- Publisher: Atlus
- Release Date: Sep 10, 2024
- Also On: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
- Unscored
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Sep 9, 2024The production is a moving continuum full of synergies, as well as absolute beauty. Episode Aigis, just as it did in the FES version, is the worthy, moving and touching conclusion of the third chapter of the franchise, which represented a great return and a fundamental experience to better understand the depth of Persona 3 Reload.
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Sep 12, 2024Episode Aigis successfully extends the story of Persona 3 Reload. The challenge of each level, the high difficulty, the quality of the music, and the attention to detail make this DLC a treasured addition for the consumer.
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Sep 9, 2024There’s no reason not to complete Episode Aigis with how much ATLUS has made this post-game episode easier to complete than ever before. Getting to the end of Episode Aigis and seeing Persona 3 Reload’s characters’ ending in a somber, yet bittersweet, fashion is a perfect way to step away from the glory that is Persona 3 Reload that has made 2024 a fantastic year for Persona fans. It bears repeating: Episode Aigis is a JRPG post-game done right; it’s so right that it’s worth returning to Persona 3 Reload if only to see the ending.
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Sep 13, 2024Episode Aigis: The Answer may not be the most exciting gameplay experience to come from an Atlus RPG, but its story is a crucial piece to Persona 3’s full picture. In its strongest moments, The Answer finds new ways to be just as powerful by understanding the pain that comes from heartbreak and loss in all its complexities, and how that changes a person. With its premise, it expresses the tedium of feeling stuck reliving the same day over and over again, but it’s also a moving statement about how we break out of grief’s vicious cycle and push forward. I always found The Answer to be thematically affecting, and having it repackaged for Reload means it’s no longer isolated as a dated PS2 game – and if anything, it’s a bittersweet epilogue to the series’ best story.
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Sep 12, 2024Overall I think Persona 3 Reload: Expansion Pass – Episode Aigis is a great follow up to Persona 3’s story, albeit with some minor caveats that will affect each player differently. The new music is great, the new “dungeon” backgrounds are just as fantastic as the remade Tartarus in Persona 3 Reload, and as expected the voice cast is just as excellent. Metis is a great addition to the party, even if she’s effectively the gap closer between your lower-tier abilities against enemies that are scaled a bit above you. I think my main gripes are just quality of life things not found out of Steam as a PC player for this review, and that the mall significantly hits my framerate (EXCLUSIVELY in the DLC I might add). The expansion pass costs $35, which is a big turn off for some people I’ve noticed, but Episode Aigis is very much a standalone experience worth the money. It offers another multiple dozen hours of gameplay and story with all the core draws of Persona 3 Reload, so if you’re a fan of the base game I highly recommend it.
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Sep 9, 2024Persona 3 Reload Episode Aigis -The Answer- is a definitive improvement over the original version of The Answer, thanks to its addictive dungeon progression, added character scenes, and emotionally driven narrative. However, the poor pacing can’t be understated, making the fascinating premise lose strength in the efficacy of its staying power. If you are a dedicated fan of Persona 3 Reload’s gameplay systems and narrative, especially the former, then this DLC is undoubtedly for you. Otherwise, you’re better off witnessing it played, especially given how pricy this added scenario is.
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Sep 21, 2024Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis – The Answer serves as a challenging, combat-heavy epilogue to Persona 3, that can be a divisive experience. While it, at the very least, provides closure for the characters and story and includes some new and fun elements, its focus on grinding and dungeon crawling at the expense of the series’ beloved social elements leaves it feeling incomplete.
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Sep 10, 2024Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis is a faithful recreation of The Answer in Persona 3 FES. It’s a good, but unremarkable expansion that expands upon the story more than it does the gameplay and features. It’s a significant departure from the social building aspect the series is known for, along with the time management between school and exploration. It’s a hollower campaign by comparison, but that’s not to say it’s bad because the story does introduce a new mystery that ties things up relatively well thanks to the supporting cast and their character building.
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Sep 9, 2024Episode Aigis is nearly a 1:1 remake of the Answer, completing the Persona 3 experience, but one that comes at an exorbitant cost to the fans.
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Sep 9, 2024While the new epilogue is certainly better balanced than the original, it still has a lot of the same pitfalls. The cutbacks break through just enough to bring the DLC experience down. Persona 3 Reload’s Episode Aigis DLC is good but not great. They say “it’s about the journey” and that certainly rings true whether you’re in 2008 or 2024.
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Sep 9, 2024Structurally, The Answer is an often frustrating epilogue that shaves off some of the best parts of Persona games. Thankfully, Reload’s quality-of-life updates make the grind more tolerable and the remake adds enough small social elements like reading books and watching movies with your friends that it doesn’t feel like it’s all business. But as a meditation on grief, it feels like a kindness afforded to characters who once had to rile in the ambiguity of the original ending. It would have been easy for Persona 3 to end on a nihilistic note, showing the entire group fall apart without their leader and denying all the lessons they learned. But grief never really goes away. We just learn to help each other live with it a little more each day.