Persona 3 Reload impressions on Switch 2 — Staying up too late

I loved Persona 3 Reload on PC. It was an incredibly faithful remake of my favorite Persona game, and while not the absolute definitive way to play, it’s certainly the most accessible and least compromised version, especially with The Answer available as DLC. On my desktop, I could play in 4K with enhanced reflections at 120 fps, and portably on Steam Deck at a noticeably crustier 720p but still at a mostly stable 60 fps. Long RPGs like this are perfect for portable play, but also having the option to look at all those new visuals at their highest fidelity is a treat. With that in mind, you’d think the Switch 2 version of Persona 3 Reload would offer the same options in a more convenient form, but sadly, this port isn’t one I can really recommend, even if you have no other options.

Persona 3 Reload puts you in the shoes of a Japanese High School student by day, and Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad member by night. You need to balance social and academic activities with the turn-based RPG parts, as growing stronger in one area will help you progress in the others. It follows the well-established Persona formula (which really solidified in the original version of 3) exactly, but does so in a great way that enhances the themes of accepting death. It remains Persona’s strongest story, and is only made even better by the changes and additions Reload made. You can read more about the game itself in our reviews of Reload and Episode Aigis: The Answer, as the rest of this piece will focus on the quality of the Switch 2 port.

Starting up the game on Switch 2, the first thing you’ll notice is that the game is gorgeous, even in portable mode. I don’t know the exact resolution, but whether docked or undocked the image is clear and looks great. It seems to be in between the PS4 and PS5 versions in terms of overall fidelity, which makes sense as a compromise for portability. 

The second thing you’ll notice is that it runs really poorly. The game attempts to hit 30 frames per second, and it does hit that a lot of the time, but you certainly won’t feel that while playing. It’s incredibly choppy, and there’s very noticeable input lag when doing just about anything, from navigating menus to exploring Tartarus. I struggled to even put 5 hours into the game for this article as Reload made me nauseous every time I booted it up. It’s possible Atlus could fix this with a patch or five, maybe even adding a Performance mode for 60 fps at a lower resolution, but as it is right now, Reload is hard to play on Switch 2.

Given that the game came out more than a year ago, I would have hoped some of the released DLC would be included with the base game, but Reload on Switch 2 is following the same pricing models as it did on other platforms at the start of 2024. It’s $70 for the base game (physically as a Game-Key Card or digitally), $80 for a Digital Deluxe Edition including a digital art book and soundtrack, and $100 for the Digital Premium Edition, which includes all that as well as some additional costumes. You may notice that none of these contain the Episode Aigis DLC, and as of writing it isn’t yet listed on the eShop. The game still retains this pricing on other platforms, so the cost makes sense in a way, but it’s very weird that this over a year later version won’t have access to all of the downloadable content at launch. The game’s main menu does have a greyed-out option to access The Answer, so we know it’s coming, but when remains to be seen.

Persona 3 Reload on Switch 2 is just a really strange experience. It’s stunningly beautiful, but so compromised in frame rate and frame pacing that it makes it difficult to look at in motion, let alone play for lengthy periods of time. It’s going to have all the DLC that other versions currently enjoy, but not right now. It feels half-baked. Maybe in a few months or a year, it’ll be more playable and fully featured, but at launch, I’d recommend people stay away. It’s a shame, because there is a phenomenal RPG here, but I can’t very well recommend something that makes me sick every time I try to play it.