Thread by @osu_MeovvCAT

I'll try something more original than "Green Bad" this time.

Reload is a game that claims to be both faithful to P3 and modernized through the blueprint of Persona 5, but committing to neither, resulting in an incomplete experience that fails at either approach.

Thread below 🧵

https://twitter.com/Cinbunzs/status/1861974317774324054

Reload fails at capturing the original Persona 3 gameplay feel in more ways than one. Tiredness, Jealousy, SL Breaking, SL hangout invites and Tactics are all gutted wholesale instead of being improved upon.

I'm not ignorant to people disliking these mechanics, but there's a number of ways these systems could've been improved upon rather than fully removed, and now there's just a void in place of where a gameplay system used to be, with no stand-in replacement to make it whole.

Tiredness is a touchy and often misunderstood topic. The truth is in FES, over time, fatigue would trigger slower, and due to the large number of party members and FREE SP Heal, you could sweep Tartarus in one night easily, with party composition variety.

The Twilight Fragment system seemed like a good compromise before release, but the fact is due to Physical or other factors you will never have to use it in a playthrough.

Shuffle Time/Arcana Burst acts in opposition to P3's design, rewarding you for staying longer and longer.

An improvement to make the system more rewarding could be making Great status easier to get, through a mechanic like cooking with your crewmates or the like.
Good example: The Tired debuff in WoW being changed to the Well-Rested bonus. Same mechanic, different approach.

The SL system promised the return of reversals, but only implemented the dialogue ones from P3P. This is the same as it not existing. Atlus themselves is under the misconception "Break" is permanent, and as such removed it. I've tested every SL and since found it to not be true.

A vast majority of players playing FES will never run into the jealousy/double-booking mechanics. It's lenient, but it's also naturally occurring.

Removing it helps no one, because guide players would just use guides anyway.

Tactics is a tired subject. No, it's not optional, and it's been broken since 2008 with Persona 4. Them dragging along the same broken code for 15 years is more offensive than just removing the mechanic outright.

I've explained this extensively and even made some mods for it.

Reload also fails at being "Persona 5 with a P3 skin". I will never understand this argument, because if you compare Persona 5 Royal to Reload, the fall-off in mechanical depth is astounding.

Even the base version of Persona 5 is more mechanically deep.

Traits, much like the exclusive passives of SMTV Vengeance, added an extra level of depth and variety to fusing Personas.

When making a Persona, the trait was something important to keep in mind, and it couldn't be bruteforced with a skill card or stacked. It required knowledge.

They're kind of strong, so the Reload team removed them. In its place, they added new passives, which can be stacked and learned with Skill Cards, which ends up being even more broken than intended.

This is a very common reoccurring theme with Reload, as you'll see soon.

Equipment is also reduced in potential in this game. Royal had equipment that could give party members an active skill. Reload reverts this to just passives again, and they have a clear, boring and cookie-cutter meta of what is obviously best for them to equip.

While it's true that you'd probably never give Yukari God's Hand, if you could give her Salvation or Panta Rhei, or Akasha Arts to Akihiko, maybe they wouldn't be as bad as they are compared to the rest of the team.

Fusion Alarm was a nice way to incentivize you to fuse around and try different things. Reload is stuck with just mutation, which relies on fusing over and over and savescumming to get results. With this mechanic, you can have phys repels at level 14 and beat the Reaper.

Confidant abilities gamify the mechanic and I'd rather have a more general skill tree or something, but if the calendar schedule is already so lenient that you can max everything effortlessly, not having the skills feels more lacking. Metaphor pulled it off well, for example.

It's true that Tokyo is way bigger than Iwatodai, but the difference in variety in shops and activities is astounding. P5R has: Multiple shops and restaurants for consumables and Social Stat. Book Stores. Minigames. Jazz Club. Meditation. Gym.

Reload tries packing all of these bonus things from Royal into the game through single-use URLs and Shuffle Time cards, but as a result it just becomes more of a Tartarus repetition loop. Not only is it more boring, it's also more abusable because you can get it every night now.

Reload condenses everything into the antique store, which is a drag and a grind to navigate through. P5 itemization is in the velvet room, so there's less guessing and back-forth to make stuff.

Even COMP Smith in SH2 tells you what you need and where to get it. P3R does neither.

