Persona 3 or Persona 4?

[huening]

I'm saving up money to buy either of these games, which one should i buy?

[Shinigami Miroku]

Putting my own bias aside, it seems that P3P is rather undesirable by the Steam fanbase (I'm fine with it, but eh...), so it's probably best to just get P4.

[XenoEvil]

Persona 4 without question. P3P is a pretty bad port on top of not being the ideal version of P3.

[Arifufu]

do u wanna have a fair persona game? Take Persona 3 Portable, because it doesn't have broken skill that player can spam every turn, yes Portable has a great almighty damage endgame but it's item which has limit, also P3P doesn't offer manual skill inheritance by default (except u mods it)

do u like to make your own persona build at ease? Make it broken as far as u can? then the answer is Persona 4 Golden, make every persona as u wish, make it physical? full magic? full buff? full ailments? full debuff? amp + boost in a single persona? you can! Playing critical chance? Everything in a single game, third semester? epilogue? everything in Golden, customize your party member skills at ease also!

[myronik]

Persona 4 while also has its technical flaws, is a better game.
P3P is just a lazy port with automated AI upscaled backgrounds that no one bothered to review before game release, with horrible audio compression and other issues.
It also has this typical Atlus treatment where game is released and support is abandoned - 3 months passed and no patch was released.

By the way OP, all these Persona games AND Persona 5 Royal are available on PC in Gamepass. Just play them there and wait for 75-80% discount in Steam for the next time you want to play them. Don't support lazy ports selling at full price.

[Zero]

4

[DaBa]

I'd say play both eventually. But if you have to choose, it depends on what you're looking for:

P3 I'd say has a more interesting story with higher stakes, more serious undertones and has less "teenage drama" kind of feel to it. I personally remember P3 characters more as well, but that's entirely personal preference. Also I think P3 broaches and discusses much more interesting subjects and has an overall stronger message it tries to convey to the player, in that I think it's the best one in the entire series.

P4 is an improvement over P3 is everything related to visuals and mechanics, so it is an objectively better game on a technical and mechanical level. However, the story is much lighter and personal, stakes don't really feel that high and there is very little world building here. The setting and story are basically just a background for the characters, their development and individual storylines, and your gameplay. P4 is a heavily character focused game, where each of them has plenty of attention and development put into them, and that's where this game shines over P3. Don't expect a gripping storyline with high stakes, expect a teenage drama with compelling, well made and memorable characters.

[Consul]

If you have a playstation 2 I would just buy persona 3 FES for it. It's one of those games that was overproduced during that systems life to the point you can still find sealed copies at very reasonable prices. That being said as far as steam releases go I would just go for 4.

[Vengyr]

I've recently finished P4 and just started P3 FES via emulator. It's a much better way to play the game than Portable. Gameplay-wise (dungeon crawling) it's kinda tedious, but with mods for party control, being able to speed up the game and save anywhere (thanks to the emulator) it's manageable. So I recommend this way for P3, don't support the bad port with your money.

[YVNGHov]

Buy Persona 4 Golden whenever you can and emulate FES with the controllable party mod

[Exarch_Alpha]

Persona 4 no doubt.

P3 has primitive gameplay compared to the later entries. Tartarus is ASS

[IE800S]

persona 4 golden, pretty slick ♥♥♥♥ imo

There will be a steam winter sale this year end which will get this baby down to -30%, wishlist it and it will not disappoint you.

I mean, I can't believe i slept on this game for so long in favour of Apex ;')

[qazimod]

It's a very subjective thing, but I'd go for 4. Even if P3P didn't have all of its cut corners (sound quality, visual novel presentation, cursor-kun) I'd probably still pick P4 Golden - it's missing the darker vibe of 3 but it has more interesting dungeon-crawling (themed mini-dungeons tied to character development, as opposed to P3's Tartarus grind which is occasionally broken up by full-moon dungeons that are completed in one in-game day) and doubles down on character development with the shadow archetypes of characters (something that P2 went hard on but P3 wasn't too bothered about.)

[The Loli Otaku]

Persona 4 is better on Steam. 3 is my favourite of the two but Portable is sort of an iffy port period.

[IndigoAK]

Persona 3 is rumored to be getting a full remake from the Persona 5 team, so I would go with 4.

[miakisfan]

If it was Persona 3 FES and not portable I would have a quandary on my hands trying to decide which to get you to play. Both were excellent games (and the fact is some of the flaws in both games are personal complaints that have nothing to do with the game itself).

Personally I found not being able to control my fellow party members a challenge in itself instead of a hindrance. Good RPG players would have found a way around that particular handicap.

Until FES releases on Steam I'd only recommend Persona 4 Golden. Hopefully there is truth to Atlus remaking FES but I won't hold my breath on that until I see it although they are one of the few develops out there that I actually trust to get things done.

Still not happy Sega bought them out but not like I had a choice on that.