Should I play 3, 4, and 5 in order?

[Slut Pop San Diego]

I want to play on my switch, but I’m not sure if I should start with 3 or skip to 4 or even 5…. Thanks!

[leon.deeb]

You can play the games in whatever order you'd like since none of the games stories have anything to do with eachother. Though in persona 5 there are a few cameos of persona 4 characters.

[Helnano]

If you want to play all three games then I would recommend to do it in order.
The stories are not related except for some cameos here and there, but playing P5R first and then going back to P3P can be hard because of all the QoL improvements made over the years

[Shinigami Miroku]

Yeah, I definitely think playing them in release order is the best idea, primarily for the QoL improvements. Each game should be enjoyed for what it offers, not disparaged for what it's missing from later titles.

[Mich-666]

There is P1 and P2 too, although not on Steam. Can be played on PSP though.

Every entry has independent story, but the series shares some characters like Igor who is there from the first installment.

[miakisfan]

Do yourself a favor and Play the FES version of Persona 3 unless you like the idea of playing either sex. Not controlling your teammates is far less an issue than some have made it. I played through it multiple times and never had that issue.

I'd also suggest playing though them all but I highly doubt many have managed to own all the original games from the series except the one not released in the U.S. until far later like I did. Still can't believe I found a copy of Eternal Sin still wrapped in its original plastic. I also bought the finally localized Pt. 1 of Persona 2 btw when it released.

Be prepared to lose 100s if not at least 1000 hours of your life playing all these. I somehow always manage to turn a 40 hour game into an easily over 100 hour game.

[Endora]

You aren't loosing any time if you're having fun :)

[Arifufu]

if u wanna appreciate the gameplay yes u need to play in order. Persona has 2 sides, it's Retro Persona and Modern Persona. Retro Persona consist Persona Revelations, Persona 2 Innocent Sins, and Persona 2 Eternal Punishment (Total 3 persona games) then modern persona consist: Persona 3 FES / Portable (choose one, but if u wanna meet FeMC go with Portable), Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal (total 3 games, except if u wanna go with FES first then 4 games), anyway i only mention their definitive edition.

if u wanna seek story only u can play in any order, but trust me once u play P5R first u won't enjoy gameplay of previous persona especially Persona 3 Portable because this game has too many mechanics limitation.

In my experience i played from Persona 4 original from PS2, then Persona 4 Golden from Steam then now Persona 5 Royal also from Steam (yeah i skipped Persona 5 Original), so i have no interest to play Persona 3 Portable nor Persona 3 FES, i already got spoiled mechanics both from Golden and Royal. For Persona 3 story i already watched Persona 3 the movie, it's cool but still i have no insterest to play P3P/P3FES, i better off wait Persona 6.

[Kofmel]

it doesn't matter just pick whichever looks the most fun to you

[Drakzen]

They all have a stand alone story so you can start with any and not spoil the others for the most part.

Obviously from a game play perspective it would be better starting from 1 - 5 since the games improved various things (Earlier games don't have social links though or not as many so you don't have that pressure of trying to max them all out though).

[Slut Pop San Diego]

I think I will play them all in order so I don't miss any QoL like everyone has mentioned. Thanks everyone!

[GarrusGotReach]

I would definitely not start with 3. If you do, you'll probably end up getting turned off by the series. It's a pretty dated game, and I think you'd only follow through and play the whole thing after falling in love with Persona 4 or 5. I'd personally start with 5

[Slut Pop San Diego]

So many things to think abouttttttttttttt

[Icedfate]

persona 3 FES took me almost 300 hours to play through, the journey and the answer.
people said journey is 70. it took me 230ish.
but that was using a max social links guide so i played it much slower following the guide and making the optimal choices and i also spent an inordinate amount of time messing with persona fusions. in FES, there are no skill cards, so the only way to pass down the skills you want is to press X to get to the fusion screen and see what is getting passed on and then O to cancel and then going in again until it passes down what you want and it seems like often the game actively tries to prevent you from getting what you want, because higher tier skills have a lower chance of getting passed down. i have spent over an hour on some personas just to get the skills i wanted. XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO. . .lol. and since you can't reorganize their positions , it was often XUUOXUUOXUUOXUUOXUUOXUUOXUUO. imagine doing that for an hour.

people also and they also say "The Answer" (a stand alone side story : epilogue" is 30 hiurs and it took me 60.


as for what order to play them in, i agree with someone above that if you play the later games in the series, you might not like the earlier ones, because of the QoL or lack thereof.

persona 3 FES was my introduction and normally, i don't go for visual novels, but now i want to see these stories. .i just don't want the denuvo along with it.
i did play persona 1 back in the early days and i hever finished it.

good thing i still have the ps2 versions, of which obviously P5 was not on ps2 so i'll have to figure that one out later

[Shinigami Miroku]

Originally posted by Icedfate:

in FES, there are no skill cards, so the only way to pass down the skills you want is to press X to get to the fusion screen and see what is getting passed on and then O to cancel and then going in again until it passes down what you want and it seems like often the game actively tries to prevent you from getting what you want, because higher tier skills have a lower chance of getting passed down. i have spent over an hour on some personas just to get the skills i wanted. XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO. . .lol. and since you can't reorganize their positions , it was often XUUOXUUOXUUOXUUOXUUOXUUOXUUO. imagine doing that for an hour.

This is probably the one thing I *DON'T* miss from P3 and vanilla P4... spend HOURS filtering out 'useless' skills like Patra and whatnot just so they don't get in the way of future fusions. x_x