So I finished Persona 3 and 4 (spoilers)

[Fox12]

WOW. This series, and developer, has pretty much single handedly restored my faith in JRPG's.

Persona 3 was excellent, a breath of fresh air. I did feel like some of the characters and social links were a little stiff, and sometimes the dungeon crawling was monotonous. At times the game felt somewhat sterile. In the end I felt like the series had enormous potential, but that 3 missed a certain flair that I hoped later games would add. Despite this, the pacing was absolutely perfect, and built up flawlessly to its inevitable conclusion. Despite some of my issues, it had one of my favorite endings of all time. On top of that it had a great soundtrack.

Persona 4 delivered on the promise of the last game. The characters were infinitely superior to the already decent cast of Persona 3. The art design and dungeon aesthetics were vibrant, the small town mystery plot felt more personal and made for a nice change of pace, and the world felt more colorful and alive then 3 ever did. Every social link and cut scene was a joy to sit through, and voice acting was much better than its predecessor, which was mostly hit and miss. I did feel like the pacing was off, and the ending felt somewhat rushed and out of nowhere. Whereas the majority of the game was about a mystery, and saving a small cast of characters you were invested in, it suddenly became about saving the world. Unlike 3, there was no real buildup. The game also concluded several full months before I thought it would, whereas Persona 3 continued well past new years, and set clear deadlines. Despite this, I still loved Persona 4's colorful cast and intriguing mystery. With characters like Kanji and Naoto, as well as others, I was sad to say goodbye to such a lovable ensemble. It reminded me in some ways of my last days of college. Hands down, one of my favorite games of all time.

Are there any Persona fans out there? And if so, what did you think? What do expect or hope for from the fifth installment? Do you think there's room for improvement? How do you think the Persona series compares to other Atlus games? I know Shin Megami Tensai Nocturne is available for PSN. Are there other series that compare to Persona in quality and tone?

 

[Drummodino]

You may be interested in joining this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Shin-Megami-Tensei-Persona] user group.

Persona 3 and 4 are two of the best games I've ever played, Persona 4 Golden is my all time favourite game. I just finished my third playthrough in under a year, over 230 hours gametime. Both games have amazing casts, fantastic stories, the best turn based combat system I've ever seen in a JRPG etc... I could list reasons why I love them so much for hours. All in all though they are an incredible experience as a whole.

For Persona 5 I really just want more of the same - I want another great cast of characters to get to know, personas to fuse, shadows to fight, epic storylines to unravel... I cannot wait.

Also I recommend you pick up Persona 4 Arena. It may seem weird to have a fighting game spinoff but I still recommend it even if you're not into that genre (I'm not). The story is worthy to stand alongside 3 and 4's, albeit much shorter, and it's awesome to see some characters from 3 interacting with those from 4 (Aigis, Mitsuru, Akihiko). It's getting a sequel which releases in September too where the entire casts of 3 and 4 will be present!

 

[Ushiromiya Battler]

Did you play Persona 4 The Golden?
If so if you get the ''perfect'' ending it continues over the new year and up til July If I remember correctly.

From 5 I pretty much just want more Naoto and a game more similar to Persona 3 Portable.
I wasn't as a massive fan of P4 as I was of P3P.

If you like Atlus games and such you could always try out the first Personas, Shin Megami Tensei, P4 Arena and Catherine.

I can't wait for Persona Q, looks really awesome.

 

[Kingjackl]

I love my Persona 3 & 4. I only played 3 recently and adored it, and then I picked up a Vita just so I could play Persona 4 Golden, which was fantastic. It's one of those series where it's hard for me to pick which one I like more: while Persona 4 Golden is unquestionably the best made game, I started with Persona 3 & feel like I have a stronger connection to it. Junpei and Aigis are two of my favourite characters in anything.

I'm looking forward to Persona Q, and I'm also going to pick up the sequel to Arena. I'd heard somewhere that they were going to be releasing the story mode from the first one as DLC, which would suit me well if that's the case.

It is a bit funny that I talk about Persona as a 'series' as if I've played them all, but am really just talking about the latter two of a series of 4 games, which is in turn a spin-off of an even larger series of games that stretch back years. 3 & 4 were such big successes that they've sort of overshadowed all the other Shin Megami Tensei stuff, especially in the West. I've often considered giving the older ones a go, but honestly, they just don't appeal to me. I've been burned before by classic games in a series that fans tell me are oh-so-much better than the bastardised modern versions I was introduced to. Looking at you, Fallout.

 

[RaikuFA]

You should try the other Megaten games.

Shin Megami Tensei is the main series, has a LOT of religious tone.

