How come Persona 4 has spinoffgames while Persona 3 doesn't? The thought struck me while watching the Persona 4 Dancing All Night QL. You could just leave it at "Persona 4 built upon Persona 3's cult hit status to become the more popular one", but I think that's selling P4 short. I think it's because it nailed the proper scope for a game featuring high school protagonists.

P3 focused on stopping a world-ending threat and its protagonists fit it well, with most of their problems & quirks stemming from it. The problem is, dealing with secret labs, giant corporations, and the end of the world is a far cry from the problems facing most high schoolers. P4 tossed out the usual world-ending plot for something closer to home: stop the strange murders plaguing your town. The Shadow antagonists were tied to your companions' repressed feelings, which revolved around seeking a purpose in life or worrying about others accepting them; issues everyone worried about at that age. Rather than the typical save-the-world plot, the game focused on a coming-of-age story about accepting hard & bitter truths to turn into a better person. (This also allowed for much more characterization of the P4 Investigation Team than the P3 protagonists, which made them more endearing.)

I suspect Persona 5 is the team's attempt to make a Persona game in the big city (like P3) with more down-to-earth plot & characterization (like P4). Between the prison motif & "stealing people's desires" theme, I think it will focus on the desires that crop up during adolescence (excitement, purpose, respect, sex) and how they cause trouble for people who don't learn to control them. This could not only be a symbol of growing from adolescence to adulthood, but Buddhist ideals as well, tying the personal conflicts with larger ideals & struggles.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Reason why Chie, Rise, Yukiko, Yosuke and especially for me: Kanji, is so relatable is that we've all been where they are. I had the same struggles as Yosuke, Yukiko, and Chie, and I've definetly have had some of the doubts that Kanji is plagued with.

So yeah, I hope Perona 5 manages to mix up what worked in both games and makes a beary interesting game. (screw you Austin, I use Intersting when I want to ;)

I think more practically it's just 4 is the later game and the series picked up a lot of steam going into 4 and then after it taht would warrant spin offs.

You touch on this, but I also think 4 is less dark overall. Certainly 4 has its dark moments, but I think there's a sillyness and youthful fun past anything in 3. That all of course lends itself to spin offs which tend to have to get whacky to justify themselves.

Persona 4 has spin-off games where Persona 3 doesn't because Persona 4 is the more popular game. If their positions were reversed and Persona 3 was the one that exploded in popularity, then it would be the one with all the wacky spin-offs regardless of whether it fits the original game's tone. And you can bet your ass they'd find a way to get the sorta-kinda-dead P3 protagonist in there, too. Most of Persona 3's cast made their way into Persona 4's spin-offs anyway, although for some reason the whole Persona 3 crew seems to be missing from the dancing game.

Atlus has always been kind of a niche company. I mean, I'm pretty sure they were never just barely scraping by, but when a company like that gets a success like Persona 4, they've practically struck gold and they're going to get as much as they can out of it. Hell, if Digital Devil Saga had been "that game", we probably would have gotten dancing spin-offs of it.

@artisanbreads: I would argue P4 isn't less dark, especially once you get near the end concerning Nanako's kidnapping and near-death and Adachi's murders, rape attempts, and nihilist outlook. Sure, it's not on the scale of "corrupt company" or "end of the world", but I'd say the smaller scale makes it more disturbing.

Instead, I'd say P3 is more... sterile. Professional. In P3 you feel like a SEES member disguised as a high school student. In P4 you feel like an actual high school student dragged into this supernatural shit.

Let me put it this way: how many of your P3 teammates had motivations that weren't tied into the Shadow World or SEES at all?

@mikelemmer: I agree there are dark moments to 4 but yeah the story isn't as dominated by them so overall yeah I would say it's less dark. The world ending graveness of 3 (and hell you shoot yourself in the head on command) just feel way darker throughout. The ending is very tragic too.

