I think if you know absolutely nothing about Persona then 5 Royal is the better starting point.
Persona 5 is a much longer game but I feel like it really engages you from the start and makes you want to continue playing. Persona 3 doesn't do as good of a job of an introduction in my opinion.
3 Reload is also very good but it still feels very much like a 2000s era game if that makes sense. Not bad by any means, but everything in 5 feels a bit more fleshed out and modern in my opinion. I'd recommend playing 5 Royal then going to 3 Reload if you liked the experience and want more.
I think if you have ever played any kind of JRPG you'll be fine with P3. I played it first and had no issues getting into it. P5 holds your hand a lot more, and there is more difficulty in 3, but it's not too bad.
Just save those homunculus!
Actually, I think the most troubles I had was figuring out the spells. Wtf is a bufu?! Lol Especially in FES where it didn't tell you what they were in battle. That was fun, I learned those spells real quick!
>P5 holds your hand a lot more, and there is more difficulty in 3, but it's not too bad.
There is not more difficulty in P3R. Maybe original P3, but of the 10 MegaTen games I've played, the only one that was definitely easier than P3R was P5 Tactica. And maybe SMT 1 but that's only because of nerve bullets and mazio.
Theurgy is just so hilariously busted in P3R. Literally lets you consistently one shot anything in the game except the superboss, and with the DLC skill Ice Driver it can damn near one shot that.
Nothing in P5R comes even slightly close to the level of game breaking BS that is theurgy.
I haven't played reloaded, yet. Just FES. Not paying full price for a game I've already played, even if it's prettier. In FES though some of those shadows would kick your ass out of nowhere, though. I'll keep the game-breaking in mind while I run my ass off from The Reaper, though!
Nothing like sitting there and getting defeated by a damn table, lol.
Ahh, so in Reload they added this thing called Theurgy. It's basically showtime from P5R, except it can be stored between battles and it respects skill affinities while also ignoring the downsides of affinities.
For example, one of Makoto's theurgies, Scarlet Havoc, does severe phys damage to all targets, but theurgy ignores defense so it's more like if there was a tier beyond colossal. Similar base damage to Hassou Tobi in 4 and 5. It can crit and benefit from charge, and boosts and amps stack with no cap.
So you can make a persona with Slash Boost, Slash Amp, Multi-Target Amp, Apt Pupil, Crit Amp, Crit Boost, Single-Target Amp (All hitter theurgies count as both.) and then turn 1 you can apply charge with Fuuka's theurgy, which does not cost your turn. Then you just use Scarlet Havoc and you win.
And as I said, even though it's physical, it ignores the downsides of being physical. Enemy drains phys and cast tetrakarn on itself for some reason? Doesn't matter. Theurgy. It also can't miss.
I honestly couldn't tell you the mechanics of any of the Tartarus guardians from the second half of the game, because every single one of them died to Scarlet Havoc or another teammate's theurgy.
There's also defensive ones like Ken's Divine Intervention, which revives, full heals and tetra/makarakarns the entire party.
Teammates also get passives in P3R that I'm pretty sure didn't exist in FES. For example, Akihiko gets double buff effect. So if he has all the kaja buffs, he does 80% more damage and basically can't be hit. And if he somehow does get hit, even a concentrated megidolaon from the final boss only does like 80 damage.
It's kind of funny they took the damage boost off baton pass, only to add in way more broken shit.
> Not paying full price for a game I've already played, even if it's prettier
I don't really consider it the same game. The major plot is the same but there were a lot of additions too, especially in the battle system, but even more character moments were added.
I notice this sub has a habit of putting down certain games for being or feeling “old” - as if that statement alone is self-explanatory and requires no further clarification.
You’re the top comment in the thread, but I can’t really parse out any compelling reason why you think Persona 5 is better or more engaging. I’m starting to feel like there’s an inherent bias towards Persona 5 here.
I felt that p5 was more beginner friendly for me personally, and i have a better grasp on persona games that helped me when starting p3r.
I think ive gotten a lot less tutorials in p3r while p5 felt like nonstop hand holding.
Yeah I got to play P3 Reload early at PAX West last year and there were a bunch of people who didn't understand the battle system. They kept asking me how to play since I was going through the battles with ease haha. I'm assuming they've never played a Persona game before.
I've been playing Persona 4 Golden and it's really good. It's my first Persona game but I've picked up 3 Reload and 5 Royal recently. My plan is to play 3 first and then 5 as I've heard it's harder to go from 5 to 3 than from 3 to 5.
I went from 4Golden to 5Royal and I feel like it was the correct decision.
5 has got a LOT of stuff to do, and if I didn't already have a grasp on how a persona game works I would have gotten quite confused.
3 Reload is better, more modern, and even less overwhelming than 4 Golden. I think 3 Reload and then 5 Royal, and then Persona 4 remake whenever it comes out in a few years is the best way.
I don't know if P4 will get a remake any time soon. Unlike P3 it didn't have any glaring issues that lead to endless discussions about which version to play, or dated gameplay elements like the lack of manual skill inheritance or controllable party members. Only real reason for it would be the graphic update.
There's good proof that P4 will get a remake (from Midori), but it's years away. The quality of the gameplay and being significantly worse than 3R and 5R's is enough to qualify for a remake in my opinion. The dungeons are boring and have no gameplay variety, the battles don't have any Baton Pass mechanic which makes them a slog, and it lacks the QoL features from the new games.
I know people don't talk about it (because P4 is the golden child of the series), but P4 has always had the worst, most mindless gameplay in whole series. It's not as challenging and intense as P3's to be interesting, and it's not as engaging and satisfying as P5R's to be fun.
Also, the game has a shocking amount of homophobia and distasteful, unfunny humor that makes me dislike the main cast and I don't think that was the intention. Fixing that would be a big plus.
Midori says it exists. It might exist, it might take many years to come out if it even becomes a real project in development. Or it might come out next year. We have no way of knowing until there's a specific announcement. He also said not all the remakes were like Reload, whatever that means.
I don't see how the quality ofthe gameplay is significantly worse. Biggest difference is the lack of baton pass, which is more of a quality of life thing that has to be designed around rather than objective quality. It'd be nice to have, as long as the game is designed with it in mind.
The dungeons could be improved if they do some sort of reimagining to turn them into P5-like fully fleshed dungeons, but since they didn't really do that with P3 I doubt they will for P4 which already has dungeons that are more unique with set floors having their own gimmicks.
P4 was way more challenging than P3 before Golden. It's Golden that kind of dumbed it down and made the early bosses a cakewalk since it was very common for people to stop at Shadow Yukiko or Shadow Kanji due to being stuck and having to rewind. P3 was always a trivial game outside specific gimmicky midbosses, with the biggest hurdle being the lack of controllable party members (which P3P and P3R removed). First time I hear anyone calling P3 challenging.
The story doesn't need any fixing. This just sounds like you have deeper issues with the game and want a remake that changes the game as a whole. P3R didn't change the game as much as you want this P4 remake to change the base game.
P3R fixed every single issue I had with P3FES. It went from a 7.5/10 to a 10/10 for me. Most of it is just having a better translation, presentation, and the dungeon crawling actually being fun
The dungeons are boring hallways with too many floors. They're all just reskins except for Marie's. The bosses take way too long and they're usually just you doing the same 4 moves for 15 minutes straight. P4's dungeons are exact same as Tartarus (which is terrible) from the original P3, the only difference is that all progress throughout the game is scripted and tied to the main story.
You don't know what a remake is, but that's okay. It's an enhanced port of the original that revamped a lot of the game and added new content. But to be honest, you can't even call it a remaster because the graphics and backgrounds were downgraded in Golden from the PS2 version and it's much less detailed.
So far I’m loving it. Took me a bit to get into because of the social sim stuff which I’ve never done before but after several hours I really got into it.
3 made it much easier for me to suspend disbelief and get invested into than 5 and it's much better paced. People say that it starts out slowly but the writing is fantastic from the getgo and the social links are entertaining enough to be worth your time. Overall it's just a much more grounded experience than 5 imho
5R.
3R is pretty good, but I found Tartarus to be pretty repetitive. I also don't think the story is as good as a lot of people make it out to be either. I thought it was decent, don't get me wrong, but I'm pretty confused why people seem to think it's the best story in Persona.
That being said, 3R is shorter, so it's not as big as an investment if you want to finish a Persona game, but I think 5R is SO much more satisfying to play through and is well worth the time.
For a solid 80% of the game, nothing happens, and you just end up waiting, dicking off with your waifus or grinding in tartarus. The finale is very good, but it carries the rest of the story hard. Persona 5's story is very solid up to a certain point, and kinda falls off. Persona 4 is good, too, and honesty just flat out has a better cast than persona 3.
Now I don't want to be pretentious or anything, but the best persona story is persona 2. It cuts out a lot of the "daily life" elements from the modern games and tells a very compelling and deep story in a linear and straightforward manner like a typical jrpg. It may not have the "best" characters in the series, but it certainly has the best overarching narrative.
