Current Events > How come Persona 4 is much more popular than Persona 3?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Apparently P4 released 2 years after the 360/PS3 launch

Because it doesn't suck

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Persona 3 was shit while P4 was a pretty decent game

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Cause it's better.

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because persona 4 wasnt made for edgy tweens like 3 was

because 4AW

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ArianaGrandSlam posted...

Cause people are dumb and prefer watered down characters that they can fill in whatever they want about because theres little there to begin with, like Chie

This. P3 is so much better.

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because people like it more. does it matter?

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P3 characters are the pinnacle of Persona.

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3 > 5 > 4

there are only 3 persona games
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Because it's the better game, duh.

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Better characters and many quality of life improvements. Most people feel p3 has a better overall story, but p4 does everything else better. Especially with golden which made a great game even better.

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because p3 (especially vanilla) had a ton of fucking irritating gameplay problems that made the otherwise better game feel like shit to play.

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I think it was a timing thing more than anything. Persona 4 didn't come out too long after 3, so people interested in the series from hearsay probably just jumped in on what just came out.

persona 3 had deeper characters that plebs couldn't understand like dog and robot waifu

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I personally loved the P5 group.

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P4 actually felt like a group of friends solving mysteries. P3 just felt like a group of coworkers doing a job.

I've only played 4 cause it's the only one accessible to me (PC)

It's bloody great though
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More people played it, that's why it is more popular.

better characters, better gameplay, better overall story beats, better music, better writing and localization

there's not a single thing about p3 that's better than p4, though that doesn't mean that p3 is a bad game, just that it's the least great of the three persona games that matter

Less edgy, more fun characters, better dungeons, better gameplay.

Persona 4 is a feel good game. The vibes are always nice. P3 is gloomy as fuck

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Persona 4 is about a serial killer on the loose in your town....

p-m posted...

Because it doesn't suck

KyoryuCyan posted...

Persona 3 was shit while P4 was a pretty decent game

I've heard comments like this get kicked around for years, and I don't get how people can legitimately be this anally devastated by Persona 3 in comparison to 4. Like I have no doubt that Persona 4 is good, and I want to play it some day, but is it really enough to retroactively consider Persona 3 a piece of shit?

It reminds me of the first time I played a Professor Layton game, and people said it wasn't as good as the other two. In that case, I took it to be criticism - except I ultimately agreed that Professor Layton and the Curious Village isn't as good as its two sequels when I got around to playing them, despite it ultimately being an excellent game in the series.

With Persona 3 it's always been "P3 is shit, start with 4 instead". I've played Persona 3 and I thought it was a really well-produced RPG for the time - I thought it was an important shot in the arm for RPGs, as edgy as it could be. I felt like it offered something more robust and original for the genre, at least offering a unique counterpoint to the RPGs I was playing at the time.

Like even if Persona 4 is such a good game that it dwarfs 3 in every conceivable way, I don't think it would retroactively make 3 a worse game - the same as my Professor Layton example. So what's the big idea?

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P4 is much more upbeat than 3 in terms of visuals and audio

Fixes a bunch of small annoying things but more importantly has a supremely more likable cast

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P3 has a better story and better characters.

P4 has better gameplay.

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WafflehouseJK posted...

P3 has a better story and better characters.

P4 has better gameplay.

This. I mean, I prefer the main cast in 4, but they're definitely way more anime adventure series while 3 has the psychological horror one, and all but like one of the main cast of characters in 3 has trauma or baggage.

I also prefer the supporting cast of social links in 3, though the entire theme of dies ire is present for many of them. I feel 5 had the best mix of people with trauma and ones working for something better and all that. But 4, if I liked a social link I would get it to max within 2 months of unlocking it.

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MrMallard posted...

and I want to play it some day, but is it really enough to retroactively consider Persona 3 a piece of shit?

P3 doesn't let you control your party members in fights, so, while it doesn't make p3 shit to me. It does make me not want to replay it after getting party control.

The lack of dungeon variety is another major point against after p4 did a much better job.

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SevenTenths posted...

The lack of dungeon variety is another major point against after p4 did a much better job.

THis is a big factor; while overall I prefer P3 over P4, Tartarus is fucking terrible.

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SevenTenths posted...

MrMallard posted...

and I want to play it some day, but is it really enough to retroactively consider Persona 3 a piece of shit?

P3 doesn't let you control your party members in fights, so, while it doesn't make p3 shit to me. It does make me not want to replay it after getting party control.

The lack of dungeon variety is another major point against after p4 did a much better job.

Didn't they fix that?

Also, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that when P3 hits PC they'll keep (some of) the QoL improvements in P4
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teepan95 posted...

Didn't they fix that?

Also, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that when P3 hits PC they'll keep (some of) the QoL improvements in P4

They fixed it in the psp version, which will be the version ported to pc if it happens.

