lighting system adds so much texture to the world. Likewise, small tweaks like Theurgy, being able to run, and mini-dungeons called Monad Passages, make Tartarus more interesting than it was in 2006. However, more could have been done with the Dark Hour. Tartarus isn’t quite enough to match a lengthy story – the dungeon feels increasingly dull in the game’s latter half, and there’s not quite enough iteration to keep things fresh past the 50-hour mark.

Even so, these are fairly minor quibbles in a game as gripping as this. You’ll keep killing Shadows and munching ramen until the credits roll – and when they finally do, you’ll wish you could do it all over again.

Persona 3 Reload launches on February 2 for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. We played on PS5.