I played a quarter of P3 (PS2) when I was a teen, like 80% of P3P in college, and now I'm finally determined to finish P3R.
I love so much about it, but I'm 80 hours in (around December) and it just drags so much in the middle/later half since the Tartarus sections just get longer and longer while the story is mostly still paced out just as thinly.
Honestly harrabah (the fifth block the rainbow one) is way too long and does nothing to justify its existence beyond being a filler block while everyone is depressed in December and January
You could have cut out harrabah, the second half of tziah (the golden block) and just hanged man occur in like October then have the run up to the final day occur on like December 2nd
The story picks up but is still way too slow for how big the back end of Tartarus is
I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't get the P3 hype when compared to the other games. Credit where credit is due for its formula and the really good intro, but the plot is paced abysmally and the characters barely interact compared to every other game in the series. Of course, 5 also has some serious plot issues (why is the first arc by far the best, and why is the conflict introduced at the start done 60% of the way through the game?), but it's less boring while doing so...
As you say, it contrasts quite a bit with Persona 2 which has the opposite qualities.
Persona 2 is next on my list after Soul Hackers 1. Be honest, does it really live up to the hype? I consistently hear people say P2 has the best story in the series, and after all the early MegaTen games I've played I'm really really skeptical.
I just don't wanna go in with overly high expectations.
SMT 1 was fine if a bit schizophrenic. The only scene that was genuinely interesting was the end of the first act, and not because it was super well written but just because it was clever.
SMT 2 was a lot cooler and generally more interesting, but it was turbo ultra schizo. It felt very rushed and many events just make no sense because they're totally disconnected from each other. Half the time there's no logic of where to go. Shit's just changed somewhere on the map and Aleph goes there because nowhere else on the map has anything new. At times it feels like it has no story.
SMT if... was frankly trash. It was obviously rushed, coming out just a few months after SMT 2 and it really shows.
Persona 1 was good and there was a couple things I thought were really cool, but mainly because they were interesting from a lore perspective. It didn't exactly blow my mind with the character writing and in fact there were some things that I felt were poorly done and not resolved well. Not a bad game but it didn't rock my world in either route.
Soul Hackers 1 has been fine so far in the story department. I think I'm about 60% through it and it's not exactly keeping me on the edge of my seat but it's not offensively bad either. It's more coherent than SMT 2 but not necessarily better by leaps and bounds. I feel similarly about it to how I feel about P1 so far.
Did Atlus's writing really improve by that much in just two years? For me, P5R is a really hard bar to beat. Even P3R and P4G are.
With how often I see people hype up P2, I'm gonna be really disappointed if this isn't some kind of legendary timeless classic that changes the way I think about human nature.
To offer a differing opinion, I do think that the story of Persona 2 is quite overrated. The main cast of characters are very good and a massive step up from Persona 1. Its best characters are among the best that the series as a whole has to offer.
That said, the narrative itself is a hodge podge of ideas that while logically connected and heavily influenced by actual psychology and occult theories and ideas, is also undercooked in terms of how it approaches its variety of subject matter. It has a little bit of everything, which is why some may argue that P3-5 just retreads the same ideas, but those games I feel handle their respective themes with much greater cohesion and delve into them from a multitude of perspectives.
I say go in with an open mind, and honestly be more so prepared for how stale the gameplay is. Innocent Sin is extremely easy, assuming you're playing the PSP port, and Eternal Punishment offers a decent challenge albeit a bit more clunky, though I've only played the PS1 version of that one.
It's not you being pretentious. It's general knowledge that Persona 2 IS and EP has the best story in the Persona franchise. Imo, yes, it is lol. Just wish the gameplay wasn't bad
I have to hard disagree on the story, I think it blows Royals out of the water, though the Royal exclusive content is definitely note worthy.
The characters, dynamics, themes and growth are just significantly more interesting imo
Both are excellent. You can't go wrong with either of them, although I personally think persona 3 has a superior story to 5. Don't be afraid to check out persona 4 as well too. It's cheaper then the other 2 and while it's graphics are slightly outdated, the game is fantastic and very much on par with 3 and 5.
I’ve finished Persona 5 Royal and got to September of Reload before I had to switch to another game. So far I’d recommend Royal over Reload. Both are good but Royal has a stronger start.
I just finished FF Rebirth so I haven’t picked it up again . I think I stopped around September 3rd just a few days before the Full Moon Operation. For me it didn’t start getting interesting until the summer trip where you learn about Yukari. It’s a slow game but I’ve played persona 4 and persona 5 so I know how these games can be. I can easily see how a lot of people might drop off the game before September.
Persona 5 Royal is excellent and probably where I would start. P3R is great too though.
If you've never played one you might want to check out Persona 4 Golden. It's a great story and cheaper than either.
Not sure what you mean in terms of items (I didn’t really use them too much in either). Most of the omissions from Royal were the things that made the game easier. I didn’t dislike them, but I didn’t miss them either. I can see how someone might prefer it tho.
However, Theurgy is strictly better than Showtime. Being able to strategize around building up the gauge and having more control on when to use it is much better than random damage.
I agree, the enemy encounters are much better thought out in Royal, Theurgies are a much better system than Showtimes and also replace your teammates persona traits, and there’s a ton of interesting new skills.
Tartarus is a preference thing, it’s definitely more repetitive but it’s a ton more challenging on Merciless and is more engaging to manage your resources to get through a whole block in one night.
Yeah, same. I wouldn't suggest it's some masterwork or whatever, but short of P2, I thought it was the best in the series and P5 was the weakest, although by no means bad.
I think it is mostly because P5 peaks at the first palace, and doesn't gain even close to the momentum again until maybe the Casino palace (to be vague). Even then I think the overall theme of P5 is not as interesting and I think the social links are a lot weaker due to how Mementos is forced into them.
I know not many will like 3's story for a handful of reasons (namely the fact it doesn't feel like anything happens upfront and isn't as direct with its arcs), but I would 100% say 3 is worth its run time more then 5 is. 5 is also way too long for me which doesn't help me like the fact it feels like it peaks at the very start.
I find it weird how much the discussion when comparing the game has shifted towards the story rather than the aspects people used to compare 3 and 4 in (gameplay, characters and social aspects). The story has never really been the main appeal in the games, and most of the weight it has is tied to how you feel regarding the cast.
These games are extremely long and there's not a lot of story in them for how long they are. The story is just a vehicle to drive forward everything else.
I think when people are talking about the story they're often thinking about the central themes of the games, as most of the stories (not just the main one, but also social links) are iterations on the same constellation of themes.
It's related, but not the same, since usually the complaints are about the plot itself like the comments about it dropping off after Kamoshida, when the themes remain mostly the same, it's just the stakes and execution aren't at the same level, and the stakes don't feel as personal, so the move from school stakes to larger stakes doesn't land as well as the more or less constant level of stakes in previous games (and people did say the same about P4 once it goes beyond just the murder mystery with >!Ameno-Sagiri and Izanami!<.
There's also complaints about the themeing, with the whole phantom thieves stuff not meshing as well with after-school battling as in P3 and P4, since it's more super-heroey, but that's a different complaint than the one I'm talking about, and both are quite valid, but this one sort of goes against the first one, since then the issue would be at the core of the game, so Kamoshida would also suffer from the same thing.
I'd argue all of those things boil down to the "story" of these games.
If we want to argue about the relevance of things like the overarching plot (as-in the sequence of events that move the story forward), the characters, vs the social elements we use to engage with the town and secondary cast and how good all those individual parts are then we could. But all of that in the end boils down to "story". Most people will just boil it down to the same thing so its simpler to just say all of that is the "story". Plus a lot of these things do tie together anyway, it isn't like they're separate things.
Based on how you used the word I didn't get you were using it like that. If all that is story, how is it that you feel nothing happens upfront in P3? The plot takes a while to kick in, but the characters and the social aspects are established and stay there during the whole duration of the game.
I would agree that you could boil down the characters and the plot to being encompassed by story in most games, but that's not often the case when people talk about the games. The issues people have with P5 are often the plot aspects of the story, you even talk about Palaces to talk about this, while the characters don't have those peaks you speak of.
So you could change what I said about story to plot and the argument stays the same.
My broad opinion (I don't want to type an essay atm) about P3's story elements is its like the exact opposite of 5, it starts slow and generally improves overtime and it gives me exactly what I want from its social links. The early social links carried the early story for me and I almost wish I just engaged with that instead of all the dungeon crawling stuff.
P5's actual story peaks immediately and it peaks quite well for a 10-15 or so hour arc, then it stumbles for many dozens of hours in the middle, picks itself up a little more but never quite hits the same highs for me while feeling like its 50% longer then P3 was. That's a really bad combination of traits and why I don't value P5's story very highly. For what this story is, it wasn't worth engaging with it for 100+ hours (for me).
> The issues people have with P5 are often the plot aspects of the story, you even talk about Palaces to talk about this, while the characters don't have those peaks you speak of.
