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

The Lady was briefly interested in the prospect of Persona 3 Reload.  Then it was revealed that it included none of the content from P3FES or P3P.  Actual footage of Atlus:

Is annoying still not going to be a ultimate version of the game but is getting new content.

Okay so Persona 3 Reloaded not having the FES content is not really a big deal. It specifically refers to them not having 'The Answer', a post-game story mode which barely anyone likes - both in terms of its gameplay and story. FES also added a number of little things and balance changes, but I don't think that's really relevant to consider as Reloaded will either include them anyway or make their own changes.

I hate that there's no female protagonist route. In general if I'm getting an empty shell silent protagonist (which I would rather not have), I would at least want some level of customisation or choice when it comes to their appearance and form.

That aside as long as they don't royally screw up the execution of this remake then I do expect it to be the best version, having modern graphics and quality of life improvements while having all the stuff they had to cut out of P3P.

After battling through the opening hours of Persona 3 and 4 I've finally started Persona 5 and holy heck! I finally feel like I might be seeing some of what you folks see! The hike in presentation is immense! Some of that is presumably just because this is the first game that started life on a home console, but the menus are so stylish! I know none of this is news to fans of the series, but I've found the general aesthetic of the previous two games to be such a slog, something to be tolerated not celebrated, and with (what I think is) mediocre gameplay it led to there being very little for me to enjoy apart from Chie. Now, even if the dungeons don't do it for me, even if I think Ann's character design can die in a river, there is at least something to keep me interested. Onwards!

All the Persona games started life on a home console.

I'm glad you can enjoy one of the games now because it has pretty menus though.

Maybe I'm misreading the tone (always easy to do on the Internet, if so I'm sorry!), but I'm going to say that's slightly unwarranted snark considering that I've finally found a game in the series I can enjoy. Presentation matters, and considering that I've struggled with the core of the games and that the style has been talked up as a key aspect of 5 by people, I don't think it's unreasonable that it's the thing in 5 that's hit me from the outset. (Granted, after that outset I was sucked into Cassette Beasts and its retro-Pokémon stylings and haven't played any more of this. Nevertheless.)

The versions we've got on Switch definitely did start life elsewhere. 3 Portable, 4 Golden being possibly the big Vita game. It showed. It wasn't the primary thing about them, but it showed, and it did have an impact on my enjoyment of the games. I'm still hopeful I'll get on with 5 given that and what people say about the dungeons in 5.

P3P is fair but P4G doesn't feel like a dumbed down handheld game, it actually had more content and refined plus the menus etc are stylish in all the games.

P4G definitely feels less portable than P3P (navigating the world sees to that), and maybe 'portable' isn't the right term to use for the pair of them, but it definitely feels older than 5.  The character models were noticeably blocky and the dungeons... well I don't think even Persona fans think the 4 Golden dungeons are particularly modern-feeling.

Did you end up sticking with P5, Balla? Definitely keen to hear more of your thoughts.

I have started P5T via Game Pass though I reckon be better on a Switch, SteamDeck or Portal but £50ish saving plus I always say I wanted Japanese games on Xbox.

As so far seems it be decent on a handheld as missions are in wee chunks and story is told more like a VN.

JayMoyles wrote:

Did you end up sticking with P5, Balla? Definitely keen to hear more of your thoughts.

"Sticking" is a loose term. It's still on my 'currently playing' list of six (alongside Tunic which I think I started more than a year ago now), but I've struggled to find the drive to play it or any of the rest of the list. In P5's case I think it might just be the ol' 'RPG slow start' thing, but there's a definite issue whereby I know I'm not going to get to know all these characters well enough and therefore don't bother getting too attached to them. (Or in Ann's case just don't like her.) And after everybody talked up the dungeons, I'm finding Kamoshida's palace quite constrained and irritating to navigate - but I think that's because I'm still in the tutorial.

So, yep, still stuck with it and want to give it more of a chance. Probably will give it more of a chance. But it's slow going.

It’ll sink its teeth into you. I think the first palace is probably the least inventive, although there’s one in the mid game that’s a total drag to play to look forward to. I hope you’ll stick with it!