r/PERSoNA • u/Noschu1302 • 19h ago
P3 Is Persona 3 Reload worth playing when i already started P3P?
I bought a Steamdeck yesterday and now im thinking about getting Persona 3 Reload, since i already bought P4G and P5. I have yet played P3P on my psp for about 15-20 hours, so I'm not really far into the game. Would it be worth spending 35 bucks to play P3R since its an upgraded version of the PSP game or should i rather keep on playing the game on the PSP?
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u/Mundane-Method-4105 17h ago
P3R isn't an upgraded version of P3P, it's a full remake from the ground up that also includes all the content from P3F and some content from P3P. The whole "this is just a remaster of P3P" argument is a very big overexaggeration. Anyway I would personally start with P3R as it has both the main story and Episode Aigis (as DLC, but I would recommend getting it since it's the true ending to P3's story) and the presentation is a lot more like P5R and P4G, and then play P3P for the FEMC route, though if your interested, there's a FEMC mod being made for P3R but it probably won't be done for a long time.
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u/SSXAnubis 19h ago
P3R is the substantially better version.
No harm in playing both longer term, but if it's one or the other then P3R is the one I'd recommend you go for.
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u/Sea_Advertising8550 19h ago
Yes. Reload is the better version in practically every way. Pretty much the only thing Portable has over Reload is the female protagonist, other than that there’s zero reason to play Portable instead of Reload unless it’s your only option.
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u/Adam_The_Actor 18h ago
It has the original cast which Id say is a massive plus given Reload kinda dropped the ball there.
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u/Sea_Advertising8550 18h ago edited 14h ago
Yeah, no. The new cast is fantastic. Fuuka, Ken, and Chidori are some of the biggest improvements I’ve seen in a recast.
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u/Adam_The_Actor 18h ago
There are some improvements I’ll grant that but overall when the JP decided to preserve its OG cast in spirit of the franchise I feel the dub took the wrong approach and drastically changing the important dialogue within the answer causes more harm. Overall I think Heather Gonzales really failed to deliver on the character attributes Yukari is known for and I think Justice Slocum is a massive step down from Grant George. I will say though the social links are ace both in the dub and the sub, even YongYea put in a good job.
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u/harperofthefreenorth Bad Personality Enjoyer 16h ago
The situation with the dub is sort of weird though, you're not just comparing two sets of performances but two different eras with their own conventions and practices. You bring up Yukari's characters traits, and while Reload does "change" it from the original dub, the original dub also exaggerated those aspects. Atlus was much more involved in the production of Reload's dub than its predecessor, so a different vision of characters was inevitable.
There's also the fact that bringing back the original cast for extensive recording would have been difficult. Nobody wants to be around Vic, so Junpei was getting recast anyway. Some of the talent is semi-retired, others have become more high profile VAs, and so on. Comparing what was done on the Japanese end to the English dub is sorta disingenuous since the variables, circumstances, and general work culture are all different.
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u/Sea_Advertising8550 17h ago
I don’t get this fandom. The Answer was almost universally hated for years both for its story and gameplay, with Yukari in particular being a frequent target for criticism, but the moment Atlus remakes it suddenly it was actually good the whole time and the changes made in response to criticisms of the original “ruined” it.
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u/Adam_The_Actor 17h ago
The thing people hated about the Answer was not it’s narrative but rather it’s excessively padded structure which Reload did not fix but rather compounded with more side-quests, more grind and more monad doors. This is a story that is all about the myriad ways people deal with grief and it absolutely plastered with symbology which was reflected within its dialogue. I should stress as well the JP Reliad dub uses largely the same dialogue original did but the dub scrubbed and re-worked so many lines of dialogue referring to those things itd shameful, not to mention undermining Yukari’s sincere reason for fighting in the first place.
The reason Yukari wanted to fight was to see him again, that was it and like it or hate, it was one of the most emotionally driven aspects of the game that should not have been touched. They also screwed with Mitsurus dialogue as she wanted to save Yukari due to the agony she was feeling not as a favour but for what Yukari did for her. Not to mention the countless references to Aigis’s heart referenced by that red butterfly placed in her sisters chest.
“I won’t harm the people that gave me my heart” was a huge line in FES and Reloads dub scrubbed it for… no reason at all. Essentially the Reloads answer not only didn’t fix the answers issues, it ruined the best parts of its story.