Devil Summoner is... weird. But I lovelove it. The first and Soul Hackers are more cyberpunk with demons involved. While 3 and 4 are more like a supernatural teen detective series set in 1920's Japan. Soul Hackers is on 3DS while 3 and 4 are on PS2 and just recently hit PSN.

If you liked the social links, then try Devil Survivor. First one has no SL but the characters fit in perfectly in Persona. Two has SL's and are not bad characters. Both are very hard even though they're strategy games. One was remade for the 3DS and two is getting the same treatment.

Digital Devil Saga is more like a traditional JRPG but with a SMT coat of paint. Also was just rereleased on PSN.

Try them out if you can.

 

[JagermanXcell]

It is a bit funny that I talk about Persona as a 'series' as if I've played them all, but am really just talking about the latter two of a series of 4 games, which is in turn a spin-off of an even larger series of games that stretch back years. 3 & 4 were such big successes that they've sort of overshadowed all the other Shin Megami Tensei stuff, especially in the West. I've often considered giving the older ones a go, but honestly, they just don't appeal to me. I've been burned before by classic games in a series that fans tell me are oh-so-much better than the bastardised modern versions I was introduced to. Looking at you, Fallout.

Uuuugh, tell me about it.
I tried super hard to get into the old Personas. P1 was major NOPE with that weird first person dungeon crawling aesthetic and then P2 I gave up at the beginning because the start is apparently slooooooooooooooower than P4's.. and that says a lot about it cause P4's build up does take awhile. Otherwise both games had neat stories, and gotta give credit where credit is due to P2

Spoiler

for the Hitler twist CAN WE PLEASE HAVE A HITLER TWIST IN P5 ATLUS?!

even if it was pretty off the rails... maybe thats why we got the soft reboot...

As for SMT I didn't bother with it until my cousin recommended me Nocturne FEATURING DANTE FROM DEVIL MAY CRY (talk about a f***ing hook). Loved it.
Dark, foreboding, hard as sin, and has a strong soundtrack. It also has DANTE FROM DEVIL MAY CRY.
After that underrated gem I caved in and got SMT4 and am soon getting into Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon. The mouth full of mouth fulls.

My point is, modern Persona really took the SMT series by storm overshadowing some worthy titles.

OT:
Glad you love it, have yet to find anyone who hasn't! Since P4 Golden took everything wrong with it and said "BAM here yah go, definitive Persona gameplay that will be streamlined for every future ATLUS RPG", the only improvements I'd like in the series is Social Links having a bigger impact on choice and characters throughout the main story. That and a personal hope of Persona 5 possibly focusing on social media as a source for the central theme. I mean how could you not with a cryptic tag line like "you are a slave, want emancipation"? So yeah if you're looking for a shift in the light hearted tone, I whole-heartedly recommend the main line SMT games, which are just as good even with some of it's older mechanics.

 

[joest01]

Love Persona 4. Need to pick P3P back up at some point.

Re4P Golden: Once you have maxed out Yoshi it seems the game goes on auto pilot a little, no? Until you find Margaret of course.

Make sure you find Margaret

 

[SmallHatLogan]

P2 I gave up at the beginning because the start is apparently slooooooooooooooower than P4's.. and that says a lot about it cause P4's build up does take awhile.

What? Persona 2 Innocent Sin takes maybe 20 minutes to reach the first "dungeon" and at the end of that dungeon is your first big story moment.

 

[Dominic Crossman]

I've only played Devil Survivor Overclocked and Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers of the Shin Megami Tensei series.
Devil Survivor Survivor is easily in my top 10 games, played 50+ hours in the past 2 weeks.
Soul Hackers is pissing me off in comparsion, demons ignore me more often then not (which is just annoying), took over an hour to get to the first fight, and gameplay is generally much worse then overclocked. With this massive gulf in quality (imo) between the two games, I'm hesitant to buy any other game in the series, including Persona games because of it.

 

[CaptainMidlands]

Social Aspects, awesome
Dungeon Aspects, Boring as sin

About sums up my experience with P3 and P4.

 

[Fractral]

Yeah, Persona 3 and Persona 4 are among my favorite games ever, competing with FFIX. Persona 3 drew me in by being like nothing I had ever played before, with brilliant characters and story, while Persona 4 improved on the characters and gameplay. I'd really just like more of the same with Persona 5, maybe with an improved battle system. Some more customization on the MC would be nice as well, and the ability to dress up your party in battles. I loved that in P3FES, but it was taken out in P4 for some silly reason.

