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Rate best to worst, all 3 Persona games (UNMARKED SPOILER!)

Spman2099

Member
P2:EP > P5 > P2:IS > P3 > P1 > P4G

Revelations has a lot of problems, but it also does some things better than any other game in the series (one of the best secret characters in an RPG). With the exception of the battle music, I would argue that Persona 4 does everything the worst. I liked Persona 3 quite a bit when it released, and also appreciated the dark tone, but it was the one that introduced the incredibly boring "shadow" enemy types. Thank god Persona 5 put an end to that. In my opinion, Persona 5 should be praised not only for having one of the more likable casts and engaging stories, but for also bringing back a lot of the best elements from the original trilogy.
 

asagami_

Banned
I love Eternal Punishment but I haven't played through IS yet ( I have the PSP version). I hated Revelations Persona way back in 1996 but it was so different than what I was used to. I've heard mixed opinions on the PSP remake of 1, some say its worth it, others say not so much. I got it cheap off of eBay a few years back but I'm unsure if its worth playing through. What say you GAF?

It's worth. Especially for recruit Eriko in the SEBEC arc.
 

KraytarJ

Member
Story:
P5 > P4 > P3

Characters:
P4 > P5 > P3

Gameplay:
P5 > P4 > P3

Dungeons:
P5 > P4 > P3

Music:
P4 > P5 > P3

Overall 4 & 5 are so close, they're both probably top 5 all time for me, while 3 is just good. 3 feels like such a prototype for what they eventually did with better games, it felt to me like 2 separate games stacked together while 4 & 5 mixed the RPG and daily life stuff way better.

Overall:
P4 > P5 > P3
 

Dantis

Member
P4 > P5 > P3

P4 has the strongest cast, and whilst the story is pretty threadbare, it also has by far the best primary antagonist and the least dumb shit in it.
P4's OST is also stronger than 4 and 5, being more varied and if you count P4G, a lot larger.
P4 was also really heavy on intimate, emotional scenes, which resonated a lot more with me. P5's attempts at emotion largely felt kinda lame.

P5 really comes together thematically in the endgame, but before that it's kind of a mess, and P3 is full on garbled all the way through.
 

Vinc

Member
Story: P5 > P4 > P3
Characters: P4 > P5 > P3
Gameplay: P5 > P4 > P3
Music and presentation: P5 > P4 > P3

P5 is the best overall game, P4 has the best character development and events.
 

DigtialT

Member
P5=P4>P3

5 had many QOL improvements so it wins in the gameplay department easily, but I still struggle to place it above 4 as a whole package.
 
P5 is the best game in every category except characters because I think Haru is shallow as fuck. She was introduced to the game way too late and her story is kinda rushed. I mean, she is at the same school as the main character the whole time but she's no where to be found at school in the earier chapters.

P5's story is quite deep. If you think the story just pick up at Okamura palace then you missed the huge main plot. Futaba's palace is probably the most important palace of all. It's the main point that ties so many characters to the Metaverse and the starting of the down fall of the Phantom Thieves. The fact that the plot makes a mockery of the current society and politic make its story the best of all.
 

Taruranto

Member
tumblr_inline_nhml79qX1n1r7rhsj.jpg


There are SIX mainline Persona games as 2 is divided in half.

So I must assume you're only talking about the Persona 3 games, which is a good topic for a thread as the game doesn't have a definitive edition.

I'd go myself:

Persona 3 Portable
Persona 3 FES
Persona 3

The pluses including the new campaign outweigh the minuses of Portable (the map being changed)


Lmao, thread redeemed.

I love Eternal Punishment but I haven't played through IS yet ( I have the PSP version). I hated Revelations Persona way back in 1996 but it was so different than what I was used to. I've heard mixed opinions on the PSP remake of 1, some say its worth it, others say not so much. I got it cheap off of eBay a few years back but I'm unsure if its worth playing through. What say you GAF?


Eeeeh, I wouldn't call P1 a good game, it's certainly interesting to see how the series started (holy shit, Igor is 2 meter tall and summons demons with his cellphone!) and it does have that 90' megaten atmosphere, but the plot and the characters are rather thin and the gameplay is just... inoffensive at best.

I would say skip to IS and then go back to check it if you feel like it.
 

Kyuur

Member
Persona 5 is superior to 4 in every conceivable way.

