Persona 3

So I just beat Persona 4 Golden and loved it and I want to go and play other smt games and I hear Persona 3 is also good but here is the problem there are two versions of the game. The fes version you cant control the other characters so here is my question does the ability to only control yourself make the game harder and a hindrence or is it not a big deal?

It can get annoying but it's not gamebreaking. Don't play P3P first.

go with fes

The game is harder than P4 because the bosses actually require you to make personas that benefit the situation. Not just a jack of all trades persona like 4. Proper use of tactics will get you the outcomes you want.

I played P4 first and thought I would hate P3's gameplay and ended up liking P3's gameplay more and the game overall.

It works fine, and also fits thematically with the game since instead of a group of bestie friends the P3 group is a lot more individualistic and often hate each other's guts, so fuck taking orders from you all the time.

it's fine if you can use your brain

If you played P4 first, not getting to control your characters would probably be really annoying. In that case, maybe it's best to play P3P.

>maybe it's best to play P3P
It's never best to play P3P first, learn to deal with the AI.

BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY

Play FES. Not even a fucking question. I agree with other user who that says it makes more sense based on the characters relation to each other. The game needs to be somewhat challenging for the story as well.

yeeeeaaAAAAAAAHHHHH

FES first user there is no other way, it has more content and a extra episode.

P3 is built like a visual novel, without the extra episode and the only "plus" is that you can play as a female version of the mc and gutting the personalities of the cast in the process.

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>does the ability to only control yourself make the game harder

Not really. You'll get used to it really fast. You basically do have control over them, you can give them instructions like 'heal' or 'knock down enemies' or 'assign target', and they (usually) do what you would have done anyway

>inb4 marin karin

You can influence the actions of other party members (i.e. focus on healing, target enemy weakness, etc.). You can also force them to do a regular attack by abusing the auto battle. Just switch it on for their turn and switch it back off before yours. I abused the shit out of that to keep Mitsuru from being a dumbass.

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>relying on mitsuru as a healer
>not using the superior party member

You have all the information you need OP, if I was you I'd get out of here before you're spoiled

This. The only people who struggle are people who can't improvise. As well after a couple of months and some smart fusions MC becomes a one man wrecking crew so most standard battles will be over before the AI has a chance to fuck up.

I WON'T MISS

do FES if you only really plan on one playthrough so you can get the full experience

controlling your party is nice in P3P but the game isn't balanced for so it makes it a lot easier

Yukari is a bitch. Mitsuru is a stone cold hottie.

fucking Ikutsuki

This. Also it's more immersive since you're only controlling the protagonist so it would make sense that if he died it'd be Game Over.

MC, Aigis, Mitsuru, Akihiko is best party. Yukari is the best healer, but ultimately unnecessary.

FES is a straight up improvement in comparison to P4 golden which made very questionable decisions (fuck Marie).

The dungeons and shadows aren't nearly as interesting compared to p4 however; p4 is much more fleshed-out and unique in that regard. It is a bigger game though, bigger in the sense of story, setting, and importance. Gameplay is debatable, both games share and have different flaws (quests still suck, if not better than p4), and some of the bosses are just bullshit that require grinding on harder difficulties. It's a different game, but I don't consider it worse or better than persona 4.

I played only P2IS, P3 and P4 and P3 is my least favourite of them. It's too, idk, edgy on the endge of being cringy. P4 feels like something simple and I'm ok with that.

P3P is better, you'll like it even more if you enjoyed P4G that much.

Akihiko, Aigis, and Yukari is the best,
>buffs
>debuffs
>sick ass melee attacks
>best heals in the game

I think it's easy to get the party members to do what you want them to 90% of the time. Getting Yukari to do group heals instead of single heals seems to be a problem though.

100% agree. Some personas feel like they were almost made for specific bosses, like Narcissus for Intrepid Knight.

>started with 4

Of course.

You know what? Don't bother.

I would say 4 is a better place to start SMT than 3 because 3 is like the only game in the franchise where you don't have control of your party.

It makes the game better as the very core gameplay promotes one of the games central themes of individuality.

play FES

I don't agree, people build unrealistic expectations of the rest of Persona (and SMT as a whole) based on 4, since it's the only one they've played. And when they find out none of the other games are at all like that most just give up.

P4 is the FF7, or Resident Evil 4 of this series.

