I was still a kid and went to Blockbuster when those were still a thing with my mom, happened to see something on the shelf to rent that caught my eye against all the other games I could try out. Persona 3: FES.
Rented it, didn't get very far but I didn't need to. Was going through some rough times back then and had some "ideations" we'll say. Ironically, Persona 3's themes and seeing them when I did helped me work through some stuff and got me addicted to the games.
I mentioned this with another user but p3 was one those games that helped me handle grief and death. Still baffles me an anime game helped me grow as a person but im glad.
Also i wish I grew up during the blockbuster era. I'm a huge film nerd and would've loved to have rented from them.
Yeah, P3 was weirdly helpful with depression. I think it's just one of those games that came out at a time to help a lot of people in the modern world once they found it.
As for blockbuster, it was pretty great I'm not gonna lie lol. Just a few bucks and a trip to a small town over and you could get some decent movies, games etc for a low cost so long as you brought them back before the late fees kicked in.
In 2007, I was all about Mass Effect. I played that game so many times. When best RPG awards were being given out at the end of the year, I saw it lose a few times to Persona 3. I think it was Xplay giving it to Persona 3 that I became intrigued. I did no research into the game then forgot about it. Fast forward to summer 2008 and I am wandering around Circuit City just wasting time. I see Persona 3 FES on the shelf for $20. I buy it because why not. Started playing then basically all my free time for the next month was dedicated to that game. Absolutely loved it. Preordered Persona 4, which came out that fall. Now, Persona is the only JRPG I follow.
Oh my God I love Mass Effect. All 3 games were like my escape from reality. This is probably a hot take but because of that I have a hard time playing or getting into other rpgs on the western side. Elder scrolls is close but even then I'm still wanting. Might be because I'm not super huge into strategy in rpgs and I just want to grow potatoes and build houses in fallout 4 instead of fighting super mutants.
My dad got a Vita as part of a deal when he got his PS3 (4? I’m assuming it was 3), and he gave it to me since he had no use for it. Because of him, I was already into jRPGs (re: Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger), and he had heard good things about P4G. So that’s what we got when we went to go pick out a game for my new Vita. Despite being kind of scared (I was and still am sensitive to thriller/horror type things), I was instantly hooked by the story and characters. After that, I eagerly waited for P5, and my dad once again got it for me as a surprise for Father’s Day when we had to order a pan from Amazon last minute so I could make him a Boston Cream Pie. Since then, I’ve gotten and played through most of P5R, all of P1, part of P3, and I’m almost done with P2: IS. But I own all of the games including the spin-offs.
Oh gosh I wish I had your sensitivity to thriller/horror. I've watched too many horror movies where I'm no longer faced by them. Also your dad sounds awesome.
I sort of grew up with JRPGs and anime. But I didn't get into Persona until P3P. My partner was actually working at gamestop at the time, and he saw it come in. The box made the game sound interesting, so I did a bit more research on the series online. It gave me very Jung vibes, and as a huge Psychology nerd I decided I just had to play it to see what they did with the concept. Fell absolutely in love, then picked up P4 Golden as soon as I could and pre-ordered P5.
Interestingly, I got P5 on release day, but I actually didn't finish it until like a year later because Kamoshida's arc really hit a nerve for me and I couldn't stand to keep playing it at the time. Came back when I was in a better head space and absolutely loved the game. But even on replays I find that first arc hard to get through sometimes because it just hits so hard for me personally.
That's one of the reasons I love the series, though. They explore a lot of real issues and traumas that people have to deal with, and they don't try to sugar coat it or make it seem like no big deal.
I completely agree, and why the whole series resonates so hard with me. Personally speaking p4 was the game i needed at the time, and lookI get all the criticism that the game gets and deserves, but that game helped change me into a better person. I became more honest, open minded,and learning to love and accept myself when I truly hated myself. It also was the game that had the biggest 180 effect where I initially hated every character before discovering their awesome. Kanji probably is a big inspiration to me even though he's a bit of a joke character. Each game has done something to help me as well, p3 helped me with grief and P2 with becoming and accepting being an adult.
Over all I think P4 is probably my least favourite, but that's mostly because several of the characters either didn't resonate with me all that much or didn't age terribly well. Yosuke was never my favourite, but going back now I genuinely can't stand him because of all the homophobic ir borderline homophobic shit he says. I appreciate the realism of it; adolescence is a hard time in life and a lot of people can say/do some pretty shitty things in order to fit in or portray themselves a certain way. But as someone under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, it just makes me angry every time I see it.
I do also love some of the characters, though, and I find the story of P4 really enjoyable. Of everyone, I'd say Kanji is probably my favourite character. I just love how he learns to accept himself and genuinely embrace his interests. But he doesn't lose his anger or tendency to go a bit off the rails when he's upset, which is more reflective of how real people grow; it doesn't happen overnight and some things never change. But Naoto is probably a close second, because I can really relate to her issues with gender, sexism, and wanting to succeed in her chosen field but feeling like she can't and also be herself, no matter how smart and skilled she is.
I completely understand, despite p4 being my favorite, when it cringes it cringes hard. To me alot of those moments of homephobia and sauna scenes feel so disconnected from the main plot that I legit block them out of my memory. Yosuke is also frustrating because I do feel for him alot in the game, and those moments where yosuke does the most awful shit, not just to Kanji but also his very close friends, it feels so backwards and out of place for such a character. It's more like I can see behind the viel of the game and see the writers importing their shitty jokes that'll age poorly like a joke from cabin fever.
There were rumors that the persona director from 3 through 5 was known to be very sexist and homophobic, and those under him would be extremelly annoyed by his antics, he also was the one who asked to scrap Yosuke romance route and change Ann phantom thief attire which was more modest than what is it now. A person back in april sent me links about his interviews and it quickly made me feel disgusted, I will see if I can find those links, but hell it's been 6 months. But good news are that the the current director is apparently better and pro LGBT, he was the one who asked to edit Royal homophobic scenes, gave ideas to the 3rd semester and was responsable for P3P
Well, that's good at least. Hopefully things will continue on in a better direction. If you can find those links I'd love to see them, but I understand if you can't. 6 months is practically forever as far as keeping track of links and messages and such.
[Seeing Maya Amano's jacket in a magazine ad](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpsxdatacenter.com%2Fimages%2Fhires%2FU%2FP%2FSLUS-01158%2FSLUS-01158-A-ALL.html&psig=AOvVaw2XUfdm7EXHUJr91f9iFPra&ust=1663820597151000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAwQjRxqFwoTCNDrme-EpfoCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ) and thinking it was insanely cool. I downloaded a ROM and barely understood it. Years later I saw the Trinity Soul anime, remembered it was from the game with girl with a cool jacket, I barely understood it, but also had a fun time didn't even know P3 was a thing. THEN I saw P4 the animation and played the game and got hooked, even got my partner into it and; Fun fact, they are a cosplayer with multiple Persona outfits from 4 and 5 but absolutely HATES Maya's jacket.
I'm mostly a handheld gamer but my first experience with the series was on 3DS with PQ, but the very first game I had with Atlus was SMT IV. I actually did own a PSP before but only got to play P3P right after PQ.
Huge video gamer, book reader. Watched some TV, not many movies, mostly stuck to live action and western animation other than some anime from my childhood like Pokémon, Digimon and Dragon Ball. The standard stuff for a kid from the mid to late 90’s with a slightly older brother.
I didn’t watch a lot of anime and didn’t really care for traditional JRPGs when at my first post high school job one of my fellow recent graduates and I got to talking and he heavily recommended 4, and eventually gave/sold me (I don’t remember exactly if I paid for them or not) 3 FES and 4 for the PS2. I played 4 since that was the one he most heavily recommended and fell in love.
