My Journey Through the Amazing Persona Series

Featured image from ATLUS

The Persona series is a great addition to any RPG fan. That being said there are some games I liked and others I did not. In this article I’ll be going over the Persona games that I have played and my thoughts on them. I will be linking songs to listen to. Do not look into comments if you go open these videos if you want to avoid spoilers, I would also advise against searching the song titles.

Persona 1

Persona 1 was hard to get into for me. I remember playing a couple hours before completely stopping and never going back to play it. I think it had good ideas with having different scenarios but it ended up being a little confusing. If I remember correctly there were three different routes that you could take in the game. Each route changed the scenario as well as potential party members. I might revisit this game at some point but to me it remains a game with to many ideas. I played the PSP version, not the original PlayStation version.

I’d like to share the battle theme from this game, which was very enjoyable.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin

Persona 2 was quite a good experience. I really enjoyed the characters as well as the music. I think the story was pretty cool, with rumors becoming true. I honestly don’t have any bad things to say about the game, it was honestly a good experience with a good variety of locations and it has a very lengthy game play time. There was a continuation called Persona 2: Eternal Punishment that I have yet to play. I played the version for the PSP not the original PlayStation version.

One of my favorite songs from the game is the boss theme.

Persona 3 Portable

This was the first Persona game that I played so it holds a special place for me, though it does have its flaws. I disliked Junpei’s character a lot. He just kept going back and fourth from being your friend to being jealous and hating you. I wanted to see a little more of an explanation for the way he was. A social link with him might have been nice like Yosuke and Yu from Persona 4.

Tarturus was a cool idea, but I made the mistake of neglecting to explore in there. I was in for a rude awakening when it came time for the final battle. I had over 200 floors to climb to get up to the top. I’m glad this was something that was reworked in the future titles. One thing that stood out was the unique final boss.

Persona 3 had three different versions those being Persona 3, Persona 3 FES, and Persona 3 Portable. Persona 3 Portable was a version made for the PSP that differed greatly from the version on the ps2. P3P does not have special skills like the original and Persona 3 FES nor does it have the after story content of FES. P3P does add the ability to control your party members as well as being able to pick a female main character with new social links.

Persona 3 Portble has two main battle themes that are different depending on the gender of the main character. The male MC has Mass Destruction and the Female MC has Wiping All Out.

Persona 4/Golden

I honestly enjoyed this game and the cast of characters. Having to solve a murder mystery in a small quiet town was a pretty good story. Then just when you think you have found the culprit even another twist gets thrown at you. With the release of Persona 4 Golden new locations, music, characters, and more were added. I would say this game is tied for my second favorite with Persona 5 Strikers.

Two of my favorite songs from this game is The Almighty and Revelations-Mitsuo which is a retro remix of the main battle theme.

Persona 5/Royal

This is honestly my favorite game in the series. Before I continue I played all the previous entries before this game. I got this game on the day it came out and bought a ps3 on the same day. As soon as I started the game I was blown away by the music as well as the graphics. The characters were really special and had great back stories. The only negative about this game was being forced to go to bed quite often , but this was fixed with the release of Persona 5 Royal.

With the release of Royal, this game was even better. New semester, new characters, new ending, and so much more. They added something called the Thieves Den where you can play cards with the characters, view art, and listen to music. I highly recommend playing Persona 5 Royal.

Two of my favorite songs from this game are Rivers in the Desert and Prison Labor.

Persona 5 Strikers

I recently talked about this game in my full review. I was pleasantly surprised by it. I thought that I would hate the game with it being an action RPG, but I was completely wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed the combat as well as the music and story. Being able to use all the characters from the start was pretty cool and having each character have unique skills made combat more unique. My biggest complaint about this game was the change in Persona fusing. It felt like an unnecessary change.

One of my favorite songs from this game is the remix of Last Surprise from Persona 5.

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

I absolutely hated this game. I thought it would be great since it had the Persona 3 characters meeting the Persona 4 characters. What I hated the most were the mechanics on general. I did not like the dungeon layout nor did I like being able to give each character a different Persona. It felt odd to me to have everyone gain the Fool arcana. This game just was not my cup of tea. I did not finish nor will I ever revisit this game in the future. The dungeon layout was taken inspired by the series Etrian Odyssey.

This is one of the main battle themes if you picked the Persona 3 cast. It’s called Light the Fire Up in the Night.

Conclusion

There are a lot more games in the series out there, but these are the ones that I have played. As always thank you all for reading my content. Let me know your thoughts on the above games in the comments below. Also if you want me to do a history like post on the Persona games feel free to let me know as well. These types of post will take a bit of time though to gather the necessary research. Fell free to also follow me on Twitter.