I got stuck on Yukiko and never finished the game.  once I get a Vita I'm gonna give it another whirl. 

 I just defeated Yukiko like... 2 minutes ago. The key is preperation. I bought a shit ton of value medicine, went home and rested before facing her, and fused personas. She's still tough, but far from impossible!

Glad you finally found what is in my mind one of the best RPGs ever made. You think the fighting is hard, wait until you're juggling 3 or more girl friends all at the same time and you have to decide who to be with over Christmas. LOL,or trying to get the good ending.

In all seriousness it was a month after I finished the game before I could even look at another game. I knew nothing was going to come close.

Pretty sure I'll be the same... dear god this game is amazing!

Now you know why i have been raving on how awesome Persona 3 & 4 was some of the best rpgs i ever played and the dating sim aspect was really cool and probably the first rpg to incorporate the dating sim games but i need to get a 3DS so i can play IV but if you never played 3 & 4 on the ps2 get a ps2 you can get one for about $30 and persona 3 & 4 and i promis you it will be the best investment you ever made.

Yeah I'm playing Persona on ps2, and loving every moment of it. What's regular Tensei like in comparison to this? 

Well i really like the Devil summoner series but its not like persona really the persona series is very unique and none of Tenseis titles are like persona the only on the 360 Catherine is story wise alot like persona but the gameplay is a puzzle type game but the story is made by the same team who made persona but at any rate the Devil Summoner games are very good and they made reprints and its very affordable now.

I'm talking about the main smt series, because I'm thinking of getting IV for 3DS when I get it.

I'm playing SMT4 (3DS) now.  It's not like the Persona games.  It's more like Noturne (PS2).  SMT4 is a great game though.  Persona 3 & 4 are more user friendly and the character developments are lots better in them.  

Yeah. Nocturne was on the PS2 right? I know I played a SMT game before, but I didn't know what it was. It must have been that.

Nocturne and the Digital Devil series are great games as well.

I'm not a fan of the combat since I think luck plays way too big a role (the less it plays the better the game IMO). But in terms of the social links, oh god that game is fucking amazing.

I'm early in the game, just beat yukiko, but I don't really get how luck plays that big a role? I mean if you come prepared and learn an enemies weakness, you should be right, it's just a matter of experimentation so far.

As the game goes on though the amount of misses and crits that takes place gets ridiculous. That's my huge gripe, got so bad I had a regular battle that should have been just another quick XP fail because I had six misses in a row and got hit by two hits. And all my equipment had at least an 80 hit rate, they just get rewarded way too much while I was punished too much. That was the extreme but there were more than a few times where I got really frustrated just because I was unlucky.

Persona 3 FES is better on PS2 than PSP in my opinion. Persona 4 Golden on VITA is full of awesomeness!

How much extra is there? I want a vita just for this... but there isn't really anything else out on the console for me to justify it.

I with you.  I only want a Vita for Persona 4 Golden.  I already bought the game.  I'm just waiting for the Vita to drop to a price I'm willing to pay.  

They're dropping by like 100 bucks very shortly!

NICE.  I just picked up a 3DSxl, so I'll have to wait a bit before I get a Vita.  Maybe after the holidays, I can snag a Vita.  

It's one of my favorite games of all time.  I wanted to play it, but I'm trying to get some other games out of the way first.  I decided to watch the anime which isn't as great as the game, but I get to see the characters again.  I wouldn't recommend watching it before playing the game.  It spoils everything. 

Fair enough. What's 3 like? Is it worth playing? I mean, like compared to 4.

In my opinion, better than 4, but they're both really similar and really great.

Before we started PixlBit, Chessa and I recorded a podcast at Nintendo World Report about P3:FES with my friend and Contributing Writer here, Jason Hillhouse. If you've got some time to burn and want to hear 40 minutes worth of thoughts over drinks - check it out.

I agree.  I enjoyed playing Persona 3 a little more than Persona 4.  They're both very similar though.  There are some improvements made on P4, but story and atmosphere has the win in Persona 3, IMO.  Persona 3 Portable (PSP) has many of the updates of Persona 4.  I would recommend it if you have a PSP.  If you play one of the PS2 versions of the game, it's a little of a step back, but it's nothing that ruins the game.  It's just you have to get use to a few things being annoying to do since some changes to navigating the menus was improved in Persona 4. 

I heard the story was better in 4 but the characters were better in 3 from a friend. I might have to get Persona 3, but fuck not giving every one orders!

Story time!!

Back when I was a young and tender college student about 9 years ago, I told all of my college professors that a close personal friend of mine had died in a horrible car accident. I didn't include the fact that the car accident was titled Halo 2 and my friend was currently sitting in my dorm playing Halo 2 with me.

it was a good week, lol

Bahaha yeah I've gotten a few assignment extensions because I've been addicted to a game lol. I've said I had to go to an funeral, a wedding, that I had a work trip etc. but I never told anyone my friend died. That's simultaneously fucked up and... kind of awesome.

Persona 4 beats PS2 Persona 3 just for the simple fact that the former lets you control each party member in battle. That 3 doesn't let you do this is a huge flaw. I'd go for the PSP version of 3, which does let you micro manage.

I have P4 and one of these days I might actually get around to playing it. I had P3 FES, but it's one of the dozen and a half games that I discovered had mysteriously vanished when I was packing up to move. I'm kinda pissed about that...

Your blog just made me realised that I need to continue Persona 3. Then, after beating that, I might get Persona 4 when the Vita gets its price cut.

In the last year or so I played through both Persona 3 and 4 and loved them both.  If you like Persona 4, you'll almost certainly like Persona 3 too.  They are extremely similar in almost every way.  Although I think I'm in the minority, I enjoyed Persona 3 more, or at least the characters in it, but I would include both in a list of my favorite games.

Like some of the others said, you can't control your other party members in 3, but if I remember correctly you can at least partially tell them how to behave (such as attack using persona/physical,help members, defend, etc).  I might be confusing it with something else though.  And it might have only been the FES addition that I was playing.