Haven't played 3 (and likely won't due to the lack of full party control) but what I've heard and seen (the anime) sounds inferior to the others for me.
 

Zyrox

Member
Overall my ranking would be P3=P5>P4.
P3 has my favorite cast of characters which is basically the core of these games so that counts for a lot. I liked that their development happened organically in the main story and wasn't sectioned off to their S-links. Building off of that, I also really liked that the game showed you that these characters have their own things going on outside of the interaction with the MC. Made them feel a bit more real to me. Lastly, I also really liked the party dynamic. I appreciated that not everyone is immediately buddy buddy with each other and that there are moments of conflict within the group. I find their overall growth as a group of coworkers into friends more natural than the dynamics of later games. Also, P3 gets bonus points for having no character I dislike, P4 has 2 of those and even in P5 Ryuji can be really annoying sometimes.
I'd rank P5 on par with P3 because while I prefer characters and atmosphere of P3 overall P5 just has way better gameplay and pacing. I can't ignore how much better P5 is to play than previous entries. And how much better its presentation is. Love the artstyle so much.
I still love P4 a lot but I just prefer the casts of both P3 and P5 and P5 plays a lot better so overall P4 ranks last. Still a great game though and it is what got me into the series.
 

PK Gaming

Member
I thought OP was being ironic with the 3 Persona games thing, lol.

Gameplay

P5 >> P4 > P3 > P1 > P2

Obvious.

Story

P2 > P3 > P5 = P4 > P1

P2 (specifically Eternal Punishment) is still peak Persona in terms of story and writing. Don't know how else to say it, it's just... kickass. P5 tells an incredibly ambitious story with super relevant themes and tops it off with a fantastic ending, but it's also... flawed. Like, legit flawed in some key areas. P4's story is nice and simple, and it mostly takes a back seat until the end, but it has a banger of an ending to tie everything together in such a great. P3's story is solid for the most part, but the last 20% of the game is pretty phenomenal. P1's story is very minimalist, but serviceable I suppose. It doesn't really do its characters justice (outside of Maki), though manga's take on it is very, very good.

Characters

P5 = P4 > P2 > P3 > P1

It's close. All of these games have pretty amazing characters, so the gaps are incredibly small.

Music

P4 > P5 > P3 > P2 > P1

Pound for pound, P5 unquestionably has the best soundtrack in the series. Life Will Change, Last Surprise, Whims of Fate, Wake Up... these songs are overpowered as fuck. The issue is how it uses that soundtrack. P4's use of its OST (outside of this fucking song) is pretty great. P5 spreads itself too thin, with the weaker daily life songs being the ones you hear the most, and a similarly overused song being used in many of the story scenes.

Overall

P4 > P5 > P3 > P1 > P2

P5 is a top class RPG with some definite issues, but still an incredibly fun package overall. P3 was revolutionary at the time, and it still holds up today, but the actual gameplay is actually a somewhat mediocre (the pacing). P1 is similarly underwhelming RPG, but it spawned the franchise and it's a fairly easy game to play through. P2 is straight up a terrible. Like, one of the very worst RPGs I have ever played. It manages to do everything wrong when it comes to gameplay, from its garbage random encounter design, unbalanced mess of a battle system, nonexistent difficulty (IS) and terrible grind (EP). That said, it's still worth playing for its amazing story and loveable cast of characters.

In the end, I have to give it to P4. There's this... "lightning in a bottle" quality to it that makes it special. Like on paper, it's blatantly worse than P5 and arguably P3, but the act of playing it is so much different. It just does nearly everything right. It knows how to break up the main story with slice of life goodness. Dungeons are incredibly basic, but still enjoyable because of the banter, music and costumes that makes it easy to play through them. It's also the most feel-good game I have ever played, with some (usually) good comedic bits and an extremely emotionally resonant overall. Also P4G is the most pick up and play game, ever. There's a reason why Persona 4 is so beloved by many.

2>1>3>4>5 IMO.

But I greatly prefer traditional SMT gameplay to the later persona style

But P5's gameplay is more traditional SMT than 3 an 4...
 
Atlus is such a visionary dev, starting a series at #3.

Have you heard of Star Wars? Persona is the same.



