5 Royal, 4 Golden, 3 Portable - Which is your Persona-l favourite?

Nintendo PR wrote:

Persona has awoken – three iconic Persona games are coming to Nintendo Switch! Save others from distorted desires by donning the mask of a Phantom Thief in the critically acclaimed, genre-defining story of Persona 5 Royal, with previously released downloadable content included. Plus, there’s an urban legend that your soulmate might appear if you stare into a Nintendo Switch system on a rainy night ... in Persona 4 Golden. Unfamiliar stillness swallows the city, people turn into eerie coffins and otherworldly monsters called Shadows swarm in Persona 3 Portable, which also features alternate protagonist routes! All three games offer English and Japanese voice acting, full-HD graphics and are sold separately. Persona 5 Royal launches on Nintendo Switch on Oct. 21, and more information about Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable is coming soon. Get ready … the midnight hour approaches!

Yes, it's the reveal we'd all been waiting for - unless you knew about it already from leaks anyway. I'm chuffed, I really am. The real oddity is releasing 5, then 4 and 3. Matthew Castle's advice? 3 might be a bit of a comedown from a gameplay and QoL perspective after 5, but it's the worst of the bunch anyway, and 4 should be different enough to stand up.

I'll definitely be getting 4 and 5: the only question is when. I presume the rest of y'all have played them already somewhere else, but is anybody tempted to double-dip?

I've always had a bit more of a soft spot for 3 over 4 tbh, but maybe it's because I played it first. 5 is definitely my favourite regardless. P5R is coming to gamepass I think, so I'll play that if that counts as double dipping.

I really enjoyed Persona 5, but I've not been that fussed about playing it again or getting Royal because it's just such a massive time sink. Definitely worth playing though and it's nice to see it come to Switch.

Persona 3 is awesome. I'd say it has my favourite story and I like the darker tone it has compared to the later games.

Honestly, it's not really lacking in quality of life - at least Persona 3 Portable isn't, and that's the version that's being ported. That version adds the ability to guard from Persona 4, as well as let you control all your party members. It also lets you recover SP in the dungeon from the start, which Persona 4 doesn't even let you do until later.

It also lets you choose between a male and female route and both of them are worth checking out for their unique social links and interactions.

I will say that presentation-wise Persona 3 Portable is going to be the worst by quite a bit. It's not going to have the 3D environments outside of dungeons, cutscenes are replaced with text descriptions VN-style (which aren't great), the character models are lower-poly versions of their home console counterpart, and I fear other aspects of the porting process aren't going to be handled amazingly. The game uses 2D backgrounds so I'm expecting them to be blurry or poorly upscaled. I'm expecting a bleh smoothing filter for portraits and text as well instead of higher quality versions. I'm basing this on my knowledge of PSP and retro ports in general, but I hope I'm pleasantly surprised.

It would have been nice if the Persona 3 release combined the best of both the PS2 and PSP versions but it's better than nothing, and I'd much rather have the PSP version for all its positives.

Persona 4 I've already played through in its original and Golden version, the latter which I did fairly recently so I'm probably not revisiting it any time soon, but I had a blast with it. But I deduct this one some points because of all the problematic and mean-spirited humour in the game. (Obviously the other games aren't perfect in this regard but P4 takes the cake).

Persona 5 I've beaten but I still need to get through Royal, which I've played a bit of on PS4. My playthrough just kind of stalled and I can't play on my PS4 atm, but I do wanna get through it at some point because it was fun and apparently it fixes a lot of the problems of the original and has an even better extended story.

I do own them all physical yes even all three versions of Persona 3 which I'm guessing it's portable because Kotone Shiomi the female protagonist is being in the anniversary marketing (Yet Persona and the P2's get no love), that be dumb to put FES out, if they're not going to do a version mixing both games together.

I still think P3P will be good, just the other two will be better, but I could say that about lots of gaming series that even the worst still better than quite a few games.

On P4G and P5R, now looking at STEAM I think P4G & P3P will only be like £15 that I will buy on something (are on Game Pass though, just feel they suit Switch or Deck) and Persona 5R is a proper £40-60 game which looks like it will get a physical for Switch I'll be very keen on, seeing I own a lot of Persona (SMT as well) games physical.

Not surprised you’re keen on these Balla, but no thoughts on Crisis Core.

My thoughts on Crisis Core is that without having played any other FFVII game and having no nostalgia for the original, (shrug)

Kriken wrote:

Persona 3 is awesome. I'd say it has my favourite story and I like the darker tone it has compared to the later games.

There's another thing in favour of me not playing it frankly!  It's a big thing that put me off SMTV. I'm a light-and-fluffy kinda chap.

Kriken wrote:

It also lets you choose between a male and female route and both of them are worth checking out for their unique social links and interactions.

This is why my partner likes it more than the others, and is a big selling point for me to be fair.

Kriken wrote:

I will say that presentation-wise Persona 3 Portable is going to be the worst by quite a bit. ...

All of what you put in this paragraph is likely to weigh on me more than I'd care to admit, especially if I go back from it having previously played 5.