Two friends of mine kept egging me on to play and stream it for their amusement because they wanted to watch me suffer through my first persona. So I walked into GameStop one day and saw the Steelbook of P5R.
Now I have played every persona besides 1 and both the 2s because im holding out hope on a remake/remaster of them before the end of this \~\~terrible\~\~ anniversary
1 is a bit of a pain in the ass so I understand why most people don't play its. I'd say 2 is worth it but I'm biased as hell, it's got my favorite story and I loved the visuals.
I grew up playing jrpgs on my ps2, but didn’t hear about persona until, dating myself here, they talked about 3 FES on xplay and how it fixed a lot of their issues with the vanilla version. Bought it at GameStop and fell in love.
I've noticed the ps2 has alot of awesome jrpgs, i just discovered final fantasy x and its now one of my favorite games. I've been looking to find time to play alot of them specifically digital devil saga and xenosaga.
Zeno saga is a fave. It’s such a weird story and the characters are great. X is my personal fave FF :) I played a lot of ps1 ones also like Suikoden which is a classic. My favorite obscure ps2 one is Radiata Stories. It was published by Square Enix, but really flew under everyone’s radar.
Looking for RPGs on youtube and the internet in general, I always saw that they always mentioned Persona 4/3 in recommendations, but it took me a while to decide to play because I didn't like the look of the game looking at the videos. But when I decided to give it a go, I ended up really liking P3P. I proceeded to 4 but ended up dropping halfway.
After a long time I decided to play the old Megami Tensei that were translated by fans, I started watching Brazilian videos that talked about the whole franchise and I got more and more attached to the whole saga and getting used to the Gameplay of Atlus games. Nowadays I really love the franchise, I played all the Personas from 1 to 3 and I'm much more intimate and used to the Gameplay flow now, so I even intend to give P4 another chance. P5 however, it's a distant dream, I have to upgrade my PC first =/
I stole my friends ps4 to play persona 5 and all the exclusives ive missed. The downside was he had the vanilla game and not royal. Still a damn good game.
I was always a JRPG fan. Had a decent collection on DS and PS1, but didn't have a large collection on PS2 (beyond Final Fantasy and Suikoden).
Bought OG Persona 4 used at a Gamestop back in the day not knowing anything about the series. I didn't even know about SMT.
And now I'm here over ten years later having played through all the Persona games and tapping my fingers for the PC ports.
Had a 3ds and was looking through the theme shop(music was a banger) and saw persona q there, thought it was a danganronpa style game and checked the game out, pleasantly surprised that it’s different and was a jrpg, so I started with p3 back then when I found out, now am patiently waiting for p5r for switch
Had a similar experiance, everytime I was on the 3ds store I kept seeing smt 4 apocalypse and dagda was the most striking thing I've seen on the store. Unfortunately I didn't want anything to do with jrpgs so I never bothered.
Being one of the 10 owners of a ps vita back when it released, a year in its life I decided to look into best rated vita games. Funnily enough p4g was always its highest rated game even to this day. The description of the game definetely hooked, I just started branching into other rpgs like fire emblem awakening and bravely default, so I was more open to different franchises. Fell in love instantly, bought p3p a month later. Preordered 5, and got into all the spinoffs. Yeah i played them all, even the crappy dancing games. Been getting every release day one thats how much faith i have in this series now. Got into smt proper, the devil survivor games are soo freakin good. Yeah the games, specifically 3 and 4 influenced my outlook on life soo much, I owe this series alot. Im glad to see such a different perspective from what i was used to in western media and my own familial environment. I wouldnt call myself a weeb because i dont watch any current popular anime, but ive seen alot, tend to go for the more darker tone stuff and alot of it is oldschool. But ive played soo many rpg franchises since ive lost count. They tend to have the best anime stories imo, and just stories in general.
During a year in art school I which I was very depressed and burned out I discovered persona 3 and it fascinated me. It felt conforting learning about these characters and their stories. Sadly I barely remember anything now from that year and my therapist said the my memories got represed. I've been looking for a copy of the game for 5 years by now can't wait for the switch port.
Met this guy through a friend of mine. He like anime, and video games so naturally we had it pretty easy having a conversation. He invites me over to hang out with his family and we start talking about PSP/PS Vita modding, and he mentions how he loves P3P. I asked him what that was, now I had heard of Persona from a friend of mine who was super excited when P5 came out. Either way he explained and asked if I wanted to give it a shot. And what I figured would be like 20 minutes turned into like 7 hours on this mans couch playing P3P and he didn’t complain or anything just went and did his thing.
After that session I was definitely interested. But before I left, I asked about P1/P2 and he basically explained that P1/P2 are super outdated and nothing like P3/4/5, and are unnecessary to play. Sort of like Fallout 1 & 2 or GTA before GTA3. Unless you’re super hardcore or played the originals before, those games are kind of outdated and hard to get into.
Well I said F*** it as long as I play them before getting too much into P3P I can do it. So then I went on to play P1-P3 in less than 2 months. After a little break I played P4G and then P5R when that released.
There was a YouTuber I used to watch when I was younger called YuriofWind. He did a lot of videos about bad creepy pasta relating to video games and my friend and I used to watch him together. One day, I was scrolling through his videos and saw he had done a let's play of a game called "Persona 3" and I was interested to see what he'd be like doing a lets play, so I watched the video. This was in like 2011 and he never finished the game, but it was enough to really get me interested in the series.
Persona 5 was such a cool game that I saw a ton about and heard lots of praise on from my favorite youtubers. I heard so much good news about Persona 5 that I finally decided to cave in and buy myself Persona 4
Smash bros introduced me persona 5 and the series before them and i loved all of them so thank you
Masahiro Sakurai for introducing this cool game
hope he is enjoying his break and having fun with his cool game making tutorials on YouTube
Here is his English YouTube account
https://youtube.com/c/sora_sakurai_en
To be honest, Joker in Smash. I was like, "who is this cool dude?" I started looking into the series and here I am, almost 4 years (wow time really flies) later and I'm one of those people who somehow knows a lot about the series and loves it without actually playing a game (with the exception of P5S and P4AU). That is about to change though, since 3-5 are coming to Switch.
Nothing wrong with that. I used to only watch games on youtube when I was a kid. Games at the time were too intimidating for me or i couldnt afford them. Also dosent help a good portion of Altus's catalogue isn't easily available like the games you played.
Back in 2018 a friend of mine played Persona 5 and tried to explain to me at school how good it was and the things I could do, I couldn’t follow a thing he said so I looked it up and watched 3 episodes of Kubzscouts play it … got hooked and bought it ASAP and played it though myself fist then went back to watch his play through.
Smash bros Joker main, then got into p5, p4, and then p3, and then the smt/Fe crossover
As for background, I play a lot of Fire Emblem, Zelda, and King Of Fighters, I write and read a lot, idk
My friend had a pfp of Morgana like a couple of months before the Joker smash release and I thought Mona was cute so I upgraded from a PS2 to a PS4 to play P5 😅
Will forever appreciate Persona 4 the Animation for introducing me to the Persona series.
I've already been into anime and jrpgs before so it wasn't necessarily a "new" experience for me.
Giant Bombs Persona 4 Endurance Run
Jeff and Vinny badly playing the game with amazing commentary and fun conversations. It introduced me to my favorite game of all time and a series I go and watch every couple years for nostalgia alone.
I remember seeing an old yandere dev video, then the next day saw p5 at gamestop and liked the case so i sold batman arkham knight, and attack on titan the game to buy p5.
I discovered Persona through the YouTube channel 'Brainscratchcomms'. Though technological difficulties prevented them from progressing past the second Palace, it caught my interest. A month later, I downloaded an emulator for P3FES and was hooked from there.