I agree with your points though about 4 feeling like you're a high school student where 3 feels like your kind of just undercover as a student or something. I just think the overall tone of 3 is just darker so the game is. Some of the social links feel tragic in a way that 4's don't. 4 feels more variable, which is a good thing and what makes it so fun. I think that does make the dark moments a bit more disturbing but I also think because the tone is lighter even some of that is just put aside by the game.

I really like fiction with varying tone (dark comedy and that kind of thing) so I really like what 4 does but I would not say it's as dark as 3. I think the tone adds a nuance that makes it less "sterile" as you say which is for the best. 3 FES is a great game but yeah I think 4 was an improvement in these areas.

You ask why P4 has spin-offs while P3 doesn't and then link to Persona Q which features the casts of both games...

The P3 cast is also in the Arena games so even there as well.

The only spin-off not to feature the P3 cast is Dancing All Night so I'm not sure where this idea that P3 is ignored comes from.

@blannir:Because even in the crossovers the P3 team stars in, the crossover itself feels "rooted" in the P4 environment. Arena took place in the TV World, for instance, not Tartarus Tower. And even Persona Q, which had the 2 teams more evenly represented, felt rooted in P4's school fair.

@artisanbreads: The problem is P3's darkness was predictable and cliche. You got used to it too quickly, and the story beats were often predictable or at least not that surprising. Corrupt executive trying to end world? Plenty of those. Heroic sacrifice? Dreary, but happens often enough. P4 gut-punched you. The copycat killer, Nanako's near-death, and Adachi's rant all hit closer to home because they showed the ugliness & horror that can occur in mundane everyday life. Fighting despair at the end of the world is epic but detached, while watching your best friends break down sobbing because your little sister just flatlined despite your best efforts to save her is utterly heart-wrenching.

Seriously, look me in the eye and tell me anything in P3 made you want to put down the controller more than watching Nanako die and your friends wanting to revenge-kill Namatame out of anguish. Or that you were more motivated to save the world in P3 than you were to hunt down Adachi after he admitted his crimes and mocked your efforts in P4.

@mikelemmer: I said it was an improvement in my post. I just don't think it's darker. Its varying tone, better motivations, and higher drama are all improvements over 3 and all help the story feel more unpredictable (also helps that they went out intending to make a mystery with 4). I also think the characters are just better than they were in 3 and easier to care about. 3 for example also tried to do the big moment of loss and death (Shinjiro) but I think it just wasn't as effective because I didn't care about the character in the same way (obviously Nanako is very easy to care about). And yeah a character wasn't dying in the midst of my fun, kid moments as much because the world was pretty much dark throughout. Many of the kids acted like adults and were so focused on the mission that dark moments couldn't contrast as much.

Given the ending of Persona 3, doesn't Tartarus not even exist anymore?

I don't know, man, that remix of Burn My Dread that plays during the final encounter gets me pretty goddamn motivated.

EDIT: OK, OK, seriously - I liked Persona 3's story and characters a lot. Did Persona 4 have a better grasp on characterization and pacing out its story over a hundred hours? Yes, it most certainly did. But I think Persona 3's story has a whole lot going for it, I think back on it pretty fondly. It's no less cliche than Persona 4's.

I get the sense that you're maybe projecting your preference for Persona 4 a bit? I'll admit that Persona 4 is the better game. But Persona 3 was the one whose plot, themes, and ideas drew me in more, not to mention that I still liked its characters just as much as I liked P4's. Just because there were some very sad and emotional events towards the end of Persona 4 doesn't mean I suddenly thought of it as the better story or whatever (also, let's note, Nanako doesn't stay dead for long).

@oscar__explosion: They could have retconned it back if they wanted to, but I'm guessing they didn't because the TV World had more personality as a "distorted mirror of people's wishes/desires" than Tartaurus's "random dark tower motif".

@believer258: Granted, but that's 3-5 minutes of a musical cue rather than an in-game month of plot motivation. And P4's True Boss theme is nothing to sneeze at either.

I agree. I edited my post and wrote more.

