Re: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Series
Okay. I'm going to do my own pros and cons of both P3 and P4. So hurr we go.
Persona 3: FES pros
1. Darker story than P4. Anything that has a dark story is bound to be awesome.
2. Greek Mythology plays a huge part in the P3 story and I love Greek Mythology.
3. Soundtrack is far better in P3 than P4. Example:
Battle For Everyone's souls implemented the singing from The Velvet Room and that right there just makes the song 100000000x better. And the P3 soundtrack as a whole is just better than P4's. P4's is good, don't get me wrong, but P3's is better.
4. Characters are more realistic. Shira brought up how the characters in P3 are way too mature for their age. I believe the reason for this is that when you're tossed into a scenario like they are, you're bound to be more mature about it than goofing off like the IT does in P4. Some characters also don't get along in P3 which is another thing Shira brought up but it adds to the more realistic feature as well. If you're tossed into a group of people, you're bound to not get along with all of them 100% of the time. You're going to have a problem with a few of them. So this factors into the realism of P3.
5. The social links are more interesting in P3 than P4. The Sun S.Link in P3 makes every social link in P4 look lame besides Death in P4. P3's social links are more interesting as a whole than P4's.
6. Not as many traits to level up. You have to level up 3. Charm, Knowledge and Courage. While in P4 you have to level up I believe 5? Way too many. There was no need for Understanding or Diligence. For real. No need. If you needed to get to a certain ranking in Nanako's or Dojima's social link, it should have just been for Charm or Courage. Not Understanding. There's just way too many things to level up while P3 has just 3. The perfect amount.
7. The over all theme and tone and meaning in P3 is better than P4's. Massive spoilers before for P3. Do not open unless you have played the game and beaten it.
Which brings me to...
8. The ending is so much better in P3 than P4. My god. The ending to P3 is sad, beautiful, depressing and over all heartfelt. It's how a game SHOULD end. It's a kick straight to the feels. It just tugs on your damn heart. I haven't cried because of a game since I first played MGS1 when Gray Fox died when I was 7.
9. EVERYTHING CARRIES OVER IN A NEW GAME+! Your level, your stats, your Persona's, your items. EVERYTHING. In P4G, you only carry over your Personas and your stats. That's it. No items and you start off back at level 1.
Persona 3 cons
1. Can't control party members. While they fixed that in P3P, P3P as a whole isn't that great because they don't use the animated cut scenes.
2. Minako isn't canon. Never has been, never will be.
3. Maxing all social links in one playthrough is fvcking HARD. It requires a very very very strict schedule. P4's is strict, but not as much as P3's. Every single day in P3 counts. While in P4 if you mess up, you still have some room to fix the error. In P3, 1 error and you just fvcked yourself out of maxing all of them.
4. Getting tired or sick sucks. However it basically doesn't even exist about mid story unless you're in Tartarus for a good 2 hours lol.
Persona 4 pros
1. The colorfulness of the game brings a better vibe than P3.
2. Controlling your party is great for fast battles and you don't have to worry about them making a mistake besides missing.
3. The game is funnier than P3. The funniest thing in P3 is Operation Babe Hunt at Fukushima while the Beach trip in P4G is just fvcking hilarious.
4. The characters are more accessible than P3's.
Persona 4 cons
1. Not as many twists and turns in the story.
2. The story lacks big time compared to P3.
3. It's hard as fvck to get a PLAYER ADVANTAGE in vanilla. While in P4G the game is just WAY TOO EASY. P4 Vanilla was difficult at times but P4G was just way too easy. It's like they couldn't find a middle ground like P3 did. P3 had it's difficulty spikes but that's fine because it adds for a challenge. P4 just can't find a middle ground. P4G's hard difficulty is equivilant to P3's easy. No joke (I'm also talking about The Journey. Not The Answer).
4. Money in P4 vanilla is hard to get. I was nearly broke 100% of the time in P4 because I always had to buy health items and such.
5. The dungeons feel too big in P4 while in P3's the floors aren't as big.
6. SP items are a very big problem. In P3, I could get lucky with a chest and get a SP item that will give me quite a bit, while in P4, I had to rely on soda for only a shitty 10SP boost.
7. The final boss in P4 just doesn't feel as epic as P3's does.
Persona 3 AND
Persona 4 pros.
1. Great story over all with an actual meaning behind them. Along with a tone and theme of the games.
2. Great characters overall. To party members, to NPC's to Minato and Yu. (Though I highly prefer Minato to Yu) You're bound to relate to at the very least 1 character in each game.
3. Persona's have kick ass designs. Izanagi and Orpheus look kick ass and Izanagi-no-Okami and Messiah are just fvcking bad ass
4. The bad guys in both P3 and P4 are perfect. You hate that you like them and the bigger antagonists are that much cooler.
5. The soundtracks for all 4 games (P3:FES, P3P, P4, P4G) are great. Great music all around and perfect for studying.
5-1. Doesn't really count but the P4 anime was great and the P3 movie #1 looks fantastic!
6. Both are far superior than P1. Seriously. Fvck P1.
Persona 3 and
Persona 4 cons
1. Both are repetitive as fvck. You do the same shit for a full year. P3: Go to Tartarus, get to the check point, wait till full moon, fight boss, repeat
Persona 4: Person gets kidnapped, go inside TV, save them before next rainy day, fight boss, repeat
2. Neither can really find a middle ground for difficulty. P3:FES' The Answer is fvcking hard while P4G is just way too god damn easy.
3. Both games' story pacing are just awful at times. You have to wait once a month for something big to happen in P3 and P4 there are some months were they make no progress on the investigation at all. Seriously. You think they're going in the right direction and they're getting FURTHER from the truth.
4. In Persona 3: FES you can't do social links with the male cast of SEES while in P4 you can't play as a girl like you could in P3P. While Minako isn't canon whatsoever, it's nice that they added that option for female players who want to play as a girl instead of being forced to play as Minato. In fact, actually you could be gay in P4 by dating Yosuke or Kanji but they took the option out. There's voice recordings of Yosuke confessing his love for you, but I don't have the link. But I've heard it first hand.