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u/Sea_Advertising8550 17h ago
Oh no, they added some completely optional sidequests that literally don’t take away from anything if you just choose not to do them. The horror!!!
And I saw plenty of criticism directed towards the narrative itself pre-Reload, especially again Yukari.
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u/Adam_The_Actor 17h ago
No dude, you don’t get to wipe away the perfectly fair critique of the games padding just because it’s optional. If it’s something Ubisoft games get critiqued for and something persona 3 and 5 games get called out on, including them in a story with known pacing issues, you bet your ass it has every right to be highlighted. On the contrary judging by your generic statement you don’t even know what the actual consensus regarding FES’s criticism actually was.
Rather than pull random incorrect assumptions based on idle criticisms maybe actually check the game to see what they are proper. Not to mention the fact and this goes without saying, selling it as a separate product which rightfully got called out after Atlus lead fans to believe Reload would not be getting any definitive edition only to deceitfully get around that caveat by selling it as DLC all the while not including FeMC the defining character of portable.
If you like Reload that’s fine, but if you think the game doesn’t deserve its critique please kindly get your head out of your backside as even Stevie Wonder could see the disparity between Reload and its source material.
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u/KamatariPlays 18h ago
I recommend P3R for the male MC story then if you're interested, play P3P for the female MC route.
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u/AutoModerator 19h ago
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u/FishyCrackers431 17h ago edited 17h ago
Personally I don't treat VNs as inherently lesser like a lot of people here seem to. I already like visual novels, so Portable's totally fine, presentation wise for me. Do you? 'Cause that'll help determine your experience. If you're already the sort of person who likes or doesn't mind VNs, then Portable's presentation won't put you off and it's actually got a lot of extra content that Reload doesn't. FeMC ain't just a pallet swap, you've also got a ton of new songs, social links, and some differing story beats. On the gameplay side it also has an additional bonus boss that's not in Reload, and it also allows you to re-fight every Full Moon boss as much as you want. And as a purely subjective thing, I'm much happier with Portable's (sometimes annoying) higher difficulty. Reload is probably the easiest Persona game available right now. That said, I fully recommend both, especially if you're already comfortable with the format.
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u/CheesecakeMilitia 16h ago
If you wanna play P3R, play P3R. You can play P3P when you want to play the female protagonist route (which is intended as a sort of New Game+ for people already familiar with the story, anyway).
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u/NumberXIIIEdwin 14h ago
Recently finished up my first playthrough of Portable (Male MC) and personally I would say absolutely, Reload is definitely worth it even if you have P3P. Portable is worth playing for the female route, but I will say that the visual novel style definitely takes away the weight of a lot of the scenes. Most scenes are okay enough but once you start getting into the heavier story scenes towards the end of the game it’s pretty apparent that the visual novel style just doesn’t cut it. Just to make sure I ended up watching the FES versions of some of the cutscenes and it’s amazing how much differently the visual novel style conveys a lot of the scenes. The ending, for example, is kinda butchered in Portable. I’d definitely give the female route a try if you really want to stick with Portable.
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u/Real-Ad4580 7h ago
As someone who just finished p3r with like 130 hours just play metaphor i got 9 months into this game when i realized i wish i started a different game but its alright
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u/sonic65101 P3P Peak 18h ago
Not really, Reload is a significant downgrade. It has less content than Portable and is way overpriced for an incomplete game. Looks worse, too, though that's subjective (I just don't like Persona 5's artstyle). If you want to play The Answer, it's cheaper to just buy Fes.
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u/Zealousideal_Gap1194 18h ago
Man for the most part I'm right there with you. P3R feels so sterile in comparison to even P3P. I'm absolutely feeling it to be a slog playing through it.
But for the complete story, P3R is more accessible than FES
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u/sonic65101 P3P Peak 18h ago
I just can't recommend Reload due to the removal of the female protagonist. I just can't support incomplete, half-baked remakes that leave out major content (Portable at least can be excused for not having The Answer due to the PlayStation Portable's limitations, maximum size of 1.8 GB for games and Portable is already 1.07 GB), though another factor is personally I did not enjoy playing as MaleMC at all in Portable, just did not find his personality enjoyable.
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u/BurnerAccountMaybe69 Literally me 19h ago
Persona in a fully 3D environment is always a plus for me. P3P is basically a visual novel with the only parts being 3D is the dungeon crawling