The upcoming Persona 3 Reload won’t be the complete version of the JRPG, as the remake will reportedly not include content from Persona 3 Portable and Persona 3 FES. While that may please some players who have already dipped into those separate versions of Persona 3, others are voicing their disappointment at the exclusion of the female protagonist and other parts.
Shortly after IGN published a rundown of Persona 3 Reload’s features, former Persona representative Ryoka Niitsuma and chief director Kazuhisa Wada provided a more in-depth look at the upcoming remake in a live presentation.
Remakes often add in extra content designed to help draw in more players, such as changes to gameplay, new areas, and sometimes even complete playable characters. Persona 3 Portable added some extra playable characters and the option to play as a female one, whereas the epilogue from FES (or the expansion/director’s cut) is called The Answer and added an additional story path. It also included changes to the Social Link system, a bevvy of new features, and added two more difficulty modes.
Portable also added a few difficulty modes and the ability to take direct control of party members in combat. Although the difference in the amount of content added in the original and Portable versions could vary depending on the person, the remake won’t include even a whiff of either, to the dismay of longtime fans.
In the trailer (seen at the top of this story), we don’t actually see the female protagonist option, but Niitsuma did state that all voice lines will be in both Japanese (with subtitles) and English, while the text will be available in 13 different languages.
Aside from all of these technical improvements, we’re also getting new scenes, events, and music, according to the presentation. Don’t get me wrong – I’m extremely excited to return to Inaba and walk again that path in Persona 3 – I just hope that it doesn’t paint a slightly incomplete picture.
We don’t want to give too much away for those who still want to experience it for the first time, but as it stands, it does look rather tantalising. We also recently got a glimpse of the upcoming Persona 5 Royal and checked in with 2023: Long Live the Revolution, the Shadowrun-inspired story game.