Persona 3 Reload is Good but.... (Merciless Review)
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- čas přidán 15. 02. 2024
- Focusing on its quality as a remake moreso than as a standalone.
First try at reviewing, love everyone who watches!
Big Atlus fan.
Tags: Anime, Persona 3 Reload, Merciless Review, Persona Series, Gaming, Video Games, JRPG, Atlus, Persona 3, Game Review, RPG, Gamer Community, Gameplay, Opinion Piece, Persona Fan, Gaming Community, Persona Discussion, Persona Fanbase, JRPG Fan, Persona 3 Review - Hry
The easy extra feature for the events would've been to freely call and ask people to hang out and not just wait for them. You basically have a pager instead of an actual phone in this game.
Same with literally all Persona games. Like bruh, I have a phone, let me hangout with my friends whenever tf I want😭 can't even get a good holiday social link rank up. Which I have to say, I know now what to do in NG+.
Good analysis. Having completed it a few days ago, I agree: it's completely impossible to try to do all the social links and party member events blind/without a guide. There were 5 I didn't max, being at a total of 15 ranks short. But I did manage to do all the party member events as well as Ryoji's. The biggest reason I didn't make it is because I decided to focus the old couple early on, with no way for me to predict how many s-links would be consolidated within the school without literally ANYONE being accessible around town on holidays. But even without this mistake, I don't see how I could manage a perfect run without meticulous spreadsheet planning and advanced knowledge.
I was a tad bit closer and I imagine I could have done it with any foreknowledge on how social links worked - by the end of my first run having been my first persona game ever I was 8 total off (I could have brought it down to 6 but decided to spend time with team to unlock their abilities because I knew my run was doomed at the end.) I was at rank 9 with Magician and rank 3 with temperance, but realistically the biggest constraint was the breaks - going weeks without being able to do school links sucked and hitting the last month gave a massive sense of dread knowing I was unable to complete the links. Atleast they weren't super necessary and the only major thing you miss out is some small dialogue & orpheus telos. What really sucked for me was missing the event where you save Chidori, I had no clue it was possible until I got a clip of it recommended to me after I finished the game. That was more upsetting than not completing the temperance & magician tree for me.
I missed aegis by one rank only that too using spreadsheet and stuff that too I went to tartarus once every cycle that too on a day when all the missing person were available to rescue.
The biggest problem is ryoji I spent time with him thinking I will get some key to fuse a persona but I got nothing and days were wasted.
And Aegis is weird during the last cycle because the game tells you she is available everyday in school but the game sometimes takes up your afternoon for story purposes and aegis is not in the classroom for the last few days and night time has nothing to do in this game by the end except spend time with the party or spending it on computer.
I even used the right persona before spending time with everyone but still didn’t make it and even if I did I still couldn’t play as orpheus telos cause the game has already ended.
For half the game all my social stats were max cause I always used the most expensive ones and still didn’t make it.
I almost felt like crying by the end cause seriously all that work just to miss by one rank and you have to start over in ng+ and the damn rewind does not help much cause I feel atleast rewind upto 10 days should be able just 4-5 intervals isn’t enough.
i felt the exact same way, and i thought i could get orpheus telos if i got all the fusion unlocks which i did but later did me find out thats not how that works (i was very stupid) but i fell 9 ranks short@notanerd6838
@@godaddy9837 okay but not having saves leading up to the previous like 15 days realistically is your fault i saved like every 3-5 days, also ryoji disappears before the end of the last month when aigis's social link is opened first opened. Aigis has her social link opened on january 8th and hanging out with ryoji is only available for the first weeks of december (?), he then disappears after telling you that you'll have until december 31st to kill him.
@@cvolm7744 I knew exactly how to get orpheus telos I was just picking to spend my days with non school people and that's where I failed. I honestly in the end only cared a little - I ended up caring more about not saving Chidori. My persona by the end was better than what I would have gotten if I actually fused Orpheus Telos as I had a Zeus maxed in all stats with godhand, deathbound, akada arts, crit amp, crit boost and apt pupil. I one shot each arcana phase of the final boss and then one shot his final phase with armageddon.
The simple fix was to make hangouts not take up time lkke Elizabeth's
Maybe make it you can only hang once per night?
@@faustoelorteguimiguez7643 Yeah obvious choice
@faustoelorteguimiguez7643 But most of the hang outs happen at night. Skill issue
@@frogglen6350 what?
@@frogglen6350 wtf are you on? There is only devil and tower on nights
Was surprised to see you only had 112 subs when I finished the video. You've got something going. would love to see more.
I think it was worse on the FeMC route on portable because you had no time at night. Between having to grind your social stats and going into tartarus at night you had 5 social links you had to balance at night which made it even worse trying to get a perfect run-through. I'd prefer being bored rather than stressed out, especially because one of those social links you had to speak to them every chance you got in a month otherwise you would be locked out of it.
Interesting perspective, I think there's a better balance they could have reached and there still are a lot of vacation days where nothing happens tho
@nopeyepp I kinda like that cuz it makes the game quicker to get through so the dead space doesn't offend me. I can see how that would bother you though.
@@nopeyepp I spent most of christmas with nothing to do but the Moon SL, least favorite Christmas ever fuck that kid
@@nopeyeppyou lost all credibility when you said they should have modernized the story wtf does that even mean lol
I literally said I think it's a good thing that it wasn't. If you have criticism for me I'm open to it, but we can't have a conversation if you're going to misrepresent me. @@dongxx
I pretty much agree and I gotta say The Gourmet King is by far my favorite social link. He is just so interesting and entertaining.