STORY

P3 > P5 > P4

I have a heavy bias for P3. It was amazing at the time and its edgy setting resonated with me the most. P4 starts very strong, but the story never develops until you reach the time where you have to select randomly a villain that you never have the chance to uncover by yourself. P5 is closer to Persona 3 since you get the chance to uncover the mysteries behind everything that's happening around you slowly every time you beat the villain of the week/month.

CHARACTERS

P3 > P5 > P4.

P3 has the best cast, and since the addition of new characters to your party is not related to the villain of the week like in P4 and P5, the development of the cast doesn't feel rushed.


GAMEPLAY

P5 > P3 > P4.

P5 is miles ahead here. P4 was an overall evolution to P3's battle system but it was too simplified and with total control over your party it becomes easier and less stressful but also less satisfying.

MUSIC

I like the music of all games, so this is hard to say...

Normal fight : P5 > P3 > P4
Daily: P3 > P4> P5
Dungeon: P5 > P4 > P3
Boss fight: P3 = P4 = P5
The whole OST: P3 = P5 > P4

OVERALL

P5 > P3 > P4

Despite liking more the atmosphere, the characters and even the story of P3 more than the others, P5 is the better game because how polished and refined it is. P4 in the other hand could be more popular, but the setting and all the anime cliches destroyed the game as the story progressed.
 
I appreciate P3's thematic consistency over the other two (P-Studio are better at broaching death and loss than anything else). Its cast is the least static of the modern games as character development arcs take their time and happen within the main story, even often changing perspective away from the protagonist. Extra points for having a female protagonist, especially for the improvements she brings to social links and some scenes. Boy mode pulls the same okama shit that everything else does and doesn't believe boys and girls can actually be friends.

P4 is fucked up in ways that have been reiterated a lot. Less often mentioned is the entire dungeon that's a gay joke. Every predetermined comic relief school excursion is cruel and awful. I'm largely bored otherwise. I don't care for the story or most of the characters. The dungeon design is the same as P3's, except the floors are bigger and emptier. The TV motif sets up a media critique only for the game to not really follow through.

P5 has a lot of the same problems as P4, though some of the hostility is a bit easier to ignore. Some of it is okay, thematically, when it's not snapping itself to pieces. Without the presence of Kaneko's demons over the uninspired shadows I probably would've passed on the game. The demons and dungeons did turn out to be my favorite parts and I didn't care about how long the dungeons lasted because it felt really nice for me to hang around in them.

Some nice music and characters here and there in each.

I'm not sure where I'd put 3 and 5 but I dislike 4.

This post feels like a mess.

I've heard mixed opinions on the PSP remake of 1, some say its worth it, others say not so much. I got it cheap off of eBay a few years back but I'm unsure if its worth playing through. What say you GAF?

The PSP soundtrack does a number on the original atmosphere, one of the PS1 game's greatest strengths. It's the tradeoff for a good localization. That aside, Elly and Yukino are great and the Jungian elements are neat. I'll have to replay it...
 

Fireblend

Banned
I'm just gonna drop in to provide my opinion and leave it at that.

P5 is by far the best, and I feel like this is how people will feel as time goes on. That's it.
 

CronoShot

Member
I only ever played Persona 3 Portable, but...

P5 > P4 > P3

I haven't finished P5 yet, but unless it completely falls apart in the second half, I doubt it will change my mind. The upgrade in presentation alone makes a massive difference from P4.

All three are fantastic though.
 

Shadic7700

Member
P4 >> P5 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> P3

P3 feels like a prototype to me in every sense. I'm glad it exists, because otherwise we wouldn't have the masterpieces that are P4 and P5, but man it really sucks playing it today. Beat it in March and I didn't enjoy it much at all.
Pretty much this I spent 600 hours on P4 and P4G but only like 80 on P3 after I finished the story I was done Akihiko was the only saving grace of that game as well as the final boss theme but that's it too boring. On the other hand P5 felt like a successor to P4 and I wish it was longer didn't really get to be with the characters that long so I want more
 

vocab

Member
Persona 3 is one of the worst games made by atlus and the worst game in the series. It has all the ideas but its executed so poorly. The pacing is horrible, and tartarus is trash. These two things alone hold the game back so much that not even the stuff outside of tartarus could even remotely redeem the game for me.
 
I'm not into these games but I'm aware there's a "Persona 5". The fuck happened to 1 and 2? How are there only 3 of these games?

