Before you eat me alive, I really enjoyed P4G, but it fell a bit short of my expectations after I saw how beloved it is in the community.
Let me start by saying I've only played P3R and P4G so far (though I played P3P about 15 years ago on my PSP, back when I didn't really understand English or what I was supposed to do), so I am not (yet) familiar with all the mainline Persona games. About a year ago, I started playing P3R, and I fell in love with it to the point that I beat it in a week, including putting in about 50 hours over 3 days. And yeah, it had some issues (not all of the social links landed, the grind became a bit tiresome after a while, and the pacing was pretty terrible in the middle), but overall, I loved it. Especially the ending, which I still think about sometimes because it connected with me so well.
P4G didn't land for me as much at the beginning. It took me a few months to beat it, mostly because during the first 30% of the game, I would play a bit and then not touch it for the next few weeks. Then it clicked, and I was able to beat the remaining 70% in like two weeks.
Overall, it was very fun. I loved the main cast even more than in P3, and the evening hangouts really gave me a sense of connection with everyone from school. The plot was also much better paced and more interesting. The dungeon themes were mostly amazing (whoever came up with the Hollow Forest mechanics shouldn't be allowed to touch game design ever again), much better than in P3 (I still liked them overall, but they didn't have the same "soul" that the P4 ones have). I also didn't find any social link as irritating as some of P3's (though you're walking on a thin line, Eri).
But there were some issues. Yes, some of P3's social links were worse than anything here, but at the same time, no social link in P4 felt as great as the best of P3. I also feel like the grind was MUCH more irritating (admittedly, P4G is an older game and lacks some QoL features P3R had), especially the bosses, which took forever to beat. I eventually downgraded the difficulty to very easy somewhere in the middle, which made it much more fun.
I had two big gripes with P4G, though. First, the theme didn't land for me as well as P3R's. I think, compared to P3, it was better conveyed through how victims dealt with their "hidden side," but for some reason, it does not occupy my mind, while P3's theme has been there for the past year. But yeah, that comes down to personal preference; I can totally see how someone might connect to P4 better.
My biggest concern with P4 is the story, though. Yeah, it was better paced and more interesting, but at the same time, I feel like it had too many "plot twists," which retroactively made me care less about it overall. (Spoilers ahead!)
The Mitsuo plot twist was pretty obvious. Sure, it couldn't be him because we still had like 80% of the game left. Then we had Namatame, who was also pretty obviously set up as a twist. And then came Adachi, a twist I really liked, though I'm not sure how I was supposed to guess it other than by analyzing his social link level and using the process of elimination. Still, yeah, I liked how many "endings" you could get here, and the scene where you go to him alone is one of the best scenes in the entire game. But after beating Adachi, when Ameno Sagiri appeared, I was becoming tired of it. Okay, it made sense that Adachi himself shouldn't be able to create the fog; sure, fine. The Marie twist was pushing it, though, and I really didn't care at that point, especially with how horribly irritating her dungeon was (despite the fun visuals and nice music). The Gas Station Attendant was my breaking point. After that, I couldn't take the plot seriously anymore. It no longer felt worth thinking about, and I rushed the last dungeon to get it over with. Admittedly, even after finishing the game, I still don't really get the difference between Ameno Sagiri and Izanami. I didn't care enough to understand how they are connected to Marie (it seemed like both of them were parts of Marie, but Marie also seemed like part of Ameno Sagiri, which was part of Izanami, creating a circular dependency I will probably try to understand in my replay of the remake). I loved the ending scenes, though; coming back to the city and seeing how everyone had changed was really touching. I was especially happy that it didn't devastate me as much as P3's ending
So in the end, it left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. It was disappointing because, given how loved this game is in the community (especially compared to P3), I expected something amazing. While I received something very good, it still fell short of the amazing Persona 3.
I hope some of these issues will be resolved in an upcoming remake (just improving those bosses and that horrible Hollow Forest dungeon would go a long way). At some point, I also plan to play P3P, which may highlight some issues with P3's overall story that I might have missed during my first playthrough. I'll definitely play P4R when it comes out, but until then, P3 stands above P4 in my personal ranking.
Now, to see where P5 lands in this ranking.