That is the most unpopular take, most people absolutely abhor the guy. He was alright, my favorite link was easily the Sun. It was the only link that made me feel properly emotional, especially with talking to the mother in the end. It literally only set me up to be devestated a second time for the games ending.
@@manvelmsurian9712 Have you heard text doesn't convey tone? Or are you that dense? Here I'll write a sentence with a tonal indicator to help you understand: "manvelmsurian9712 is SO intelligent. He's absolutely the MOST rational and thoughtful commenter on the platform.", it's as simple as capitalizing emphasizing words to more clearly convey sarcasm. It irks me to have to have typed that, even sarcastically because you honestly seem like the type of degenerate who scrolls youtube specifically looking to pick fights to give meaning to your otherwise meaningless life.
Yukari isn't a bitch! U guys are just mean! (i'm coping because lovers >>)
I really liked Maiko's social link. The Hanged Man arcana. Made me all emotional seeing a little girl be stuck in the middle of a not so great home life. Reminded me of my nephews and my own childhood growing up and not wanting to go home some days so I wouldn't hear my parents fighting. But I absolutely despised the moon social link (gourmet king) and fast forwarded a lot and waited until I had no other social links to complete to finish his.@@notanerd6838
I loved The Gourmet King, he reminded me a bit of Lemongrab.
I find that the clock restore sp on merciless isnt the big issues here. The issue is Fuuka theurgy restore sp when the party sp is low. After getting theurgy, it's incredibly easy to blast through tatarus in a single night without worrying about sp management.
agreed.
She has never once given me sp, she has only given me the atk, def, agi up one
@@CallMeTy67 she usually only gives me SP when the whole party basically is running dry
Then don't use it. Persona 4 and 5 did the same. These games were never dar souls
Bullshit it's random so you don't always get it
Honestly pretty spot on review! I originally played FES on my playstation 3 back in 2012 and I gotta say you pretty much nailed the gripes I have with the game! Keep at it! Got yourself a new sub
Really great analysis and critique. You got to the core or every mechanic you had a problem with instead of just going through broad strokes talking points like you're doing an ad read or something (like a lot of reviewers I see). It helps that you're obviously a huge fan of 3.
Tbh I kinda wish I’d played on Merciless instead of Hard. I’ve essentially already broken the game in May by getting Spirit Drain from a sword card, which kills the sp management aspect of Tartarus. You can also fuse a reasonable crit build REALLY early on with Archangel learning Apt Pupil at level 15, and Zouchouten getting crit boost and auto-tarukaja essentially for free. With moves like Arrow Rain from sword cards it makes nearly every non-boss encounter from Arqa part 2 onwards a complete joke
once I built Siegfried the game was basically done at that point
Yeah merciless isn’t that bad. It should probably say “for ppl who played FES” under the description. Merciless could be better tho. It gets unbalanced later on.
Merciless is hard until you defeat the monorail boss, after that it's alright not that much difficult
About the social links, they added a mechanic to basically guarantee you can max them all out unless you're really struggling with the time management aspect. The dude who sells URLs gets one that you can buy as many times as you want that gives you social points for whatever link you want and uses a night slot. It opens up around when the last full moon boss is I think. You can basically spend the last few months every night spamming the URLs to guarantee that every single time you talk with someone it's a social link level up, unless you utterly mess up and can't get a single point in the link events themselves.
yea exactly this, what i did for my playthrough was basically leave every social link that requires me to “spend time” instead of ranking up until i ran into them while walking koromaru or i literally could not do anything else that day (like in summer). i also left my non-school social links at the lowest i could, since summer and the week before exams locks you out of school SLs basically guaranteeing that i didn’t waste a single day in summer and i used the shrine for school SLs i knew needed points in days in dummer where i didn’t have anyone to meet
finally, you do every SL equal towards the end of the game and use the URLs to pretty much guarantee you finish every one. i didn’t even use a guide, just an answer guide for social links. keeping them equal means you can meet someone pretty much every day and you dont waste any days. im only in late november but all SLs are 8+ rn, and ive done every linked episode.
i hate to say this but its genuinely a skill issue. if you play persona enough you should know how to schedule your days. i like using answers guides for SLs when i play persona then i play at my own pace instead of following a 100% guide and almost always finish everything. p3fes is an exception tho…
@@demifolk8940 It definitely pays off to save non school links for later. I'm sure most people in their first ever run max the old couple as their first or maybe second social link. They then lose out on so much time during summer when they could have had a link to hang out with, while also having a maxed out school friend like... Ugh... Kenji or one of the other first ones you get.
@@demifolk8940lmao "I didn't use a guide except I used a guide" and then you have the gall to say its a skill issue. bruh.
I have a rebuttal, I don’t think the idea of a “perfect run” for social links is an inherently good idea. Part of the point of the game is that we all have limited time, and part of that time is making decisions tough decisions on how to spend your time, and sometimes that includes making tough sacrifices. I mean it’s not like it’s exactly easy or even possible in real life to become incredibly close with 23+ different people in less than a years time while doing school and battling at night. Plus for me personally, it always breaks the immersion for me when I feel like I have to look something up in a persona game, I mean it’s not like I can look things up about my friendships in real life:
That would make sense if the game didn't directly reward you with the locked personas behind each arcana and Orpheus Telos for maxing all S.Links
@@floop1662I mean it's a reward, doesn't mean it's intended, like when a developer puts an Easter egg outside of bounds, Orpheus Telos always seemed like an Easter Egg to me, the fact that you can't save it in the compendium tells this also.