Edit: looking at other posts, it seems OP just disregarded them. Carry on
 

sgjackson

Member
I think I go 4>5>=3.

I bonded with the characters and world of P4 more than any other story based game I've ever played, and it scratched my Pokemon itch perfectly with the fusion system. The one thing keeping me from calling it perfect is I think the plot stumbles at the end. Nanako's death fakeout is pointless and the gas station attendant being the big bad is a really dumb swerve in a game that totally could have just ended with the Adachi/eyeball bosses and have been perfectly satisfying.

5's changes to smooth out the formula are all highly appreciated, and I had a great time with it, but the whole time I was playing it I was thinking "I'm glad this exists but I don't know if I have another one of these in me." Story-wise it felt like they were shackled to franchise expectations, to the point where I said "He's the culprit" about Akechi during the first cutscene and immediately noticed the pancakes reveal. The characters feel like slightly altered versions of prior characters. The first dungeon is a castle again, the fifth is old school sci-fi. There's another pointless death fakeout (Ryuji) and another supernatural twist at the end that falls a little flat. I think I wanted something that felt a little more fresh. 3 to 4 was a way bigger leap in tone and plot expectations than 4 to 5. Even with all that, I still think the formula is amazing and I loved it. Now I just know I want a hypothetical 6 to be more...different.

3 I don't remember as well as 4 or 5, but SEES and the dorm didn't resonate with me as much as small-town Japan or deeply cynical look at Tokyo. Tartarus is also REALLY repetitive, and getting to the top at the end of the game is a slog. Plot-wise it does get major props for being the only game in the series willing to stick with its death and some of the shit in the second half is really affecting. Minato just fading away is also probably the best ending in the series.
 

Ceallach

Smells like fresh rosebuds
I thought OP was being ironic with the 3 Persona games thing, lol.

Gameplay

P5 >> P4 > P3 > P1 > P2

Obvious.

Story

P2 > P3 > P5 = P4 > P1

P2 (specifically Eternal Punishment) is still peak Persona in terms of story and writing. Don't know how else to say it, it's just... kickass. P5 tells an incredibly ambitious story with super relevant themes and tops it off with a fantastic ending, but it's also... flawed. Like, legit flawed in some key areas. P4's story is nice and simple, and it mostly takes a back seat until the end, but it has a banger of an ending to tie everything together in such a great. P3's story is solid for the most part, but the last 20% of the game is pretty phenomenal. P1's story is very minimalist, but serviceable I suppose. It doesn't really do its characters justice (outside of Maki), though manga's take on it is very, very good.

Characters

P5 = P4 > P2 > P3 > P1

It's close. All of these games have pretty amazing characters, so the gaps are incredibly small.

Music

P4 > P5 > P3 > P2 > P1

Pound for pound, P5 unquestionably has the best soundtrack in the series. Life Will Change, Last Surprise, Whims of Fate, Wake Up... these songs are overpowered as fuck. The issue is how it uses that soundtrack. P4's use of its OST (outside of this fucking song) is pretty great. P5 spreads itself too thin, with the weaker daily life songs being the ones you hear the most, and a similarly overused song being used in many of the story scenes.

Overall

P4 > P5 > P3 > P1 > P2

P5 is a top class RPG with some definite issues, but still an incredibly fun package overall. P3 was revolutionary at the time, and it still holds up today, but the actual gameplay is actually a somewhat mediocre (the pacing). P1 is similarly underwhelming RPG, but it spawned the franchise and it's a fairly easy game to play through. P2 is straight up a terrible. Like, one of the very worst RPGs I have ever played. It manages to do everything wrong when it comes to gameplay, from its garbage random encounter design, unbalanced mess of a battle system, nonexistent difficulty (IS) and terrible grind (EP). That said, it's still worth playing for its amazing story and loveable cast of characters.

In the end, I have to give it to P4. There's this... "lightning in a bottle" quality to it that makes it special. Like on paper, it's blatantly worse than P5 and arguably P3, but the act of playing it is so much different. It just does nearly everything right. It knows how to break up the main story with slice of life goodness. Dungeons are incredibly basic, but still enjoyable because of the banter, music and costumes that makes it easy to play through them. It's also the most feel-good game I have ever played, with some (usually) good comedic bits and an extremely emotionally resonant overall. Also P4G is the most pick up and play game, ever. There's a reason why Persona 4 is so beloved by many.



