I hate to admit it...but the combat and game mechanics are just too much for me to enjoy what is probably an amazing story in these games. I feel terrible but the whole balancing talking to demon's and fighting demon's just doesn't make much sense to me and getting tarrot cards to summon new personas but you need a certain amount but the dialogue is weird and damn repetitive and anyone can use any persona so should I switch personas often or keep everyone's the same and there's ranked levels and actual levels and on and on and on and on. I'm a terrible person but I have enough things to be stressed about in my life with school, work, wife and a child, I really don't need a video game constantly on my mind because I don't understand everything within 6 hours of playing it.

ANYWAYS...

I have yet to find good plot summaries that go into great detail on what happened in the game (actual the wikipedia entry for Persona 1 is alright but doesn't make a whole lotta sense). Usually the ones I've found are super quick synopsis of you have personas, joker kills, you have no memory of past, joker is this dude on your team now, Hitler and alternate dimension. Huh? Oh and murder mystery now and JOKER is "back" and main from I.S. remembers everything and....that's all I kinda know of Eternal Punishment. So does anyone know of any good summaries or videos or has a good memory of what actually happened in the games because I've had no luck finding anything.

I don't remember much from IS. It's a very complex narrative. It's actually kind of fitting that I don't remember much because in the end all the characters agree to wipe their memory to save the world. I haven't played Eternal Punishment but I assume Maya gets turned into a shadow as some sort of eternal punishment, since Maya is a variety of shadow in P3.

The big things I can remember from IS are that rumours are coming true (this is probably why Rumour Loving Student is in so many games). Joker starts a rumour that you guys are villains or something like that. Turns out you guys are villains. You were all childhood friends and you locked Maya in a temple and burned it down. As children you all wore masks when playing, so you are actually the masked circle. And then space Hitler, something, something, something, then your memory gets wiped to save the world.

I have never played Persona 1 or 2 either, but this is how I understand it; the only things that relate Persona 1 and 2 to Persona 3 and 4 as I understand it are as follows:

Igor's boss, Philemon, who when not appearing in person takes the form of a blue butterfly (save points in P3 and P4), has this bet going with a gent known as Nyarlathotep. Philemon believes that humanity will ultimately embrace its good nature and Nyarlathotep believes that humanity will ultimately embrace its evil nature.

The first 2 persona games depict Nyarlathotep's attempts to actively drive humanity towards death and destruction, while Philemon passively intervenes using groups of persona-wielding protagonists. After Persona 2, it seems that they've successfully banished Nyarlathotep from trying to corrupt humanity.

Jump forward to the events at the end of Persona 4 Arena where it is speculated that the unknown scheme-plotting antagonist is none other than a returning Nyarlathotep, which means that he may be the ultimate Persona 5 antagonist, prompting Philemon to return to lend a hand to humanity (and not forgetting that Igor's Japanese voice actor has died and Japan are very serious about changing characters rather than having someone else voice a character).

This may combine this generation of persona users from 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5...? Which would reunite two powerful entities as Mitsuru Kirijo (of Persona 3)'s family company, the Kirijo Group, was once part of the bigger/equally large group of which one of the Persona 1/2 protagonists are a family member of.

Please correct me where necessary.

let me be honest with you. For IS, you absolutely do not need to talk to demons to get cards at all. The persona you get from the story (which should be 3) are enough to get you through the game. The same is mostly true in EP.

and don't play Persona 1 that game is bad.

Lies.

I'm in the same boat as you friend, Love P3:FES, and P4, but even as someone who loves JRPGs I feel the same as you about the combat and game mechanics. The characters, especially in the P2 duology seem pretty interesting. I hear nothing but love for the P2 duology story, too bad the game itself isn't that fun.

So before I go into spoiler territory (which will take time to write) let me just layout the general Persona timeline

P1 -> P2:IS -> The entire world is destroyed. Everybody except Tatsuya (P2's MC) is killed. Another universe is created. -> A version of P1 happens -> P2:EP -> Tatsuya's Side story from the PSP release of EP -> P3 - P4

@animasta: I won't say it is a bad game, I enjoyed the story elements that I caught in the first few hours but it is a bad playing game, I will say that.

EDIT: And you get Personas automatically in 2?

yep. In IS, you get your starters, you get the opportunity to get an evolution of each of them, and then you can get a new persona for each.

@animasta: That is really nice to know and is kinda convincing me to continue playing 2. I'm just on easy and wasn't having a hard time, just didn't want to deal with the talking to demons and tarots card shit.

I had to put down P2 IS, just could not finish it. stopped around the mountain.

@bocam: If you are willing to write about the games I would love to read it, unless you are still writing currently then I apologize and continue on your way.

It's kind of complex, particularly since P2 is split into two separate games and P1 actually has multiple storylines (one of which isn't canon, as far as I know, but was definitely an inspiration for Persona 3).

@hailinel: Probably why it has been so hard to find summaries about the games, so much happens and so much goes on in these games.