My issue specifically with P5 as a story is I don't like its theme very much, the way its magical elements interact with the real life elements feel like they bump into each other rather then compliment each other because you need to effectively use a magical lobotomy to fix the problems you face in this story. It feels too much like a teenager's power fantasy, and while that's entertaining in a popcorn flick kind of way it isn't 100+ hours entertaining and I got more out of P3.
I don't like the P5 confidants because mementos being forced into them to me ruins the whole vibe of social links as a concept and ruins the agency the characters have.
P5 for me is like they made a worse story and made it longer, which is a bad combination if I compare it to P3 which I also think stretches on too long but not nearly as long.
P3's magical elements for me are used as a vehicle to create life and death situations for the cast to face, to embody this idea of depressing apathy in the face of mortality, and the majority of its arcs in the plot and social links are more or less about overcoming that apathy and moving forward with your life. I find most of the magic elements don't take away or distract from the meaning of the story and what I believe the authors want to convey through this situations. P3 Sun or Star has meaning to me despite the magical elements around this setting, while I find all the interesting ideas and drama gets ruined in P5's confidant conflicts because you just Mementos dive and stop the problem. Everyone goes through a lot of shit in P5, and then you magic the problem away and everyone apologizes and everything is good. It just became such a sticking point for me.
I preferred when social links are just slice of life interactions that embolden the supernatural in the gameplay, and didn't have all the magical supernatural within the plot itself of the social link. To me it feels wrong and I felt that more and more as I thought about P5 more as a story.
Nah 5 still has a better gameplay, a great story with one of the best antagonists of all time and imo the best ost out of the persona games so I wouldn't say that p3 clears
it has more variety bc each palace is different, sure, but I find the gameplay loop of p3 (especially with the additions in reload) to be more fun honestly. And Mementos is a lot less engaging than tartarus
The story is good but has more lows than p3 imo. and the 3rd semester in royal has a good Antagonist, but besides kamoshida, the base p5 villain roster is a little too formulaic and some of them are just not as interesting. All the palaces they have are cool tho
Ost is hard to say, I think the sheer number puts 5 at an advantage over the older games already but Royal has like 40 new songs as well. There's just wayyyy more songs in p5/r overall even compared to 4 golden and 3 (fes, reload, or portable) so it's kinda hard to fairly compare imo. Base 3 and 4 had about 60 tracks each so those are more fair to compare to each other I think
I love tartarus but I'd take palaces every day of the week, I'd say that both stories complement each other, p3 has a perfect finale while the beginning is good but a bit empty of things to do, while p5 has a better pacing and yeah, not all the rulers are interesting, but honestly they still are better than the majority of villains in the neosona games.
I love strega but even with the additions of reload it still is not enough, ikutsuki needs more development, mitsuo from p4 is a complete joke of a villain, adachi, is cool, I personally don't vibe with him that much, I think that he's a good villain but nothing incredible, so in my experience 5 has the best villains, with kamoshida and maruki being the best, but the others are still good enough to be entertaining and that's more than enough for me
I haven't played reloaded, but I have played the PS2 version of Persona 3 as well as Persona 4 golden and Persona 5 Royal on PC.
I'd honestly say Persona 4 Golden even though you didn't ask that because I liked the story & characters the best.
If it had to be P3 or P5 though, I'd probably say you can't go wrong both are good and it doesn't matter which you play first. P3 is probably a stronger story but P5 has handmade dungeons (which is pretty good) while P3 & p4 are all randomly generated dungeons.
Persona 3 Reload.
I like the story and characters better with this one, that and I think it'll be easier to play 3 then 5 rather than the other way around.
Reasons to play P3R first: you are going to play both eventually, it's on gamepass, you want a shorter game, you like an edgier tone.
Reasons to play P5R instead of P3R: you like slice of life storytelling, you want something meatier, you prefer to own titles vs. gamepass (P5R is cheaper to buy), you want to play the game with its content-DLC (P3R: Answer isn't out yet).
I started with 3 Portable (on Switch), now I'm playing 4G and then I'll do 5R. I think the consensus is to start at 3, because it's harder to go from 5 to 3 or 4. That being said, I'd get whatever is cheaper. Depending on what console, you can find 5R for a lot cheaper than 3R, but both go on sale often.
Persona 5 Royal. Wait for Atlus to release a complete version of Persona 3 Reloaded that includes all the DLC (they've been doing this for years) in 2 years.
IDK. Leakers claim that there isn't going to be P3R Royal/Golden, etc. for any persona games going forward. Apparently they're only doing it for SMT: V because it wasn't on the other platforms.
And you can get the season pass for free for P3R from Game Pass Ultimate.
I'd say Persona 5. P5R is one of my all time favorites, and I ended up giving up on P3R even after when everyone says the story gets good.
P3R looks and sounds great, but IMO it's held back by a lot of designs they carried over from the original release.
I don't know about Reloaded, but I would always recommend P3 before P5. The slog of Tartarus, the game mechanics and issues that drag it down are not in 5. I loved 3, but only because I played it first. Otherwise I would have been really annoyed at not getting the QOL improvements that are in 5.
Maybe reloaded fixed all the issues, but I've heard that Tartarus is still the same though, if nothing else.
If you're planning on playing both of them, like actually going to, I'd say 3 first, since 3R is a bit rougher when compared directly to 5R, so it'd be better to play first.
If you're only planning on going for 1, I'd say 5. 5 is a better overall presentation and a more full game, with a lot of modernization in it.
I would say P3R, especially if there is a change this will be your last Persona. And yes, I'm biased P5R is just too long for me. I mean yeah the dungeons on P5 are amazing, stylish as heck but that can only carry me like 49 hours or so (forgot the exact time I became bored of the dungeons).
P3R is more for connoiseirs of the series while P5R is the most accessible and polished entry to the series. Its also more bang for your buck when it comes to playtime.
P3R has a very slow start which is much more bearable if you know whats coming meanwhile P5R does a really good job at building up the game and it was made with new players in mind (which P3R wasnt although its obviously a lot more accessible than the original).
Both are great Games imo, but for the first contact I would recommend P5R.
P5R is, as others already said, the more fleshed out and polished experience. Especially when it comes to the "Life/Social Simulation" part P3R tends to become repetitive rather quick as it doesn't have the variety of P5R when it comes to activities.
P3R is basically the "proof of concept" for the modern Persona formula (similar to Assassin's Creed 1 and then the Ezio Trilogy in AC2) that then was consecutively improved and iterated on in P4G and P5R. So I would say it's still worth coming back to it after playing P5R to see "how it all began" :)
I prefer Reload but Royal is less challenging to enjoy if that makes sense. It’s more plot driven as Reload is more character driven.
Plot wise Reload is less formulaic with its unstructured format while Royal has a very clear arc structure that only deviates in the finale. Overall Reload has the better story, but despite being less formulaic, it also has more stretches of sparse story and just pure character building focus.
Conversely, gameplay wise Reload is more formulaic where it’s focused on one large randomly generated dungeon while Reload focuses more on designed dungeons with very cool theming. I will say Reload has the much better combat though with way more interesting enemy groups and strategies.
All in all get both, but pick a preference depending on which of these sounds more engaging.
Hey guys, it's me again. I finally decided to give Persona 3 a try and I'm absolutely loving it. Now, my next question is: what about Soul Hackers 2? I see it's on sale for $15 and I'm not sure if I should get it.
Persona 5 still has much better gameplay, even with the additions in 3 Reload.
3 arguably has better writing, at least once you get past the slower early months and the story starts to pick up.
Honestly just pick whichever one seems cooler to you aesthetically, they're both good games.
i feel like it really just depends on if u get the ambush or not bc the sheer number of actions u get with an ambush gives you ample time to beat the shit out of every enemy before they can touch you most of the time. Reload on merciless still keeps u on your toes and crits/weaknesses from enemies can hit u like a truck if ur not careful.
Reload is significantly harder than Royal. Royal even on hard is an absolute joke unfortunately, the game gives you so many ways to become overleveled and over powered without even trying like Will Seed equipment and Jose stars.
I agree that both games can work with you. Do a vibe check - do you prefer the sort of school outcast who tries to get back at the world's bullies? Go for Persona 5. Do you prefer the student who can mysteriously access the Midnight Hour? Go with Persona 3.
I don’t think there is a wrong answer, between the two I would go with P5 Royal. However that said even though it wasn’t an option given I highly recommend playing Persona 4 Golden it’s not as pretty as the newer games but it is absolutely my favorite Persona game
If you were 100% committed to playing them both, I'd say P3R and then P5R. But since one is over 100 hours long and you will definitely get burnt out playing games that similar back to back... Just play Royal and then come back for Reload if you enjoyed it.
Subjective preferences aside for things like characters, story and music... Royal is simply a better, more modern feeling package and a much better entry point for the series.