Why should I play P4G? Give me a good reason. I can get my hands on it for free, but I tried it once before and it was so fucking slow and boring.

Other than some dumbing down like only one physical type and removing some status effects it's much more in line with the rest of SMT than 3.

how far did you get the first time?

Her heals are unncessary though. Mitsuru can do fine single target heals, and has great damage output with her ice spells.

Not very far at all, I can't remember exactly where I got to. Definitely the intro still. That was the PS2 version by the way, I just got access to the Vita version now.

Could be it's just not for you.

You should try P3FES or P5 instead to see if the beginning and characters hook you more, then come back to P4 later.

The into is brutally long and it's going to be a bit before you get to any game.

>P3 is built like a visual novel
This isn't true and I hate that info pic that this idea originates from. They didn't add any descriptive text, the story and all the events are told as in FES but without the animations to tell you what the hell is going on.

I played P4G first and kept wondering why there were so damn many physical skills that basically did the same thing. Now when I'm playing P3 and they're divided into 3 different kinds it makes a lot more sense.

I don't want my healer blowing SP on damage spells when the rest of the party is fine at killing things.

lolwut? That's completely false, if anything it was even easier to use one persona for everything because skills weren't unique to some persona like in 4.

Yes the being able to control your party members is a huge deal, you can still beat the game without it but some characters (namely Mitsuru) will often waste their turns doing the most useless shit.

I think most of them were just an excuse to have more than one phys character.

>It changed things for the better so I hate it

Don't need much healing when she's blasting through everything with boosted Bufudynes.

>Chie gets Rainy Death at lvl 67
>she gets God's Hand at lvl 70
Fucking why Atlus?

If you aren't retarded and don't leave your entire party on "act freely" you won't have any issues.

If you could, would you have used him all game?

Aside from Mitsuru that is.

I think my best advice for you if you want to have a painless experience with the AI is to just not use her....90% of the "AI doing something useless" related issues you'll have are with her.

Reminder that mitsuru is still the best girl to come out of the persona series.

They got me good. I already knew he was going to die, but I thought it would be much later because he had so many skills to learn.

MOM'S NOT HERE GONNA FIGHT
(ALL NIGHT)

How could one make so many mistakes in one sentence.

She get's really good once she leaves her "Marin Karin" and "tenterafoo" phase. Then she just mindcharges and mabuyfudynes everything. It's similar to chie and her "Black spot" phase.

Tentarafoo is fucking great against anything that doesn't resist it at least. Charm is just useless for the most part.

Did we play the same game? Even at 99 the bitch would often go as far as mind charging THEN casting Tentarafoo. It was next level stupid and I didn't want to deal with it. Yukari never gave me the same issues

Chie is pretty good, but she isn't goddess levels like mitsuru.
Guess I just got lucky or something, but she has been consistently good for me over multiple playthroughs.

I liked P3 FES, but I'm fucking terrible at balancing my dungeon grinding with taking tests or whatever. I guess I never was good at highschool.

It's just you. I've never had problems with her going for status spells. She always just mind charges and starts nuking.

Persona isn't SMT, it's Megami Ibunroku Persona; a spin-off of the Megami Tensei franchise and sister to Shin Megami Tensei. Atlus changed it to SMT Persona in the West along with other MegaTen titles to sell more copies.

Gay history lesson aside.
>Playing Persona 4 and 3
OP, I get it. You want a stylish, fun, feel good JRPG. I'm going to tell you that Persona 3/4 applies to the lowest kind of RPG fan. It's barebones at its core and it's slice of life segments take away even more from what could have been a decent game.

Compared to their older installments, P3 and P4 actually removed more content than added.
>Removed inflicting charm as a status effect, a MegaTen staple
>Changed dungeon layouts to a random dungeon generator that doesn't change the feel of the area, just that you may have to backtrack for no reason
>Only the MC can change Personas. In 1 and both installments of 2 everyone could
>In addition to the last complaint; the Arcanas that the main characters had correlated with others, both restricting how effective your personas are and what role each person takes in combat
And finally
>The "plot twist" is that some unknown force was manipulating shit right up until the last month. It wasn't shocking and both final bosses of 3 and 4 were bland

And just look at this thread. You see the handful of anons waifuposting? This is a slow day. Most of the time you can't even discuss the mechanics of Persona here. Because waifuposting is all there is to salvage from such a lackluster JRPG.

