Can someone redpill me on P1, 2, 2.5, and 3?

No, I played Persona 3 Portable at one point, and it does allow you to control the other party members. But Tartarus with it's randomly generated floor mechanic just feels too clunky that I lost interest. It's not that the game is bad, just old and dated. I don't really feel that 4 and 3 are entirely similar in this way, because we're talking about themed dungeons vs a lazy tower.

>As if it wasn't already the most babby series on the planet you make a thread asking others to explain an entire series for you because you're too babby to play even that?
I don't really get the personal attacks. I mean, this would be no different than someone asking to explain FF7 or TotA, while convoluted, have great stories. But I can understand how no one would want to go through either of these. Especially TotA's dated ass battle mechanics (slow and clunky) in comparison to the newer entries.

>If you think Persona 1 & 2 are supposed to make any sense, you are on something.
Why do people keep saying P2 have the best storylines?
Have any of you even played these games? I can't get a simple answer to the question. I swear, you faggots are like "I don't fucking know, so fuck you!"

Cut the shit.

Well, at least this is the best response so far. lol

cunky clunky clunky yawn yawn yawn
just admit you're an ADD zoomer

This ADD zoomer fad is the weakest shit that Yea Forums has to offer. I was actually there, and even I can admit that trying to send someone back to these old titles is a chore.

I know you faggots rifling off "zoomer" were born post 2000, or at the very least the late 90's, which makes you whippersnappers younger than me. You aren't fooling anyone.

>because we're talking about themed dungeons vs a lazy tower.
The "themed dungeons" are exactly the same as the "lazy tower."

I’ll agree with you there, I don’t see how anyone can forgive the fucking slog that is tartarus. That shithole has around 270 levels? Compared to P5’s mementos which has around 80 levels, that is downright retarded.

1 - you and your friends play the Persona game, things happen and you get personas. You then go visit this sick bedridden chick (another friend) in a hospital and things go to hell 5 minutes into the game and people die. You go to fix it and end up transversing into sick chick's alternative dream world based on her ideal self and what she remembers. You also meet her other selves which include some bitch that works for the villain at the expense of helping her with her disease who conveniently also contributed to making the alternate world (think Dark Hour, but villain wants to play god). You eventually kill the villain who has an existential crisis, sick girl realizes its her fault it happened in the first place and she locks herself away. If you didn't screw up and basically have a resolve based on choices made earlier, she doesn't die and you convince her to live (one of your friends is an asshole and basically tells her 'go kill yourself if you want but we went through hell back to your world just to save you') Otherwise she commits suicide. There's also the Snow Queen alternate story but I didn't play that part yet.

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Yes, but themed! Also, not 200+ floors.
At least someone gets it.

Why do you want less gameplay?

>Why do you want less gameplay?
You're one of those guys that plays bullshit like Destiny and Anthem, aren't you?

How dare you acuse me of liking console FPS. If you don't like dungeon crawler gameplay why are you playing one?

>durr what’s the matter, you don’t want more shit on your plate??
Come the fuck on, tartarus would be more excuseable if there weren’t as many levels that just pad out the game.

>starting at 4

jesus christ you could have at least started at 3

P1 and P2 are a bit closer to core SMT in their gameplay design. They have their own version of negotiation to recruit persona/demons, utilizing a set handful of approach methods depending on character. Also, the whole cast has Wildcard ability in one form or another, but they're typically locked of favored to specific arcana.

As far as story goes, I guess the real draw is how, unlike later persona games, the actual dungeon crawling isn't almost completely divorced from the world setting. P1 especially is treated like your normal SMT game where demons suddenly show up enmasse in a city, and everyone is trapped within. It makes the setting a bit more interesting as the world more actively reacting to what's going on. P2, meanwhile, has a whole mechanic and plot around rumors becoming real which is neat. Honestly, it's fun to see the transition (and over all links) the persona universe has to SMT. "Best Storyline" is subjective, but at least the plots are more active and don't take month long pauses to allow for the side/sim elements of 3/4/5. Also, they can get pretty ridiculous.

It gets worse. It was P4 Golden.

It's barely even a fraction of the playtime compared to the VN segments

Not OP, P4 and 5 are both in my top 5 games but the gameplay aspect of P3 is massively fucking boring.

- Can't control teammates so not even the illusion of strategy is present, they also use up all your items.
-150 identical floors as the only dungeon.
-Grinding is mandatory to progress.
-You can only be in the dungeon for an arbitrary amout of time before your teammates fuck off and you have to leave.
-Enemies are mostly identical Gray blobs.

For a series that famously loves to disrespects the time of its players already, this shit is not acceptable. I'm sure the writing is good, but fuck me do they make it hard to get to.

