I am so fucking happy this got a remake because I don't think I would ever have gotten around to playing any of its original releases and man I would have missed out on a fantastic story, some great social links, excellent music and what might be my favourite overall theme/message of any persona game I've played, or even any game ever.
The music is neck and neck with 5 for me, I think reload has the best intro song and Its Going Down Now is a fucking banger. The social links suffer a bit from being the same as the original game so obviously they don't have the same level of experience as they did with latter games but most of them are fine and some are excellent like Maiko and Akinari. The battle system is also much more akin to 5 and even reworks fusion spells from original 3 into Theurgy which I think is a great mechanic.
Without a doubt the best plot of modern persona trio. If 5 is a bad guy of the month and 4 is a murder mystery, then I think I would compared 3 to a sort of conspiracy thriller with its twists, turns, and revelations. Also I think this might be my favourite party member cast. Its hard because I spent twice as long with the 5 cast and you never forget your first persona crew, but man like, Ken might be an all timer for me, love that little kid. Koromaru is based as fuck, Aigis becomes this vessel for the games main message, Mitsuru is mommy, its all great stuff. Of course the sure sign of a fantastic plot and crew is an emotional response during or at the ending and I damn sure had an emotional response during the game and especially during the ending.
Now, is the game flawless? No, but neither is 5R honestly. 5R suffers from being almost overstuff, it has the weakest plot of the trio, the pacing can be quite poor at times over its long runtime. 3 has its flaws in the last month or so being quite bare in terms of content as you wrap things up, the plot is one story rather than arcs which some people can dislike, some of the writing is literal 2000s quality. However, both have strong factors that redeem those weaknesses which is why I'd give both a 5/5 and the answer to which one is my favourite will probably change week to week but for now I'll put P3R just ahead of P5R but expect it to flip flop between the two of them. And I'm happy thats the way it is, because its fantastic to have to excellent games that I enjoyed this much exist in the world.
The music is neck and neck with 5 for me, I think reload has the best intro song and Its Going Down Now is a fucking banger. The social links suffer a bit from being the same as the original game so obviously they don't have the same level of experience as they did with latter games but most of them are fine and some are excellent like Maiko and Akinari. The battle system is also much more akin to 5 and even reworks fusion spells from original 3 into Theurgy which I think is a great mechanic.
Without a doubt the best plot of modern persona trio. If 5 is a bad guy of the month and 4 is a murder mystery, then I think I would compared 3 to a sort of conspiracy thriller with its twists, turns, and revelations. Also I think this might be my favourite party member cast. Its hard because I spent twice as long with the 5 cast and you never forget your first persona crew, but man like, Ken might be an all timer for me, love that little kid. Koromaru is based as fuck, Aigis becomes this vessel for the games main message, Mitsuru is mommy, its all great stuff. Of course the sure sign of a fantastic plot and crew is an emotional response during or at the ending and I damn sure had an emotional response during the game and especially during the ending.
Now, is the game flawless? No, but neither is 5R honestly. 5R suffers from being almost overstuff, it has the weakest plot of the trio, the pacing can be quite poor at times over its long runtime. 3 has its flaws in the last month or so being quite bare in terms of content as you wrap things up, the plot is one story rather than arcs which some people can dislike, some of the writing is literal 2000s quality. However, both have strong factors that redeem those weaknesses which is why I'd give both a 5/5 and the answer to which one is my favourite will probably change week to week but for now I'll put P3R just ahead of P5R but expect it to flip flop between the two of them. And I'm happy thats the way it is, because its fantastic to have to excellent games that I enjoyed this much exist in the world.