But P5's gameplay is more traditional SMT than 3 an 4...
Correct, but there was some grossness in P5 that really bugged me la lot.
 

zelhawks37

Member
Coming from someone who started with P4 first, I'd rank the last three entries as follows:

P5 > P3 > P4.

P3 has the best story and P5 has the best overall content IMO.
 

Dantis

Member
Coming from someone who started with P4 first, I'd rank the last three entries as follows:

P5 > P3 > P4.

P3 has the best story and P5 has the best overall content IMO.
A lot of people say this, and I'd be interested to know why. I feel like P3's cast is largely very flat, with Mitsuru and Akihiko being preposterous caricatures, Fuuka and Ken being barely present, Shinji dying and Aigis being a robot. Junpei and Yukari are great, and the contrast between your trio and the rest of the party is really fun, but that doesn't make them good characters.

On top of that you have a really confused and unfocused overarching plot.
When your character enters the city, he finds he partakes in a 25th hour. During this hour the world turns into coffins except for the chosen few. This phenomenon is being investgated by SEES, a group of high school students who are sponsored by the largest corporation in the vicinity (Kirijo) and who are trying to atone for previously studying this 25th hour using nefarious means. Kirijo possesses full on sci fi technology, with some bizarre scanning tech that seems to monitor EVERYTHING, from health to the state of the island, and relays it back to SEES HQ in the dorm room. Despite the whole thing being pretty crazy, Kirijo chooses to focus on a giant tower (called Tartarus) that is impossibly tall and has taken the place where the school previously was. It is surmised that by reaching the top of the tower, the Dark Hour can be ended, but it never really says why anyone would care or where they obtain this conclusion.
On top of that, there's Strega, a competing organisation (also of high school students - unknown how they're funded) who are trying to stop you reaching the top of the tower in order to possibly stop the Dark Hour. These characters also able to wake normal people into the Dark Hour in order to murder them without any witnesses, which they apparently do through requests on a website. This never comes up again.
In the real world, people are coming down with Apathy Syndrome, a side effect of humanity's collective apathy towards life. It's apparently linked to Tartarus and The Dark Hour as well.
Tartarus is filled with Shadows, which are negative manifestations created by humanity. They can only be hurt by Persona, which is why SEES is consisted of high school students (they're the ones with Persona).
Anyway, lots of gameplay later and it turns out that your mentor is actually evil and is trying to summon the incarnation of Death. His motivations are non-existent and up until now he's been a good guy. It's a weird twist.
So you reach the top of the tower (forgiving Strega along the way, despite them being mass murderers who also killed one of your party members) and the manifestation of Death comes down because this was all your leader's grand plan (though how he knew this would happen is unknown and his collaborators are never brought up) and you fight it. Upon defeating it, the fucking moon descends and your protagonist realises the answer to his life, using the life lessons he's learned along the way to turn himself into a LITERAL DOOR holding back Death.
Oh, also Death was hiding inside the protagonist the whole time, having been trapped inside him ten years earlier by a Shadow hunting robot (who obviously is a party member).
Also Shadow hunting robots are a thing. They look like high school girls.

P3's story is fucking weird.
 

Plums

Neo Member
Overall: 5 = 3(P) >> 4
(i love all of them tho)

It's been hard to say which resonated the most with me, since I played P3/P4 back to back near the end of high school and I felt like I could connect with both, and P5 really speaks to me given where I am now (and the current political climate of the US/general rise in radical right wing ideology globally).

I think what may also be influencing this is that Persona 4 feels extremely anime, compared to P5's more grounded tone and even P3 to an extent. Even though P3 had a lot of anime tropes present (like, there was literally a dog and robots and they shot themselves in the head with fake guns lmao), I feel like P4 definitely played more of the anime tropes they did have straight with regards to events and even some character interactions, whereas I feel like P5/P3 tended to avoid doing that more often than not.


Cast: P3 > P5 = P4
P3 definitely has the strongest cast of Hashino!Persona for me, since their character growth is irrevocably woven into the narrative, and we get to see them go from this team lowkey resenting each other into one that, while they may not all be best friends, have this unshakable trust in each other. Although I don't feel much about Ken or Fuuka.

