Tear Jerker / Persona 3 Reload

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WARNING: Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies to Moments pages. All spoilers will be unmarked.

You already know that a game about people summoning their inner selves by shooting themselves in the head is sad. Somehow, Reload makes the game even sadder than before due to the newer additions, especially when you've played the original game and know what's coming...

These are for moments introduced in Reload. For moments from the original game, see here.

Base Game

• The opening of the game is a tearjerker if you know how the story will play out, as both the song and the animation contains many allusions to the game's story, themes and ending. This goes double for the full version of the song, as the last part of the lyrics practically spells out the ending and message of the game.
  No matter how far (No matter how far)
  How you go (How you go)
  How short it may last (Carpe Diem no time to waste)
  Venture life, Burn Your Dread
  (You gotta venture life go get it, Burn Your Dread)
  • The full version of the song makes it even more heartbreaking, because the additional lyrics no longer talk about the ending where the Protagonist dies, but about the friends he left behind, the regrets they have (which leads into their self-doubt in Episode Aigis), and the fact that he lives on through his friends.
    "One day, these quiet voices will be heard"
    "Loud and clear, the story of the ones we miss"
    "But shed no tears, realize what they left behind."
• Whilst the deaths of Chidori and Shinjiro have been around since the original version of Persona 3, both events receive fully rendered in-engine cutscenes in Reload, and are much more emotive than the previous iterations of the scenes.
  • Shinjiro's death in particular is made even more heartbreaking when Koromaru sadly tries to get his hand on top of his head, to which Shinji weakly pets him one more time. Ken's Skyward Scream is also made even more agonizing in Reload by having Koromaru howl with him.
  • Chidori's death really hits thanks to Zeno Robinson's incredible deliveries as Junpei, combined with Merit Leighton's own acting, where she gives him a final confession in a languid, sorrowful manner. Junpei's desperation in pleading for Chidori to stay with him, followed by his sorrowful scream is a real gut punch. Junpei flying into a rage when he tries to attack Takaya afterwards is similarly heartbreaking, where Akihiko has to rein him in. Unlike the original games, where Akihiko simply told Junpei not to waste the life he was given, Alejandro Saab gives a slightly different delivery compared to Liam O'Brien, where he sounds on the verge of crying himself.
    Akihiko: She entrusted you with this life! ...Don't just... throw it away.
• Maiko's Social Link being fully voice-acted means you get to hear this child's sobs of anguish as she deals with her parents' messy divorce, trying to figure out what to do and make sense of it all, and Grace Lu's voice acting selling it makes it much worse. Her text invites are similarly heart-rending, the one preceding Rank 4 (where you find out her father hit her) simply being a single "distressed face" emoji.
• When you max out Akinari's Social Link, the scene that plays is especially heartbreaking, as when you see him, he gives you his notebook before departing the living world. Unlike the original releases, where he simply fades away, Akinari suddenly disappears in a flash of light, this event being disarming enough to surprise the protagonist. Like the original, it's heavily implied that Akinari died sometime between the Rank 9 and 10 events, and his soul came to give you his notebook before passing on.
  Akinari: (S. Link upgrades to Rank 9) Thank you... I'm... a little bit tired today... The story is almost done, so I'll show it too you soon...
• Shinjiro's Linked Episodes can be hard to sit through if you know what his fate is. Mitsuru and Akihiko spend the duration of it insisting that he return to school, but he refuses. When the protagonist asks why, Mitsuru reveals that the three made a promise to graduate together when SEES first began, which Shinjiro confides to the former later that the reason for him refusing to return is that he's dying and thus can't keep that promise. And after Shinjiro's death, Mitsuru and the protagonist find the completed forms for Shinji's re-enrollment at Gekkoukan—showing that despite his bluster, Shinjiro had wished that he could've.
  • Shinjiro's school funeral is more formal and impactful this time due to one simple change. In previous versions of Persona 3 (including the movie adaptation), Shinjiro's funeral photo shows him in his usual beanie and maroon coat, but Reload instead depicts him in his Gekkoukan school uniform and without his beanie. In a way, it's made clearer that Shinjiro will be remembered as a student, not a delinquent.