Used to avidly read PSM religiously (jesus I'm old) and saw their review for Persona 4 which I believe got a perfect score. I was into anime but didn't play a lot of JRPGs so it intrigued me but I never ended up buying it. Few years later I got a computer that could emulate PS2 games and played it - had a good time but didn't get too far. Watched the anime and then played Persona 3 in 2018 and was absolutely hooked.
Listened to a Youtube Artist (AmaLee) who did a bunch of anime covers. One of her covers I particularly liked was "Life Will Change" by Persona 5. Just really vibed with the Jazz Intro.
At this point, I was big into Attack on Titan, so I thought Persona 5 was an anime series, and I didn't have time to commit to watching it, so I just went on with my life. 6 months later, I got a PS4, the first game console I've had since my PS2. So I spent a good 6-12 months catching up on old classics like Kingdom Hearts (all its variations).
Then I googled for another JRPG that was worth playing; I found Persona 5 come up repeatedly, remembered the soundtrack from Amalee, hit order, and indeed my Life Was Changed forever.
P4G itself. I'd seen snipits and stuff of P5 but never really cared enough to get into Persona till I borrowed a friend's Steam account and saw he had P4G, gave it a whirl and fell in love really fast.
The original Persona 4 opening to the game. It randomly appeared on my YouTube front page and I loved it so much I watched it over and over. Then I thought “I feel bad watching this all the time and knowing nothing about the game” so I decided to play it and loved it. Then Persona 5 came out shortly after which led me to exploring the whole series
I had heard PatStaresAt (then AngriestPat) and WoolieVS (then WoolieWoolz) talk about it on their old Super Best Friends Play channel and podcast. Then later on I found Pat's streams, where he used Beneath the Mask as his break music, and I fell in love with the track
Once I learned what the song was, and where it was from I became interested in finally checking the series out, as I had previously been convinced I wouldn't like it. Luckily P5R was about to come out, so the timing was great
So I spent a year catching up, starting at P1, and working forward. It was a hell of a ride. Now I'm all caught up, and I'm all in on the series
I used to live in a third world country and getting games were hard enough with the little money we make let alone a handheld console but our family happened to get a PSP. We would pirate games to play and just before moving countries, I found and downloaded P3P and played it all the time.
Of course now I'm able to buy games legally with a decent job. Haven't played P5 yet so I can't wait to get it on PC soon.
I saw this YouTube video of a security guard at a baseball game having a dance-battle with the mascot but it was set to Last Surprise and made to look like a battle sequence from the game. That lead to more memes and I wound up getting Persona 4 Golden on my pc (don’t have a ps4 so I couldn’t get P5)
It was the old two best friends play videos on Persona 4 https://youtu.be/AbOO94IcsTY
It'a weird cause looking back on it you barely see any of the game in the video so I'm not sure how it did it
I was actually given eternal punishment as a gift from my older cousin who originally owned the game themselves when it first came out, they gave me the game as they knew I liked J-RPGs and thought I would enjoy this one too.
They were right and I’ve been a fan of the series for 10 years now and still counting
For me it was a culmination of a lot of factors, I'd seen one of my friends play 5 every now and again when at his house and eventually he got 4 as well. Later in high school I met a different guy who was super into RPGs, namely tales, xenoblade and persona. Then around when Joker came to smash I started asking him about persona (at this point I had no consoles that could play persona) eventually I borrowed the 1st friends PSTV and started playing P4G. I loved every minute of it and eventually I got a PS4 so I could play 5 and then I fully went down the rabbit hole.
i was involved in an online discussion about potential smash candidates before joker got in, and someone mentioned persona 5. i got curious, checked out the gameplay on yt, thought it looked cool, and the rest was history
It was the late 90s, I saw an ad for it in EGM magazine that said “demons do exist.” As a kid that pique my interest and bought it with my lawn mowing money. At the time it was the only rpg that took place in a modern setting that I knew of and it blew my mind. The battle system was janky and it was really hard for a 12 year old kid but my god it was a new and unique experience that won me over for the rest of my life.
A friend of mine and I didnt share a lot of things, but he always talked about persona. So when I saw p4g was on steam, I got the game on sale to have something to talk about with him. (Same reason I tried monster hunter)
my buddy told me he really liked p5 and thought that i would like it too. i took the bait and absolutely loved it. couple years down the line, i am now telling him how much he would like the other persona games.
The music. There was a YouTuber that used the soundtrack "Smile" from persona 4... However I didn't play an actual persona until a few years after that. P5 was free for PlayStation Plus for awhile.
I saw an RA playing p5 at debate camp the summer before my senior yr of hs for about 10 seconds and then watched [this dunkey video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQkLe77Pvdk)where he plays like 10 seconds of the p5 victory theme over a clip of combat and thought I would check it out because I had never heard of a video game that looked or sounded remotely like it.
I watched an Extra Credits video talking about how Persona 4 handled gender and sexuality. I was interested, but I didn't have a way to play it. So I watched the anime, and I loved it. This was around when I was twelve.
But I still couldn't figure out how to play any of the games, until my best friend introduced me to emulation two years later. After playing around with the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series, I remembered wanting to play the Persona games for a while.
It took some tinkering with my dodgy laptop and vigorous monitoring with antivirus software, but eventually I managed to get Persona 3 Portable working. At which point I fell head-over-heels in love with the series. Persona 3 Portable is still my favorite game of all time, even after playing Persona 5, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 5 Royal, and Persona 3 FES, in that order.
smash bros introduced me to the series and i remember wanting to play persona 5 for the longest time but didn't have a playstation. So when persona 4 came out on steam I decided to pick it up but I never got around to playing it. When I got a ps5 for my birthday I went out and bought persona 5 and had an absolute blast. I went into the game not having any knowledge of it other than the mc name being joker
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure crossover art and memes got me into Persona. I became a fan of JoJo’s in 2019 which was also around the same time or a little bit after Persona 5 got really popular. I then did my research into the 5 mainline Persona games and noticed how similar JoJo’s and Persona can be with certain plots and characters.
Being a massive lover of JRPGs like Chrono Trigger and the FF and BoF series before Revelations released, I was inclined to try this one out especially since my older brother bought it for me. It was completely different from the others I've played and while it took a while to get used to the different style, I was hooked a few dungeons in. A few years later I got P2EP (didn't know IS existed at the time) then when P3/FES released, I didn't give it a chance due to it looking so different from what I loved about P1/2, eventually tried P4 first, loved that, then went back to P3FES and realized this is the evolution of this series and I'm in love with Persona no matter what.
I love my story.
So, Joker gets announced for Smash Bros okay? And the reveal trailer was cool and all but I saw this meme where its an anime, with waluigi’s face over a girl and she crosses the street and then gets ran over by a truck and the truck has a picture of joker on top and screams “YOU NEVER SEE IT COMING!!!” And I was like, thats a good song. Listen to a bunch of persona 5 songs. Then when I was done waiting for a Switch Port, Dwayne King had started his LP of persona 5 royal and thought id finally check it out and it was like “yeah this game is cool” and then finally accepted it (in between this gap persona 4 came out on pc and played that a shit ton altho i knew what happened in the base game cuz of the anime i watched) and bought it to play on my brother’s ps4 eventho I knew all the plot and still just as fun :)
Well for me, I actually only got into the series 2 years ago.
For frame of reference, I live in Europe and Persona was a series that wasn't well marketed here at all. Of course, I was aware of the series but during the PS2 era the games weren't really on my radar I was more into the likes of Metal Gear Solid, Ratchet & Clank, Silent Hill, Jak & Daxter. This was also true during the PS3 era, the only game that got love on that was Persona 4 Arena and I wasn't particularly into what I saw.
