All the major differences between Persona 3 Reload, FES, and Portable

Persona 3 Portable added a female protagonist and a number of new social links that you could form if you play as her. There is only the male protagonist in Persona 3 Reload, but they have tried to make up for these missing social links in a number of ways. On certain days, you will receive text messages from male party members to come meet up, and there are a number of new storylines with them. If you complete them, you will be rewarded with Social Stats, and you’ll unlock new abilities for them to use in combat.

You can unlock these with all characters by doing things in the evening by doing things like cooking with your friends, reading books with them, gardening together or watching DVDs. This is to make up for the unbalanced nature of the male protagonist’s social links. Only President Tanaka and Mutatsu are available at night, meaning you have little to do in the evenings. These extra scenes give more time with your team while also buffing them for combat.

Despite this obvious improvement, some characters are gone for good thanks to the exclusion of the female protagonist. Rio Iwasaki and Saori Hasegawa are not in the game, so you’ll have to play Portable if you want to meet them. As an aside the extra chapter from FES is also not present here, though it is rumored that The Answer will appear later as DLC.

Finally you can no longer date multiple teammates at once. As soon as you choose to date either Mitsuru, Aigis, Fuuka or Yukari, the other girls will no longer confess their love to you. It is still possible to two or three time your girlfriend with Chidori or Yuko, but that decision is up to you.

The social links are mostly the same as the other three versions, though there are some new questions, and characters will likely ask you out more often. However, if you remember the stories from a previous playthrough, then not much has changed, though you will have more time to max them thanks to changes in social stats.

However, school is a different matter. All of the cutscenes that take place in school, including the lessons and the questions teachers ask, have been changed, so you’ll have to be on top form to answer them all. Another small but noticeable change to lessons is that sleeping in class no longer recovers your status. This is because status ailments like being tired or having a cold are no longer present. Instead sleeping in class will reward you with Courage, while staying away rewards you with Academics as usual.

One of the best changes to balance that has been made is the changes in how social stats work. There are more ways than ever to boost your various social stats, and you can double up on these by doing activities with dorm mates at night. There are also new restaurants, part-time jobs, and a computer you can use at home with software you can purchase in shops. All of these will help you boost up your social stats in time when you can’t raise social links.

Despite these big changes to social stats there are a few nerfs which feel unnecessary. Studying now only gives +1 Academics instead of +2 or +3. This is likely due to the new feature where you can study with friends at night, but it does mean that you will likely max out Academics far later than other stats.

Of every part of the game, Tartarus has undergone the most changes. Not only does it have a completely new look, but now Fuuka has more powers she can use to lead you around. As she levels up she will be able to hide you from shadows, search the floor, and she can even give you buffs in battle.

If you played the original Persona 3 or FES, you may remember that you could only control the protagonist in battle, but thankfully, Reload allows you to control every character as Portable did. Speaking of party members, the Shift mechanic when you down an enemy from Persona 5 is here allowing you to better control fights. There are also Great Clocks that you can find in Tartarus, which will level party members up to your level, which is perfect if you don’t like grinding up every single member. The are also Monad Doors and Corridors that offer some very challenging fights but also some good rewards.

The biggest change is the addition of Theurgy, a powerful attack each party member can pull off once certain conditions have been fulfilled. These can really help out in battle, particularly as they all bypass any enemy resistances. Paired with the boosts you gain from teammates' passive abilities they can give you huge advantages in fights. You can also choose new outfits for each teammate though these mostly seem to be tracksuits for the boys or various bikinis for the girls. Make of that what you will.

With new abilities come new menus and animations, and these can get surprisingly tedious, especially given the repetitive nature of Tatarus’ procedural generation. All Out Attacks and Theurgy cutscenes cannot be skipped, so whenever you enter battle be prepared for the long haul.

FES introduced new difficulty settings; however, the ‘Easy’ difficulty was the same as Normal, but you began with 10 revives. Portable had another shot at bringing better difficulty settings but this time you could just revive as much as you want rather than making the fights easier or with less grinding.

As they say, the third – or maybe fourth – time’s the charm, as Persona 3 finally has real difficulty settings. Enemies have noticeably changed health bars between difficulty settings, and annoying moves like instant kills will hit more or less often. Persona 3 Reload finally nails the difficulty settings that we’ve always wanted from the series.