@@floop1662the original P3 gave you fuck all for maxing out social links, the only reason they gave you an award in FES onwards is that it WAS seemingly possible to do in one run
Originally, it was never intended for you to do this.
I always use guides to max out all the social links, but I think it would be fun to decide what races of personae are better than others. A fun part of role-playing games is deciding what your character isn't going to be, so there might be strategic incentives to give more bonus fusion exp to a certain major acana and weigh pros and cons.
I find the linked episodes, while nice (especially for someone like me who has already experienced the p3p social links,) are great pieces of content that expand on the characters in a way that is endearing: they don't do enough to replace the p3p social links. Especially for someone like Shinji, who the base game tries to expand upon, but can't too much thanks to having such a short time to do so. Even characters that we had the entire runtime with, like Akihiko, while great, lack character building outside of their arcs. It just so happens that these characters, that don't get built up the same way they do in portable or in the movies, are my favorites and as such portable is (or was) my personal preference for p3. I will say, I MUCH prefer the ken linked episode to his social link from portable because despite being essentially the same story, it's not under cut by the decision to make him romanceable, it's just like taking care of an older sibling, which is what it should be. Regardless, with a new persona 3 comes more people talking down on portable and it's really annoying to hear the same 4 things repeated on why it's so much worse. Oh, and great video, btw.
P3P was my first experience to the Persona universe and I remember it fondly. Having said that, it had as many downsides as new additions and I never touched it again after getting FES and now Reload
hard to say as shinji's social link has the same problem as the twins in 5 where they do a lot of forshadowing but can't because of the plot. portable social links are mainly in the same quality more or less and something I don't see people bring up is how portable is very 180 to people either you really like it or really hate it not really a between and some of that applies more or less the same with the FEMC, there are good social links, ok social links but there are still some massive stinkers
Fantastic video.
I just finished it yesterday, and for most of my playthrough I was being really critical and trepidatious, as I really care about the original. However, I ended the game being impressed, but still walking away with some issues. It was really frustrating during the game that for every 3 steps forward it would take, I couldn’t ignore the 1 it’d take back.
It’s a weird release, but I’m happy it exists
Honestly the best review I´ve come across of the game, it really is a shame that just a bunch of smaller issues are what´s pulling the game down, still probably my favourite persona game though
Nice review dude. Very thorough and earned a sub.
This is exactly the video I needed and was actively looking for about a week ago, thank you for this upload
Great analysis, honestly just wish we were given a better way to track link stories…
When you brought up wishing Tartarus had more roguelike elements I was like “oh wow that could work so well in so many different ways”. Here’s to hoping we get a revamped DLC of The Answer that does something like that.
I’ve done max s link runs multiple times across fes and portable, it’s janky as hell at times but it is hella rewarding to max everyone tbh. It’s still possible to max everyone in reload first playthrough even if you watch every linked episode assuming you play the game like the original (did it with 7 days to spare), but I do wish the half of the linked episodes were moved to nighttime.
Persona 5/Royal has extra visual and sound cues that play alongside point notes *only* when you have enough points to rank up. Same with social stat ranks, plus a bit of sparkle when you earn stat points while close to ranking up a stat.
My main gripe with the social system in P3R is that I'm not certain if there's anything like the indicators in 5, or if there's even any other rankup-ready indicator that appears _before_ the next time a given S. Link is available.
It tells you when you talk to the npc that either you will get closer to that npc or not before spending time with them.
@@alenezi989a3 That's been a thing since 4 Golden. I was talking about knowing if a link is rankup-ready _before they're even available to hang out again._
Good stuff man. I agree on the amount of new events being overwhelming at times but now the game throws something at you almost all the time, which it´s fun. I never do everything the first run or even try to do it, so I´m going at my own pace enjoying it immensely so far.
P3 was my first when i was a teenager lol u saying P5 was yours when you were a teenager made me feel old 😂. P3 is harder and more strict to me and not as flexible making it more challenging than P5. Reload is now my fav persona
Hey that was a great video! I just finished Reload myself and I loved it a lot, which says quite a bit since I thought FES was meh when I had first played it a couple years ago after P5. While you could definitely argue that Atlus could/should've done more, I firmly believe that this is the best iteration of P3, especially for getting new people into it nowadays.
I really do agree on the fact that there’s little to do in the Evening if you've maxed out your social stats and the 2 measly social links that are present. You could basically just go to Tartarus as many times as you want like just before late game.