Speaking of fusion and SH2, Reload reverts all the QoL improvements made by that game and SMTV, for no apparent reason. So if you want a specific Persona for a specific Heart item, better have that fusion calculator at hand!

For a game that prides itself in its UI, Reload's shop UI is incredibly barebones, looking almost like a generic shop menu from P5. No real identity to speak of. Metaphor also did this to a degree which stands out from the rest of the UI which looks so great.

Crafting and Customization in Iwai's shop adds a level of depth that Reload does not have. Reload is missing a ton of effects such as Taunt with Spotlight.

Customizing your own equipment and putting more damage, accuracy, or ailments on it is not mandatory, but highly rewarding.

The removal of Baton Pass stages seemed great on paper, and I was wrong about it. What seemed like a balancing act ends up being extremely boring, because only Junpei and the Protagonist benefit from it now with Shift Amp, which just feeds even further into the Phys meta.

Technical damage was also something that greatly added to the game's depth, and its removal also further just feeds into Phys meta. It's possible that P5R's Merciless damage scared people into thinking it's too much, but it gives ailments utility, which is good.

Onto what Reload does wrong as a game itself, separately from the original P3 and P5R.

There are four major categories that apply. Theurgy, Phys Meta, Skill Power, and Party Member balance.

Unlike SMTV or Metaphor's unique skills and synthesis, Theurgy is a free, quickly charging and unresistable attack which decimates HP bars because Persona bosses have a third of the HP of enemies from those games, but Theurgy damage is on par with those games' skills.

There's barely any variety in Theurgy attacks, because they are technically all Almighty attacks which can hit weakness or crit. And in the case of the physical ones, the crit rate is more often than not nearing 100%, making them braindead easy decisions to take.

Fuuka's Revelation is far more overpowered than Futaba's Ultimate Support due to how spammable it is, completely removing the need for a buffer and healer party member.

Ken far outclasses Yukari because his heal theurgy not only revives and fully heals everyone, but it also applies both Karn types. By being at low SP, Ken can spam this Theurgy once every three turns, which is faster than Yukari, because her charge is nerfed in bosses.

The game heavily skews towards a phys meta. With the addition of Physical Boost/Amp, Crit Amp, and Apt Pupil now being level 15 instead of level 60, the crit damage being 25% higher than weakness damage, and phys skills costing HP, there is zero reason to ever use magic in P3R.

I am a defender of these passives, I think stacking huge damage is fun. The issue is that these are all available very early and very easily, and there's no drawback. Magic is always weaker no matter what. If you want big damage, commit to it, and make everything viable.

Bosses can be critically hit in P3R as well, but never have weaknesses. On top of that, they will always null all ailments, so Yukari, Mitsuru and Akihiko are at a constant disadvantage, because their kits are significantly weaker.

Lower crit rates, but being able to freeze an enemy for a crit would be a lot more fun than guaranteed 100% crit at all times with Junpei. Being able to hit ailments for Technical would also be much more fun. Fast Heal and Instaheal exist, so you can prevent stunlocks too.

Multi-hit and Getsu-ei are completely broken due to how damage is calculated. To spare you the math, keep these two things in mind:

-Small damage many times is stronger than big damage once.

-Getsu-ei is level 20 and on full moons hits as hard as Brave Blade (Level 60).

The game meta boils down to Junpei, Koromaru and Ken. Tons of crits, constant Karn and AoE charge. Everyone else is fine because Reload is so easy, but on a comparitive level they can't even compete.

Aki needs buffs to be good compared to Junpei and it's not enough. Yukari is outcharged by Ken and her damage is awful, and Mitsuru gets fucked over by ailments being useless and charged Diamond Dust being overpriced and bad. Aigis is fine, but Junpei is just better.

In spite of all this Reload is one of my favorite games still, but to claim that it's the best Persona experience is a very strong claim, because it tries to be two things at once and doesn't commit to being either of them, which is super disappointing.

(also Strega ending would go hard it's been long enough that I can be open about it)

Forgot to mention how criminal it is that four social link options for the school clubs were removed from the game too

minute of silence for Power Records

15 years and it still serves no purpose in any version of Persona 3

It could've been this game's Jazz Club

Invite a friend, listen to CD samples, get inspired, learn a skill or gain stats