While Persona 4 and 5 are often cited as the entries that ushered the series into mainstream popularity, Persona 3 is still an amazing game in its own right, so it's great that game developer Atlus has made the decision to remake this hidden gem for new and longtime fans to enjoy. The dark and captivating story mixed with the lovable cast of characters made Persona 3one of the best JRPGS of its era in the eyes of many fans of the genre, but with that being said, there were still a few areas that were a little rough around the edges.

Related

Persona Game Tier List

Persona 3 Reload was recently announced before the inevitable Persona 6, but while many are popular, not all games in the series are created equal.

Luckily, Atlus has shown through the trailers released for the game that they are taking a lot of care to retain what made the original so special while giving it a much-needed new coat of paint that will, no doubt, cover up a lot of the small issues people had when playing it all those years ago. There are still a few areas in particular, though, that fans have been especially vocal about wanting to be improved, whether it's in regard to the open environment, the Tartarus dungeons, or the Social Links.

7 Opening The Album Shop

Much like all the other games in the series, Persona 3 allows the player to travel around small areas of the open-world, where they can either talk to their friends and allies or buy weapons and equipment for when they next enter a dungeon. However, while there are plenty of shops players can walk into when traveling around the Paulownia Mall, the only one that cannot be accessed outside of Social Links is the album store, which is pretty bizarre considering the protagonist has a music player.

Atlus did play around with how players could use music in Persona 5 Royale where, depending on the outfit they were wearing, the battle music would change. It would be a real love letter to fans if this worked similarly in Person 3 Reload, where players could head over to the album store and maybe buy a few tracks from Persona 4 or 5 to jam to during their time in Tartarus or even simply while exploring the world.

6 Party Banter

This is a small addition in practice, but it would go a very long way in highlighting the tight friendship between the gang while also making them feel a lot more real as people. When running around Tartarus in the original game, while there was definitely a pretty creepy atmosphere thanks to the music, there would also be long stretches of silence, and adding some banter between the party members would be an easy way to fill in these gaps.

Related

8 RPGs With The Biggest Active Party Sizes

In RPGs, traveling with a few companions is nothing new. These games, however, up the ante by allowing players to recruit a large party of followers.

This could work similarly to how the Phantom Thieves would always chat or bicker with each other when driving around Mementos, and it could also help expand on some of the character's lives and backstories in the process. Considering that voice acting has been announced to be in the remake, this would also be the perfect opportunity to show it off in-game.

5 Fatigue System

Probably the one mechanic that Persona 3 fans have the biggest issue with is the fatigue system, which, in a way, does make the game more immersive, but it also does absolutely no favors for the pacing or enjoyment of the Tartarus sections. The way it works is characters will become tired after staying in Tartarus for too long, which will make them far less accurate and also open them up to taking a lot more damage from enemy attacks.

This, admittedly, is a lot more manageable later on in the game, but it can become a real nuisance in those first few hours since it essentially prevents any sort of grinding and feels incredibly restrictive on the player's freedom. Removing the system entirely would probably be for the best; otherwise, it could end up irritating new players who might even think about dropping the game early on. If Atlus did want to keep it in the game though, then it would be much more forgiving if it took longer for characters to get tired or if taking damage didn't increase the likelihood of them getting worn out, for example.

4 Optional Romances

Striking up a romance with characters in Persona 3 didn't work quite the way it did in future games, primarily because players weren't actually given the choice to turn someone down if their Social Link reached the end. For players who had come from those later games, it was all too easy to try and reach the final Social Link with the character to learn more about them, only to then be thrust into a relationship they otherwise didn't want to be in.

Related

Persona: The 13 Best Romances In The Series

With the introduction of characters and Social Links, gamers get the option to romance many characters throughout the Persona games.

Anyone who has played the original will be well aware of how easily this can lead to some very awkward scenes later on in the game if they have multiple partners, so to avoid this, it would be nice to have a quick option to confirm the relationship before anything is made official. This would also give players the opportunity to learn everything there is to know about their new allies without having to commit to anything in the process.

3 Better Early-Game Pacing

While the actual story of Persona 3 is pretty incredible in presenting the dark themes and ideas that the game focuses on, a big complaint many fans have had is how slow it can be to begin with, taking a while to truly kick into full gear. It doesn't quite feel like the stakes are high enough to gauge the player's interest early on, and the bosses don't really feel all that important either, which can make it a little bit of a slog to get through.

A few new story beats and more engaging bosses could help negate this problem. Even a couple of extra scenes, which could set up later events in the game to keep the player guessing what's going to happen further on in their playthrough would work wonders.

2 More Meaningful Social Links

Persona 3 was very much a mixed bag in terms of its Social Links. While there were some that did a fantastic job at highlighting the main themes of death and mortality that the game revolves around, such as the sick young man and old couple grieving their son's death, on the other hand, there were plenty of non-party Social Links that felt dull, boring, and almost like a complete waste of time.

Kenji is the most infamous example of this, being a creepy guy who wants nothing more than to get intimate with his teacher, and then there's the "Gourmet King," who some fans have dubbed as being the worst Social Link in the entire series. These interactions don't necessarily need to be removed entirely, but altering them a bit to make them a little more personal, meaningful, and relevant to the wider story and its themes would be a very welcome change.

1 More Interesting Tartarus Dungeons

On paper, the idea of a randomly generated dungeon doesn't sound too bad since it could provide a different experience for each playthrough, but in the original Persona 3, it wasn't quite as exciting in actual practice. Since players would be spending many hours in the depths of Tartarus, the dungeons could easily become pretty tiring and bland in their presentation, primarily because of how little variety there actually was in terms of design, layout, and music.

Now, asking for dungeons that would be as detailed and creative as the Palaces found in Persona 5 might be asking a bit too much, but making it feel like less of a chore is by far the biggest improvement that this game needs. Potentially making Tartarus a little smaller and adding a lot more flare and interesting details will instantly make it far more engaging and dispel the biggest criticism many longtime fans had with the original.