Persona 3 Reload is a full remake of the game Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, originally released on the PlayStation 2 in 2006. It takes the story, characters, tone, and gameplay of the original and modernizes it to be more friendly to new audiences. This remake comes after the Persona 3 Portable remaster in 2023, which many fans were disappointed in due to it’s fairly overstated system requirements, lackluster performance, and AI upscaling for the texture assets.

   Persona 3 Reload follows the story of a blue haired protagonist traveling to Iwatodai to attend his new school. The night of his arrival, he notices the streets lined with coffins, and a very eerie atmosphere. However, he simply brushes it aside and continues to his dorm. When he arrives at the dorm, he’s greeted by a boy in black and white, who asks him to sign a contract claiming he will take responsibility for his own actions. He’s introduced from here to two of his dormmates, Yukari and Mitsuru. A few nights into his stay, the dorm is attacked by a large monster called a shadow. In the face of this danger, he awakens to his Persona, Orpheus. This is where the game begins.

   Persona 3 is considered the first of the “modern” Persona series, as it has large gameplay shifts from the first two games. Persona 3 introduced the Shuffle Time system, the calendar based gameplay, and the general darker tone and heavier focus on characters and how their friendships and bonds change the game.