Excellent review, thanks for making this
Love your thoughts on this. My first play through of p3 was p3p portable on the Fem Mc route. Even after playing the male route I truly believe her version was the best version. Her social links were better than his and I feel like her perspective of the story was just more fluid than his. His story wasn’t bad I just feel like hers was told better. I like how reload tried to expand on the males party members but still pales in comparison to actually having a social link like in p3p. Not to mention it being so strict on how you have to already manage your time with other things in game. Not that p3p didn’t have its own issues but compare to the other versions it’s issue were to a lesser degree. While i think reload is a good remaster I wouldn’t call it a definitive version of p3 since it fail to include the answer/fem mc which each of those has a big fan base that loves them both. Hopefully Atlus release dlc to include those content but will have to see.
i personally disagree with the FEMC being better, the social links are pretty much the same quality as the male's with some good ones but also some bad ones and that includes some of the male party members namely shinji and ken being kind of iffy. aki's and the hermit girl are the big highlights
great criticism and review, like someone said in the comments, if linked episodes didn’t take time like elizabeth, it would’ve been fine, also like you said, moving some social links to night time, i missed on the justice social link being rank 7 with her and koromaru linked episodes unfortunately, however i’ve always intended to do new game plus so im fine, still absolutely love this game tho
There is speculation The Answer will be released as paid DLC later. I'm also hoping FemC would make it through like that as well. All personas are way overdue for a female protagonist, i think it's such a missed opportunity
This review is spot on 🤙🏽. I got the game for half off when target was doing a buy 1 get the other 50% off. Definitely glad I did because 70$ PLUS TAX was not worth it.
Yeah they did not do enough for extra asking price (and this is before selling answers separetly)
Merciless has always changed crit values for both sides.
This is my 1st persona game and I’ve beat it on merciless. It felt like a manageable hard difficulty
I recommend everyone to play on merciless cause I don’t think I would’ve enjoyed it as much if the game was a breeze and I didn’t have to analyze my decisions and stats
idk, I've been playing it on hard and have had a pretty fair experience, tried normal for a bit and was easy but I had some occasions in hard that do come very close. the dlc personas mainly the likes of johanna, cendrillon and vandis do make the game a bit too ridiculous and for my first playthoguh I just decided not to get the dlc to like whenever i do a new game+
thanks for the rec. I was a bit scared of merciless but now I will try it.
We might get the Answer as a DLC, then again I'm completely fine with not getting it, never liked the Answer, same as FMC, but the option should be there indeed
I'm a large fan of FeMC's writing in portable and I really hope it sees some light in P3R, just... without Ken's social link being so... worrying
@@imprudentdev1503i hate to use the leaks, but as an smt v re release has just been confirmed, i think theyre true. The answer will most likely be coming, but FeMC wont. Im pretty sure the name kotone was apart of the datamine, but her dlc was never mentioned, and it would make no sense for atlus to not include her in the base game
@@kaidene573 They probably planned to add her during the development period and then realised they can just port P3P
Absolutely agree with this video. I’m not ashamed to say I used a guide on my first play through, because sometimes there was too much stuff to do, and other times, nothing to do. The school links not being available on holidays with as many as there are in this game, or Sundays was a bit of a pain, as well. The Linked episodes, while enjoyable were pretty easy to miss, and I had to rewind a few times to finish them all. I was fortunately able to 100% the game my first play through, so I don’t absolutely have to do everything. Sucks that absolutely nothing gets passed to NG+ as well, (minus play time) especially the Social Stats, because maxing out Knowledge was a bit of a slog. I would have been fine if just the play time, outfits, compendium and social stats got passed down to NG+ and not the money, items, skill cards, equipment, and especially your level (I have no idea why they kept my level. I’m still at level 99, while everyone else got reset.) not coming to NG+, so that you couldn’t just cheese the game with broken, overleveled Personas at the beginning. P5R handled this better, with resetting me to lvl 1, with any stat buffs that you got from prior play throughs, and adjusting appropriately (unless you’re 10+ play throughs in, like I am, and my HP and SP are still 999 at lvl 1.)
Wait, can you use ailments against bosses? I'm 60 hours in, and any ailment I've tried always gets blocked, so I just stopped trying.
I know you can crit bosses, but I'll be pissed if I somehow missed that you can use ailments on bosses in this game!
It's usually Tartarus gatekeeper bosses, and not full moon ones. But still cool that they have some utility.
@@nopeyeppI remember charming the three intrepid knights in FES.
Good review. This is my first time playing P3, and am really enjoying it.
PRETTY NEW TO MAKING VIDEOS THIS VIDEO WAS AMAZING???
Great review! God bless you as well! 😊
I just barely managed to get all max Social Links and all Linked Episodes in one playthrough, with only one day to spare. What really helped me was the rebuyable URL in November that is basically a relationship fortune that you can redeem at night. That and the fact that, for the most part, the Links availability was the same from FES, so I knew to do school only Social Links during school days and save the rest for off days and vacations.
I absolutely loved this game but I will say. I agree with every point stated in this video, especially the night time portion of this game. The last 2 months felt empty since there was nothing to do. That was probably my biggest complaint. Still love this game though
Great video man
Huh, when I chose Ken over Akihiko's final night event, it let me do Akihiko's a few nights later 🤔
Like I said I could have missed seeing it, but it's still crazy that if you don't check the phone every day you can just reverse a lot of progress
The town needed more mini games and fishing.
After playing and enjoying the hell out of P1 and 2 i was excited to play reloaded. Then my friend who has plsyed through all the games, showed me comparisons between Fes and the Remake. I did a fair bit of thinking and can say im glad i went with Fes over the remake.
Both are worth it I think. Even tho FES is more interesting from a game design perspective and better cutscenes in early game, reload also adds cool content that FES desperately needed.
I think there should be optional difficulty options to help keep the feeling of FES.
Add in a tired mechanic, make your crits deal less damage, make socual stats harder to raise, and other features that could help address the time management issues
A tired mechanic sounds awful. Besides, we have the SP system, which acts as stamina, and makes that whole usea pointless and redundant anyway
@@unicorntomboy97361. I said OPTIONAL. That means you can choose to add it in or leave it.