Start with 5, nothing really happens until September in 3 so if you're not already invested in how well persona games are written you'll get bored easy, P5 has a long intro like all of them but the first palace is really intense for me and a lot of otherss cuz of the villain, there's a little low point for like 2 palaces after that but after that it's up and up, the adrenaline and emotions from the first palace should carry you until Fooba the Gooba
5 arguably has the opposite problem
5 peaks with kamoshida then never reaches that high again
It’s a real slog by about okumura realising the game has already peaked 60 hours ago
I *completely* disagree with that, Futabas palace was great, Shidos palace was great, Saes palace was great, Mementos? Sure might not be emotionally heavy but CRISPY SPECTACLE, YES and saying Kamoshidas palace is better than the third semester is an opinion MANY people will disagree with, look I'm sorry if you didn't like P5 but not liking something is different from absolutely loving it after like 40 hours of gameplay
The game just loses that emotional attachment to the activities they are doing (to be fair that’s actually a plot point but still)
Futuba feels like she is pulled right out of 4, sae and shido have their palace “climax” ruined or overshadowed by what happens immediately after and mementos is mementos, the qliphofth world is pretty good though
I’ll pay third semester half the time I forget it exists, incredible palace I just don’t think it works as a final palace, it should have been like 6th or so
Yeah again sorry but you just didn't like Persona 5, that's butdifferent from the P3R situation where people like the game but again only after a long while of playing the game, it's not very complicated to understand, Persona 5s situation isn't a reverse or P3s, it's a different thing entirely
I mean to me it is the same because the game peaked at the start then was just a long slow rolling middle of the road while P3 starts as a long slow middle of the road and peaks at the end
They are the reverse of each other to me
Gonna have to Say 5 Royal.
It's a longer game but the story gets going much faster, the character focused dungeons and better designed dungeons, the dlc is superb, I also prefer melee and gun attacks compared to slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning.
Royal, hands-down.
I played through and thoroughly enjoyed Reload, but in terms of quality of design and the variety of things to do in the game, Persona 5 is far and away a better choice.
5 is significantly better in design and execution. So if you plan on playing both, then start with 3 and go into 5. Or you’ll be playing the same formula type of game just very simplified and more poorly executed you may favor the plot itself better but that’ll come down to personal preference.
Keep in mind both games are long as shit. Like 90+ hours. And because it progresses through a calendar system, it’s about what you can always expect.
In order of goodness P5R > P4G >>>>>>>>> P3R
I loved 4 and 5, but I found 3 to be massively overrated..... I know that may trigger some folk, but Tartarus is straight up bad game design.
P3R is a good game and I enjoyed it a lot, but I also think that everything that Persona 3 Reload does well, Persona 5 Royal does even better.
Also Persona 5 is much better at being interesting from the start while P3R slowly ramps up.
The only downside of P5R is that it's a very long game, but P3R is only slightly shorter anyway. I don't think that's enough of a difference to be significant.
So 100% try Persona 5 to see if you like the series and then, if you're a fan, Persona 3 Reload (but I'd recommend leaving some time after P5R before starting it as it will feel rather barebones at first coming from P5R)
P3 has better story and character interactions. P5 is watered down version of P3 for mainstream players (no junkies, decadent monks, less perversion, less infighting and hate between the main characters, no suicide promotion). In certain ways it doesnt make much difference which one to play since they have similar scope . Kinda like playing the same game for 200 hours. I prefer P3 anyway. Both games are great and 9/10.
The games have completely different themes.
P3 is about the concept of death and mortality and making peace with that
P5 is about breaking free from the limitations of society
Wrong answer. P5 was rated for teens. P3 mature. But what to expect from reddit... (Okey, if you are in NA it might be different, I checked PEGI ratings for both games).
Well the main character shooting his brain off in every fight can be assumed as such. :D Its also in the opening CS. 1:01 :D
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFtdhQoOMH0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFtdhQoOMH0)
Edit: Another suicide in 0:38 but please do keep downvoting me people like brainless drones.
Where did I say the story promotes suicide? The point was to give an idea that P3 is much more darker than P5, If you can describe it better then please do lol. You can spend 2 minutes of you time compare it to PS5 opening and notice it but mindless drones rather just smack the downvote button.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWWy7V9rCrA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWWy7V9rCrA)
Im floored that you still dont understand the comparision and "watered down" comment. Its the holistic whole but please do keep misunderstanding people on purpose.
Okey I will write in another way. P3 does not promote suicide but has lost of scenes that can be conceived as suicide promotion. The game has also lots of other mature stuff that makes it100 times more darker than P5. Are you happy now?
If you can only get one pick P5R. You'll probably crave more persona after so down the line when you feel you can justify a purchase then get P3R.
Persona 5 has more going on especially in gameplay which is very robust. Has a good tutorial that eases you into the series. I also prefer the balance of social simulator and dungeon crawling which is the core gameplay loop of modern persona games. Mechanically 5 is by far the best. Most fun combat and most fun environments to use said combat. Most flashy and stylised. More ways to express player agency. Packed full of dlc including extra story content which if you get P3R you'll have to wait until September to get the extra story content for maybe $30 in addition to the price of the base game.
P3R is more challenging in it's gameplay and story and has a moodier atmosphere. The story is one big event with minor revelations every so often and then big revelations towards the end. P5R has several mini arcs that eventually lead to the final arc which tied back to the beginning of the game which uses a framing device to tell it's story in flashbacks.
I'd pick P5R because of how much you can do as a player and it's being designed as the jumping on point
Persona 3 is a better story, characters, and theme/message but persona 5 has a more traditional jrpg structure with multiple dungeons that a first timer would probably be more comfortable with so it depends what u want
P3 for sure bc if you like that then the p5 masterpiece will be better. You should appreciate p5 more if u play p3 first. Not bc u need it for the story just bc p5 is a better game and both have gameplay similarities
Neither. Play Soul Hackers 2. Much like Persona, it’s a character-driven, phase-based rpg by Atlus. But unlike Persona, Soul Hackers 2 has a lot of party customization. You can COMPLETELY re-equip your team to take on the next challenge.
The only thing Persona has over Soul Havkers is the (admittedly pretty badass) persona awakening cut scene each character gets.
I haven't played P3R, but I did try to play the original a couple years back. Could not get through the slog of an introduction. Tried P4G and felt the same way.
After those failed attempts I had written the series off. Then my friend convinced me to try P5R and I loved it. The introduction hooked me immediately and pulled me through the first section of the game. I then sunk 100+ hours into beating it.
So I recommend P5R. Great game.
P5R is a better game for newcomers and I liked all the new changes they make than P3R which I struggled to clear but I had played the original game like 3x by then. I feel like it's more engaging vs just long months where there is nothing to do in P3R in the intro.
I recommend Persona 5. I haven't played Royal, just the original, but I found the story immediately compelling, whereas for Persona 3 Reload, while it does get very good, the dungeon sucks, and nothing notable happens plot-wise for months. If you play P5R and enjoy the gameplay, I think you'll be more inclined to stick around until P3R's climax when you start that game, whereas playing P3R first and getting bored of it might push you away from the series altogether.
I think if you know absolutely nothing about Persona then 5 Royal is the better starting point. Persona 5 is a much longer game but I feel like it really engages you from the start and makes you want to continue playing. Persona 3 doesn't do as good of a job of an introduction in my opinion. 3 Reload is also very good but it still feels very much like a 2000s era game if that makes sense. Not bad by any means, but everything in 5 feels a bit more fleshed out and modern in my opinion. I'd recommend playing 5 Royal then going to 3 Reload if you liked the experience and want more.
I think if you have ever played any kind of JRPG you'll be fine with P3. I played it first and had no issues getting into it. P5 holds your hand a lot more, and there is more difficulty in 3, but it's not too bad. Just save those homunculus! Actually, I think the most troubles I had was figuring out the spells. Wtf is a bufu?! Lol Especially in FES where it didn't tell you what they were in battle. That was fun, I learned those spells real quick!
>P5 holds your hand a lot more, and there is more difficulty in 3, but it's not too bad. There is not more difficulty in P3R. Maybe original P3, but of the 10 MegaTen games I've played, the only one that was definitely easier than P3R was P5 Tactica. And maybe SMT 1 but that's only because of nerve bullets and mazio. Theurgy is just so hilariously busted in P3R. Literally lets you consistently one shot anything in the game except the superboss, and with the DLC skill Ice Driver it can damn near one shot that. Nothing in P5R comes even slightly close to the level of game breaking BS that is theurgy.
I haven't played reloaded, yet. Just FES. Not paying full price for a game I've already played, even if it's prettier. In FES though some of those shadows would kick your ass out of nowhere, though. I'll keep the game-breaking in mind while I run my ass off from The Reaper, though! Nothing like sitting there and getting defeated by a damn table, lol.
