Whenever I think about Tartarus in Persona 3 Reload, I remember it being a dungeon that gets kind of repetitive over time. I still love traversing its spooky halls but Reload brings some very welcome changes to the table.
What’s new in Tartarus for Persona 3 Reload
Broadly speaking, Tartarus is still the main dungeon in Persona 3 Reload. You’ll still be working your way up floor by floor until you reach a boss that impedes your progress until the next main story beat. But this time around Tartarus comes packed with a host of quality of life changes. Most of these differences are here to make this dungeon a little bit easier to manage. And while I don’t love every change, I’m sure they’ll make all the difference for some players.
Here’s a breakdown of the biggest changes to Tartarus:
- Unique conversations with party members
- No Fatigue mechanic
- Breakable objects offer up some loot
- Locked chests can now be found around the dungeon and opened with Twilight Fragments
- Dashing and Auto-Recovery are also available throughout the game now
When exploring Tartarus in Persona 3 Reload you’ll get some unique conversations with the party members you bring in with you. It’s a lot like how characters interacted in Mementos in Persona 5. Atlus has also removed the Fatigue mechanic in Reload, which I don’t feel too pleased about since it added a nice element of tension to the original game. It will undoubtedly make grinding a little easier though.
What’s arguably the most fun addition in Tartarus is locked chests that can only be opened with Twilight Fragments found throughout the game. These yield much greater rewards than standard chests so they’re well worth opening. You can also find some breakable objects to destroy to get some quick loot. And to speed things up even more, Persona 3 Reload lets you use a Dash to sprint through Tartarus.
What’s staying the same
With all these changes it’s important to note the things that are staying the same. Tartarus is still a randomly generated dungeon in Persona 3 Reload. So every time you leave and come back, the layout of each floor will change. Chests will reset as well, meaning you can still head back in and get some extra items.
You’ll still be stopped at certain points in the dungeon that are locked off by story progression as well. So for all intents and purposes, the basic functions of Tartarus have been unchanged. Still, these quality-of-life improvements should make traversing all 200+ floors of Tartarus a bit more fun. Of course, the differences listed here are only a fraction of what’s been added to Persona 3 Reload.
