What changes between Persona 3 Reload, FES and Portable?

Persona 3 Reload is the fourth version of Persona 3, and many have pointed out that many of the updates from the other editions have not been “translated” into the new one. On the contrary, Reload brings a whole host of new additions, trying to compensate for the problems of the other variants.

Persona 3 Reload, FES, Portable: what changes? —

Naturally there are substantial differences in the artistic direction, new cutscenes attached, but – when you get into the heart of the game – there are many changes here too.

Here are the main differences between the three updated versions of Persona 3.

You only play as the male protagonist

Persona 3 Portable has added a female protagonist and a series of new Social Affinities that can be created if you play as her. In Persona 3 Reload there is only the male protagonist, but we have tried to compensate for the lack of social links in various ways: on some days you will receive text messages from male party members inviting you to meet up and there are several new storylines to explore with them. If you complete them, you will be rewarded with social stats and unlock new abilities to use in combat.

You can unlock these skills for all characters by doing evening activities such as cooking with friends, reading books with them, gardening together, or watching DVDs. This is to compensate for the unbalanced nature of the male protagonist’s Social Affinities: only President Tanaka and Mutatsu are available at night, in fact, which means that you will have little to do in the evening. These extra scenes allow you to spend more time with your team and strengthen them for combat.

Despite this obvious improvement, some characters were permanently eliminated due to the exclusion of the female protagonist. Rio Iwasaki and Saori Hasegawa are not present in the game, so you will have to play Portable if you want to meet them. The extra FES chapter is also missing, although The Answer is said to appear later as Persona 3 Reload DLC. Finally, it is no longer possible to hang out with multiple teammates at the same time. As soon as you choose to date Mitsuru, Aigis, Fuuka or Yukari, the other girls will no longer confess their love to you. It is still possible to go out two or three times with Chidori or Yuko, but the decision is up to you.

New lessons at school

Social Affinities are mostly the same as the other three versions, although there are some new questions and characters will probably ask you out more often. However, if you remember the stories from a previous version, not much has changed here, although you will have more time to maximize them thanks to the changes made to social statistics.

School, however, is a completely different story. All the scenes that take place at school, including the lessons and the questions asked by the teachers, have been edited, so you will have to be in tip-top shape to answer all the questions… if you don’t want to make a bad impression. Another small but noticeable change to lessons is that sleeping in class no longer recovers status. This is because state alterations, such as tiredness or a cold, are no longer present. From Reload, sleeping in class will reward you with Courage, while staying awake will reward you with Wisdom, as usual.

Changes to social statistics

One of the best balance changes is changing how social stats work. There are more ways than ever to boost various social stats, and you can double them by doing activities with your dorm mates in the evening. There are also new restaurants, part-time jobs and a computer to use at home with software that can be purchased in stores. All of this will help you increase your social stats when you can’t increase Social Affinities.

Despite these big changes to social stats, there are some nerfs that feel unnecessary. Studying now only gives +1 Wisdom instead of +2 or +3. This is probably due to the new feature that allows you to study with friends at night, but it means that you will easily reach maximum Wisdom much later than other stats.

Major changes to Tartarus and combat

Of all the parts of the game, Tartarus has undergone the most changes. Not only does she have a completely new look, but Fuuka now has more powers that she can use to guide you. As you level up, she will be able to hide you from the shadows, search the plane and even give you boosts in battle.

If you played the original Persona 3 or FES you’ll remember that you could only control the protagonist in battle, but luckily Reload lets you control all the characters like in Portable. Speaking of party members, the Switch mechanic, which allows you to knock down an enemy and pass the ball to another party member to exploit the weakness of the next enemy, was borrowed from Persona 5 and allows you to have better control over fighting. There are also the large clocks, which can be found in Tartarus and which level up party members left out of the party for an operation, which is perfect if you don’t want to upgrade every single member, every time, with hours of grinding. New diversions such as doors scattered throughout the various floors offer very challenging combat but also excellent rewards for those who really want to explore Tartarus from top to bottom.

The most important change is the addition of Theurgy, a powerful attack that any party member can launch once certain conditions are met. These attacks can be very useful in battle, especially because they bypass all enemy resistances. Combined with buffs gained from teammates’ passive abilities, they can provide huge advantages in combat. You can also choose new outfits for each teammate, although they mostly seem to be tracksuits for the boys or various bikinis for the girls. With the new abilities also come new menus and animations, which can get surprisingly tedious, especially given the repetitive nature of Tartarus’ procedural generation. The Assault and Theurgy cutscenes cannot be skipped, so whenever you enter battle you should prepare for a long duration.

Difficulty adjustments

FES introduced new difficulty levels, however the “Easy” difficulty was the same as Normal but started with 10 revives. Portable made another attempt to improve the various difficulties, but this time you could simply revive as much as you wanted, rather than making the fights easier or less grinding.

As they say, third – or maybe fourth – time is the best: Persona 3 finally has real difficulty settings. Enemies have noticeably different health bars depending on difficulty, and annoying moves like instant kills hit more or less often. Persona 3 Reload has finally delivered the difficulty levels we’ve always wanted from the series.

Written by Georgina Young for GLHF