Should you play Merciless difficulty in Persona 3 Reload?

Persona 3 Reload has several difficulty options to spice up the gameplay. If battles are too difficult or easy for you, you can change the difficulty without a second thought unless you are playing on Merciless. Here’s what we think about Merciless difficulty in Persona 3 Reload.

Persona 3 Reload: Should you play Merciless difficulty?

Before anyone asks, let me answer:

No, there aren’t any difficulty-related trophies or achievements in Persona 3 Reload.

If you want those sweet bragging rights, feel free to set the game on Peaceful difficulty and just breeze through combat encounters. Don’t worry, Persona 3 Reload is still going to be enjoyable even on the lowest difficulty.

The Merciless difficulty in Persona 3 Reload is meant for Persona veterans who want a more challenging combat experience. If you don’t mind grinding Tartarus floors for a bit longer or doing and receiving more damage, then Merciless might be a good difficulty for you.

Now, unlike previous Persona titles, there aren’t any weird difficulty modifiers. In Persona 5 Royal, for example, Merciless difficulty caused players to do three times more technical damage, which actually made it easier than other difficulties. This isn’t the case in Persona 3 Reload.

In short, combat on Merciless difficulty is harder, but not completely broken or impossible.

Persona 3 Reload: Merciless difficulty vs. other difficulties

Here are all the changes that come when you select Merciless difficulty:

• Enemies do more damage to characters.
• Characters do less damage to enemies.
• If you die, you have to reload a save. You cannot restart in Tartarus (which is pointless anyway because of the Rewind feature).
• If you switch from Merciless to a lower difficulty, you won’t be able to go back to Merciless.

Thankfully, no matter which difficulty you play on, character stats, experience gains, Social Links, Persona Fusions, and other non-combat-related mechanics won’t be affected.

In my opinion, you should go through the story on one of the lower difficulty settings, and if you like it so much that you absolutely need another playthrough, go with Merciless.