‘Persona 3 Reload’ preview: the Darkish Hour appears to be like higher than ever

For most individuals, an after-school membership means kicking round a soccer or taking part in clarinet for an hour. For the unfortunate scholar protagonists of upcoming role-playing sport Persona 3 Reload, it means becoming a member of the Specialised Extracurricular Execution Squad (SEES). By day, SEES members flip as much as college, revise for exams, and sustain with their busy social lives. By evening, they manifest their personalities as highly effective fighters known as Personas and use them to battle supernatural Shadow creatures. Debate membership, eat your coronary heart out.

• READ MORE: ‘Persona 4 Golden’ assessment: midterms are homicide

This will likely sound acquainted to followers of Persona 4 and 5, however this remake of 2006’s Persona 3 is considerably darker in tone. Whereas Persona 4 Golden tells a grisly story a couple of small-town serial killer, it’s buried beneath a stunning color palette and relentlessly catchy pop soundtrack. Likewise, Persona 5‘s trendy visuals and upbeat jazz masks a grim story of corruption within the coronary heart of Tokyo.

Persona 3 Reload embraces its gothic roots. The sport revolves across the Darkish Hour, a secret twenty fifth hour within the day that comes round each midnight. When the clock strikes 12, the moon over Tatsumi Port Island turns inexperienced and the world’s inhabitants are unknowingly changed into floating coffins till it passes. Our hands-on with Reload takes place throughout considered one of these hours, that means there’s no likelihood to discover the world or get to know its forged – tonight, it’s all about fight.

To start, we’re roaming the halls of Tartarus, searching for a technique to climb up the mysterious tower that manifests every evening. The ground we’re on resembles Tatsumi Port Island’s native college, though within the Darkish Hour it’s streaked with gore and crammed with monsters. There’s a 17-year hole between Persona 3‘s unique launch and Reload, and it reveals: every little thing appears to be like unbelievable, and feels a lot smoother to discover than it did in January’s Persona 3 Moveable re-release.

Reload‘s modifications aren’t simply skin-deep. Our first turn-based battle with a Shadow reveals that Persona 5‘s baton system, which helps you to move your activate to a different get together member if you happen to hit an enemy’s weak spot, has been grafted onto 3 with a view to make fights a bit extra partaking. There’s additionally an outstanding new observe to accompany fights, with Japanese rapper Lotus Juice returning to hype every battle up. Nevertheless, Reload‘s fight will largely really feel acquainted. The core routine is discovering the injury kind an enemy is weak to, attacking that vulnerability, and doing so once more till they’re lifeless.

Whereas simple to understand, it may be tougher to handle in observe. Within the second half of our hands-on, we’re dropped into the carriage of a monorail, which has been hijacked by Shadows and hurtles towards a deadly crash. The get together is on the clock to save lots of its coffin-bound passengers, which implies clearing every carriage and successful a grueling boss battle earlier than time runs out. With its modern-day makeover, the monorail section feels rather more atmospheric than it did in Moveable – every little thing is bathed in a sickly inexperienced gentle, and it seems like there’s a Shadow hiding behind each coffin.

All of it culminates with a battle towards Priestess, a Shadow creature guarding the practice’s brakes. Priestess hits arduous and has the power to slash treasured minutes off the extent’s timer, so it takes a cautious steadiness of therapeutic and Persona powers to ultimately beat her. With seconds left to spare, we hit the brakes and convey our carriage screeching to a halt – and after a short cutscene hinting at Tatsumi’s spooky goings-on, our hands-on involves an finish.

Although our time with Persona 3 Reload is constructive, it’s all centered on fight that feels largely equivalent to the final two Persona titles. This implies we’re nonetheless but to see the actual meat behind this remake, particularly Tatsumi Port Island and its slice-of-life social components.

In January, we stated that Persona 3 Moveable‘s visible novel format may not gel with followers who received into Persona by way of 4 and 5. For individuals who fell into that camp, clear your calendar for subsequent February: if Reload lives as much as the makeover we’ve seen to date, there’s loads to be excited for.

Persona 3 Reload launches on February 2, 2024, for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.