Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis - The Answer DLC Review

ign.com:

Spoiler warning: This review contains spoilers for the story of the base game, Persona 3 Reload, but avoids spoilers for the DLC itself.

What does it feel like when grieving the loss of someone you loved? Or when trying to move on from someone important who’s no longer in your life? For one, it’s painful. In its seemingly infinite emotional complexity, you perpetually mull over what you could have done differently or how great things would be if they were still around. In the constant cycle of getting lost in your thoughts while trying to go about your normal life, it’s as if you’re reliving the same day over and over again. In the best moments of Episode Aigis: The Answer – the epilogue DLC for the RPG Persona 3 Reload – it portrays these struggles thoughtfully and candidly. And by the end, it poetically shows that so long as we have the means to do so, we can still carve a path forward no matter how hard it might be.

This is a faithful remake of the PlayStation 2 version of The Answer that came with Persona 3 FES in 2008, and uses the framework of Persona 3 Reload to bring its modern graphics and much-needed quality-of-life improvements to retell its story. Although it’s not a particularly great gameplay experience, largely focused on RPG dungeon crawling that overstays its welcome, its key story moments are a bittersweet stamp on Persona 3’s already emotional ending. More importantly, it’s a poignant lesson on living with grief and heartbreak shown through the lens of the series’ best cast of characters.

To understand The Answer is to also give away crucial parts of Persona 3’s original conclusion, since it picks up right after its ending. Even though you are not required to finish Persona 3 Reload to access this DLC, you don’t really have any business with it if you haven’t. It centers around the SEES crew coming to terms with the passing of their good friend (Tap to Reveal), which comes with a certain melancholy in the way every character conducts themselves.