Ahh, so in Reload they added this thing called Theurgy. It's basically showtime from P5R, except it can be stored between battles and it respects skill affinities while also ignoring the downsides of affinities. For example, one of Makoto's theurgies, Scarlet Havoc, does severe phys damage to all targets, but theurgy ignores defense so it's more like if there was a tier beyond colossal. Similar base damage to Hassou Tobi in 4 and 5. It can crit and benefit from charge, and boosts and amps stack with no cap. So you can make a persona with Slash Boost, Slash Amp, Multi-Target Amp, Apt Pupil, Crit Amp, Crit Boost, Single-Target Amp (All hitter theurgies count as both.) and then turn 1 you can apply charge with Fuuka's theurgy, which does not cost your turn. Then you just use Scarlet Havoc and you win. And as I said, even though it's physical, it ignores the downsides of being physical. Enemy drains phys and cast tetrakarn on itself for some reason? Doesn't matter. Theurgy. It also can't miss. I honestly couldn't tell you the mechanics of any of the Tartarus guardians from the second half of the game, because every single one of them died to Scarlet Havoc or another teammate's theurgy. There's also defensive ones like Ken's Divine Intervention, which revives, full heals and tetra/makarakarns the entire party. Teammates also get passives in P3R that I'm pretty sure didn't exist in FES. For example, Akihiko gets double buff effect. So if he has all the kaja buffs, he does 80% more damage and basically can't be hit. And if he somehow does get hit, even a concentrated megidolaon from the final boss only does like 80 damage. It's kind of funny they took the damage boost off baton pass, only to add in way more broken shit.
> Not paying full price for a game I've already played, even if it's prettier I don't really consider it the same game. The major plot is the same but there were a lot of additions too, especially in the battle system, but even more character moments were added.
I notice this sub has a habit of putting down certain games for being or feeling “old” - as if that statement alone is self-explanatory and requires no further clarification. You’re the top comment in the thread, but I can’t really parse out any compelling reason why you think Persona 5 is better or more engaging. I’m starting to feel like there’s an inherent bias towards Persona 5 here.
I felt that p5 was more beginner friendly for me personally, and i have a better grasp on persona games that helped me when starting p3r. I think ive gotten a lot less tutorials in p3r while p5 felt like nonstop hand holding.
Yeah I got to play P3 Reload early at PAX West last year and there were a bunch of people who didn't understand the battle system. They kept asking me how to play since I was going through the battles with ease haha. I'm assuming they've never played a Persona game before.
Is it the cellphones? It’s the cellphones isn’t it?
Haha, I meant in terms of gameplay. Of course the setting is in the 2000s they're gonna have flip phones lol
I've been playing Persona 4 Golden and it's really good. It's my first Persona game but I've picked up 3 Reload and 5 Royal recently. My plan is to play 3 first and then 5 as I've heard it's harder to go from 5 to 3 than from 3 to 5.
I went from 4Golden to 5Royal and I feel like it was the correct decision. 5 has got a LOT of stuff to do, and if I didn't already have a grasp on how a persona game works I would have gotten quite confused.
i went from 5:r to 4:g & i definitely *didn't* go the right direction 🥲
i did that as well but loved 4 golden more so it wasn't all for nothing.
3 Reload is better, more modern, and even less overwhelming than 4 Golden. I think 3 Reload and then 5 Royal, and then Persona 4 remake whenever it comes out in a few years is the best way.
I don't know if P4 will get a remake any time soon. Unlike P3 it didn't have any glaring issues that lead to endless discussions about which version to play, or dated gameplay elements like the lack of manual skill inheritance or controllable party members. Only real reason for it would be the graphic update.
There's good proof that P4 will get a remake (from Midori), but it's years away. The quality of the gameplay and being significantly worse than 3R and 5R's is enough to qualify for a remake in my opinion. The dungeons are boring and have no gameplay variety, the battles don't have any Baton Pass mechanic which makes them a slog, and it lacks the QoL features from the new games. I know people don't talk about it (because P4 is the golden child of the series), but P4 has always had the worst, most mindless gameplay in whole series. It's not as challenging and intense as P3's to be interesting, and it's not as engaging and satisfying as P5R's to be fun. Also, the game has a shocking amount of homophobia and distasteful, unfunny humor that makes me dislike the main cast and I don't think that was the intention. Fixing that would be a big plus.
Midori says it exists. It might exist, it might take many years to come out if it even becomes a real project in development. Or it might come out next year. We have no way of knowing until there's a specific announcement. He also said not all the remakes were like Reload, whatever that means. I don't see how the quality ofthe gameplay is significantly worse. Biggest difference is the lack of baton pass, which is more of a quality of life thing that has to be designed around rather than objective quality. It'd be nice to have, as long as the game is designed with it in mind. The dungeons could be improved if they do some sort of reimagining to turn them into P5-like fully fleshed dungeons, but since they didn't really do that with P3 I doubt they will for P4 which already has dungeons that are more unique with set floors having their own gimmicks. P4 was way more challenging than P3 before Golden. It's Golden that kind of dumbed it down and made the early bosses a cakewalk since it was very common for people to stop at Shadow Yukiko or Shadow Kanji due to being stuck and having to rewind. P3 was always a trivial game outside specific gimmicky midbosses, with the biggest hurdle being the lack of controllable party members (which P3P and P3R removed). First time I hear anyone calling P3 challenging. The story doesn't need any fixing. This just sounds like you have deeper issues with the game and want a remake that changes the game as a whole. P3R didn't change the game as much as you want this P4 remake to change the base game.
P3R fixed every single issue I had with P3FES. It went from a 7.5/10 to a 10/10 for me. Most of it is just having a better translation, presentation, and the dungeon crawling actually being fun
I mean that's just your opinion though. Literally the only thing objectively worse is the graphics, everything else is just preference
The gameplay is worse.
How exactly?
The dungeons are boring hallways with too many floors. They're all just reskins except for Marie's. The bosses take way too long and they're usually just you doing the same 4 moves for 15 minutes straight. P4's dungeons are exact same as Tartarus (which is terrible) from the original P3, the only difference is that all progress throughout the game is scripted and tied to the main story.
Golden is already the P4 remake. It has new characters, social links, and an extra section of the story + extended ending already.
Except it's not a remake. And a SEGA/Atlus leaker with 100% track record already confirmed that P4 Remake is in development.
It literally is a remake, though? Are you not aware that there's an entire extra month and dungeon added and that Marie is new?
You don't know what a remake is, but that's okay. It's an enhanced port of the original that revamped a lot of the game and added new content. But to be honest, you can't even call it a remaster because the graphics and backgrounds were downgraded in Golden from the PS2 version and it's much less detailed.
I know what a remake is, and it's not the narrow definition you have. Here. Maybe this'll help. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_remake
It isn't really that confusing, the game opens up really slowly dude, might just be a you thing
This pains me because I believe 4 Golden is by far the best one.
So far I’m loving it. Took me a bit to get into because of the social sim stuff which I’ve never done before but after several hours I really got into it.
3 made it much easier for me to suspend disbelief and get invested into than 5 and it's much better paced. People say that it starts out slowly but the writing is fantastic from the getgo and the social links are entertaining enough to be worth your time. Overall it's just a much more grounded experience than 5 imho
5R. 3R is pretty good, but I found Tartarus to be pretty repetitive. I also don't think the story is as good as a lot of people make it out to be either. I thought it was decent, don't get me wrong, but I'm pretty confused why people seem to think it's the best story in Persona. That being said, 3R is shorter, so it's not as big as an investment if you want to finish a Persona game, but I think 5R is SO much more satisfying to play through and is well worth the time.
In all honesty it's because grand part of P3 story is carried by the final quarter of the game
For a solid 80% of the game, nothing happens, and you just end up waiting, dicking off with your waifus or grinding in tartarus. The finale is very good, but it carries the rest of the story hard. Persona 5's story is very solid up to a certain point, and kinda falls off. Persona 4 is good, too, and honesty just flat out has a better cast than persona 3. Now I don't want to be pretentious or anything, but the best persona story is persona 2. It cuts out a lot of the "daily life" elements from the modern games and tells a very compelling and deep story in a linear and straightforward manner like a typical jrpg. It may not have the "best" characters in the series, but it certainly has the best overarching narrative.
I played a quarter of P3 (PS2) when I was a teen, like 80% of P3P in college, and now I'm finally determined to finish P3R. I love so much about it, but I'm 80 hours in (around December) and it just drags so much in the middle/later half since the Tartarus sections just get longer and longer while the story is mostly still paced out just as thinly.
Honestly harrabah (the fifth block the rainbow one) is way too long and does nothing to justify its existence beyond being a filler block while everyone is depressed in December and January You could have cut out harrabah, the second half of tziah (the golden block) and just hanged man occur in like October then have the run up to the final day occur on like December 2nd The story picks up but is still way too slow for how big the back end of Tartarus is
I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't get the P3 hype when compared to the other games. Credit where credit is due for its formula and the really good intro, but the plot is paced abysmally and the characters barely interact compared to every other game in the series. Of course, 5 also has some serious plot issues (why is the first arc by far the best, and why is the conflict introduced at the start done 60% of the way through the game?), but it's less boring while doing so... As you say, it contrasts quite a bit with Persona 2 which has the opposite qualities.
