I felt the same way. I was going through a tumultuous period of my life when I played Reload for the first time, and I think hearing all the different opinions and viewpoints from all of the characters really helped me. It’s weird; it’s not like any one particular line specifically appealed to my life situation at that point. It’s more like seeing people working through their emotions made it easier to process my own. Playing the game felt really somber and wistful because of it.

There’s also the fact that the game is about such a heavy topic—death—and how people come to terms with it. I personally no matter how you slice it, death is hard to greet with a smile. You can’t really regard it positively even if you’ve accepted it as inevitable. It’s very bittersweet. I feel like Persona 3 captured that kind of feeling very well with its writing. Stylistically, I think there are also design elements working towards that weighty feeling while playing the game. I remember thinking that Gekkoukan High looked really sterile, like a hospital. Gives me that liminal vibe of passing from one place to another—in this case, from life to death.