  • During the Epilogue, if the player completed Shinjiro's Linked Episodes, upon returning to the dorm, Yukari digs out an old photo album, seeing a photo of a younger Shinjiro, Mitsuru, and Akihiko in front of the school smiling. Yukari struggles to remember who Shinjiro is, due to the memories of the Dark Hour being erased for them.
• During Career Week, which follows Chidori’s death, Ryoji comes to visit the MC at his job. Ryoji, who has formed just as close a friendship with Junpei as with the MC, noticed that Junpei was missing the first couple of days, and when he did come back, he seemed incredibly sad. You, unfortunately, have to pretend you don’t know what Junpei is so upset about and basically blame it on him being moody.
• Although quite wholesome, Koromaru's Linked Episodes are not without some depressing moments. The fourth episode sees the protagonist and Koromaru helping a stray dog (coincidentally the same dog Koromaru scared off in a previous Linked Episode when it was threatening a kid) find its owner, only to learn from Officer Kurosawa that the owner is in the hospital after succumbing to Apathy Syndrome. Worse, Kurosawa says this isn't the first time it's happened and similar cases are on the rise.
  • At the end of Koromaru's final Linked Episode, he makes it clear that he wants to stay with the Protagonist after the battle with Nyx is over, something that fails to materialize because of the latter's death at the end of the game.
• Akihiko's infamous "Did you see that Shinji?" line returns unaltered, but thanks to Alejandro Saab's sorrowful delivery it's a genuine Tear Jerker this time around instead of Narmy meme material.
• In one late-game Tartarus conversation, Aigis brings up the possibility of the second-years being in the same class if they manage to stop the Fall, and Fuuka confidently states that all five of them will definitely survive to be third-years. It's as if Atlus is trying to remind players who've played previous versions that one of them won't make it...
• Because the Social Links for the female characters have been reworked to include the option to remain platonic, this means that the Social Links now have additional scenes where the Protagonist has to break the hearts of his friends because he doesn't reciprocate their feelings.
  • Yukari, who, realizing that she has fallen for the Protagonist, asks for his honest feelings about her; despite accepting staying as friends, she is visibly holding back tears.
  • After Mitsuru accidentally confesses her feelings for him after her confrontation with her fiancée in Rank 8, the Protagonist has to outright say that he doesn't reciprocate her feelings in Rank 9 after she gives him a more formal confession. She at least does take rejection well, with her only quibble being a request that the Protagonist treat her for some takoyaki.
• Whilst the Protagonist can get out of outright rejecting Yukari, Fuuka, Mitsuru and Aigis as romantic interests through earlier dialogue choices in their Social Link, the same cannot be said of Yuko and Chihiro, who the Protagonist has to reject after they confess their feelings for him.
• In the original, the city became depressing in the month of January, littered with graffiti and cult flyers. In Reload, the city starts the month like that and gets worse as the month goes on. By the end of it, there are hundreds of cult flyers everywhere, litter is in every corner, and trash bags are piling up on the sides of every area. The walking street NPCs seen earlier are gone except at school, and the even the dorm is shown with a grey filter that dulls the colors.
• There's two small parts during and after the Nyx Avatar fight that give it a hint of melancholy: during the fight, you're given a pair of dialogue options to choose from. One of them is the more standard, heroic-sounding "The world won't end"...while the other is "Let's go, Ryoji." Then, during the ending sequence where you catch up with your Social Links, you receive a message from an unknown sender (implied to be Ryoji) that simply says "Thank you". Just the implication that enough of Ryoji's self still exists within Nyx Avatar to send that last message is heartwrenching enough, but the fact that he's still grateful for the time you spent with him despite how it turned out in the end hurts even more.
• The Post-Final Boss fight with Nyx's core is still mostly the same, but has two changes that give the fight some weight. The first, after the protagonist endures the first Death casted by Nyx, they struggle to stand, where thanks to The Power of Friendship with S.E.E.S. surging through them that they can move. This is reflected by the protagonist clutching his arm and moving much more slowly towards Nyx's core to attack and progress the fight. The second change is the version of Burn My Dread -Last Battle- that plays in the fight. The melancholy lyrics appear to be from the protagonist's perspective, accepting of the fact that he is going to die once this battle is over, thanking his friends for letting them into his life as he's about to make the ultimate sacrifice for them.
  Accepted my fate; don't worry 'bout a thing
  It's in my bag, so burn my dread