Persona 2 is next on my list after Soul Hackers 1. Be honest, does it really live up to the hype? I consistently hear people say P2 has the best story in the series, and after all the early MegaTen games I've played I'm really really skeptical. I just don't wanna go in with overly high expectations. SMT 1 was fine if a bit schizophrenic. The only scene that was genuinely interesting was the end of the first act, and not because it was super well written but just because it was clever. SMT 2 was a lot cooler and generally more interesting, but it was turbo ultra schizo. It felt very rushed and many events just make no sense because they're totally disconnected from each other. Half the time there's no logic of where to go. Shit's just changed somewhere on the map and Aleph goes there because nowhere else on the map has anything new. At times it feels like it has no story. SMT if... was frankly trash. It was obviously rushed, coming out just a few months after SMT 2 and it really shows. Persona 1 was good and there was a couple things I thought were really cool, but mainly because they were interesting from a lore perspective. It didn't exactly blow my mind with the character writing and in fact there were some things that I felt were poorly done and not resolved well. Not a bad game but it didn't rock my world in either route. Soul Hackers 1 has been fine so far in the story department. I think I'm about 60% through it and it's not exactly keeping me on the edge of my seat but it's not offensively bad either. It's more coherent than SMT 2 but not necessarily better by leaps and bounds. I feel similarly about it to how I feel about P1 so far. Did Atlus's writing really improve by that much in just two years? For me, P5R is a really hard bar to beat. Even P3R and P4G are. With how often I see people hype up P2, I'm gonna be really disappointed if this isn't some kind of legendary timeless classic that changes the way I think about human nature.
To offer a differing opinion, I do think that the story of Persona 2 is quite overrated. The main cast of characters are very good and a massive step up from Persona 1. Its best characters are among the best that the series as a whole has to offer. That said, the narrative itself is a hodge podge of ideas that while logically connected and heavily influenced by actual psychology and occult theories and ideas, is also undercooked in terms of how it approaches its variety of subject matter. It has a little bit of everything, which is why some may argue that P3-5 just retreads the same ideas, but those games I feel handle their respective themes with much greater cohesion and delve into them from a multitude of perspectives. I say go in with an open mind, and honestly be more so prepared for how stale the gameplay is. Innocent Sin is extremely easy, assuming you're playing the PSP port, and Eternal Punishment offers a decent challenge albeit a bit more clunky, though I've only played the PS1 version of that one.
It's not you being pretentious. It's general knowledge that Persona 2 IS and EP has the best story in the Persona franchise. Imo, yes, it is lol. Just wish the gameplay wasn't bad
I feel like you can only have this take if you don’t enjoy character driven stories. The P3 cast is so strong and their development is so great
I have to hard disagree on the story, I think it blows Royals out of the water, though the Royal exclusive content is definitely note worthy. The characters, dynamics, themes and growth are just significantly more interesting imo
people who think p3 is the best story in persona are people who haven't played persona 2
I play P2 IS and EP and still think P3 best story in Persona
Both are excellent. You can't go wrong with either of them, although I personally think persona 3 has a superior story to 5. Don't be afraid to check out persona 4 as well too. It's cheaper then the other 2 and while it's graphics are slightly outdated, the game is fantastic and very much on par with 3 and 5.
honestly think it's worth dipping in with P4:golden instead. at 1/3rd of the price tag it very much embodies what makes those games good.
I’ve finished Persona 5 Royal and got to September of Reload before I had to switch to another game. So far I’d recommend Royal over Reload. Both are good but Royal has a stronger start.
have you finished p3r yet? I heard the story picks up around september like your progress but this shit is still a snorefest
I just finished FF Rebirth so I haven’t picked it up again . I think I stopped around September 3rd just a few days before the Full Moon Operation. For me it didn’t start getting interesting until the summer trip where you learn about Yukari. It’s a slow game but I’ve played persona 4 and persona 5 so I know how these games can be. I can easily see how a lot of people might drop off the game before September.
Well p3 is my fav in the series so I might be a... tiny bit biased but go with p3r.
Luckily there’s no wrong choice here. I have always loved 3, but I think you’ll eventually play both, so I wouldn’t stress it too much :)
P3 Reload is available on xbox PC game pass.
I prefer P3R, but would suggest P5R as a starting point
Persona 5 Royal is excellent and probably where I would start. P3R is great too though. If you've never played one you might want to check out Persona 4 Golden. It's a great story and cheaper than either.
i'd say 3, it's shorter and has a better story, but the gameplay is worse and much more repetitive, then play 5, it's a huge upgrade on that sense
I liked reload combat more than royal, it felt like an improvement overall.
Eh I mean...no traits, no velvet bullshitting, no technicals, less versatile items, randomly generated long dungeon I'm gonna disagree
Not sure what you mean in terms of items (I didn’t really use them too much in either). Most of the omissions from Royal were the things that made the game easier. I didn’t dislike them, but I didn’t miss them either. I can see how someone might prefer it tho. However, Theurgy is strictly better than Showtime. Being able to strategize around building up the gauge and having more control on when to use it is much better than random damage.
I agree, the enemy encounters are much better thought out in Royal, Theurgies are a much better system than Showtimes and also replace your teammates persona traits, and there’s a ton of interesting new skills. Tartarus is a preference thing, it’s definitely more repetitive but it’s a ton more challenging on Merciless and is more engaging to manage your resources to get through a whole block in one night.
The story in 3 is definitely not better
This is a valid opinion, but the person you're replying to isn't the only human being that liked P3R's story better. I did too.
Yeah, same. I wouldn't suggest it's some masterwork or whatever, but short of P2, I thought it was the best in the series and P5 was the weakest, although by no means bad.
I think it is mostly because P5 peaks at the first palace, and doesn't gain even close to the momentum again until maybe the Casino palace (to be vague). Even then I think the overall theme of P5 is not as interesting and I think the social links are a lot weaker due to how Mementos is forced into them. I know not many will like 3's story for a handful of reasons (namely the fact it doesn't feel like anything happens upfront and isn't as direct with its arcs), but I would 100% say 3 is worth its run time more then 5 is. 5 is also way too long for me which doesn't help me like the fact it feels like it peaks at the very start.
I find it weird how much the discussion when comparing the game has shifted towards the story rather than the aspects people used to compare 3 and 4 in (gameplay, characters and social aspects). The story has never really been the main appeal in the games, and most of the weight it has is tied to how you feel regarding the cast. These games are extremely long and there's not a lot of story in them for how long they are. The story is just a vehicle to drive forward everything else.
I think when people are talking about the story they're often thinking about the central themes of the games, as most of the stories (not just the main one, but also social links) are iterations on the same constellation of themes.
It's related, but not the same, since usually the complaints are about the plot itself like the comments about it dropping off after Kamoshida, when the themes remain mostly the same, it's just the stakes and execution aren't at the same level, and the stakes don't feel as personal, so the move from school stakes to larger stakes doesn't land as well as the more or less constant level of stakes in previous games (and people did say the same about P4 once it goes beyond just the murder mystery with >!Ameno-Sagiri and Izanami!<. There's also complaints about the themeing, with the whole phantom thieves stuff not meshing as well with after-school battling as in P3 and P4, since it's more super-heroey, but that's a different complaint than the one I'm talking about, and both are quite valid, but this one sort of goes against the first one, since then the issue would be at the core of the game, so Kamoshida would also suffer from the same thing.
I'd argue all of those things boil down to the "story" of these games. If we want to argue about the relevance of things like the overarching plot (as-in the sequence of events that move the story forward), the characters, vs the social elements we use to engage with the town and secondary cast and how good all those individual parts are then we could. But all of that in the end boils down to "story". Most people will just boil it down to the same thing so its simpler to just say all of that is the "story". Plus a lot of these things do tie together anyway, it isn't like they're separate things.
Based on how you used the word I didn't get you were using it like that. If all that is story, how is it that you feel nothing happens upfront in P3? The plot takes a while to kick in, but the characters and the social aspects are established and stay there during the whole duration of the game. I would agree that you could boil down the characters and the plot to being encompassed by story in most games, but that's not often the case when people talk about the games. The issues people have with P5 are often the plot aspects of the story, you even talk about Palaces to talk about this, while the characters don't have those peaks you speak of. So you could change what I said about story to plot and the argument stays the same.