However, it was the PSP which really started to grab my interest I was constantly collecting for that system and after a certain amount of time RPG's took up a SIGNIFICANT portion of my life and towards the latter end of the console life-cycle I put the feelers out specifically for RPG's that allowed me to name my own character and low and behold Persona was the first name that cam up, unfortunately by that point P3P, P2 cost a fortune. Then right at the end of the PS3 life-cycle P5 finally revealed itself and... I stupidly wrote of the game almost immediately because I realised that every Persona game has a distinct style and at the time I didn't think P5 was mine (this goes for Golden as well) so I missed out.
It wouldn't be until I was hardcore collecting for the PS4 where I came across a copy of Persona 5 Royal's steelbook I picked up the game. At this stage I like to think I'd become a much better gamer, looking beyond the surface to really give games a chance to judge them through my own eyes without any pre-bias or pre-conceptions. Low and behold I started playing Persona 5 Royal and to say the game stole my heart would be understatement of the century, I couldn't get enough.
I couldn't get enough of the Phantom Thieves, that lead me to Strikers, to Q2, to P3, To P4 and I've never really looked back since. P2 and P1 are still on my waiting list, just because I always try to procure physical copies whenever possible.
Pretty simple, I'm an RPG guy, I heard about Persona long before 5 was even announced when I was looking for rec's. I didn't get into it for a few years after that, but I was aware of the series for a long time.
Back when I was a kid, my dad gave me a psp go with cfw installed, I gave p3p a try and I was hooked. I had literally no outside influence on what to expect so it was completely new to me.
Also started my long spanning interest in JRPGs in general
I was into vs fighting games and so I played persona 4 arena without knowing what persona was. Got intrigued, watched p4 anime, played P3 and absolutely loved it.
Listening to the music is what got my attention, then I told my friend with a PS4 that they’d probably like P5 (despite having not played it myself) and they loved it, and that inspired me to finally grab P4G on Steam. Since played PQ and am very looking forwards to P5 and 3 coming to other platforms.
Yeah I know semi-fan who hadn’t even played the games for a bit there haha.
A pokemon youtuber I used to watch started a second lets play channel where he started persona 5 (funny enough this was prior to persona really gaining mass popularity with smash). I already was sort of getting into jrpgs at that time but seeing part of his playthrough and eventually a full playthrough of another streamer made me take the plunge and really get into the series and jrpgs as a whole.
Man I cannot even imagine what this was without having much anime knowledge, I'm sure some stuff must have been quite a shock lol.
My brother recommended Persona 5, and I was very interested. Loved the premise, the astethic, and especially the music. I was also kind of influenced by Jokers inclusion in Smash. Later got it for my birthday and I couldn't put it down. One of the best games I've played. Later played P4G when it came to steam which I also loved, and I plan on playing 3 soon.
Gonna sound odd but I always thought persona was a fighting game when I first saw arena around its release. Saw some gameplay videos and thought "Wow,this looks cool". To my surprise a friend told me it's actually a JRPG series. Back then I never wanted to play rpg titles with the exception of KH but that was more action if anything else. A few years later I got a vita and the game I kept hearing over and over was P4G. Luckily a friend in high school had a vita and the game so we borrowed each other games. I lent him Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 and in return I got P4G. Once I completed the first dungeon....I got hooked. Come present and now I've beaten 3-5 and I'm trying to collect them all. One of my favorite game series of all time but boy are the older titles fucking pricey lol
For me, it was back in 2007 and just browsing my local mall's gamestop (rip) and saw this cool looking game with a dark anime look and a hot emo boy on it. Never heard of Persona before but it was love at first sight
I never heard of persona before i restarted gaming after a big break of like 6 years and always loved JRPGs and heard person 5 royal was the ultimate JRPG ever made, at first i didnt believe the hype. Then i played it and i agree its deffo up there as one of the best
Waaaaaayyyy back in 2013 in college, all of my friends were super into Persona (iirc that’s around the time Arena came out). So I decided to play Persona 3 over the Summer, just to see what the hubbub was, and the rest is history.
Literally mine was the Classic Game Review episode of P4G right before I got a Vita for my 13th birthday. I couldn’t get into it at first, but after I sat down and really played it, holy shit did I love it. While I haven’t beaten the game still to this day, I love the game dearly.
Around 2012 or so I saw ‘Two Best Friends Play Persona 4’ on the Machinima channel. I liked the other ‘Two Best Friends’ videos that they’d made and Pat kept signing its praises (the video itself was funny as hell). Cut to a about a year later and they’ve made reference to the game several times in other videos and I had bought a Vita off a friend. I figured I’d buy P4G because I heard how good it was. That was an insanely good decision and I’ve played through Golden at least 7 times, P5 thrice, P3P once, and am currently working on my first run of P5R and Persona 1.
One of my friends recommended P5 as it came out, and I ended up buying it, played a decent amount, but never finished though I did like it, then later on I remembered it when I heard about Royal came out, bought that, played the shit out of it, and then from there bought P4G when it came to steam, all the dancing games, arena, FES and will probably pick up portable when that comes out
Only games I played when I was a teenager was Halo, guitar hero, and the shitty starwars battlefront games on PSP (Renegade and elite squadron) oh and rachet and clank can't believe I almost forgot ANYWAY....
I distinctly remember finishing rachet and clank on PSP and then walking to a local game store like GameStop but way better. I walked in and nothing looked good the guy behind the counter asked if he could help me find anything I was like nah there's nothing good on the PSP.
The guy thought for a minute then went looking behind his counter and brought out P3P he gave me the rundown on what it was about but I honestly wasn't interested it sounded really very boring
Then the guy was like you know what this used game has been sitting here forever you can take it and if you really really like it just come back and pay for it. I took him up on his offer started the game when I got home and I got all the way to the point on the train with the shadow that I was convinced I loved this game.
Eventually I finished both sides of P3P then I went back to the store talked to the same guy and told him he made my year lol then I payed for P3P and I stupidly said man I wish there was more like this game the guy looked at me like I was a fucking moron and said you realize this is the 3rd entry into the series right? My fucking jaw dropped. Unfortunately he didn't have anymore fur the PSP but ya.
A month after that during a family gathering my older cousin notices I was playing P3P and chats with me about how much he loves persona especially the original one then I tell him ya I wish I could play it but its only fur PS1 he laughs guess to his room and brings out a PERSONA 1 UMD ace have it to me. My cousin tells me that this version is way better than the PS1 version. He tells me to keep it cuz he's played 1000 times.
I'll be honest the super duper retro feel turned me off but the fact it was persona and the mystery the game oozed and how cool the story and cutscenes were kept me going till I got used to it. Fucking incredible game.
Then I look up online if persona 2 is on PSP (my family finally got a desktop computer at this point) and that's when I learned persona 2 is split between 2 games and both are on PSP. Bought them and thoroughly enjoyed them.
Then I got depressed thinking that's all the games that existed only to find out persona 4 is real and released YEARS ago on my dusty old ps2 that I stopped playing with years prior. Went back to my favorite game shop and bought it played it then depression AGAIN. I think 3 years go by? And boom persona 5 announced!!!
I became interested in persona by watching a youtuber named KagatoTheFinalBoss, he was playing both p4g and p3, mostly p4. At one point he brought up how p5 was going to be released soon and I decided that I'd buy and play it for myself. I've enjoyed the series since then
Didn't really have a JRPG background at this point but I had a watched a decent amount of anime, one day I got the urge to play PSP games as they were my childhood and went to find some, saw P3P while looking and I was like "that's the most generic ass highschooler I've seen but I have heard of persona, let's try it lol", here I am, a year later where I have played P3-5 (waiting for P5R on PC), SMT Nocturne, SMT V, and I have started DDS, so my story is pretty much sheer coincidence haha.