P4 is weird in that the Investigation Team as a whole is really endearing to me, but Yosuke and Teddie are easily the most unlikeable party members in the three Hashino games, and Teddie only gets worse when you factor in the spinoffs. I also don't get the points they get for character development since theirs is locked behind their Social Links, and some characters either feel completely different in their S Link than the main plot (Yosuke & Teddie), or don't...really go anywhere (Yukiko and Chie).

Kanji is still best boy tho.

P5: I actually liked everyone in P5. Ryuji was annoying a fair number of times, but even at Ryuji's worst he was still miles better than Yosuke or Teddie. While they didn't have the same best friends vibe as the group in P4, I do like that they could be independent of the protag and by the end felt like a family (reminiscent of P3). Party members (notably Makoto, Morgana, Ryuji, Futaba, and even the Protag) felt like they grew during the main plot, and Confidants for the party felt more like companion pieces to the characters instead of serving as the end of their character development like with 4. It makes the Confidant stories weaker than the stories of 4's S. Links, but it presents a lot less conflict between how a character acts in the main story vs how they acted when you finished their S. Link/Confidant.


Social Links: FeMC > 4 > 5 >>> 3

Even though the party characters could feel completely different outside of their S Links or not really grow at all, broadly speaking I loved the variety of people available in the Links in 4, and you had some REALLY strong ones with the Widow, Ai, Dojima, Nanako, and the end of Yosuke's was very touching. Teddie, Yukiko, and Chie I didn't really care about, even if Chie was definitely My Girl in P4 lol.

P5's Confidants were all fairly good, Kawakami, Tae, Futaba and Sojiro were all really standout (Sojiro honestly beats out Dojima for me, which I was not expecting lol). I think what holds back Confidants is that their stories don't quite reach the levels P4's S Links did, but they're still solid and I love how they tied gameplay mechanics to them (it was also really subtle hinting at the true nature of the final boss which I really appreciated).

P3 had a couple good links, and then it had one's like the Magician. Overall it just pretty messy, and I don't find a majority of them that memorable (especially when you were forced into a romance with the women in P3/FES).

FeMC let's you S Link with Koromaru so she absolutely has the best.


Plot: P5 = P3 >>> P4

P5 definitely has its list of issues; the problematic scenes with leering at Ann after an entire arc dedicated to how she was objectified, the gay panic with the two dudes at the beach, pacing in September P5 SEPTEMBER SPOILERS
leading up to and during Okumura's dungeon
, along with some pacing leading up to the endgame between the second to last palace and the Definitively For Certain Last Palace, and some palaces being maybe 1-2 puzzles too long. While I do feel it forced my hand at some points with Morgana forcing you to bed every so often, I do feel like the pacing as a whole was better than P3 and P4.

For me felt like things were always moving forward, as opposed to P3's barren summer and things moving at a snail's pace for a few weeks in P4 until a new dungeon (and the investigation never really moving forward until
Naoto joins and takes over operations
.

The endgame run is tied with P3 as my favorite, and felt a lot better executed to me than P4's did. P3 has the best execution in the leadup, with having an entire month of leadup and knowing what the last boss will be.

P5 does drop you into it, but I feel like it was hinted at MUCH better throughout the game compared to P4 through seeing how fickle the public was, Morgana straight up telling you time and time again how important
Mementos is and how you need to reach the core
, and seeing how
everything about the Velvet Room was extremely off the whole game, between Igor's introductions, locking functionality behind his & the Twins' Confidants (functionality that naturally unlocks in P3/P4 by midgame), and how your clothes visibly changed when entering when they never have before
.

P4's plot starts off really intriguing, but imo you notice the general pattern of repetition in it much faster than P3/P5, and there was absolutely no lead-up or hints about
Izanami
, outside of ONE guest lecture at school and a, for the most part, inconspicuous cutscene at the very start of the game, lol.


Social Equity: P2 > FeMC >>>>>>>>>>>>> P3 = P5 >>>>>>>> P4

P5: I was irritated you couldn't call Ryuji (or Morgana tbh) out for leering at Ann a couple times, and how at least four of the anime cutscenes were dedicated to it. Even if my enjoyment of the first arc isn't affected by it, it still feels rather gross after the Kamoshida arc. The gay panic scenes go without saying, and they really should have let you had male romance options instead of adult women. While I could deal with Chihaya maybe, Tae and especially Kawakami were absolutely pretty skeevy as romance options, even if it's a much different (and much healthier) dynamic than Kamoshida.