And thank fuck for that, it’s still a blemish on the game. Play a “real” SMT game if you don’t want the VN stuff, as is the main draw of Persona.

This.

OP here.
>- Can't control teammates so not even the illusion of strategy is present, they also use up all your items.
As I mentioned, I did try to give this game a chance through Persona 3 Portable. This version does allow you to control your team mates.

But that doesn't get you past the rest of the game's glaring flaws that you mentioned.

>For a series that famously loves to disrespects the time of its players already, this shit is not acceptable.
Literally this.

>I'm sure the writing is good, but fuck me do they make it hard to get to.
This is the worst part. The Dark Hour is super interesting, and I liked the mystery that surrounds the SEES investigation. But I've tried to start this game like 3 times now, and I just can't fucking do it. I've even made it to, what I believe is the half-way point. But Tartarus is just a fucking slog.

P2 IS - Rumors become true if enough people believe in it. Tatsuya the protag along with other school friends get into an adventure that starts off with rumors of people's faces melting off & another rumor that the world is going to end horribly due to the school's clock tower going off. Rumors escalate and your friends go to investigate it and try to do something about it. It turns out that you & your friends played the Persona game a long time ago which is the crux of an event between Philemon & Nyarlathotep who makes a bet whether humanity can overcome escalating amount of bullshit with Nyarlathotep taking an active role to cause bad shit to happen (makes people insane, starts the whole rumors become true, etc etc) in the span of 10 years since you and your friends met. There's a friends subplot that basically is, you all knew each other as kids, one friend (Maya) has to leave, your other friends lock her up, conveniently placed psycho tries to burn her area down & shit happens and the whole event traumatizes everyone to forget and some friends thought they killed her. And rumors escalate to the point that people believe the world is gonna end and not-Hitler is alive and will contribute to the Mayan apocalypse. Your friends get to the end but due to bad luck and bullshit, Maya dies. Philemon offers that Maya can live but you and your friends have to forget you ever met in the first place and basically the Persona game they played to 'gain personas' never happened in the first place.

tl;dr Rumors become true, high school adventure, Hitler lives, the world ends despite your efforts & you fail horribly unlike other Persona games

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>Nyarlathotep
Nyarlatthasdfajskdfjhahjfdjhep

>Hitler lives
Holy shit, Atlus had balls back in the 90's.

P2 EP - Maya, the girl that died in IS, lives and is the silent protag in this one (in IS she was the 'think positive' girl that kept everyone's morale up). Forgot to mention that P2 IS world gets reset so that certain things didn't happen and events are altered. Your friends forget except Tatsuya who refuses to forget his friends and the bullshit he went through, "breaking" the conditions that allowed Maya and the world to live and basically allowing bullshit to happen again. Basically, if your friends and Maya remembered what really happened in IS, then the world goes back to is previous state of 'everyone in the world except the city you lived in died'. Nyarly goads those involved to remember including pyro-psycho man & there's cameo appearances from Persona 1 like Guido/Kandori. Rumors yet again come true but differently, and there's some chinese cult & the mafia involved. Instead of highschool friends, your party consists of Tatsuya's brother detective Katsuya, shady glasses man (who's like the bad cop while Tatsuya's the good cop), Ulala your roommate, and some Persona 1 characters Nate or Ellie, and eventually Tatsuya. Tatsuya gets guilt-tripped the entire game by Nyarly saying it's his fault that he remembered and that the world might end 'again', going as far as to fabricate a legend/folktale/city history that basically is a retelling of IS and that Tatsuya failed to save everyone. Oh and themes of Persona like facing your shadow and being a better person despite hardships or w/e. And this time you succeed, but Tatsuya has to go back to his destroyed world/IS or things will go to shit again.

There's stuff like one NPC who basically despairs to death in IS but lives in EP after a side-quest you do to save him basically & etc

tl;dr You succeed but Tatsuya gets screwed over while Nyarlathotep continues to be an asshole

There's a side-quest in the PSP version that expands on EP with Lovecraft references but the translation's not finished yet.

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>P1: a bunch of high schoolers kill demons to save a classmate (or a teacher for the side quest) and save the world
>P2: a bunch of high schoolers and adults deal with rumors and conspiracy theories that come true so they have to kill demons and save the world
>P3: a bunch of high schoolers go to hell and kill demons to save the world
>P4: a bunch of high schoolers go to hell and kill demons to solve a murder mystery (and save the world)
>P5: a bunch of high schoolers go to hell, kill demons and save the world
You can already guess what P6 is going to be about.

So basically, both games have spoilers in the title. Neat.

>P2:EP's PSP release never got localized
It was fucking painful playing EP after having played IS's PSP port first

To this day, I don't understand why they can't simply release both to the West. In PS1, EP came out but IS didn't. In PSP, IS came out but EP didn't.