Do yourself a favor and look at this list, play something besides these god awful games.

Yeah secret club rpgs amirite?

ok thanks ill check out nocturne DDS SJ DS 2 and IV

Great retort. You get a writer for Persona Q to post that for you?

Good luck user. You're in for a crazy ride.

M8 P3 and 4 are good games no one really cares if they are HARDCORE and REAL smt. They're fun. And half if not more of the games from your listed are either dated or just meh.

Neither of those games are SMT you fucking murrikan

I'm living overseas so I only have access to P3P on PPSSPP. Its my first Persona game, how fucked am I for starting with it?

I gave reasons and examples as to why I believe P3 and P4 are mediocre. Not once did I critcize it for the lack of difficulty, but for the effort they put into making it more steamlined by limiting what the player can do with Personas. I'm judging it for being a bad JRPG, not being a bad game.

Why not try p3FES on pcsx2?

I always find it puzzling when people shit on the gameplay in P3/P4 yet overlook what a huge improvement it was over P2 in that regard. You really have to go straight to the bottom of the JRPG barrel to find games with worse gameplay than P2. Even the elements borrowed from SMT, like fusion and demon negotiation, were somehow made completely unenjoyable in P2.

Also, charm still exists in P3. It's not even that uncommon of a status ailment, so I'm not sure how you overlooked it.

Computer is AIDS and can't run it. Though I may give it another go considering I haven't tried in like a year.

Visual Novel is an irredeemable mistake, no way P2 has worse gameplay

I almost beat P2EP. Went as far as some huge castle with portals. It was almost painful.

Did you even play p2? World exploration is nearly on the same level in both p2 and p3/4 but later also have that "visual novel" and social links stuff. P2 only had rumors and they were not great really. The only ggod thing about it was character sprites.

>Also, charm still exists in P3. It's not even that uncommon of a status ailment, so I'm not sure how you overlooked it
Appologies. I mean charm in P4 as a status on enemies was removed.

As for gameplay between both P2 and it's sequels, I don't see any reason for us to even argue about it. It's clear neither of us will agree on each other's opinion even if we bring up valid points on both sides.

Is Persona Q any good? What about the fighting games? I'm new to the series and have only played P3 and vanilla P4. My friend says to try Golden if I get the chance too.

I would say don't bother with golden unless you are into tsundere fetish fuel.

that's fair. what about all the other spin-offs?

Q has much better dungeons and puzzles than 3/4 and you can actually customize party members with wild card Personas. It's a good intro to Etrian Odyssey, only downside is characters aren't as detailed as 3/4.

Cool cool. I'll probably pick it up then. Are the Arena games good? I heard they're direct sequels plot-wise too.

Persona q is "okay" alot of the cast goes through alot of flanderization, but I won't say I didn't get a laugh out of the "destined partner" quiz.

Arena is again "ok" the gameplay itself is good but online is dead and the story is pretty shit.

Mitsuru was great, but I think Aigis was the best girl.

The only reason I never really liked aigis isn't even her design or her personality. It's the same problem liz has. Besides her s.link there are no other events with her involving the romance. Mitsuru may not have gotten an event during the summer like the rest of the girls (Atleast in fes) but she atleast had christmas. Aigis didn't even have that.

really makes ya think, even though the meme is irrelevant, namsayin? I mean I started the series with persona too but never made the mistake, you know, it ain't that confusin

I am so sad she didn't get a Christmas event. She did have a good amount things pointing to romance, but no events. She really doesn't realize till like the end of the game she is in love or what love is.

I don't think most of the people who get anal over people calling persona/other spinoffs SMT are 100% serious.

Well she was still getting repaired during christmas but that doesn't mean there couldn't have been another event to make up for it

She has no content in P3P either but the way they changed her route is amazing.
>spaghetti's over forbidden love and runs off
>still get to do lewd things with her

They did let you go with her and mitsuru to the festival as a male in p3p. Which was a great improvement over the "Raise hand but nobody notices you" we had in fes.

God her spilling spaghetti was so cute in P3P.

I wish there was a version of P3P that wasn't so cut down.

Yes! My skill level has increased!

Junpei had the best level up dialogue.

Too bad I benched his ass fast.

He only really got useful later in the game After his girl dies