P4: That said, it pales in comparison to how maddening this shit could get in P4. Between not being able to you tell Yosuke off for dragging the girls into the swimsuit competition after buying them swimsuits, insinuating gross shit about Kanji for the possibility that Kanji could be gay repeatedly (the first of which being if Kanji will ASSAULT HIM), and trying to sneak into the girls' room at the Amagi Inn when they're sleeping and daring Kanji to get into the bed with them[]. Teddie isn't much better with always trying to "score" with the girls, and the Fireworks scene in P4G where it was implied he flirted at Nanako for fuck's sake. This isn't even getting into how transphobic the cross dressing scene was, or how fatphobic & misogynistic the game could get about Haruko and the teacher.

imo P4 is absolutely the worst offender of the sexism/homophobia/transphobia in the Hashino Persona games, and always really sour when I think back to it. I still feel very sour about it in P3/P5, though it's only a few minutes of it instead of a lengthy social segment ala P4 with the swimsuit/crossdressing & Inn combo was at least almost an hour's worth of content back to back.

P3 had the weirdly sexist Shadow fight (where Mitsuru & Yukari ended up KO'd for no reason???) and the transphobic beach scene.

FeMC at least removed those elements and let you play as a girl, and P2 both let you play as a woman (in EP) AND let you be gay.

basically what i'm saying is, fuck hashino


Music: P5 = P4 > P3
While I feel like the songs in P5 are underutilized and don't have the variety P4's did in daily life, I thought the way P5 used it's music was much more deliberate and interesting (Life Will Change being the heist theme and getting the vocal version later in game, Rivers in the Desert, even though it was repeated 3 times, played during pivotal fights where it thematically made sense). I would really like to get another daily/nightly theme in there somewhere, which I hope can happen in a remake.

P4 doesn't need much to be said, nor does P3. I do think Genesis was pretty bad as a final boss theme, and Battle for Everyone's Souls/Burn my Dread was definitely top tier.
 
I'd go for a solid P5>P4>P3. I feel like they've done a good job of improving everything with each sequel.

That said, I do like Inaba more than Tokyo.
 
There are more than 3 Persona games LOL.
I'll fully admit that 3 is my fav based purely on nostalgia
3>5>4
I love all of them though. They're all fucking great games and for me they cement Atlus as superior to SquareEnix in the JRPG realm at least for now.
 
I'm glad to see some people are in line with my thoughts that the story and cast in P5 wasn't as strong as P3 or P4. Gameplay wise P5 has all persona games beat out, but it seems like they put a lot of focus on that aspect and not as much in the story. They did the opposite of what they've done in previous persona game. Such a shame
 
In terms of what I would recommend to others:

P5>P4>P3

In terms of personal favorites:

P3>P5>P4

I love all 3 however.

I would go with this too. Although I wouldn't recommend P3 over P5 in this day and age, I still like the former a lot more than the latter. P3P is in my opinion the best way to experience P3. People may argue that Fes is better, but yeah. P4 was just okay, the systems were a vast improvement over P3, but I didn't like the cast or the tone of the game as much.
 
The way P4 had a copout with Nanako's death made the the game the worst for me as well as the predictable story. Pretty much scooby doo with teenagers being detectives.

Also Yusuke and Teddie are the worst characters inthe entire Persona franchise. Yusuke being homophobic and Teddie being annoying ruined them imo.

P3 is still arguably my favorite and the ending was phenomenal. Still haven't played P5 yet.
 

bleaker

Member
I'm happy to see people talking up Persona 2 so much, and from a personal standpoint it is easily the best. Especially Innocent Sin, as Maya is my favorite female character in the series.

P2:IS>Persona 3>P2:EP>Persona 5>Persona>Persona 4
 

A-V-B

Member
Story: P5 > P4 > P3
Characters: P4 > P5 > P3
Gameplay: P5 > P4 > P3
Music and presentation: P5 > P4 > P3

P5 is the best overall game, P4 has the best character development and events.

P5=P4>P3

5 had many QOL improvements so it wins in the gameplay department easily, but I still struggle to place it above 4 as a whole package.



Hmm..

Yeah, okay. These two.
 
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