Persona 3 Reload

(74 hours and 29 minutes to beat on Easy, the counterpart to old Doom games’ “Hey, not too rough” difficulty, with Japanese text and voice on Steam Deck.)

This is not a review standing on its own, but the fifth and final chapter of a long journey. Here are chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4. Just got to put up a number by the end. I would have loved to say “spoiler warning” but I’m a firm believer in “if foreknowledge can spoil one’s enjoyment of a thing, then it’s doubtful said thing has much enjoyment to offer in the first place” (Mystery genre not included. I am not crazy. Just that people yelling “SPOILERS” regardless of genre is beyond deranged to me.). So, if you are Spoiler Culture sensitive type, get out now. Buckle up or bill out for it’s going to be quite long-winded before the point just like Persona 5.

January, 2010 was long time ago, almost half of my existing 34 years on Earth. It served as thresholds, you truly becoming a 20-year-old included. Shanghai was not the city housing miHoYo global headquarters back then, yet. Instead, the city housed a Ubisoft office and once I saw a man who claimed that he worked there.

I was in a video game shop to pre-order Mass Effect 2 on Xbox 360, then a bearded white man and a young woman sharing my ethnic came in. He wanted to purchase a PS3 along with a copy of Uncharted 2 Among Thieves, she didn’t seem to know much about video games for she pronounced “three” with some hesitation after the rather formal “Playstation” instead of the letters P, S and the number 3 “gamers” use. The shop keeper, typical for that time, pushed for 2009’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Two.

So, I offered to interpret for the trade. The man was grateful and identified himself as an employee at Ubisoft’s Shanghai office. I replied that I did enjoy Assassin’s Creed II and look forward to Splinter Cell Conviction. Then he started to say that co-workers he knew had to cancel their Christmas plan because Conviction was delayed out of 2009. It was a friendly conversation but I regret until these days that I did not bring up Mass Effect just because he was buying a PS3. Console war, I curse thee! Exclusion to exclusives!

All right, enough with real January, 2010 and move on to a fake one. When Persona 3 first came, its 2009 and 2010 setting was near-future. But by the time Portable came in English, those days were already in the past. Now with Reload out, that month was the past, reminding me of a time when I started down on the dark path of gaming. In world of Persona 3, this month brought a horror movie to mind, Pulse written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (No relation to the more famous Akira. I suspect that S.E.E.S’ ally on police force is an homage to the younger Kurosawa). The world was definitely ending with a whimper, litter on the street, tired people laying down on the ground. Doomsday cult poster with letters N, Y and X everywhere. But our heroes would go gently into that good night. Changing their team name from Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad to Nyx Annihilation Force, Social Link Arcana from Fool to Judgement, they are going to cancel the apocalypse with a bang or die trying. But before that, down times and social links.

Pinky, Cappy, Shieldie and a ghost

Social Links in Persona games are one of the incentives to make people go for the New Game Plus. I played skirt chaser in Persona 5 Royal, and my behavior was not improved too much in Persona 3 Reload. The doctor’s son who are torn between a passion for painting and a desire to help people medically is among those I wish I had pursued further, but I was more determined to maxed Social Links with party members. Well, even among those I lock shield with, “meat bags” took priority.

As I maxed Lover Arcana Social Link with Yukari, her “plain Jane among party members” status just felt cemented. Granted, her getting closer to Mitsuru is best female friendship storyline in the game. Still, her finally talking to her estranged mother does not rank too high in my mind’s list.

I kind of regret making commitment to Fukka for Mitsuru’s offering of tutoring the play character for bike license and an Easy Rider road trip sounds far more romantic. Speak of romance, December the twenty-fourth is the day one can spend with sweet heart. The day after, at least in my playthrough, can be spent with Fukka as well. She invited my player character to her dorm room, the 2 kids sat on her bed and she said that she wanted to get closer before it cut to black. The question of “Did they? Didn’t they?” did came to my mind. Oh, how the age of innocence before the first Witcher and the first Mass Effect are missed.

While Social Links are signified by tarot cards above NPC’s head, the bonding events with male party members are marked with double exclamation marks, which did start to look like dicks and balls as if to say “This will be a sausage party”…Akihiro finally bought my player character dinner after the 2 beating up a bunch of street thugs. Young Ken was sparking witht the player character while the best boy Koromaru helped him to connect with some PS1 era model like NPCs.