Nocturne is well worth a play, but it's a fair bit harder than Persona. It's got an atmosphere rivaling Dark Souls, and a surprisingly deep story with just a few well developed characters. Did I mention it's hard? It's really bloody hard.
As far as I'm concerned you can't really go wrong with the SMT series, or at least the modern ones. They're all brilliant JRPG's.

 

[Fox12]

Yeah, Persona 3 and Persona 4 are among my favorite games ever, competing with FFIX. Persona 3 drew me in by being like nothing I had ever played before, with brilliant characters and story, while Persona 4 improved on the characters and gameplay. I'd really just like more of the same with Persona 5, maybe with an improved battle system. Some more customization on the MC would be nice as well, and the ability to dress up your party in battles. I loved that in P3FES, but it was taken out in P4 for some silly reason.

Nocturne is well worth a play, but it's a fair bit harder than Persona. It's got an atmosphere rivaling Dark Souls, and a surprisingly deep story with just a few well developed characters. Did I mention it's hard? It's really bloody hard.
As far as I'm concerned you can't really go wrong with the SMT series, or at least the modern ones. They're all brilliant JRPG's.

Yeah, it's almost hard to choose between 3 and 4. 3 was my introduction to the series, and served as my gateway drug. I hadn't really played anything like it before, and there's not much out now that really matches. In a genre that's been stagnating for years now, Atlus has its own weird little culture in the JRPG universe. It's just refreshing to see something so much more original.

Persona 4 was certainly better in the character and story department. I guess I'd just like a great cast of characters with some more improved dungeon crawling and combat, since that aspect of the game wasn't quite as fun as the social link aspect.

Out of curiosity, how story driven is Nocturne? Is it bare bones, or is it more like Final Fantasy, where the plot is woven into a big quest?

 

[lachlan4567]

My entry to Persona was P4G, With 3Fes following up very soon after woods and bringing both together in P4A.
Honestly all I can say about this series is good things, it brought me back into Jrpgs and dungeon crawling.
The only downside is I can't shut up about the damn things, it finds it's way into many a conversation.
I'm now eagerly awaiting Persona Q and Dancing all night.
Ohh and Persona 4 Golden the animation later this month/ next month.

Yeah Persona 4's gameplay is better in my opinion, as for story I loved the close group of friends in 4 while 3 I equally enjoyed the deliciously dark( no pun intended) tone of
story. Mitsuru and Chie all the way.

 

[Fractral]

Yeah, Persona 3 and Persona 4 are among my favorite games ever, competing with FFIX. Persona 3 drew me in by being like nothing I had ever played before, with brilliant characters and story, while Persona 4 improved on the characters and gameplay. I'd really just like more of the same with Persona 5, maybe with an improved battle system. Some more customization on the MC would be nice as well, and the ability to dress up your party in battles. I loved that in P3FES, but it was taken out in P4 for some silly reason.

Nocturne is well worth a play, but it's a fair bit harder than Persona. It's got an atmosphere rivaling Dark Souls, and a surprisingly deep story with just a few well developed characters. Did I mention it's hard? It's really bloody hard.
As far as I'm concerned you can't really go wrong with the SMT series, or at least the modern ones. They're all brilliant JRPG's.

Yeah, it's almost hard to choose between 3 and 4. 3 was my introduction to the series, and served as my gateway drug. I hadn't really played anything like it before, and there's not much out now that really matches. In a genre that's been stagnating for years now, Atlus has its own weird little culture in the JRPG universe. It's just refreshing to see something so much more original.

Persona 4 was certainly better in the character and story department. I guess I'd just like a great cast of characters with some more improved dungeon crawling and combat, since that aspect of the game wasn't quite as fun as the social link aspect.

Out of curiosity, how story driven is Nocturne? Is it bare bones, or is it more like Final Fantasy, where the plot is woven into a big quest?

The story is fairly sparse, and while interesting can largely be ignored if you so wish. Most of the exposition comes in an optional dungeon which explains a lot of the backstory. It's mainly to do with the interactions of the main characters, who almost never meet each other after the first dungeon. You encounter each of them at certain points and they talk to you, and then its off to the next dungeon. That's not to say that the game feels directionless though; you always know what you're doing and where to go next, if not always why you're doing it.
There are 6 endings depending on which of the main characters you choose to side with (if any). The endings are all pretty well done, and not the standard good/bad/neutral that some games do. It's up to the player to decide which of them is the best (or least terrible).

 

[Fappy]

Yeah, Persona 3 and Persona 4 are among my favorite games ever, competing with FFIX. Persona 3 drew me in by being like nothing I had ever played before, with brilliant characters and story, while Persona 4 improved on the characters and gameplay. I'd really just like more of the same with Persona 5, maybe with an improved battle system. Some more customization on the MC would be nice as well, and the ability to dress up your party in battles. I loved that in P3FES, but it was taken out in P4 for some silly reason.