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Because Persona 4 was piss easy compared to 3 and people prefer a murder mystery to a commentary on the concept of memento mori

Every Persona is good at something different IMO

Persona 3 for the story/music/characters/social links
Persona 4 for the dungeons/overworld/postgame
Persona 5 for the gameplay/side content/best enhanced version

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teepan95 posted...

Didn't they fix that?

Also, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that when P3 hits PC they'll keep (some of) the QoL improvements in P4

P3p has some improvements, but also some steps back to make it run on psp. It's not quite like p4g where it is definitely better. The dungeons you can't fix without remaking the game. In which case just give me p6

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https://youtu.be/YK9Y1EqjDpY

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SevenTenths posted...

teepan95 posted...

Didn't they fix that?

Also, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that when P3 hits PC they'll keep (some of) the QoL improvements in P4

P3p has some improvements, but also some steps back to make it run on psp. It's not quite like p4g where it is definitely better. The dungeons you can't fix without remaking the game. In which case just give me p6

Yeah, I was referring to party member control more so than dungeons
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Cuz P4 takes the protagonist wank to an unforeseen level. People like getting wanked, and the MC is a blank slate self insert soooo...

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I personally liked Persona 3 more, but the gameplay is ... difficult. It's very rigid.

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P3 fans reading this topic be like

https://i.imgur.com/HPXTrvK.gifv
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I think the big thing that Persona 3 is missing compared to 4 is that lack of comradery that is really done well in 4. It's not until the last third of the game or something until you start really getting to know your party members.

The story in 3 but 4 felt more like an adventure with a group of friends so I can see people preferring either one. The upside of saving the social link stuff for a few of the main characters in 3 was they had more of an impact in the story IIRC.

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AvantgardeAClue posted...

Because Persona 4 was piss easy compared to 3 and people prefer a murder mystery to a commentary on the concept of memento mori

Every Persona is good at something different IMO

Persona 3 for the story/music/characters/social links
Persona 4 for the dungeons/overworld/postgame
Persona 5 for the gameplay/side content/best enhanced version

Each game is progressively easier compared to the last. 5 is the easiest game in in the entire SMT universe. Let's be real here, most people don't play persona games for the gameplay. The devs know this. The main draw of the series for the vast majority of people is the social sim stuff, it's just that since P4 and onwards, good turn based jrpgs have become such a rarity, and people have been growing kind of fatigued of grim dark open world western fantasy rpgs in the way people were of turn based jrpgs by the end of the ps2 Era. The game industry is nothing if not trend chasers and cyclical.

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imagine thinking smt is hard

requiring the player to actually use mechanics doesn't make the game hard. at most you have to use overpowered buffs and debuffs and abuse resistances but that's the bare minimum of what rpgs ask you and you get extreme rewards for doing the most basic and straight-forward things

RNG can really fuck you up in SMT4. That smirk system was crazy

Same with Persona games. A wrong move can lead to the enemy getting multiple turns. That can be devastating

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Have you played the P3 final boss flawlessly until pixel health while underlevelled only to get charmed and have him fully heal after an hour and a half of terrible gameplay?

P3 was the groundwork but a pretty poor game on its own
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Illuminoius posted...

imagine thinking smt is hard

requiring the player to actually use mechanics doesn't make the game hard. at most you have to use overpowered buffs and debuffs and abuse resistances but that's the bare minimum of what rpgs ask you and you get extreme rewards for doing the most basic and straight-forward things

Nocturne has some definite difficult moments. Strange journey too but not as much.

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buffs and debuffs are so overpowered that you can autobattle a majority of bosses in the game, even the final ones. they're so strong that they've been nerfed ever since and they still manage to be extremely powerful

the game is at its most challenging when bosses actually have an answer to buffs/debuffs but it's so uncommon and the stat drops are so huge that you can effortlessly oneshot a majority of bosses with charged moves or never fear their moves because you gutted their damage by over 40%
accuracy debuffs are so severe that you can consistently avoid moves and gut the turn economy of the enemy team. iirc with +4/-4 accuracy the enemy only has about a 10% chance to hit you, often lower due to the accuracy of their moves

as long as you play the system the way the game wants you to smt games can be really abusable. the games are punishing if you don't take advantage of the many overpowered tools they give you and you can get unlucky with some blindsides, but the game is so heavily skewed in the player's favor otherwise, especially with how the player's team usually goes first which is a huge deal in a series where random encounters rarely go past one or two turns

Illuminoius posted...

imagine thinking smt is hard

requiring the player to actually use mechanics doesn't make the game hard. at most you have to use overpowered buffs and debuffs and abuse resistances but that's the bare minimum of what rpgs ask you and you get extreme rewards for doing the most basic and straight-forward things

I love smt games and find them hard, whats wrong with that
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