Also, the atmosphere at the end of Persona 3 just feels desperate and depressed. It's like, they all know what's going to happen and they know there's nothing they can do about it, so they just try to push through everyday as best they can. Not to get particularly personal, but I played that game at a time when I was feeling pretty hopeless about everything and didn't know what the fuck I was supposed to do, and the only other thing that's ever captured that sort of atmosphere as perfectly as the last bits of Persona 3 is the album "Damnation" by Opeth. The difference was that I could actually push through the game and finish it, which I did and I loved it. I really, really wanted to see what was going to happen next in Persona 3.

P4 might be the better game, but I can't say that I personally like either game more than the other. I loved both games, they're some of my favorites.

EDIT: Also, this is getting kind of off-topic, although it's worth noting that you did entitle this thread "Persona 3 vs Persona 4" so maybe it really isn't? Anyway, I could write more on how I feel about both games, but there you go.

@mikelemmer:You bring up Nanako almost dieing, keyword being almost and then completely leave out Mitsuru's dad being killed by Ikutsuki a man they all trusted, Chidori giving her life to save Junpei, Shinji taking a bullet for Ken to make amends for the death of his mother, and oh yeah even when you win you die because it's the only way to save your friends.

The ending of P3 when you're on the roof lying with Aigis waiting for your friends to remember the promise you made as your life slowly fades hit me way harder than anything in P4.

Even though I do prefer 4, and think more of its emotional moments have impact, this was the case for me too. The ending was really tragic. The way Aigis deals with the whole thing really got to me

Can't lie I teared up a bit.

Yeah I totally had this same experience with the game. Played it a down point in my life post school when things weren't looking great and I felt directionless and all that really resonated.

I also like that Opeth album!

Ultimax had basically the entire P3 cast with a "seperate" story for those characters, took place in P3/P3 inspired locations half the time, and the secret antagonist who is the cause of everything is a P3 character. Also, that game's writing felt way more in line with P3's style, as in the characters taking a back seat to the plot, which was all about world destruction stuff again.

Obviously they're gonna put the Persona 4 name on this stuff because it's more popular, but it felt like after Arena came out they wanted to keep pushing the P3 stuff into those spinoffs too. Also worth noting that P3 had some anime movies made recently, as well as a surge of new merchandise, so it isn't like they aren't cashing in on the P3 name either.

I agree that is one of the reasons why Persona 4 is a better game. Two more subtle things I would say is:

1) Persona 4 is funnier. Part of this goes into how Persona 3 is more self serious, it involves the shady past of a giant corporation, etc. But just selling the game to people, humor goes a long way.

2) Persona 4 is more colorful. Everyone has a unique look, everything is brighter. It just feels "warmer". Incidentally, from some stuff I've seen of the Persona 3 movies, they are delivering on that style more. It feels a little better realized and just looks better when you compare what they could do artistically on a PS2.

Also...it's a little more difficult to have spin-offs when your main character dies!!

That said, I think Persona 3 is still an incredible game. The hooks of being a high school student are better and more interesting in P4 than P3, but I still love that stuff. Also, Persona 4's final conflict stems from solving the mystery, but also fighting more secret antagonists. Not to say this is a negative, but that's kind of what the last act of that game is. "It's Namatame! No, Adachi! Wait, also Ameno-Sagiri! But also--" Persona 3 on the other hand, the final conflict is tied more into the personal struggles of the characters. Ken and Adachi coming to grips with Shinji. Yukari, Junpei, and Mitsuru all dealing with deaths. The first time I played through the game, I'm not sure if this sense of dread or how all of their struggles individually connected together to paint a picture of their world really hit home with me, but I got a better sense of that when I played through P3P recently. On top of all that, fighting Nyx is still awesome and the Protagonist's death is still packs a punch, which P4 doesn't have. So yeah, with the reasons the OP mentions, along with some other pros, makes Persona 4 a better game. When I talk to people about P3 and P4, I say Persona 4 is the better game, but Persona 3 is still excellent, and has a more interesting ending and climax than P4 has.