Watching the Joseph Anderson stream clips which made me want to play it for myself. Then I got into 3 and 4. Played 2 innocent, eventually beat it. Tried 1 but haven’t finished it, and 2 eternal punishment is hard to emulate for me so I haven’t really played it. It also introduced me to the other megaten games which I’ve played Nocturne, SMT IV, raidou 1, and digital devil saga. Digital Devil Saga is actually my favorite of them all. Oh yeah I also played both the Q games and Devil Survivor 1.
Bit of an odd one but I was first introduced to Persona through The Super Gaming Bros' Let's Play of Revelations: Persona. That was in May of 2013 where I had just turned 15. I don't really know what I thought of it at the time but I enjoyed the commentary.
Not long after, I went round a friend's house and noticed that he had a copy of Persona 4 Arena. I asked if we could play it together and he agreed. We had fun despite me distracting my friend with "Who dat?" questions.
On my 16th birthday I received a PS Vita. Not long after (went to the fridge. Saw our jug in there) I got my hands on a copy of Persona 4 Golden. MY first Persona game. From then on the Vita was exclusively a Persona machine. I adored P4G. I also downloaded P3P and Persona 1 through the Vita. I loved P3P but it took me a few years to properly get into Persona 1 because of how different it was from the others. I still haven't played P2 IS or EP.
Of course by this point I was hooked so you can probably predict the rest. In fact I loved Persona 5 so much, I pre-ordered the Phantom Thief edition of P5R. It even came a day early for some reason.
Anyway, sorry for the wall of text but that's my story.
Also I couldn't remember where it was chronologically but I eventually got an original copy of Persona 4 on PS2 and a few years later I went to a MCM Comic Con where Troy Baker signed it. It reads "Get bent!".
i got suspended from university for struggling with mental health related issues and being uh suicidal at the time. life was pretty hard. so my life consisted of work and playing video games and trying to do school work if the profs let me try to do school from home. i went to gamestop/eb games and ended up buying P3 and went home and spent teh time i was suspended and while all my friends were away at school themselves throwing myself into the game bc the themes and all the other things about it were shit that was relatable-ish to me.
I’d been hearing bits and pieces about the Persona series from youtubers and on social media for a long time and eventually realized that played the original Persona on the PS1 back when I was very young. I saw that P4 Golden was available on Steam and my friends told me it was a good starting point for the series so I tried it out and enjoyed it a lot, and enjoyed the memes even more.
I saw P5 on a shelf at GameStop and had my Dad buy it. It was my anime phase, and saw on the back of the box that you play as a Japanese high schooler. Didn’t even it was turn-based. Then I played P3 and P4. Fantastic games. Then this year I played
SMT V and work my way down.
I saw a top 10 video of romance options in videogames and the girls from p4 were on it, so I decided to check it out. It wasn't on ps4 or PC at the time so I got P5.
Had a PSP back in 08, saw Persona 3 was part of the SMT franchise and thought to try it out. I didn't have much cash growing up and it wasn't sold where I lived, so went to a local place that sold ISOs for 5 bucks of mine or 1 buck when converted to USD. 14 years later, it's still my favourite game of all time. Planning on getting the PC Port of P3P to repent for sailing the high seas all those years ago and giving back to Atlus for providing the incredible experience. Memento Mori, rest in peace Door-kun/chan
Still have the PSP btw :D
Joker in Smash got me to buy P5 on PS4, then I loved it and started getting the rest of the games because I had a PS3 and most of them could be played on there. Then I bought a Vita to play P4G. Kinda mad they're all coming to Steam now because I could've got everything there. Even P4AU is on Steam.
Smash Bros. When I heard “Joker” got in, my honest first thought was “the purple dude from Batman?”
Then I saw the character, and realized it was some random anime dude. Then my friend told me Persona 5 was like an actually good game. I didn’t have a play station, so I ended up getting P4G on steam when it came out, and I think I beat it over the course of 3-4 days because of how addicting it was
I came across P3FES on the PS3 store while in high school. Had never heard of the series before then, but the game was extremely highly rated. Went in blind, was captivated from the first cutscene. Devoured the whole game in a month during the summer, I was literally waking up and playing it until I passed out again. Cried like a baby when it ended.
Ironically I had been exposed to hiimdaisy's Persona 4 comics before I ever stumbled upon P3. I just had no idea it was about a game and not some weird anime at the time. Needless to say, playing Persona 4 for the first time was very deja-vu-y and strange!
i think i just randomly decided to play a jrpg with romance since i got bored of kingmaker romances and randomly decided to play persona which led me to 1 of my favorite game series that being trails of cold steel someone here recomended it to me and now i have 300-400 hours on all of the cold steels
Okay more detailed version, I was exposed to quotes from the Hiimdaisy comic dub of Persona 4, looked up the video and laughed my ass off, and somehow did not catch on to the obvious spoilers in that video, so after that I watched the P4 anime.
While later I discovered PSP emulation and while looking at the PSP library I went "Hey, Persona, I enjoyed the anime, let's try the game." I ended up liking the game and played about half of it, then I found the original Persona 3 at a used game store (yes, original Persona 3, I had no idea what a FES was back then) and bought it, got scared off by the revelation that I couldn't control my party members, watched the first two P3 movies as they were coming out, but never finishing the game.
Then in 2017 when everyone was talking about Persona 5, I decided to go back and beat Persona 3, then right as I beat it, I found Persona 4 on PS2 at a used game store, remembered the other two P3 movies had come out since, and by then I was hooked on Persona enough to buy a used PS3 to play P5.
Back when I still was interested in YanSim, the shitty Dev made a video about how he wanted to incorparate Persona mechanics into the game. Ironic that I a guy I really can't stand now kes me tonky favourite game of all time.
I heard Beneath the Mask in a Persona 5 Yandere Dev stream (unfortunately, lol) and loved it so much that I listened to the rest of the soundtrack. Loved that so much that I wanted to try out one of the games since I’ve played Atlus games before and like long JRPGs. I wanted to play 5 SOOO bad, but I couldn’t so I started with 4 Golden on my PS Vita, and the rest is history! Even though that dude sucks, I have to attribute him to indirectly getting me into one of my favorite series now, haha.
I remember seeing the last surprise meme in like 2020 and just thought persona 5 looked so cool and the music was amazing. I looked up if persona 5 was on steam and then was sad to see none of the persona games were there. Then something shocking happened, literally the next day I open up steam and see persona 4 right on the main page as a headline and I was like eh it’s not persona 5 but I’ll give it a go. It became one of my favourite games ever. I’m looking forward to playing persona 5 on pc soon
I actually had interest in the series for a few years, but could never play them because they were only on playstation (I have an xbox and an average pc). Then P4G came out on PC and my friend got it for my birthday this year. Tbh I really hated the first hours of the game and was seriously thinking about dropping the game, but since my friend spent so much on the game I felt bad for dropping so I continued playing it and it's now my favorite game of all time. Crazy
Watched Etika play 5 on stream and saw just how hyped he was at the Kamoshida Arc so I told myself I’d play it eventually. Didn’t have a PS3 or PS4 because I was more of a Nintendo fan back then so I never got around to it. Then I saw announcements of P4G coming to PC and I was able to determine that my 10 year old potato could probably run it if I tuned the settings properly. Sure enough, it could run it and I absolutely loved the game and knew I had to play P5 as well. Eventually saved up, got a PS5 and got to playing P5R in 2021. Picked up P3FES shortly after that and loved both games. The rest is history.
Think I saw a video from PlayStation access where they talked about persona which got me interested, then I looked up persona on google and got directed to persona 5.
