Merged together the Persona threads. This series definitely deserves a huge and lasting thread.
Little story time on my time with the series. It's pretty obvious to those who know me, but maybe not so much around here. I'm a huge Persona fan since literal day one, one of my top three series. I started following the series when Revelations Persona was first shown in GAMEFAN. It looked unique, enough that I went on a whim and decided to keep tabs on it and eventually picked it up day one at my local shop.
Then came Persona 2: Tsumi, my favorite title in the series along with it's counterpart Batsu. Before the series was widely known, a lot of people around me just knew it for that random game I played with the crazy art style. Truer words couldn't have been spoken though, the games music and art style are still unrivaled imho. So stylish. I played through the Japanese original before the Guido patch and before the official translation. I printed out a huge translation called the Oracle of Maya, pretty much wasted an entire day at my aunts law firm one summer printing it out. Hilariously good times, but pure dedication. The series also got me into Soul Hackers, which I put only behind Tsumi in terms of quality.
After Tsumi and Batsu I faithfully played the series over and over, but knew a true sequel would never happen. To me, my 'Persona 3' was SMT Nocturne. Loved Nocturne so much, still do. But then the unthinkable happened, Persona 3! A lot of people thought the premise looked interesting, yet I was already in ecstasy. Where as Shenmue III is my gaming nightmare, this is my gaming feel good story. Many newcomers enjoy the games dungeon layout, though while I do think it's adequate, I don't think it keeps up in terms of keeping things fresh like Persona 2. You never quite knew what was going to happen next in that game. Nevertheless, the game was still amazing and quite possibly one of my favorite that generation, it actually lived up to my expectations all of those long years later. The rest is history as the series has since achieved decent popularity (without selling out) and I couldn't be happier. Feels good being there since day one. Really looking forward to Golden and the eventual fifth installment, that will be a slice of heaven if it's presented anything like Catherine is.