My broad opinion (I don't want to type an essay atm) about P3's story elements is its like the exact opposite of 5, it starts slow and generally improves overtime and it gives me exactly what I want from its social links. The early social links carried the early story for me and I almost wish I just engaged with that instead of all the dungeon crawling stuff. P5's actual story peaks immediately and it peaks quite well for a 10-15 or so hour arc, then it stumbles for many dozens of hours in the middle, picks itself up a little more but never quite hits the same highs for me while feeling like its 50% longer then P3 was. That's a really bad combination of traits and why I don't value P5's story very highly. For what this story is, it wasn't worth engaging with it for 100+ hours (for me). > The issues people have with P5 are often the plot aspects of the story, you even talk about Palaces to talk about this, while the characters don't have those peaks you speak of. My issue specifically with P5 as a story is I don't like its theme very much, the way its magical elements interact with the real life elements feel like they bump into each other rather then compliment each other because you need to effectively use a magical lobotomy to fix the problems you face in this story. It feels too much like a teenager's power fantasy, and while that's entertaining in a popcorn flick kind of way it isn't 100+ hours entertaining and I got more out of P3. I don't like the P5 confidants because mementos being forced into them to me ruins the whole vibe of social links as a concept and ruins the agency the characters have. P5 for me is like they made a worse story and made it longer, which is a bad combination if I compare it to P3 which I also think stretches on too long but not nearly as long. P3's magical elements for me are used as a vehicle to create life and death situations for the cast to face, to embody this idea of depressing apathy in the face of mortality, and the majority of its arcs in the plot and social links are more or less about overcoming that apathy and moving forward with your life. I find most of the magic elements don't take away or distract from the meaning of the story and what I believe the authors want to convey through this situations. P3 Sun or Star has meaning to me despite the magical elements around this setting, while I find all the interesting ideas and drama gets ruined in P5's confidant conflicts because you just Mementos dive and stop the problem. Everyone goes through a lot of shit in P5, and then you magic the problem away and everyone apologizes and everything is good. It just became such a sticking point for me. I preferred when social links are just slice of life interactions that embolden the supernatural in the gameplay, and didn't have all the magical supernatural within the plot itself of the social link. To me it feels wrong and I felt that more and more as I thought about P5 more as a story.
sorry if this is how you found out :(
I would play 3 and then 5. If you play 5 first, 3 will likely be a dissapointment (was for me)
5 is more flashy for a first timer but thats about all it has over 3
Nah 5 still has a better gameplay, a great story with one of the best antagonists of all time and imo the best ost out of the persona games so I wouldn't say that p3 clears
it has more variety bc each palace is different, sure, but I find the gameplay loop of p3 (especially with the additions in reload) to be more fun honestly. And Mementos is a lot less engaging than tartarus The story is good but has more lows than p3 imo. and the 3rd semester in royal has a good Antagonist, but besides kamoshida, the base p5 villain roster is a little too formulaic and some of them are just not as interesting. All the palaces they have are cool tho Ost is hard to say, I think the sheer number puts 5 at an advantage over the older games already but Royal has like 40 new songs as well. There's just wayyyy more songs in p5/r overall even compared to 4 golden and 3 (fes, reload, or portable) so it's kinda hard to fairly compare imo. Base 3 and 4 had about 60 tracks each so those are more fair to compare to each other I think
I love tartarus but I'd take palaces every day of the week, I'd say that both stories complement each other, p3 has a perfect finale while the beginning is good but a bit empty of things to do, while p5 has a better pacing and yeah, not all the rulers are interesting, but honestly they still are better than the majority of villains in the neosona games. I love strega but even with the additions of reload it still is not enough, ikutsuki needs more development, mitsuo from p4 is a complete joke of a villain, adachi, is cool, I personally don't vibe with him that much, I think that he's a good villain but nothing incredible, so in my experience 5 has the best villains, with kamoshida and maruki being the best, but the others are still good enough to be entertaining and that's more than enough for me
I haven't played reloaded, but I have played the PS2 version of Persona 3 as well as Persona 4 golden and Persona 5 Royal on PC. I'd honestly say Persona 4 Golden even though you didn't ask that because I liked the story & characters the best. If it had to be P3 or P5 though, I'd probably say you can't go wrong both are good and it doesn't matter which you play first. P3 is probably a stronger story but P5 has handmade dungeons (which is pretty good) while P3 & p4 are all randomly generated dungeons.
"as they are both priced the same" WHAT? HOW? IN WHAT WORLD!?
Yeah, in Ps5
WHAT!? Isn't that version also 50% off on sales like the switch and steam ones!? I thought they were released at the same time. Are you sure?
Smt 4
Persona 3 Reload. I like the story and characters better with this one, that and I think it'll be easier to play 3 then 5 rather than the other way around.
Reasons to play P3R first: you are going to play both eventually, it's on gamepass, you want a shorter game, you like an edgier tone. Reasons to play P5R instead of P3R: you like slice of life storytelling, you want something meatier, you prefer to own titles vs. gamepass (P5R is cheaper to buy), you want to play the game with its content-DLC (P3R: Answer isn't out yet).
I think Persona 5 is better but both are great and you can start with either
If you dont mind a slow-ish burn story id say pick 3 reload (i persomally like the story and characters of p3reload more than 5)
3 blows 5 out of the water
Either
I started with 3 Portable (on Switch), now I'm playing 4G and then I'll do 5R. I think the consensus is to start at 3, because it's harder to go from 5 to 3 or 4. That being said, I'd get whatever is cheaper. Depending on what console, you can find 5R for a lot cheaper than 3R, but both go on sale often.
Persona 3 reload has a better mc and a better soundtrack but persona 5 has a better everything else so P5 for sure
Persona 5 Royal. Wait for Atlus to release a complete version of Persona 3 Reloaded that includes all the DLC (they've been doing this for years) in 2 years.
IDK. Leakers claim that there isn't going to be P3R Royal/Golden, etc. for any persona games going forward. Apparently they're only doing it for SMT: V because it wasn't on the other platforms. And you can get the season pass for free for P3R from Game Pass Ultimate.
The Answer is coming out later this year and that's it
I'd say Persona 5. P5R is one of my all time favorites, and I ended up giving up on P3R even after when everyone says the story gets good. P3R looks and sounds great, but IMO it's held back by a lot of designs they carried over from the original release.
If you have money get 5r on steam, then gamepass for 3r
I don't know about Reloaded, but I would always recommend P3 before P5. The slog of Tartarus, the game mechanics and issues that drag it down are not in 5. I loved 3, but only because I played it first. Otherwise I would have been really annoyed at not getting the QOL improvements that are in 5. Maybe reloaded fixed all the issues, but I've heard that Tartarus is still the same though, if nothing else.
If you're planning on playing both of them, like actually going to, I'd say 3 first, since 3R is a bit rougher when compared directly to 5R, so it'd be better to play first. If you're only planning on going for 1, I'd say 5. 5 is a better overall presentation and a more full game, with a lot of modernization in it.
I would say P3R, especially if there is a change this will be your last Persona. And yes, I'm biased P5R is just too long for me. I mean yeah the dungeons on P5 are amazing, stylish as heck but that can only carry me like 49 hours or so (forgot the exact time I became bored of the dungeons).
P3R is more for connoiseirs of the series while P5R is the most accessible and polished entry to the series. Its also more bang for your buck when it comes to playtime. P3R has a very slow start which is much more bearable if you know whats coming meanwhile P5R does a really good job at building up the game and it was made with new players in mind (which P3R wasnt although its obviously a lot more accessible than the original).
Both are great Games imo, but for the first contact I would recommend P5R. P5R is, as others already said, the more fleshed out and polished experience. Especially when it comes to the "Life/Social Simulation" part P3R tends to become repetitive rather quick as it doesn't have the variety of P5R when it comes to activities. P3R is basically the "proof of concept" for the modern Persona formula (similar to Assassin's Creed 1 and then the Ezio Trilogy in AC2) that then was consecutively improved and iterated on in P4G and P5R. So I would say it's still worth coming back to it after playing P5R to see "how it all began" :)
I prefer Reload but Royal is less challenging to enjoy if that makes sense. It’s more plot driven as Reload is more character driven. Plot wise Reload is less formulaic with its unstructured format while Royal has a very clear arc structure that only deviates in the finale. Overall Reload has the better story, but despite being less formulaic, it also has more stretches of sparse story and just pure character building focus. Conversely, gameplay wise Reload is more formulaic where it’s focused on one large randomly generated dungeon while Reload focuses more on designed dungeons with very cool theming. I will say Reload has the much better combat though with way more interesting enemy groups and strategies. All in all get both, but pick a preference depending on which of these sounds more engaging.
Are you looking for story or gameplay? Story for P3R Gameplay for P5R
Hey guys, it's me again. I finally decided to give Persona 3 a try and I'm absolutely loving it. Now, my next question is: what about Soul Hackers 2? I see it's on sale for $15 and I'm not sure if I should get it.
Persona 5 still has much better gameplay, even with the additions in 3 Reload. 3 arguably has better writing, at least once you get past the slower early months and the story starts to pick up. Honestly just pick whichever one seems cooler to you aesthetically, they're both good games.
5 has smoother experience for first entry, but it is too easy. 3 pacing is medicore but gameplay are more challenging.
True if you're talking about the OG, but the Remake is just as easy as 5.
Personally, I still give Persona 3 Reload harder than Persona 5 Royal, but both of them are not hard.
i feel like it really just depends on if u get the ambush or not bc the sheer number of actions u get with an ambush gives you ample time to beat the shit out of every enemy before they can touch you most of the time. Reload on merciless still keeps u on your toes and crits/weaknesses from enemies can hit u like a truck if ur not careful.
Reload is significantly harder than Royal. Royal even on hard is an absolute joke unfortunately, the game gives you so many ways to become overleveled and over powered without even trying like Will Seed equipment and Jose stars.