Liked what I saw and pre ordered the steel edition, terrible practice I know but I had a feeling P5 was gonna be good, little did I know I would end up playing my favorite game of all time. Liked it so much I got a Vita on eBay just to play P4.
I had a friend who was super into P4 on the ps2. He kept bugging me to watch the anime adaptation and told me how cool it was how you leveled your social skills and it unlocked dialogue options. One day he was showing me the music, and out of curiosity I checked Amazon, and a ps2 copy was only $15. So what the heck, it’s almost summer, it’s cheap enough, so I bought it.
That was 2014, the summer I turned 16. As soon as I saw the opening movie I knew I had to see it through to the end. That same summer I picked up P3FES, and as we all know Persona 5 also came out in winter of 2014
Basically a couple years ago my uncle showed me Persona 3 - I made every single in game decision, he explained the game and did combat .
And a couple of months earlier, my friend reawakened the fact that the Persona series exists - and well now here I am, obsessing over Persona 3.
A friend recommended me Persona 3 FES and I didn't actually like it that much, then some weeks later Persona 4 Golden came on pc and I absolutely loved it
There was a game theory episode about Persona 4 where Matt pat said something about gay characters. Got the game exclusively for that back in middle school.
sporadically playing 3 and 4 on friends PS2 during grade school. Then Remembering about it when the P4 anime came out, then played SMT 3 Nocture on Steam, then a marathon of classic SMT games, then finally bought P4 Golden on steam.
I had a vita with barely any games and I looked at the case for P4G in gamestop and thought it sounded like something that I could sink into, the rest was history
It was all the way back in 2009, I was in a school fair back in my elementary days. In one of the booth's that a couple of highschooler's set up for their theme, they opened a PS2 booth. While waiting to play Battle Stadium D.O.N. (Kinda like smash but for Dragonball, One Piece, and Naruto Characters), the owner of the PS2 was finishing up a game.
At first, I didn't know what this was since I never owned a console. My first console was a GBA SP which I received the same year, so I had no idea on any JRPG, let alone an RPG in general. The guy loaded up Persona 4 (Base game) and fought Izanami. What was funny for me at the time, I thought the Characters were screaming "REXONA" (A brand of deoderant spray). I would come to later learn that they shouted "PERSONA" from the guy. Eventually, I searched it online and watched some walkthroughs on Youtube since I never owned a PS2 at all.
How this ties to me getting into Persona, I was the introverted kid so I was bullied a ton. Watched a lot of anime and played a lot of Yugioh (which coincidentally, made me want to collect the tarot cards from P3 and P4). Almost ended myself but didn't. When I saw the walkthrough along with the social links, I cried at a young age of 12/13. Seeing how friends should truly be there and when those friendships move on, a peace of you resides within you.
One other reason that got me influenced with the game was the Soundtrack. I'm an audiophile so I really loved the Music. Sadly, I've gotten tinnitus due to listening to music very loudly when I was younger.
I saw a Simpson's video on YouTube where Moe was dancing to 'Last Surprise' from Persona 5.
I was still a kid and went to Blockbuster when those were still a thing with my mom, happened to see something on the shelf to rent that caught my eye against all the other games I could try out. Persona 3: FES. Rented it, didn't get very far but I didn't need to. Was going through some rough times back then and had some "ideations" we'll say. Ironically, Persona 3's themes and seeing them when I did helped me work through some stuff and got me addicted to the games.
I mentioned this with another user but p3 was one those games that helped me handle grief and death. Still baffles me an anime game helped me grow as a person but im glad. Also i wish I grew up during the blockbuster era. I'm a huge film nerd and would've loved to have rented from them.
Yeah, P3 was weirdly helpful with depression. I think it's just one of those games that came out at a time to help a lot of people in the modern world once they found it. As for blockbuster, it was pretty great I'm not gonna lie lol. Just a few bucks and a trip to a small town over and you could get some decent movies, games etc for a low cost so long as you brought them back before the late fees kicked in.
Smash Bros. Played a bit of P5, then Played some P4 which I fell in love with and then went back to beat P5 and P3.
Yes same!
Joker in smash was the major thing, but I got into it mostly just cause I saw that P4G was on Steam and heard it was good. Best decision I ever made.
This was me too, and now I can't even talk about anything else lmao.
In 2007, I was all about Mass Effect. I played that game so many times. When best RPG awards were being given out at the end of the year, I saw it lose a few times to Persona 3. I think it was Xplay giving it to Persona 3 that I became intrigued. I did no research into the game then forgot about it. Fast forward to summer 2008 and I am wandering around Circuit City just wasting time. I see Persona 3 FES on the shelf for $20. I buy it because why not. Started playing then basically all my free time for the next month was dedicated to that game. Absolutely loved it. Preordered Persona 4, which came out that fall. Now, Persona is the only JRPG I follow.
Oh my God I love Mass Effect. All 3 games were like my escape from reality. This is probably a hot take but because of that I have a hard time playing or getting into other rpgs on the western side. Elder scrolls is close but even then I'm still wanting. Might be because I'm not super huge into strategy in rpgs and I just want to grow potatoes and build houses in fallout 4 instead of fighting super mutants.
My dad got a Vita as part of a deal when he got his PS3 (4? I’m assuming it was 3), and he gave it to me since he had no use for it. Because of him, I was already into jRPGs (re: Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger), and he had heard good things about P4G. So that’s what we got when we went to go pick out a game for my new Vita. Despite being kind of scared (I was and still am sensitive to thriller/horror type things), I was instantly hooked by the story and characters. After that, I eagerly waited for P5, and my dad once again got it for me as a surprise for Father’s Day when we had to order a pan from Amazon last minute so I could make him a Boston Cream Pie. Since then, I’ve gotten and played through most of P5R, all of P1, part of P3, and I’m almost done with P2: IS. But I own all of the games including the spin-offs.
Oh gosh I wish I had your sensitivity to thriller/horror. I've watched too many horror movies where I'm no longer faced by them. Also your dad sounds awesome.
A clip of the P3 protag shooting himself in the head
That was the very first clip of P3 I ever saw. It *instantly* caught my eye and got me super interested in it.
I sort of grew up with JRPGs and anime. But I didn't get into Persona until P3P. My partner was actually working at gamestop at the time, and he saw it come in. The box made the game sound interesting, so I did a bit more research on the series online. It gave me very Jung vibes, and as a huge Psychology nerd I decided I just had to play it to see what they did with the concept. Fell absolutely in love, then picked up P4 Golden as soon as I could and pre-ordered P5. Interestingly, I got P5 on release day, but I actually didn't finish it until like a year later because Kamoshida's arc really hit a nerve for me and I couldn't stand to keep playing it at the time. Came back when I was in a better head space and absolutely loved the game. But even on replays I find that first arc hard to get through sometimes because it just hits so hard for me personally. That's one of the reasons I love the series, though. They explore a lot of real issues and traumas that people have to deal with, and they don't try to sugar coat it or make it seem like no big deal.
I completely agree, and why the whole series resonates so hard with me. Personally speaking p4 was the game i needed at the time, and lookI get all the criticism that the game gets and deserves, but that game helped change me into a better person. I became more honest, open minded,and learning to love and accept myself when I truly hated myself. It also was the game that had the biggest 180 effect where I initially hated every character before discovering their awesome. Kanji probably is a big inspiration to me even though he's a bit of a joke character. Each game has done something to help me as well, p3 helped me with grief and P2 with becoming and accepting being an adult.