I think what I'll likely do is ask for P5R for a Christmas gift, see if by Christmas time there's any more news on a likely release date for P3P, and if there is hold off on 5 until I've played it and P4G.  If not then from what you've said, I don't think I'll miss P3P that much.

If P3P is just £15, and let's say it gets 8/10 because it is a tad old now, would you take a punt?

Assuming I've played P5R by that point, for £15?  Sure!  Probably wishlist it and impulse-buy it during a sale/when I've run out of other stuff. For £30?  Mmmmmmmm...

Balladeer wrote:

Kriken wrote:

Persona 3 is awesome. I'd say it has my favourite story and I like the darker tone it has compared to the later games.

There's another thing in favour of me not playing it frankly!  It's a big thing that put me off SMTV.  I'm a light-and-fluffy kinda chap.

It's definitely not as dark as SMTV, so I wouldn't worry about that. I'd say it's fairer to say that there are darker moments in P3 compared to P4 and P5, but I think it's still got a fair few slice of life "fluffy" moments, as you put it.

But yeah, it'll be a tougher sell if you plan on picking up P5R first, of course. The same would apply to P4G too, to be fair - the improvements made in the dungeons and battling in P5 are not to be understated. I'd struggle to go back to P3 and P4 now.

I played through SMTV recently (really good game) and can confirm Persona 3 isn't as dark as it. By quite a margin I'd say .

Phew!  But also, oh.  My play to get 5 and go back to 4G afterwards may struggle.  I'm not normally somebody who's very forgiving of going back to worse quality of life. #oldgamesarebad

It is odd they're going 5, 4, 3 and not 3, 4, 5 but it might be down you play 3 it feels old (seemed fine from what I have played which is after 5) and puts you off 4 and 5.

I think they are releasing 5 first since it'll be the biggest seller, and the stories are not linked so don't need to be played in chronological order.

There's buzz about 3 finally being ported but it's the least impressive port, and 5 is just more popular besides.

Yeah could be opposite what I was saying, play 5 first think it's amazing which it is then want more in the series.

I've done exactly that and why I know own P3, P3FES, P3P, P4, P4G etc and even other Atlus games like SMTV & 13S.

That name, as someone who owns both of the fancy editions of P5 and P5R does seem Atlus want me to do it one more time.

Did look it would cost with postage $154, that I think I will pass. Also got this odd feeling, the Xbox version might become as rare as I can see it selling the least, then again will it be the version people want the most in the future.

3 and 4 are out this week then, with 5 sat waiting for me when I'm done. Anybody planning a look at them, or is everyone else who plays super-anime JRPGs on here going to be justifiably distracted by Engage?

Would like to give P3P a proper look for the first time, but yes I will be distracted by Fire Emblem Engage.

I'm likely to give 4 a go at some point with it being on gamepass, but after the horrendous final boss in 3 I'm never going back to that, but yeah, I'm playing Xeno 3, I've got FE coming and my pile of JRPGs to play doesn't stop there...

I'm probably not going to give either a look having played them in some shape or form previously, but if I was to go for one of them it would likely be P4G with it having new content and being a remixed version of the better of the two games in my humble opinion.

Crumpy Andy wrote:

the horrendous final boss in 3

Oh great. Is 3 the Voice of Cards 2 of the Persona series then?

I've started 3. It's very visual novelly, and I'm probably going to be the only person who's ever played one of them who doesn't like the average Persona soundtrack.

Yeah, P3P is more Visual Novel because of the PSP. It's a shame Atlus haven't done Persona 3 combined the three versions of the game into one, as Female lead is great, but I'd also like to play the stuff in FES.

Balladeer wrote:

 It's very visual novelly, and I'm probably going to be the only person who's ever played one of them who doesn't like the average Persona soundtrack.  

I think they stripped out most of my favourite tracks from P3 for Portable, which is a shame. I much prefer P4/P5's OSTs anyway.

I'd say not to be afraid to skip to P4 if you find yourself struggling with P3. I like it and all, but it's easily the most flawed of the bunch.

I've still not gone back to any Persona's mostly as I've got RPG's I've not played, and I know I can play P3 for instance on my PS2 twice, PS3, PSP and Game Pass at any time instead of rushing out to buy on Switch.

Something I did get excited about briefly a new Persona game that looks like P5, hence the name of it



Till I saw for mobile, free to play and only for china at the moment.

Well someone at Atlus done F'ed up as they posted a trailer for Persona 5 Tactica which is a tactics spin on Persona 5 with chibi characters. As much as I love Persona 5, do think Atlus are milking it more than P4 as we've had P5, P5R the enhanced game, P5X the mobile one, P5D the dancing one, P5T the tactics one, P5S the Musou one and PQ2 which used the P5 cast along with anime, manga etc

Though I say that I like the characters and tactics, will it be better than FEngage? When it comes out this year.

P5T wasn't the only thing shown as we Persona 3 Reload a remake of Persona 3 what version of P3 it is remaking who knows, but the trailer looks very Persona 5 but blue. This will now be the way I play P3 in early 2024.

At the moment all we know is these are coming to Xboxes and Windows being in Game Pass Day One, though everyone is thinking like last year's Xbox Showcase where P3P, P4G and P5R announced for Xbox then a few days later were confirmed for all systems.