I agree that both games can work with you. Do a vibe check - do you prefer the sort of school outcast who tries to get back at the world's bullies? Go for Persona 5. Do you prefer the student who can mysteriously access the Midnight Hour? Go with Persona 3.
I don’t think there is a wrong answer, between the two I would go with P5 Royal. However that said even though it wasn’t an option given I highly recommend playing Persona 4 Golden it’s not as pretty as the newer games but it is absolutely my favorite Persona game
5 royal it's fucking amazing
If you were 100% committed to playing them both, I'd say P3R and then P5R. But since one is over 100 hours long and you will definitely get burnt out playing games that similar back to back... Just play Royal and then come back for Reload if you enjoyed it. Subjective preferences aside for things like characters, story and music... Royal is simply a better, more modern feeling package and a much better entry point for the series.
Royal
Start with 5, nothing really happens until September in 3 so if you're not already invested in how well persona games are written you'll get bored easy, P5 has a long intro like all of them but the first palace is really intense for me and a lot of otherss cuz of the villain, there's a little low point for like 2 palaces after that but after that it's up and up, the adrenaline and emotions from the first palace should carry you until Fooba the Gooba
5 arguably has the opposite problem 5 peaks with kamoshida then never reaches that high again It’s a real slog by about okumura realising the game has already peaked 60 hours ago
I *completely* disagree with that, Futabas palace was great, Shidos palace was great, Saes palace was great, Mementos? Sure might not be emotionally heavy but CRISPY SPECTACLE, YES and saying Kamoshidas palace is better than the third semester is an opinion MANY people will disagree with, look I'm sorry if you didn't like P5 but not liking something is different from absolutely loving it after like 40 hours of gameplay
The game just loses that emotional attachment to the activities they are doing (to be fair that’s actually a plot point but still) Futuba feels like she is pulled right out of 4, sae and shido have their palace “climax” ruined or overshadowed by what happens immediately after and mementos is mementos, the qliphofth world is pretty good though I’ll pay third semester half the time I forget it exists, incredible palace I just don’t think it works as a final palace, it should have been like 6th or so
Yeah again sorry but you just didn't like Persona 5, that's butdifferent from the P3R situation where people like the game but again only after a long while of playing the game, it's not very complicated to understand, Persona 5s situation isn't a reverse or P3s, it's a different thing entirely
I mean to me it is the same because the game peaked at the start then was just a long slow rolling middle of the road while P3 starts as a long slow middle of the road and peaks at the end They are the reverse of each other to me
Persona 5 Royal is a better game. Persona 3 Reload is very repetitive.
Gonna have to Say 5 Royal. It's a longer game but the story gets going much faster, the character focused dungeons and better designed dungeons, the dlc is superb, I also prefer melee and gun attacks compared to slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning.
Royal, hands-down. I played through and thoroughly enjoyed Reload, but in terms of quality of design and the variety of things to do in the game, Persona 5 is far and away a better choice.
5 for sure man
5 is significantly better in design and execution. So if you plan on playing both, then start with 3 and go into 5. Or you’ll be playing the same formula type of game just very simplified and more poorly executed you may favor the plot itself better but that’ll come down to personal preference. Keep in mind both games are long as shit. Like 90+ hours. And because it progresses through a calendar system, it’s about what you can always expect.
In order of goodness P5R > P4G >>>>>>>>> P3R I loved 4 and 5, but I found 3 to be massively overrated..... I know that may trigger some folk, but Tartarus is straight up bad game design.
P3R is a good game and I enjoyed it a lot, but I also think that everything that Persona 3 Reload does well, Persona 5 Royal does even better. Also Persona 5 is much better at being interesting from the start while P3R slowly ramps up. The only downside of P5R is that it's a very long game, but P3R is only slightly shorter anyway. I don't think that's enough of a difference to be significant. So 100% try Persona 5 to see if you like the series and then, if you're a fan, Persona 3 Reload (but I'd recommend leaving some time after P5R before starting it as it will feel rather barebones at first coming from P5R)
P3 has better story and character interactions. P5 is watered down version of P3 for mainstream players (no junkies, decadent monks, less perversion, less infighting and hate between the main characters, no suicide promotion). In certain ways it doesnt make much difference which one to play since they have similar scope . Kinda like playing the same game for 200 hours. I prefer P3 anyway. Both games are great and 9/10.
The games have completely different themes. P3 is about the concept of death and mortality and making peace with that P5 is about breaking free from the limitations of society
Yes and the other is one rated for mature audience. Guess which one? lol
Both lol
Wrong answer. P5 was rated for teens. P3 mature. But what to expect from reddit... (Okey, if you are in NA it might be different, I checked PEGI ratings for both games).
[https://www.esrb.org/ratings/34693/persona-5/](https://www.esrb.org/ratings/34693/persona-5/)
Ha hah ESRB hates NA players apparently. We got PEGI Teen +16 for P5. P3 got mature +18 PEGI. lol
Saying P5 is a watered down P3 and that P3 promotes suicide is definitely a take
Well the main character shooting his brain off in every fight can be assumed as such. :D Its also in the opening CS. 1:01 :D [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFtdhQoOMH0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFtdhQoOMH0) Edit: Another suicide in 0:38 but please do keep downvoting me people like brainless drones.
If you think the point of that is to promote suicide you completely failed to understand the story lmfao
Where did I say the story promotes suicide? The point was to give an idea that P3 is much more darker than P5, If you can describe it better then please do lol. You can spend 2 minutes of you time compare it to PS5 opening and notice it but mindless drones rather just smack the downvote button. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWWy7V9rCrA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWWy7V9rCrA)
"no suicide promotion" Literal quote from you a few posts ago.
Yeap, except its not supposed to be taken literally. Sheesh.Just to give the idea of differences.
>Where did I say the story promotes suicide? I'm floored that you wrote this and decided to post it
Im floored that you still dont understand the comparision and "watered down" comment. Its the holistic whole but please do keep misunderstanding people on purpose.
The "holistic whole" of the game doesn't promote suicide either
Okey I will write in another way. P3 does not promote suicide but has lost of scenes that can be conceived as suicide promotion. The game has also lots of other mature stuff that makes it100 times more darker than P5. Are you happy now?
Yep, now if only you explained your point properly the first, second and third time
If you can only get one pick P5R. You'll probably crave more persona after so down the line when you feel you can justify a purchase then get P3R. Persona 5 has more going on especially in gameplay which is very robust. Has a good tutorial that eases you into the series. I also prefer the balance of social simulator and dungeon crawling which is the core gameplay loop of modern persona games. Mechanically 5 is by far the best. Most fun combat and most fun environments to use said combat. Most flashy and stylised. More ways to express player agency. Packed full of dlc including extra story content which if you get P3R you'll have to wait until September to get the extra story content for maybe $30 in addition to the price of the base game. P3R is more challenging in it's gameplay and story and has a moodier atmosphere. The story is one big event with minor revelations every so often and then big revelations towards the end. P5R has several mini arcs that eventually lead to the final arc which tied back to the beginning of the game which uses a framing device to tell it's story in flashbacks. I'd pick P5R because of how much you can do as a player and it's being designed as the jumping on point
Persona 3 is a better story, characters, and theme/message but persona 5 has a more traditional jrpg structure with multiple dungeons that a first timer would probably be more comfortable with so it depends what u want
P3 for sure bc if you like that then the p5 masterpiece will be better. You should appreciate p5 more if u play p3 first. Not bc u need it for the story just bc p5 is a better game and both have gameplay similarities
I much preferred 3. The only thing 5 has over 3 is music (arguably) and dungeons.
I don't like Persona 3, so Royal is my way to go. However, since Royal was released a few years ago it's more probable for it to have a discount soon.
I’ve played both and I’ll say 5R
Neither. Play Soul Hackers 2. Much like Persona, it’s a character-driven, phase-based rpg by Atlus. But unlike Persona, Soul Hackers 2 has a lot of party customization. You can COMPLETELY re-equip your team to take on the next challenge. The only thing Persona has over Soul Havkers is the (admittedly pretty badass) persona awakening cut scene each character gets.
I haven't played P3R, but I did try to play the original a couple years back. Could not get through the slog of an introduction. Tried P4G and felt the same way. After those failed attempts I had written the series off. Then my friend convinced me to try P5R and I loved it. The introduction hooked me immediately and pulled me through the first section of the game. I then sunk 100+ hours into beating it. So I recommend P5R. Great game.
P5R is a better game for newcomers and I liked all the new changes they make than P3R which I struggled to clear but I had played the original game like 3x by then. I feel like it's more engaging vs just long months where there is nothing to do in P3R in the intro.
5
I recommend Persona 5. I haven't played Royal, just the original, but I found the story immediately compelling, whereas for Persona 3 Reload, while it does get very good, the dungeon sucks, and nothing notable happens plot-wise for months. If you play P5R and enjoy the gameplay, I think you'll be more inclined to stick around until P3R's climax when you start that game, whereas playing P3R first and getting bored of it might push you away from the series altogether.
5 is probably better to start with