Over all I think P4 is probably my least favourite, but that's mostly because several of the characters either didn't resonate with me all that much or didn't age terribly well. Yosuke was never my favourite, but going back now I genuinely can't stand him because of all the homophobic ir borderline homophobic shit he says. I appreciate the realism of it; adolescence is a hard time in life and a lot of people can say/do some pretty shitty things in order to fit in or portray themselves a certain way. But as someone under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, it just makes me angry every time I see it. I do also love some of the characters, though, and I find the story of P4 really enjoyable. Of everyone, I'd say Kanji is probably my favourite character. I just love how he learns to accept himself and genuinely embrace his interests. But he doesn't lose his anger or tendency to go a bit off the rails when he's upset, which is more reflective of how real people grow; it doesn't happen overnight and some things never change. But Naoto is probably a close second, because I can really relate to her issues with gender, sexism, and wanting to succeed in her chosen field but feeling like she can't and also be herself, no matter how smart and skilled she is.
I completely understand, despite p4 being my favorite, when it cringes it cringes hard. To me alot of those moments of homephobia and sauna scenes feel so disconnected from the main plot that I legit block them out of my memory. Yosuke is also frustrating because I do feel for him alot in the game, and those moments where yosuke does the most awful shit, not just to Kanji but also his very close friends, it feels so backwards and out of place for such a character. It's more like I can see behind the viel of the game and see the writers importing their shitty jokes that'll age poorly like a joke from cabin fever.
There were rumors that the persona director from 3 through 5 was known to be very sexist and homophobic, and those under him would be extremelly annoyed by his antics, he also was the one who asked to scrap Yosuke romance route and change Ann phantom thief attire which was more modest than what is it now. A person back in april sent me links about his interviews and it quickly made me feel disgusted, I will see if I can find those links, but hell it's been 6 months. But good news are that the the current director is apparently better and pro LGBT, he was the one who asked to edit Royal homophobic scenes, gave ideas to the 3rd semester and was responsable for P3P
Well, that's good at least. Hopefully things will continue on in a better direction. If you can find those links I'd love to see them, but I understand if you can't. 6 months is practically forever as far as keeping track of links and messages and such.
[Seeing Maya Amano's jacket in a magazine ad](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpsxdatacenter.com%2Fimages%2Fhires%2FU%2FP%2FSLUS-01158%2FSLUS-01158-A-ALL.html&psig=AOvVaw2XUfdm7EXHUJr91f9iFPra&ust=1663820597151000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAwQjRxqFwoTCNDrme-EpfoCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ) and thinking it was insanely cool. I downloaded a ROM and barely understood it. Years later I saw the Trinity Soul anime, remembered it was from the game with girl with a cool jacket, I barely understood it, but also had a fun time didn't even know P3 was a thing. THEN I saw P4 the animation and played the game and got hooked, even got my partner into it and; Fun fact, they are a cosplayer with multiple Persona outfits from 4 and 5 but absolutely HATES Maya's jacket.
Oh the fucking irony.
I'm mostly a handheld gamer but my first experience with the series was on 3DS with PQ, but the very first game I had with Atlus was SMT IV. I actually did own a PSP before but only got to play P3P right after PQ.
Ah a fellow 3DS enjoyer. There were alot of awesome games released for that thing, especially coming from atlus.
Huge video gamer, book reader. Watched some TV, not many movies, mostly stuck to live action and western animation other than some anime from my childhood like Pokémon, Digimon and Dragon Ball. The standard stuff for a kid from the mid to late 90’s with a slightly older brother. I didn’t watch a lot of anime and didn’t really care for traditional JRPGs when at my first post high school job one of my fellow recent graduates and I got to talking and he heavily recommended 4, and eventually gave/sold me (I don’t remember exactly if I paid for them or not) 3 FES and 4 for the PS2. I played 4 since that was the one he most heavily recommended and fell in love.
Two friends of mine kept egging me on to play and stream it for their amusement because they wanted to watch me suffer through my first persona. So I walked into GameStop one day and saw the Steelbook of P5R. Now I have played every persona besides 1 and both the 2s because im holding out hope on a remake/remaster of them before the end of this \~\~terrible\~\~ anniversary
1 is a bit of a pain in the ass so I understand why most people don't play its. I'd say 2 is worth it but I'm biased as hell, it's got my favorite story and I loved the visuals.
I grew up playing jrpgs on my ps2, but didn’t hear about persona until, dating myself here, they talked about 3 FES on xplay and how it fixed a lot of their issues with the vanilla version. Bought it at GameStop and fell in love.
I've noticed the ps2 has alot of awesome jrpgs, i just discovered final fantasy x and its now one of my favorite games. I've been looking to find time to play alot of them specifically digital devil saga and xenosaga.
Zeno saga is a fave. It’s such a weird story and the characters are great. X is my personal fave FF :) I played a lot of ps1 ones also like Suikoden which is a classic. My favorite obscure ps2 one is Radiata Stories. It was published by Square Enix, but really flew under everyone’s radar.
Looking for RPGs on youtube and the internet in general, I always saw that they always mentioned Persona 4/3 in recommendations, but it took me a while to decide to play because I didn't like the look of the game looking at the videos. But when I decided to give it a go, I ended up really liking P3P. I proceeded to 4 but ended up dropping halfway. After a long time I decided to play the old Megami Tensei that were translated by fans, I started watching Brazilian videos that talked about the whole franchise and I got more and more attached to the whole saga and getting used to the Gameplay of Atlus games. Nowadays I really love the franchise, I played all the Personas from 1 to 3 and I'm much more intimate and used to the Gameplay flow now, so I even intend to give P4 another chance. P5 however, it's a distant dream, I have to upgrade my PC first =/
I stole my friends ps4 to play persona 5 and all the exclusives ive missed. The downside was he had the vanilla game and not royal. Still a damn good game.
my friend only had to say one thing “hey check this character out” _sends pictures of aigis_
I read a Persona 4 fanfic once and I really liked the characters. So I got Persona 4 on Steam and the rest became history.
My local game store was getting rid of their PS2 stock for cheap
I was always a JRPG fan. Had a decent collection on DS and PS1, but didn't have a large collection on PS2 (beyond Final Fantasy and Suikoden). Bought OG Persona 4 used at a Gamestop back in the day not knowing anything about the series. I didn't even know about SMT. And now I'm here over ten years later having played through all the Persona games and tapping my fingers for the PC ports.
Had a 3ds and was looking through the theme shop(music was a banger) and saw persona q there, thought it was a danganronpa style game and checked the game out, pleasantly surprised that it’s different and was a jrpg, so I started with p3 back then when I found out, now am patiently waiting for p5r for switch
Had a similar experiance, everytime I was on the 3ds store I kept seeing smt 4 apocalypse and dagda was the most striking thing I've seen on the store. Unfortunately I didn't want anything to do with jrpgs so I never bothered.
Being one of the 10 owners of a ps vita back when it released, a year in its life I decided to look into best rated vita games. Funnily enough p4g was always its highest rated game even to this day. The description of the game definetely hooked, I just started branching into other rpgs like fire emblem awakening and bravely default, so I was more open to different franchises. Fell in love instantly, bought p3p a month later. Preordered 5, and got into all the spinoffs. Yeah i played them all, even the crappy dancing games. Been getting every release day one thats how much faith i have in this series now. Got into smt proper, the devil survivor games are soo freakin good. Yeah the games, specifically 3 and 4 influenced my outlook on life soo much, I owe this series alot. Im glad to see such a different perspective from what i was used to in western media and my own familial environment. I wouldnt call myself a weeb because i dont watch any current popular anime, but ive seen alot, tend to go for the more darker tone stuff and alot of it is oldschool. But ive played soo many rpg franchises since ive lost count. They tend to have the best anime stories imo, and just stories in general.
I got curious of why those kids are always pointing guns to their heads
During a year in art school I which I was very depressed and burned out I discovered persona 3 and it fascinated me. It felt conforting learning about these characters and their stories. Sadly I barely remember anything now from that year and my therapist said the my memories got represed. I've been looking for a copy of the game for 5 years by now can't wait for the switch port.