Junpei with cap is a point-of-view character taken from a Key visual novel and thrown into this RPG. The boy was rather a cynical wannabe to begin with, being quite shitty to my player character’s girlfriend. Then he fell in love with an enemy combatant, who died saving his life. After the boy who did have his shows stolen so many times had become a man. Very typical Key visual novel arc: a cynical man somehow became less of a cynic after witnessing the death of his love interest. Sure, Junpei, in Perona 3 a Hollywood production, your sad ass would be centered while my player character would be too busy getting shit done in the background.

While dataminers had uncovered some reference to “Episode Aigis” in this game leading to speculation about DLC, I suspect those are already here. After spending the whole December to repair and reflect, Aigis would return in January starting the Social Link of Aeon Arcana. It can be called “Episode Aigis”, wouldn’t you say? Ms. Sakamoto certainly brought her “it girl” voice out for the new and improved Aigis. I got the Social Link up only up to 6 for I was hellbent on maxing Lover Arcana first. Maybe Yukari’s storyline became a disappointment because buying her coffee took time from me showing a robot the bright and dark side of humanity.

I think Persona 3’s story focus on death is shown the best with that Kamiki kid aka Social Link of Sun Arcana. The 19-year-old was dying of er, some anime disease, he was told that die young is common but he refused to take it at first. As the player character visited him each Sunday, he would start to write a story and come to term with his own sorry lot in life. He would disappear like a ghost at Social Link 10, I went “Kami-ki, huh? Divine tree just like that ancient great tree this kid rest under. Maybe it’s a spirit of the tree like how used book selling couple’s dead son planted one in the school.” But turns out he once met the player character in flesh. The grand farewell tour after final boss fight (This epilogue is so long that it can take a Deck from fully charged to ten percent power. About the same length as the shortest of 4 Persona 3 movies.) on March, the fourth, 2010 would have player character met his mother, she was just grateful that her son didn’t die lonely and misunderstood.

Prince and priest of Darkness

Tartarus is very much the only dungeon in this game. Which is not to say that it’s too stale. There are 6 styles: larger that life campus, Giger land, industry zone, psychedelic hellhole, heavenly white corridors and the green peak. John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness is another horror movie Persona 3 reminds me of (Also why I think S.E.E.S can be composed mostly of college or even grad students. One would think Aigis can blend better into a college campus.). For the single location sense of the dungeon and how it ends with one child demonic being pulling their parent out. Child demonic being is Nyx Avatar voiced by Akira Ishida again, since he is just Ryoji putting on Nyx’s dress. Quite funny how the player character who talks very little and the final boss share a voice cast member.

And the penultimate boss Takaya’s nature is betrayed by his design wholesale. If he is the embracing Persona and Dark Hour as part of a new reality type, this shirtless Charles Manson with a big gun look just would not cut it. He would have looked like Ikutsuki, maybe with shorter hair or clean shaved. Instead, I took a look at the kid and thought he is drawn as a lead of doomsday cults. He duly served as the head for church of Nyx in the game’s winter month. The final fight against him is short and somehow more challenging than the final battle. But I guess it’s par for the course

Epilogue: the two trilogies

There is a trilogy that Atlus was selling. In the trailer for their upcoming cops’ road trip ain race science high fantasy RPG Metaphor: Refantasio, most of the creative leads are credited to work on Persona 3, 4 and 5. Thus it’s the Second Persona Trilogy after the original plus 2 games with “Persona 2” in their titles. I bought all 3, more than once each, but it’s not a trilogy I saw through without one single playthrough of Persona 4.

I would call the trilogy I got through High Polygon Count Urban Fantasy Trilogy. Starting with Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE on Wii U, aka the first Atlus RPG runs on hardware on par with PS3. The second installment came out merely months, here is winner of Best RPG the Game Award 2017, Persona 5. Now Persona 3 Reload can be seen as its coda. Atlus’ next big one Metaphor is with high fantasy setting and the theorical Persona 6 might not have the urban setting, it can go to rural areas like Persona 4 or might take the show on the road like Persona 5 was first supposed to do.

Why not conclude this with awarding them Gold, Sliver and Bronze. TMS#FE would get automatically Bronze if not disqualified for bring a comedy to a tragedy contest. Persona 5 would get Sliver for dragging at places and Persona 3 Reload will be given Gold by yours truly.

It’s not like Persona 5 drags for no good reason, with its many revenge plot lines, setting up and paying off take time. Persona 3 somehow took a shortcut: orphans. Orphans are not only inherent tragic, but also saving screen time and head space since writers do not have to think about the parents too much. Just the economy of storytelling.

The last scene of Reload took place on March, fifth, 2010. The player character was laying on Aigis’s knees quite peacefully on the school roof. The rest of his friends were running up to meet the 2. Whether he was resting in peace or just resting does not matter. What matters is that the long night finally is over and there is peace.

(Fin.)