• In contrast to the original game, the moment when the protagonist returns from Nyx is a fully animated (and fully voiced) cutscene in which the entire S.E.E.S. team tearfully reunites with their friend. Though it doubles somewhat as a moment of heartwarming, the wobbly tone of all the characters (sans Mitsuru) and the animated character portraits with tears show how worried they were that they had lost another friend to the Shadows. Though it comes off as much harsher in hindsight if the player is aware of the context of the Great Seal's power and if they already know how the game ends.
• During the ending sequence where you walk around town to talk to the various people you've bonded with via their Social Links, you find Akinari's mom in place of him, since he's since departed. While the dialogue is the same as the original, it's now fully voice acted. Even for voicing a mostly unnamed character, her voice actress (Cindy Robinson) delivers a very heart-wrenching performance.
• In the original ending sequence, talking to Junpei leads to a slightly amusing conversation where he feels like forgot something important that happened recently. Now, talking to Junpei leads to a conversation where he mentions Kenji being excited that all the new teachers are female. Junpei laughs at this and says that "none of that really matters to me. I already got a special someone..." He then goes silent and asks "I... did have a special someone, right?" confirming that Junpei's memories of Chidori were also initially erased. Thankfully, like the rest of the memory erasure, it presumably doesn't last, although this also means that Junpei doesn't remember Chidori at all in the bad ending.
• Both endings have changes made to their presentation in order to enhance their emotional impact.
  • For the "kill Ryoji" ending, Reload takes a cue from Persona 4 and 5 by going for a minimalist credits scene that doesn't use "Memories of You" and instead simply loops the haunting "Mystic" as they roll.
  • For the true ending, however...
    • The original scene which simply showed the protagonist lying on Aigis' lap gets revamped into a full-blown in-engine cinematic. Aigis' dialogue is interspersed with the rest of the S.E.E.S rushing to the roof, flashbacks to the Nyx Avatar battle that take some cues from the film adaptations, and the cherry blossoms surrounding the school are far more prominently featured, signifying the new beginning the protagonist won for all his friends, even though we all know he won't be there to see it with them. The first-person narration delivers one last gut punch as instead of "Your eyes feel heavy", it now reads "My eyes feel heavy..." right as the game ends. The unique UI for this moment adds to the weight, as the protagonist looks like he's barely hanging on before he permanently closes his eyes.
      "I'm getting sleepier... My eyes feel heavy..."
      Option 1: ......
      Option 2: Close them
    • Before the protagonist wipes away Aigis' tears, if the player idles on the dialogue prompt to do so, they can hear Aigis crying in the background.
    • In the original game, the "Your eyes feel heavy" prompt was the end before the credits rolled. Here, the scene instead cuts to a first person view inside the stairwell as S.E.E.S. race to the rooftop, showing how close they actually were to reaching the Protagonist before he passed away.
    • Remember how the menus show the protagonist floating on water? The good ending credits show a silhouette of him sinking and vanishing, giving the painful reminder of his curtain call.
    • The final cutscene of the good ending lingers on the sleeping protagonist before fading to white after his friends reunite with him and Aigis on the rooftop, as if his soul slipped away from his body once he sensed the promise they all made fulfilled. It also shows, very clearly, that the protagonist is smiling in his sleep, happy that S.E.E.S. fulfilled their promise to each other before passing.
• After the good ending's credits roll and the player comes back to the title screen, it gets a significant update that's equal parts somber and joyful. Instead of silhouettes of S.E.E.S. in a moonlit classroom, you see an Evoker and S.E.E.S. armband on a desk with a clear blue sky and cherry blossoms outside. It's no longer silent, as "Because I Will Protect You" softly plays in the background. The fight is over, and the protagonist's journey has come to an end... but at what cost?
• As a whole, Reload reinforces and makes it clear that, as a straight-up remake with minimal changes to the original game's story, nothing you do will change the outcome. Despite the encouragement people give the protagonist and the hopes that they will confront the future with him in mind, fans who've played the original game know what's coming, and it hurts so much worse. The good ending's in-engine cinematic takes cues from the film tetralogy, showing S.E.E.S as they race up to Gekkoukan's rooftop and smiling when they arrive. Maybe it's a good thing we don't see their reaction to learning the protagonist just died...

