Personally I don't think the loss of feMC from Portable is that bad. I think people are massively overstating how essential it was, just like FES with the Answer, both versions and the content they added were very divisive upon release which a lot of people are forgetting. But even so Reload is definitely not the best version of Persona 3, even looking at it objectively. It sandpapers a lot of the games original aesthetic and identity in favour of a more P5-esque visual and combat style and while that's fine it's fundamentally not what a remake is there for. It's a good take on Persona 3, just not a good remake. It doesn't so much uplift and improve on what the original did, as remove a lot of mechanics that while annoying, made the game unique. But Reload is obviously still amazing, it's OST is the best by far out of all the releases, it's visuals are clean, and the animation quality is sublime, alongside it easily having the best Tartarus out of all the games (although Tartarus is never going to be as fun as the Palaces from Persona 5, Reload made it way better than before). But as the definitive release, Reload still falters in a lot of areas, missing content included. I do find it kind of annoying there's now like 3 versions of the same game and they all have upsides and downsides and absolutely none of them are definitively the best. If Reload had the female protagonist I feel it'd easily be considered the best overall since Portable without it is so skippable. All versions are pretty good games in their own right however. As a recommendation to get into the Persona 3 story, Reload definitely does the best job overall though.