Being the good student you are, you can join various clubs in Persona 3 Reload to hang around and meet some new people. This leads to developing certain Social Links, which will be crucial for fusing some of the most powerful Personas down the line.
How to Join Clubs in Persona 3 Reload (P3R)
To join a club, you must wait until certain periods when the club opens for new members. Characters will mention the club before class when it happens so you know when they’re available. Some clubs require prerequisites such as a certain Social Stat level or completing another Social Link.
Once the club is available, you can visit its room whenever it’s open. Attending a club will always cause time to pass, but it will also start your new Social Link immediately. All clubs are optional. However, you can, and should, join all clubs in a single playthrough.
Persona 3 Reload includes the following clubs for you to join:
- Track Club.
- Fashion Club.
- Arts Club.
The Student Council, which starts automatically on April 27, isn’t considered a club, although it shares many similarities with them.
Each club corresponds to a new Social Link, and they can even lead to unlocking more Social Links if conditions are met. You can join any club at any point in the game as long as they’re open (basically anytime except during the School Break and before tests). The exception is the Fashion Club, which has a deadline for joining (but not completing).
All Clubs and How to Unlock Them in Persona 3 Reload (P3R)
There are three clubs in Persona 3 Reload. Different from previous versions where you could choose which club you’ll attend (with the exception of the Fashion club), the protagonist defaults to the Track club and the Arts club, as all other clubs are already full at this point.
Track Club
- Social Link: Kazushi Miyamoto (Chariot)
- Starts on: 4/23
- Available days: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday (except before tests)
- Requirements: None
Once you hear about the track team recruiting on 4/23, visit the Practice Field on the first floor and ask to join the club. No other prerequisites are needed. If you want to unlock the Strength Social Link, remember to say hi to Yuko once practice is over.
Fashion Club
- Social Link: Bebe (Temperance)
- Starts on: 4/23
- Available days: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday (except before tests)
- Requirements: Hierophant Rank 3, Academics Lv. 2
During Rank 3 of the Hierophant Social Link, Bebe will visit the bookstore and invite you to the club. The club is located in the school’s 1F corridor, directly to the right of the entrance. You must have Academics Lv.2 or higher to understand what’s written on the club’s sign and learn when you can enter. Once you do, interact with the Home Economics Room door, and you’ll join the Fashion Club with Bebe.
If you don’t start this Social Link before the third Full Moon operation, it’ll be completely locked out for the rest of the game as Bebe will move away from Japan.
Arts Club
- Social Link: Keisuke Hiraga (Fortune)
- Starts on: 6/17
- Available days: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday (except before tests)
- Requirements: None
The Art Club becomes available automatically during June, a bit after Fuuka joins the team and returns to school. Visit the Art Room in the school’s 1F corridor (a bit past the Home Economics Room) and interact with the door with a poster on it. Like the Track Team, there are no prerequisites for entering this club.
Persona 3 Reload Clubs That Got Removed
In the original 2006 release of Persona 3, players had a choice between which club they could initially join for some Social Links. For the Chariot and Strength Arcana you had the choice between: Track, Swimming or Kendo. For the Fortune Arcana the choice was between: Music, Photography and Art. In Reload, the Swimming and Kendo clubs have been made unavailable, forcing the player to default to the Track club. Same with Music and Photography.
Considering how faithful Reload is to its source material, it’s unclear why these four clubs have been removed from the remake. But in all fairness, the clubs weren’t exactly necessary. In the original game, no matter which club you chose, you would join Kazushi and Yuko on the club’s team to initiate their Social Links. Same thing applies with initiating Keisuke’s Social Link in the Art club. Reload simply streamlines the choice, providing you with the same Social Links and retaining the clubs that matter, of which there are more than enough to join.
One major complaint players of the previous titles had was “Forced Replayability.” Having multiple Social Links that get locked away would mean players felt like they can’t fully experience the game, without playing it multiple times. What they didn’t know is that no matter what club they chose, the dialogue was ultimately the same, meaning they would start a new game for basically no reason. This could be one of many reasons as to why the choice between Clubs has been removed for Reload.
Juggling all clubs while having other daytime Social Links on your plate is a harsh task, especially when you must increase your Social Stats ASAP to unlock (and potentially complete) some other links. But as long as you know your priorities and make a good schedule, you should be able to attend all of them equally.