2. Adding the tired mechanic makes finishing a block of tartarus in one night more challenging, adding a layer of strategy to how you use your nights.
3. I was referring to the feel of FES. Tartarus ib that game genuinely felt deadly and an arduous climb, rather than a one night speedrun to the next level. Adding features that bring back some FES mechanic could appeal to older fans looking for a way to challenge themselves
@@Iceblade269 The majority of current persona fans started with Persona 5, or Persona 4 Golden if you want to be really generous. Atlus should be catering to those fans and prioritise them above all else
I.am sure the developers removed Tiredness mechanic for a good reason during development
@@unicorntomboy9736 Sp restoration becomes a joke as soon as Theurgy becomes an option, and before that you're not exactly hurting for sp either if you're finishing battles early. The original tired mechanic (not the one from portable) acted as a much better deterrent against you cheesing tartarus in one night.
@@unicorntomboy9736 Except running out of SP becomes a non-existent issue past the first month of the game, because you can farm soul drops infinitely in the 2nd block by breaking objects, and once you get a decent physical skill to just mop all encounters, you end up using way less SP anyways.
Tired makes it so all your stats are lowered, it was a very effective system to make you pace yourself in Tartarus, and if you went against the system, you'd end up getting sick, which would further reduce your stats and force you to rest because you'd basically be useless in battle.
I just finished Reload today and watching this made me appreciate the game so much more, I’m definitely gonna have to check the movie out before doing a second playthrough. I do wish though that Atlus will one day complete Makoto’s story by having Aigis or Elizabeth find a way to free his soul
I loved the linked events but yeah, kinda messes with the planning. I did all of them and missed the achievement for maxing all the social links, if I had 2 more days at the last month I would probably be able to max them out.
Nice review. The main gripe i had as well was the lack of moving characters to different time slots(and honestly not making full social links for the males regardless of it not being femc route). Altough i enjoyed going through p3 again for the 5th time now. I really hope someof the stuff they did in p3/p3r does not carry over to 6 but we shall see. Nice video, i subcribed
Crits are so op in this game that they destroyed all the challange for me in the game. You said you got your crit biuld late game, I got mine in the mid game with siegfried and man.... from block 3 to nyx I was one shoting tartarus bosses lmao, the party devolved to being a buffer for the mc. To make things worse I defeated the reaper with the rest of my party dead witch made the already bain dead end game, a over leveled massacre. (Played on merciless to).
Also suffered with the lack of time, and althou I did not do a perfect run of the social links, it is my first time having to still complete 4 after my first playthrough with the original.
Great review man, keep it going!
This. It also makes Junpei really viable. And it’s not a bad thing but it IS a problem when it makes Akihiko look bad in comparison. For a character who’s supposed to be strong, it does kind of suck that the gameplay undermines it a bit
Also, it sucks the game is a bit too easy. I guess the trade off is the time management but still
@@BelBelle468 well even aki not looking so good in comparison with other party mambers, the game is easy enough for you to just use whoever you want as your party, nyx is such a joke that using the mc just for heals is viable.
@@BelBelle468 actually aki is still really good in reload, you just want to get those strike passives on his equipment so his physical damage is up to speed
Weird I missed maxing all social links and the extra links by 7 days and I know exactly where I screwed up and could have easily hit it with out a guide
Edit: the rewind feature was huge help with this
Over all pretty good review
Near the end of my NG+ playthrough, there are several things that I do want to share about Link Episodes. All are five episodes long with the exception of Ryoji's being four (Five if you count the first day that you met him which took up an entire afternoon slot) and all rewards items that enable the ability to fuse Personas like with Social Link. On my first playthrough, I find out that you can start Koromaru's Link Episode late as I was able to finish 5 episode in the last 10 days, but episodes aren't available at all times and they usually appears on school days. Shinjiro and Ryoji's Link Episodes do not officially end on their last Link Episodes as their final rewards are obtain on a later date. Shinjiro's is probably one of the most punishing one as there are two major mistakes that can lock you out from getting the final reward, one is the dialogue option with Mitsuru on the same day as the last Link Episode that will prevent the Link Episode from showing up and the other one is missing the deadline to go into Shinjiro room before the end of October. As for the Personas that you get from the Link Episodes on whether or not they are required materal for fusion. Yes, there are two Personas, Byakko and Michael that are locked behind the Link Episodes, which you need finish to Koromaru's and Ken's respectively. Byakko is required to make Kohryu which you need to complete both Koromaru's Link Episode and Hierophant Social Link to get Kohryu. Michael, on the other hand, serve as a fusion material for Satanael, which Satanael itself is a paid DLC. Satanael can be summon straight from Compendium after purchasing the DLC, but you are looking to get a perfect version, it's more of a benefit if it was summon through fusion and inherit the skills from other Personas. If you are playing NG+, the items gain from completing the Link Episodes will transfer over, so you don't need to do the Link Episode again.
Yeah I "managed" to do all Linked Episodes and Social Links (the latter why using a guide) by using a CT to rewind 2 weeks in January. As someone who only played P5R before imagine my shock when I found out that all school related Social Links keep you locked out during the Summer Break.
