Do you prefer the older or newer Persona games ?

[Vardalis]

I could sit for hours in a thread like this writing up my thoughts, but I'll try to keep it brief.

For me? The older Persona titles (1, 2:IS and 2:EP) win out no matter what. They're on the upper bracket. The stories, the characters, the atmosphere, it all just felt on another level and everything ties together so well. Do I have some gripes about elements of the gameplay? Sure. But not a single one of them would really drop that gap in ranking I'd have between the two eras of the series.

While I did find a lot of enjoyment in 3, 4 and 5 while playing them, they just don't hold up as well when thinking on them in retrospect in my opinion. The stories are worse. The atmospheres just aren't as compelling. Each one has fundamental flaws outside of the basic gameplay loop that can't let me elevate them to that same pedestal as their predecessors.

And I get the feeling that a modern Atlus attempting to remake any of those older games would completely miss the point of them, update them for the Persona 5 audience and utterly bastardize the legacy of the franchise.

 

[medisinn]

I've played almost all of them, though I haven't beaten the earlier games. I prefer the newer ones, but do hope that Persona 6 goes back a little bit toward the earlier games. I thought 5 made good strides with the demon negotiation and having static dungeons with puzzles, but the negotiation was easy/not very interesting compared to some of the SMT games, and the puzzles were brain-dead easy. Persona 4 Golden is my favorite game and I also have a special place in my heart for Persona 3 FES, but the randomized dungeons are too simple and get very repetitive. I have slight hopes they will spice them up for Persona 4 Revival but I ain't holding my breath. Ports or remasters of 1 and 2 seem inevitable at some point, but I also wouldn't mind a third sort of series to go along with Persona and Shin Megami Tensei that borrows some from both styles of game.