@siln said:

Well you definitely convinced me to play it now! Thanks.

There are things I like and dislike about both. I think P4 has the better presentation and felt like it had a bigger budget behind it. But P3 was the more challenging game with more systems to keep track of. And I think I prefer the story and a few of the characters in P3 over P4.

Persona 4, in my opinion, got the story straight. Persona 3 tried to be based on reality (the non-dungeoning part of it), but bothered me with the overall dark tone. Don't get me wrong, I still love it to death. But P4 got the fact that the characters are kids and, therefore, are cheerful and just have problems growing up.

Battlewise, they are pretty much the same. It's a shame that P3's mechanic of letting teammates walk through the dungeon alone got cut...

Man, this is a tough question...

I think I like Persona 3 more, even though P4 is (much) better gameplay wise. The story is better than that of P4, the music is great, and I just love the dark tone of the game. P4 got the social links right though, and by giving your party members social links it gave you the oppurtunity to really get to know them better.

But I think they are both classic games in the end.

kinda hard since i liked them both

but its probably P4 am currently replaying it right now.

one thing is i kinda liked how you change dungeons every time you rescue someone, and you can go back to the top floor again to fight some shadow and get a somewhat good item on top , i also had a harder time maxing out every s.link in p4 rather than p3 in p4 i had to do some internet research to know where/how i can start it. also the quests are from random npc's and it doesn't limit you from taking only 3 quests at a time the battles was a little harder in this one, i had problems in some areas. the tired thing was just a pain in persona 3 , but i kinda miss it on persona 4, so i don't have the decision to just go back again tomorrow. it kinda beats the whole point of having a paid SP healer in the TV if you can just go back again tomorrow.

Why did you bump this?

I like the gameplay and mechanics of P4 better, but ultimately I enjoy P3 better. These games largely depend on quality writing and Persona 3 has a tighter, more interesting, and better paced storyline and repeats itself far, far less. Sometimes Persona 4 winds up being an exercise in patience with the way it repeats what the audience already knows.

Not even close.

The writing, characters, and pacing in 3 are very poor.

I just finished Persona 3 FES, well the journey at least. Still have to finish the answer, which looks promising. I was very moved by the ending and the characters grew on me after awhile, even though I had to roll my eyes when a couple of stupid characters were introduced into the party (oh great, a dog has a persona now?)

It's sad to see how some people in this old ass thread have to shit on one game to help glorify the other, they are both amazing, funny and charming games.

My vote still goes to Persona 4 though, for being a more balanced and stream lined game. I felt like I maxed out my social traits way too fast in 3. Overall the story is probably better in 4, even though I think the ending is far more powerful and touching in 3. I think the none party social links are probably also overall slightly more fleshed out in 3, at least more of em don't come across nearly as cliche. Also the Aigis and the main character relationship is far more powerful than any love interest in 4, sorry Chie! Which is probably why the ending is so impactful to me.

I should probably thank Vinny and Jeff, if it weren't for them I would probably never have played 4, and definitely not 3, which is an old game by now. But I am glad I did, these are not the type of games I would normally lean towards, I am more of a western RPG guy, but yeah, well worth playing 3, if you haven't yet.

Also the music in 3 is legitimately dope at times.

FemP3 is the best Persona game.

Persona 4.

Persona 3 had too many cliches (Yukari the typical high school girl, Junpei the pervy comedy relief, Mitsuru the perfectionist). The story was cliche as well. At least in Persona 4 the characters felt a bit less cliche, and thus more relatable.

Also while Persona 3 had some good social links, it suffered from some incredibly basic, boring ones as well (such as the Bookstore)

That said, that's just my take of the Male version of The Journey. The Answer and the female route both had improvments (character development-wise, fleshing out the characters as more then stereotypes).

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@tothenines:

3 was edgy as fuck and felt grimdark. 4 was a Scooby Doo adventure.

I'll take the cliché characters of 3 over the insanely over the top anime characters of 4 every time. Them cast of 3 being so grounded made them far more relate able than 4 (to me at least.) "I'm a guy struggling with sexuality but there's this boy I like but oh wait it turns out he's a girl pretending to be a boy!" & "I'm a magical teddy bear that turns into the most beautiful Arian boy you'll ever see!" never quite gelled with me personally. To be fair, I'm generalising the character's whole motives but no more so than you with the examples you gave.

Woah. The bookstore couple was a no nonsense story of dealing the loss of your child. It wasn't the flashiest but it had one of the better moral tales to it.

Yep, I still agree with me, Persona 3 FES is still my preferred Persona game. Though, I have been playing Persona 4 Golden and they seem to have removed some of the "let's recap the entire fucking last five minutes and the whole plot even though the audience didn't ask you to!" Still, Persona 4's plot follows the same cycle for most of the game's length. P4's characters, mechanics, and ideas are quite interesting and often great but the story doesn't go much of anywhere until the end, and then what you get at the end is an unsatisfying mess of plot holes and motivations that are a bit of a stretch. Persona 3's story takes its time, sure, but the whole last half has a lot of story development and it wraps up quite nicely.

Let's be absolutely clear here: Both P3FES and P4 are some of the best games released on the PS2. Considering that the PS2 ties with the SNES for "best console of all time", that's some incredibly high praise.

I feel the character development and overall cinematic experience is better done in Persona 4. However, I feel that the thematic elements and soundtrack are better executed in Persona 3. I still have to go with my gut and pick the first game I played in the series, which was Persona 4. Both are A+, fantastic titles nonetheless.

You do know that The TV World isn't any different than Tartarus right? In my opinion though, Persona 4 doesn't give me enough time with all of it's bullshit events that force me to attend to and doesn't allow me to work on my social links. Persona 4's character's are fun but to me they are too boring when compared to Persona 3's. Basically I like everything better in Persona 3. The weapons had more purpose in 3 with their different effects unlike Persona 4 where the items do the same thing all the time. Not saying Persona 4 is a bad game, in fact it's not at all near as a bad game. But I just like Persona 3 more.

Playing Persona 3 made me appreciate everything about Persona 4 much, much more. I can't think of a way that 4 isn't an improvement, aside from being able to change weapon types- which is something that you lost in P3P anyways.

I think Persona 3 handles things better instead of Persona 4. But that's my opinion.

Locked; necro.