While I don’t agree with everything you said, I have to say this was very well written and put together. Great review man! Much respect
I must've had some really dumb luck then because I just barely managed to squeak out, maxing out the SEES hangouts. And I only missed out on like 3 S. links. Tbh, if I focused more on the school S. links rather than the ones you do outside of that time frame or can do at almost any time, then I think I would've gotten it. That aside, I think the lack of the answer or FemC is very disappointing here. I understand we would've had to wait longer to get such content on a full release, but it really is a missed opportunity for that content. And at least knowing Atlus' track record of full priced re-releases, I'm not very hopeful.
You could have just used a 100% walkthrough guide
@unicorntomboy9736 I used the old FES guide as a rule of thumb. But as I progressed, the differences became more apparent, I stopped using it. But if I followed its general strategy to prioritize the school links I would've gotten it.
@@realmshifter9102 There is a 100% walkthrough guide on PowerPyx. I used it and it helped me get the platinum trophy
It would not have existed on release as I assume many didn't have the pleasure of using.@@unicorntomboy9736
I think it's very hard to argue a mechanic is well-designed, if a guide is required to make the most of it.
I was able to max out all social links without a guide but I missed Ryoji, Junpeis, Shinjis, and Koromarus linked episodes. I didn’t rly mind because I just wanted to max out the social links. On the gameplay yea getting a crit build(which is super easy to do) basically finishes the game. Defeated the final boss in like 10 minutes
Are the social link problems you're talking about relevant to NG+ with already max social stats?
I assumed it'd be a piece of cake to do social links in NG+ because no social stat grind, but if not, then what should I look out for?
It's somewhat relevant still. Focus on the school links with worse availability first, do Fortune ASAP, put Mitsuru off because she's one of the only available during the final exam, wait until the dating site becomes available to raise points in some harder links. Focus out of school links during Sundays and breaks.
So in reload I am not sure if you noticed but in November you get the equivalent of the shrine via the guy selling Dating Site urls in Club Escapade which makes the social links in the last few months way easier to deal with. I think it is possible since I'm doing it blind and am so far on track with doing all the link events but you have to be really careful about prioritization and abuse the dating site when it's available. For reference I am almost at the end of December and only have Fortune and Emperor left and I should finish Emperor before December ends leaving Fortune and Aeon in the last month which is doable. The important thing is you prioritize party members, the less available school links like Yuko and Chihiro, then one of the clubs and Kenji and never interact with the daytime outside school social links unless none of the school social links are available.
Those are the last available ones I had as well, but the final month has a lot of skipped days
It's definitely possible to get full compendium in one playthrough, i did a run on merciless, only thing i didn't do is Ryojis link episodes(didn't know that he gave a persona) and by the end i had 8 full days left absolutely free. The trick is to focus on the school s links first and doing them simultaneously (so you look at your s links,and do whichever is lower than the others). Oh and if you want a "perfect run" without a guide, use rewind feature to understand what dialogue choices to pick.
I actually completely agree with you.
i somewhat disagree on the social links part, it's true that there's a distinct lack of nighttime links or other such activities however there are quite a few links that you can -- and should -- do on only off days (such as the Sun, Hermit, Star, Hanged Man, Hierophant and Moon). I myself made a mistake of doing one of these at the wrong time and ended with 2 social links on rank 9 ready to rank up by the end of the game.
Reload also added a way to use the shrine to raise points with social links at night through the public PC (that you can get at the club).
You're right that there are off day events, but I did all of them exclusively on Sundays and during exam prep weeks, etc and had none left to do for most of the game.
The problem with the public PC is that you get it so late in the game that it mostly doesn't matter tbh.
Still feels like there's little to do during night, especially in November-December-January. I maxed out my party's personalities and was just fumbling around.
I actually maxed out every social link first play through and every single episode link except for junpei! It is very possible i don’t know why people are saying it’s not, I got game day one as well so no guide, I didn’t know junpei was gonna be a one day thing so I missed it and I was unable to fuse surt but aside from that I was rocking Orpheus telos in the final boss and I beat it on merciless first go
There were guides on day one
I should have started on merciless, hard mode eventually gets too easy. Also, the Reaper can break the game, your team gets too much EXP when you beat him.
For fun, I thought, let’s go try the Reaper. MC was level 70, teammates were in high 60’s level. Too my surprise we beat the Reaper and the team shot up to levels in the 90’s. Now I could fuse any persona I wanted and Hard mode even got easy with scrub persona’s.
The game gives you too much EXP, if you manage to beat Reaper early.
To be fair outside of the superboss, if you can beat the reaper even without the exp you can prob still wash the game
Why did they auto-import your level to NG+, while also restricting the carry over of the compendium et al for merciless? If you play NG on merciless, it's pretty disappointing that you can't save your progress to NG+. The only possible reason for this was they assumed you wouldn't do merciless until NG+, in some attempt to preserve the challenge, but if you start with Merciless, you lose it all for NG+ which misses the point of what this extra mode is for. They should have gone the P5 or P4G (or even P5S) route of letting you customize the difficulty and choose which features to save in NG+.
I got Persona 3 FES on my PS3 and for some reason I find the cutscenes and the overall aesthetic of the original game way more appealing however I’m currently playing P5R and I’m really liking the gameplay I don’t wanna feel like it’s barebones in comparison Do you think I should play FES or Reload for an overall better experience? 🤔🤔
It's up to your discretion, if the combat and new coat of paint are worth 70 bones for you, get Reload. Otherwise, you already have FES which is still great.
seriously man, stick with FES. I know reload just came out, but it was the better overall experience. It feels like they actually took balancing into consideration with it, and their ai party control system is not found in any persona game going forward. you will have a much more challenging, but rewarding time with FES in my humble opinion (and wont lose 70 bucks!)
