I haven't played far enough into Reload, but that makes sense. Even the menu animations feel really jarring, not only compared to Persona 3 but even compared to Persona 5. It's a little too busy. The game has this layer of gloss that feels at odds with the dark tone of the story. Of course, I haven't beaten it so I can't say how things are later in the game.
That's fair, I missed out on vanilla P3 and only played FES and Portable before Reload. Same with Persona 4, I didn't play the original game, only Golden. I did play Persona 5, and definitely prefer Royal. Some of the changes they make to these "director's cut" versions feel more aimed for existing Persona players than new fans, adding a little more variety to things and getting rid of some of the tedium. Having to keep setting up a fusion in Persona 3, for example, to get the skills inherited that I want, instead of just being able to pick from a list, doesn't add anything for me. I didn't mind not being able to control my other party members, but once you get used to having full control it does feel like losing it just adds unnecessary extra time to things. I suppose at this point we are a long way from the Shin Megami Tensei origins of the series. Even from what I've played through in SMT V Vengeance so far, it feels a lot easier than the 40 hours I played of vanilla SMT V.