Episode Aigis: -The Answer- DLC

• The intro of Episode Aigis is appropriately moody and downbeat, a huge contrast to the vibrant and upbeat intro of "Full Moon Full Life." The opening song, "Disconnected", and the accompanying video has a lot of allusions and imagery to the mood of S.E.E.S. and how they're all grieving the loss of their leader:
  • The opening starts with a shot of the protagonist walking among a field of Red Spider Lilies of Mourning, literally heading towards the light, as a butterfly follows him. It immediately sets the mood about how everyone, including Aigis, has been shaken by the protagonist's death, as Aigis jolts up in her chair with tears in her eyes.
  • A shot of the Fool Arcana card falls, highlighting every single S.E.E.S. member, still in sorrow about the protagonist's passing, before the card itself shatters.
  • Aigis, while running through a field of doors, falls into what appears to be the Sea of Souls, and sees the protagonist in the water. She desperately tries to reach out to him, only to see him fade away.
  • Shots of the protagonist's Evoker and MP3 player are overlaid with bits of the final battle and ending, focused on two integral characters of The Answer: Yukari, who is begging for the protagonist to not confront Nyx's Core by himself, and the protagonist resting on Aigis' lap as he peacefully passes away. Lotus Juice's rap segment during this segment is similarly melancholy.
    In the end you will learn
    How to walk alone and be strong (Lost without you)
    Even the little things like the scent of his cologne
    It's a painful reminder... that he's gone.
  • The opening then teases the eventual confrontation of every member of S.E.E.S. being forced to fight one another, conflicted over how to use the keys of time.
  • The opening ends on a cherry blossom petal touching the water, as one last gut punch to remind players of the promise the protagonist made with his friends before his death.
  • Lastly, the opening is effective in bringing players back into the mindset of exactly what is going on with the team. Even if it's been a few months for players since Reload's release, some re-experiencing the game and witnessing the protagonist's journey again to the point that the feelings about the original ending may have died down, "Disconnected" reminds players that S.E.E.S. doesn't have that luxury. To them, they just lost a very dear friend without warning.
• You wouldn't expect Sad Battle Music for a normal battle theme, but that's the best description of "Don't", the SEES Advantage theme in the DLC... and, given the premise, it makes all too much sense. The melody is melancholic, Azumi Takahashi's verses talk about not wanting to fight but having no choice in the matter, Lotus Juice's verses can only be about Aigis' depression, and the chorus mentions a wish that will never come true.
  Already lost my keys to the door wide shut
  Only had one wish; now it's never gonna come true
  Trapped in time, forever in remorse
  How could I ever be in peace when nothing else matters to me?
• The fight against ??? is as much a gut-punch to S.E.E.S. as it was in FES. When it changes Reverse Personas, most of S.E.E.S. is confused or bewildered when they see it using their own Personas against them. Junpei's reaction, however, comes off as being pissed, and for good reason since, unlike the rest of S.E.E.S., Junpei's Ultimate Persona was born via a fusion of Hermes and Medea and is proof of his and Chidori's bond. To see it being used against him, and by some thing in the shape of his former friend...
  Junpei: Trismegistus... Stop it! You can't use him!
• Upon defeat, the shadow clone of the protagonist fades into butterflies. We then see Aigis' distraught reaction as she relives the painful memory.
• Yukari's breakdown at the end of the S.E.E.S. boss fight is just as heartbreaking as the original except there's one difference: instead of trying to snatch the key from Aigis in a fit of rage and desperation, Yukari immediately asks her if "she really doesn't want to go back" in a defeated and depressed tone before openly admitting to her friends that she wants to bring the MC back without a care in the world and is struggling too hard trying to move forward. Even Mitsuru gets emotional and almost tears up while consoling Yukari over it.