I will say, you fuse certain persona toward the middle/end there are still some easy moments... but tartarus really was legit perfect up until mid way for me
this being my first full playthrough of p3, i really really loved this game. i played fes back in the day and really just couldnt get into it :( the story had me absorbed but just subjecting yourself to the graphics of that era for 60+ hours seemed too big of an ask lmfao
I actually managed to get them all done except did a Rewind over Junpie last link event, otherwise I wouldn't have maxed Aegis
Great review, definitely agree with every point you mentioned.
My biggest problem with reload is def the night sections. The arcade and Tartarus is pretty much all you have to resort to once youve maxed out tanaka and mutatsu and got all your social stats up and ig another one or two social links or even a fourth social stat could have really help flesh out the nights
Late in the game, you can spend time at the shared computer to give yourself points for select S. links. If you've done basically everything else there is to do at night by then, you can just use that time to further the rest of your daytime S. Links.
Now this is the review video that we want, with much constructive opinion together with community feedback to improve the game, unlike some other channel which is just downright nitpicking and called it worthless and doing the baiting
I agree with the time mgmt. i was able max out everyone and extra social link episodes. But time mgmt was a lot more stressful. Esp the last month. Or with characters ik i had limited time/interaction with. One month i planned this then all of sudden junpei hits me up. Or an extra event takes my day off in janurary
I do really wish they changed the social links. Either making the schools ones easier to lvl up early game.
What a fantastic no bullshit, straight to the point review. No emotional intro, no long drawn out "youtuber-speak." Not feeling any pressure to say what fans might only want to hear. Backing up your praise and also criticisms with strong examples. Just cold hard facts, balanced arguments and truth. I wish more CZcamsrs did this style of review for games.
coming here after the expansion announcement lol. and still no Femc LMAO. wouldnt be surprised if they dropped another version just for that tho.
I’m convinced that femc and the answer are going to be dlc I doubt they would make another whole game just to add those but I guess who knows
@@vesi7993which alledgedly seems like what they were doing with portable's re-release where it exxists to experience just the FEMC route but just made more acessible
I think I did a good job of optizing my play by saving non-school social links for holidays. But I still could not maximize all the social links. Aigis’ was left at 3, and I hated that, since I wanted to maximize all the primary characters’
I watched another criticism on persona 3 reload stating that, unlike the original, it doesn’t feel like tartarus challenges you more than it does everything in its power to help you, and I agree with it a lot.
You can run past enemies with ease, and with events like greedy shadow and dark zone (which I see as more helpful) you can skip floors entirely while gaining the same exp buffs. There are other events like only strong shadows on a floor or enemies with inflicted status effects, but they barely pop up for it to be a problem plus your ambush upgrades diminish it even further
I’m currently on my second playthrough playing on merciless and, other than the first two months, it doesn’t feel difficult progressing through tartarus
While I do wish that say one more School Social link got moved to night, the schedule honestly wasn't that brutal, and is of similar levels to FES I'd argue, which was in turn easier than Persona 3.
I went completely without a guide, and did all hangouts and was 2 ranks away from max SL's, and the biggest cause was because I didn't realize I needed to heavily prioritize School Links, rather than balance my links evenly.
Was annoyed, but I just NG+ to get everything afterwards.
Above all, focus on in-school social links above outside of school social links and social stats. Even if it takes longer to get the stats needed for the female main cast, this insures you can get a majority of the day time confidants done, and then worry about the out of school confidants on the huge school breaks you’re given, especially the often empty end game winter break.
4 floors into Tartarus on Merciless and I don't think I've been hit yet lol. So far so good. Btw are you doing 4k120?
ye
I had max s-links and linked events done and 100% compendium done my first playthrough.
Was afraid I wouldn't have much time, but I remembered the school would be locked out for almost a month in p3p, so i did all school related s-links before the non-school ones
Only thing I didn't do was fight Elizabeth.
While I always intended to romance Aigis I must say that I find the lack of social links for the guys in SEES to be a real bummer imo
really wish access to the shrine at night was a feature like in p4
@8:45 I still haven't played Persona 5 Royal. I had just played the original not too long before that came out. I have WAY too many games to play to replay something so quickly. I might play it someday, but it's a big maybe.
I just now finished the game 10 minutes ago.
It was a blast from the past and made my nostalgia receptors work overtime. Looking very forward to the DLC which I’ll pre-order just as I did with the elden ring dlc.
What grinds my gears though - I just finished the game on merciless and was missing 2 social links. So I was like - no biggie - let’s just fight Elizabeth in ng+ on merciless…turns out almost NOTHING carries over.
Not the social stats, not my compendium, money, items, skill cards, NOTHING.
I just cleared the game on merciless already, I feel like I earned my rights to carry stuff over from ng merciless to ng+ merciless, yet I don’t get to do so.
Not only did I waste massive amounts of time by grinding my personas to max stats + wasted my time to get the almighty amp skill as well as almighty boost on my Thanatos.
