Steam Deck Testing: Persona 3 Reload
Persona 3 Reload is a curious case on the Steam Deck. On one hand, the game is a great retool of the original Persona 3 experience, marrying the incredibly dark story and compelling characters of the original game with style and Quality of Life updates from the most recent game in the series, Persona 5 Royal.
On the other hand, while I greatly enjoyed what I had played of my first couple hours of P3R, the performance of the game can be seemingly all over the place. While it can stick to 60FPS in less crowded areas, cutscenes, and in combat —which is arguably the most important area to perform well in for an RPG— the game can dip to the 40s in areas with lots of activity and into the 20s-30s while exploring the main dungeon of the game, Tartarus.
While I think the current state of the game is still good despite these performance hurdles, an update down the road that irons out these performance hitches would make this an essential RPG for the Steam Deck.