I finished P3R recently and enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. Just started P4 and so far it seems like a bit of a step down, but I haven't gotten far enough into it to form an opinion. Is the full SMT franchise worth checking out? If so where should I start?
feel like you should start with the first game, though it was pretty hard to find. Also SMT apocalypse and SMT 4. You can also play game by game, the list is rather long when it comes to the franchise.
Honestly every title in the SMT and Persona franchises are very quality games, even most of the sidegames that aren't ultra-obscure. I'd even advocate for going back to Persona 3 FES for the PS2, it isn't nearly as polished as Reload but the themes are served better by the cutscenes, lighting engine of the PS2 and by the dingier graphics; its what saved Atlus from bankruptcy and shifted their focus onto the social aspects of the Persona series, so I think its worth playing that to see how everything came together. The original P4 was a way harder game than P4G but theres too many additions in Golden to really ignore; same story with P5 and P5R. Don't sleep on the original Persona 1 and 2 either, they're very different games from the modern Personas and they're definitely worth a play, especially P2 and its sequel.
P3R incorporated a lot of the system changes from the later games that made P4 so appealing on release. I'd say that P4 definitely takes longer to reach its hook (I think like 5 or 6 hours in iirc).
I liked P3 enough to play it again. I can see how the dingy look of the original would fit the themes better so I'll give P3 FES a look.
Now that I'm in the main loop of P4G it's pretty good so far, and I snagged P5 Royal a while back with the others but I'm playing through 4 first.
I'd also argue that the dungeon crawling in FES is miles ahead of what P3R offers. I still think it's wild that instead of expanding on mechanics introduced in FES (party members splitting up/getting lost, having different weapons to traverse dungeons, etc.) they just dumbed it down for Persona 4. I love that game and it's my favorite of the nuSona trilogy, but man dungeon crawling is very barebones.
Does Metaphor Re;Fantazio have a lot of content you can miss if you don't optimize your route and use a guide like P4G? I really liked P4G as just a fun casual RPG but my biggest gripe was how it feels like you can miss so much unless you try to clear dungeons in a single day to maximize social links.
No I'd argue it gets close to having the opposite problem where unless you spend like a week straight on the dungeon you'd have a very hard time NOT getting everyone's social link to max. You can't even waste days on social links that don't progress since it literally tells you when the next level is available.
The waifu edition with an extra freelancer job that really should've been in base that adds 40+ more hours of content that will cost the exact same amount that's coming out in 2 years? God, I love ATLUS.
You shouldn't really be aiming to maximize completion on a fresh run of P4G imo. NG+ is the time to do that since you can maximize social links and start side stories much faster and you'll be able to completely trivialize the combat due to having an unlocked compendium.
At least from looking at the cast, it's a case where a waifu would probably be an improvement.