And I can’t use any of it…at least give me the option to carry stuff over…
Now I’m forced to read and follow a guide to 100% this game wasting time…don’t get me wrong I really enjoy the game but the grind is horrific due to this limitation…can’t fight Elizabeth on merciless with what I worked for. Nope. Gotta start all over again .__.
lmao I feel you, i found a way to beat her without orpheus telos but i had to upend my team
Umm you think the clock should be removed? Why? Without it, it would be impossible to do every social link in merciless. You’re forgetting we need to farm money, which you need sp for.
I love this game and its my first persona game. My only complaint is that you can’t do a merciless new game plus run. Like what’s the point of getting the compendium to 100 if you can’t even use it in the new game plus run.
A perfect run *is* still possible as there are guides for it, so it is possible to do so still. Even in the original a perfect run was very difficult to manage. Seems people found ways. Theres even multiple different guides that achieve it with pretty different schedules and people are still optimizing and making new routes with more free time. So it's definitely not a downside in my opinion
Great review! I agree that Reload is almost faithful to a fault. P3 is my favorite entry in the series, and I'm kinda torn as to whether or not like I like Reload more than FES. For every area they improved, I feel like that also came with it's own new problem. I think the social links are better in general. The voice acting adds a lot and made some of the SLs I previously disliked a lot more endearing and it only enhanced the ones I already loved. The romance options were also far better this time around. I feel like the changes legitimately made Chihiro and Yuko more intriguing since the emphasis was on their actual struggles and it made some previously awkward/creepy moments a lot more charming. That being said, the time management aspect of the game is somehow even worse. The combat is a lot better, but due to Tartarus still being randomized, the dungeon is still super stale. The enemy encounters get really repetitive and I found myself just skipping floors until I came across golden hands or rare shadows. Monad doors were neat but not enough to make trips there more interesting. Reload is still a great game. I'd argue it's the best in the series despite the flaws. I'd easily recommend it to a newcomer since everything that made the og special (themes and characters) is still present and faithful, but I do feel like Atlus missed out on the chance to truly make that definitive version of P3.
Great review. I was interested in this version, but was worried that they would change the story for "modern audience" reasons. I also don't care for the FMC, so it just sounds like a solid remake. I'll probably wait for a sale to buy it though. I can't justify $70 to myself for a remake lol
They definitely need a mode that’s balanced.
Tired of 1-shotting every boss.
Endgame I had 10 persona’s that covered all bases only to 1-shot the final boss every faze with morning star messiah, then armegeddin 1-shot his final faze…
Persona 3 Portable Hard mode was way more intense.
I plan on doing a challenge run where I nerf myself into the ground to artificially make this game balanced.
Pretty much only single target attack moves and just your normal badic multi-buff debuff allowed PERIOD no thergies no almoghty no vorpal blade no op stuff period.
I was introduced to the series at Persona 5 Royal...really loving Reload. Obviously, but as good as Royal, but pretty great on its own.
i did NOT min-max my social links! second playthrough it is 😇
I probably shouldn't be talking about this since I'm only in November, but Reload feels like it's on the side of "too faithful" in so many aspects, which makes me worried that Atlus will try to pull a Royal/Golden style upgrade in the future 💀
I know it'll piss alot of nerds off to hear this but P5 (and by extension, Royal) is much better in how it handles its social sim aspects, Confidants vs P3's Social Links and art direction
As a p3 lover, i honestly think this is yhe best version of p3 to play rn. Its making me remember why i loved persona 3 back then
I somehow got done with all social links and link episodes in one playthrough
The linked episodes count towards it?! God damn it! That sucks! It's pretty much easier doing this in any other version. Gonna hope my Femc run in portable will be more doable. I saved that run for NG+
Shift Translation: thank god MC can finally save some SP
I like that you can't max out all the social links in one go. That way, instead of stressing yourself out, you can just relax and spend the time the way you want. And with the characters you find the most interesting. They should continue that in Persona 6.
In 5R - where it's pretty easy to max out everything in one go - you don't really have "personalized" playthroughs, if that makes sense. Except the love interests of course - unless you're a filthy cheater. Because of that, a second/third playthrough isn't really appealing. And it's also more stressful.
As a guy who finished the game a few hours ago i have to agree with what you said near the end. If i want to play as a female i have to get the low quaility port and if i want to play the 20-30 hour epilogue i have to either emulate FES or buy the game and a ps2 from ebay. A friend told me he was afraid atlus would release them as overpriced dlc not realizing the option of atlus releasing a whole new version of the game entirely
Less than a month later dataminers have found flags in the code for the For Answer episode.
Atlus strikes again...
I've made the adult Pokemon comparison a lot so its nice to actually hear it
That comment usually gets a lot of hate in my experience, but cone on bro its just a more interesting version albiet with less moves and a plot I won't forget after a week
It’s impossible to focus on social stats & then maxing out all social links. New game plus SUCKS found myself in an endless loop of just waking up, going to school, work on a social link & then go straight to bed. Fast fwd option 95% of the time. Reached 11/3 & realized I skipped over saving Bunkichi the old couple dementia guy. Immediately regretted my mistake & kissed goodbye all my effort to max out all social links AKA receiving the last trophy I need & achieving platinum trophy. Rewind feature is nice but it only goes back like 5 mins smh… felt so frustrated I didn’t play all day yesterday but I HAVE TO GET THAT PLATINUM. Going to start New Game Plus All Over Again… 😓
I been waiting to play since day 1 but i wanted to wait until people make mods too make merciless actually hard and still waiting until this day.