(Major spoilers for both The Journey and The Answer, and minor spoilers about changes in Portable and Reload)

After going through reload and femc in portable earlier this year I replayed just finished replaying the journey (the main story) in FES and the answer, this is still the best version hands down lol. With the anime cutscenes and the original in-game experience for cutscenes I think this game still has the best presentation for it's story, portables vn take is interesting but inferior and reload I just feel falls flat capturing the energy and tone of the original in it's cutscenes. Something I didn't realize until replaying the journey is that portable and reload share an altered script that's mostly minor dialogue changes, but they all end up adding up and feeling weirder in a lot of segments with some characters feeling like they act a little off in segments of the game or some parts just being flat out omitted. Some big examples, like Junpei opening up about his dad in the 12/10 scene where he lashes out is completely omitted from those scripts for some reason. After playing through all of them I think the original script is superior and it's kind of weird to me the portable one ended up becoming the "standard" one. There's bits and pieces of extra content in both of those versions I appreciate that add a little to the game but I think as a whole experience FES really trumps both of them, and I feel like those pieces only really work as a replayer. Also the soundtrack is still super goated, there's a few songs that get spammed to the point it's a little grating though, like the suspense theme that plays in any serious scene and cutscenes probably could have benefit from using those songs less. Also, a problem I think is present in every version in terms of the story is the game has odd pacing, and although you do get story stuff from the start it's very spread out and doesn't really pick up super crazy until you're pretty far in the game, I've always found it pretty hard to recommend playing in general as a result due to the start being kind of slow, but I still really like this game alot because the payoff in it's final arcs is honestly really still amazing, the game really picks up around October and alot of the main characters get super interesting arcs, Aigis is probably one of my favorite characters in the entire series and the stuff with Shinjiro/Ken is amazing still.

Most of the things about this game (primarily the AI party members) are not as annoying or hard to utilize as people often present them, and I honestly don't think the game is that hard (I've seen it called hard in a way that is often a complaint) having replayed it on hard mode although there is a decent challenge early on, I don't think it's anything super crazy to get through and the game is cheese-able in a solid amount of fights with the knockdown system. It's definitely more flawed than some of the games that come after it in a lot of it's systems with things like how social link reverses work and getting the skills you want on a Persona during fusion being rng but I think it's still a lot of fun in a way that feels really unique from other persona games, a lot of what gets perceived as flawed I feel like is just because it's different having played it.


And this is the part where I talk about The Answer. It's the first time I've ever completed it and it took me about 15 hours, I genuinely think it's a really underrated segment of the game after playing it. I don't think it's perfect and the start is pretty rocky with the setup for the situation feeling a bit janky at times, but I really like how it expands on the themes of the basegame and how it ends up exploring the characters reactions and feelings on the protagonists death, it ends up adding a lot of extra layer to them and although Ik the fact some of them (mainly Yukari) end up acting in a way that could be seen as irrational has been really hated or seen as out of character by people I think it builds into a really interesting conflict near the end with all of it feeling like a super real response of grief, it didn't feel like the cast moving backward to me but learning how to move forward, I feel like if it was written in a way where they were just completely OK after that ending it would make less sense. The resolution is super nice too and I'm glad I finally played it, I think it's a really overlooked segment of the game and I hope more people experience it with the upcoming reload version even if it's not like perfect. Metis ends up being a really cool character too IMO, basically being Shadow Aigis with a really cool design. I can see why people don't like it or overlook it, I think the basegame works on it's own but it was a super nice addition to the story for me and I think more people should give it a fair shake.

Gameplay wise it poses more of a challenge than the basegame and some fights require some good strategy, but I think the shorter length of the game and being handed special fusions pretty easily actually makes alot of it pretty simple to get through, IDK if it was just me but level-ups felt crazy fast too and I ended up just fusing Odin again into super cheese, only a few bosses really gave me trouble by the end and even then I didn't have to go back and grind to beat them, it just took a couple of tries. The final boss was also a pretty disappointing health sponge so IDK, I don't think it's quite as hard as people say but there are some good challenges in it.
Not sure what else to put here for now, I might revise this later since this is kind of just a lot of collected thoughts but I still think this is easily the definitive version of the game.