Nocturne is well worth a play, but it's a fair bit harder than Persona. It's got an atmosphere rivaling Dark Souls, and a surprisingly deep story with just a few well developed characters. Did I mention it's hard? It's really bloody hard.
As far as I'm concerned you can't really go wrong with the SMT series, or at least the modern ones. They're all brilliant JRPG's.

Yeah, it's almost hard to choose between 3 and 4. 3 was my introduction to the series, and served as my gateway drug. I hadn't really played anything like it before, and there's not much out now that really matches. In a genre that's been stagnating for years now, Atlus has its own weird little culture in the JRPG universe. It's just refreshing to see something so much more original.

Persona 4 was certainly better in the character and story department. I guess I'd just like a great cast of characters with some more improved dungeon crawling and combat, since that aspect of the game wasn't quite as fun as the social link aspect.

Out of curiosity, how story driven is Nocturne? Is it bare bones, or is it more like Final Fantasy, where the plot is woven into a big quest?

Fractral explained it pretty well, but I'd like to add my 2 cents about Nocturne's story as well: it feels very lonely. But, you know, that's kind of the point. Nocturne is very thought provoking, philosophical game that has this eerie bleakness to it that I just found fascinating. It is not at all like Persona 3 or 4 in story, but it's still a really cool experience and I highly recommend it. Plus, I kind of liked the combat better in Nocturne (though fusing is better in Persona 4).

As others mentioned, I'd also recommend playing Persona 4 Golden as it adds a lot to the story. I am currently playing through Persona 3 Portable as the female protag and she is so much cooler than the male protag it hurts, so I'd give that a try at some point too.

EDIT: I should mention that the dungeons in Nocturne are WAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than in Persona 3/4. Like, not even comparable.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Out of curiosity, how story driven is Nocturne? Is it bare bones, or is it more like Final Fantasy, where the plot is woven into a big quest?

Nowhere near as story-driven as Purseowner or Final Fantasy, but it's far from bare bones. It's somewhere in between. It's a much darker and eerier story; a very lonely experience but an engrossing one. The game's focus is on the gameplay and the "atmosphere" and the story helps to enhance both of these things.

OT: Excellent games. Personally, I sliightly preferred the story and characters in P3 to P4 but only because I found its themes kind of "spoke to me" more at the time that I played it. Some of the dialogue is a bit stilted (especially Ikutsuki's awful exposition at the beginning of the game) but I felt the overall plot and story came together beautifully. Simultaneously an intensely personal and epic story.

I really don't like Persona 1; the combat system is balls and the plot, while having some great ideas, is just full of stupid contrivances and awkward dialogue in both translations. The music in the PSP version is pretty bad, too.

Persona 2 has the series' best actual plot, I think, but it isn't presented as well as in P3 or P4. The gameplay is okay, but nothing to write home about. Still it's worth a play, I think. It really starts to grip you at some point. It's a fair bit darker than the other Persona games, though.

 

[FPLOON]

Yeah... Persona 4's awesome gameplay-wise... Story-wise, I still prefer Persona 3's story for it's overall pacing and conclusion... (pre-FES, kinda...)

As someone has kinda mentioned already, I kinda want Persona 5 to go in the similar way Persona 3 Portable went, with the option of choosing the MC's gender in Persona 5... Then again, I mostly just want Persona 5's story that's "similar pacing-wise, but better" than Persona 3's story with "similar, yet better" overall gameplay than Persona 4's gameplay... (So, there's that...)

I keep hearing how Persona 4 Golden is WAY better than Persona 4... unless you have a problem with the new character that's introduced in that game, I guess...

P2 I gave up at the beginning because the start is apparently slooooooooooooooower than P4's.. and that says a lot about it cause P4's build up does take awhile.

What? Persona 2 Innocent Sin takes maybe 20 minutes to reach the first "dungeon" and at the end of that dungeon is your first big story moment.

I remember spending the "first" couple of hours just hanging out in the Theater even before reaching the first "dungeon"... (I still have no idea how I survived those first two episodes while being THAT under-leveled, though...)

 

[Someone Depressing]

I prefer the Kuzunoha games, and some of the more obscure ones not even hardcore fans really give a shit about, but the Persona games are probably some of the best games ever made.

Granted, they did open a floodgate of sorts, letting in tons of dumb fans. I swear, if someone asks for a "Persona MMO" again (there was an SMT MMO, before Atlus took it back and quickly axed its head off) I'm going to lose it.