Preview: Persona 3 Reload has new mechanics and familiar city vibes

destructoid.com:

If there’s one thing that makes Persona games special, it’s their ability to make typically banal moments in RPGs feel enthralling.

Back in August, I had the chance to demo Persona 3 Reload. During that session, I got to check out the game’s dungeon crawling and one of the early boss fights, both of which impressed me. But one piece of Persona 3 Reload I didn’t get to test was its social systems, which is arguably what makes a modern Persona game… well, Persona. Turn-based combat is fun and all, but spending time with your virtual friends and eating ramen at night just ties the whole experience together.

Fortunately, this was the exact part of Persona 3 Reload I got to try out at another recent event held by Sega/Atlus. Loading a save file in what seemed to be the early-to-mid game, I had an hour to do basically whatever I wanted in Tatsumi Port Island. The experience was mostly what I expected, which I mean in the most enthusiastic way possible. But it’s the stuff I didn’t expect that really caught my attention.

I began my session with Persona 3 Reload in my main character’s homeroom at school. I immediately walked out the door and decided to explore.

Like any good Persona game, I quickly found a ton of different distractions and Social Link events that I could spend my in-game afternoon on. However, I mostly wanted to get a lay of the land first. As I mentioned in my last write-up, I never got around to finishing Persona 3 back in the day. Yet, like riding a bike, I started planning my in-game week like I’d last played a Persona game three days ago. I talked to everyone, ran everywhere, and felt like I generally knew where everything was pretty fast.

This might sound like I was wasting my time, but the game actually rewarded me for my effort. I wound up finding a lot of items called Twilight Fragments littered everywhere I looked. From what I understand, these items are kind of like keys. You’ll use them to open special treasure chests in dungeons, so they’re very