Persona 3 Reload Trailer 3

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With Tokyo Game Show set to begin tomorrow, Atlus continue their extended build-up to the Persona 3 Reload release by revealing a new trailer. As the game that saved Atlus from bankruptcy there’s perhaps no title in their catalogue more deserving of further love than Persona 3. As we’ll discuss below, this new glimpse of P3R shows improvements to both the visuals and game content.

Persona 3 Reload Shows It’s More Than A Koromaru In Sheep’s Clothing

This trailer has a strong focus on Strega, the antagonistic group of Persona users that are out to stop the protagonist group, S.E.E.S. Whilst in the original version of Persona 3 the backstory for this group was omitted, it seems that Reload will feature more scenes and details. Aside from the Strega sections, there are lots of other details we can glean from what’s shaping up to be more than just a re-skin of the 2006 RPG.

Strega members Takaya and Jin meet in an abandoned building. Takaya sits in front a table with a gun sat atop it. Jin is standing in the background holding a metal briefcase. In the distance beyond the building, a full moon, heavily tinted green can be seen dominating the night sky above the city. — Takaya and Jin, members of Strega.

What Else Is New?

What’s most striking on first glance is, what appears to be, the addition of Persona and User combo attacks. We can see this in particular in one of the combat snippets featuring Junpei. In the English dub of the trailer, it sounds like he says “Vessel Attack”, but hopefully there will be a confirmation in due course. We also get our first look at Shinjiro in battle, an often forgotten character in the Persona Universe. Without going into spoilers I’m sure fans will be happy to see the beanie wearing, seldom happy friend of Ken and Akihiko getting some love. Alongside this, we get our first look at some of the evolved Personas; Thanatos, one of the series most popular designs, and Trismegistus. Updated outfits for the members S.E.E.S are also shown off, with Mitsuru and Fuuka getting fairly extensive overhauls.

Several of Persona 3's protagonist group S.E.E.S (Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad) stood around a large dinning table. On the table are 3, large stacks of pancakes. The UI shows Aigis is saying "It's pancake party time!... As they say". — Everybody loves a pancake party!

Outside of the Dark Hour, we get to see some of the content included that’s originally from the FES version of Persona 3. It seems like spending time with the Velvet Room’s assistant, Elizabeth, makes a return, as well as some of the more heart-warming group activities (pancake party!). Hopefully future trailers will include a better look at the social links. We shouldn’t have to wait too long as Atlus’ PR campaign centres around releasing new information every full moon. The next date is September 29th.

Persona 3 Reload comes to PlayStation, PC, and Xbox (Day One Gamepass) on February 2nd 2024.