Which Difficulty Should You Choose in Persona 3 Reload?

Persona 3 Reload features a total of five difficulty options, making it challenging to know which one to pick. Choosing the correct difficulty for you boils down to whether you are a veteran Persona player or someone entirely new to the series.

In this guide, we go over all the difficulty levels in Persona 3 Reload. You will learn the differences between each difficulty and we’ll explain which is best for you.

All Difficulties in Persona 3 Reload Explained

Persona 3 Reload’s five difficulties are as follows: Peaceful, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Merciless. Simply put, Beginner is the easiest difficulty, while Merciless is the hardest. When choosing one of these options, you must ask yourself, “How much have I played Persona?” You must also consider what you are trying to get out of the Persona 3 Reload experience.

For example, suppose you are someone mainly interested in the more social elements of Persona 3 Reload, such as relationship building, working a job, and going to school, and don’t care too much for combat. In that case, you’ll most likely enjoy Persona 3 Reload the most if you choose Peaceful or Easy. Doing so will allow you to breeze through combat while still enjoying the social simulation aspect of the game.

On the other hand, if you are looking for an engaging and challenging combat experience, you will want to pick Normal or Hard. These two difficulties offer a combat experience requiring strategic thinking and mastering the game’s mechanics and systems while also being fair. If you are an experienced Persona player looking for a more strategic, challenging experience, I suggest you select the Hard difficulty option, where enemies will deal higher damage.

Related: Does Persona 3 Reload Include the Female Protagonist or The Answer?

Lastly, we have the Merciless difficulty in Persona 3 Reload. Merciless is not for the faint of heart and is meant for those who consider themselves the best and are incredibly skilled Persona players. Enemies hit harder (around 3x the damage they’d dish out on Normal), your characters don’t deal as much damage, and dying will become a very regular occurrence. I only recommend the Merciless difficulty if you have beaten Persona 3 Reload at least once.

It’s important to know that if you choose Merciless, you can adjust the difficulty to a lower level. That said, you can’t adjust the difficulty back to Merciless once you turn it down a level. All the other difficulty levels can be adjusted whenever you please.