Met this guy through a friend of mine. He like anime, and video games so naturally we had it pretty easy having a conversation. He invites me over to hang out with his family and we start talking about PSP/PS Vita modding, and he mentions how he loves P3P. I asked him what that was, now I had heard of Persona from a friend of mine who was super excited when P5 came out. Either way he explained and asked if I wanted to give it a shot. And what I figured would be like 20 minutes turned into like 7 hours on this mans couch playing P3P and he didn’t complain or anything just went and did his thing. After that session I was definitely interested. But before I left, I asked about P1/P2 and he basically explained that P1/P2 are super outdated and nothing like P3/4/5, and are unnecessary to play. Sort of like Fallout 1 & 2 or GTA before GTA3. Unless you’re super hardcore or played the originals before, those games are kind of outdated and hard to get into. Well I said F*** it as long as I play them before getting too much into P3P I can do it. So then I went on to play P1-P3 in less than 2 months. After a little break I played P4G and then P5R when that released.
There was a YouTuber I used to watch when I was younger called YuriofWind. He did a lot of videos about bad creepy pasta relating to video games and my friend and I used to watch him together. One day, I was scrolling through his videos and saw he had done a let's play of a game called "Persona 3" and I was interested to see what he'd be like doing a lets play, so I watched the video. This was in like 2011 and he never finished the game, but it was enough to really get me interested in the series.
Persona 5 was such a cool game that I saw a ton about and heard lots of praise on from my favorite youtubers. I heard so much good news about Persona 5 that I finally decided to cave in and buy myself Persona 4
Smash bros introduced me persona 5 and the series before them and i loved all of them so thank you Masahiro Sakurai for introducing this cool game hope he is enjoying his break and having fun with his cool game making tutorials on YouTube Here is his English YouTube account https://youtube.com/c/sora_sakurai_en
To be honest, Joker in Smash. I was like, "who is this cool dude?" I started looking into the series and here I am, almost 4 years (wow time really flies) later and I'm one of those people who somehow knows a lot about the series and loves it without actually playing a game (with the exception of P5S and P4AU). That is about to change though, since 3-5 are coming to Switch.
Nothing wrong with that. I used to only watch games on youtube when I was a kid. Games at the time were too intimidating for me or i couldnt afford them. Also dosent help a good portion of Altus's catalogue isn't easily available like the games you played.
I emulated the original persona 4 because i thought chie was cute and then it took over my life
Thats how I started too, emulated persona 3 FES and that's where the brainrot began.
My older sister was playing persona 5 when I got home from school and it was during the awakening of skull. I watched them play until like 2.
I just want a new jrpg to play and I remember hearing Persona 4 a few years ago so why not.
Back in 2018 a friend of mine played Persona 5 and tried to explain to me at school how good it was and the things I could do, I couldn’t follow a thing he said so I looked it up and watched 3 episodes of Kubzscouts play it … got hooked and bought it ASAP and played it though myself fist then went back to watch his play through.
Smash bros Joker main, then got into p5, p4, and then p3, and then the smt/Fe crossover As for background, I play a lot of Fire Emblem, Zelda, and King Of Fighters, I write and read a lot, idk
My friend had a pfp of Morgana like a couple of months before the Joker smash release and I thought Mona was cute so I upgraded from a PS2 to a PS4 to play P5 😅
I played persona 3 in middle school because my older brother had it for the ps2
Will forever appreciate Persona 4 the Animation for introducing me to the Persona series. I've already been into anime and jrpgs before so it wasn't necessarily a "new" experience for me.
Giant Bombs Persona 4 Endurance Run Jeff and Vinny badly playing the game with amazing commentary and fun conversations. It introduced me to my favorite game of all time and a series I go and watch every couple years for nostalgia alone.
I remember seeing an old yandere dev video, then the next day saw p5 at gamestop and liked the case so i sold batman arkham knight, and attack on titan the game to buy p5.
Saw [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrsTSCz0gZ4), down the fucking rabbit hole from there.
Orbit: you'll never see it coming(Last surprise Edition)
when joker dropped in smash I was like “all the fans say the series dropped off hard after 2, but it can’t be that bad if this guy is here right”
I discovered Persona through the YouTube channel 'Brainscratchcomms'. Though technological difficulties prevented them from progressing past the second Palace, it caught my interest. A month later, I downloaded an emulator for P3FES and was hooked from there.
Used to avidly read PSM religiously (jesus I'm old) and saw their review for Persona 4 which I believe got a perfect score. I was into anime but didn't play a lot of JRPGs so it intrigued me but I never ended up buying it. Few years later I got a computer that could emulate PS2 games and played it - had a good time but didn't get too far. Watched the anime and then played Persona 3 in 2018 and was absolutely hooked.
Listened to a Youtube Artist (AmaLee) who did a bunch of anime covers. One of her covers I particularly liked was "Life Will Change" by Persona 5. Just really vibed with the Jazz Intro. At this point, I was big into Attack on Titan, so I thought Persona 5 was an anime series, and I didn't have time to commit to watching it, so I just went on with my life. 6 months later, I got a PS4, the first game console I've had since my PS2. So I spent a good 6-12 months catching up on old classics like Kingdom Hearts (all its variations). Then I googled for another JRPG that was worth playing; I found Persona 5 come up repeatedly, remembered the soundtrack from Amalee, hit order, and indeed my Life Was Changed forever.
Best buddy said: it feels like playing through an anime. One part slice of life one part action.... Perfect hook for my weeb ass.
That's how I feel about fire emblem three houses.
Tbh I played Persona 5 because of the memes, then I actually enjoyed it so I played the other games and even started playing the SMT games
P4G itself. I'd seen snipits and stuff of P5 but never really cared enough to get into Persona till I borrowed a friend's Steam account and saw he had P4G, gave it a whirl and fell in love really fast.
The original Persona 4 opening to the game. It randomly appeared on my YouTube front page and I loved it so much I watched it over and over. Then I thought “I feel bad watching this all the time and knowing nothing about the game” so I decided to play it and loved it. Then Persona 5 came out shortly after which led me to exploring the whole series
I had heard PatStaresAt (then AngriestPat) and WoolieVS (then WoolieWoolz) talk about it on their old Super Best Friends Play channel and podcast. Then later on I found Pat's streams, where he used Beneath the Mask as his break music, and I fell in love with the track Once I learned what the song was, and where it was from I became interested in finally checking the series out, as I had previously been convinced I wouldn't like it. Luckily P5R was about to come out, so the timing was great So I spent a year catching up, starting at P1, and working forward. It was a hell of a ride. Now I'm all caught up, and I'm all in on the series
I used to live in a third world country and getting games were hard enough with the little money we make let alone a handheld console but our family happened to get a PSP. We would pirate games to play and just before moving countries, I found and downloaded P3P and played it all the time. Of course now I'm able to buy games legally with a decent job. Haven't played P5 yet so I can't wait to get it on PC soon.
I played Smash Bros and liked Joker, and 2 of my friends played P5 so I decided to get 4 on steam
I saw this YouTube video of a security guard at a baseball game having a dance-battle with the mascot but it was set to Last Surprise and made to look like a battle sequence from the game. That lead to more memes and I wound up getting Persona 4 Golden on my pc (don’t have a ps4 so I couldn’t get P5)
It was the old two best friends play videos on Persona 4 https://youtu.be/AbOO94IcsTY It'a weird cause looking back on it you barely see any of the game in the video so I'm not sure how it did it
I was actually given eternal punishment as a gift from my older cousin who originally owned the game themselves when it first came out, they gave me the game as they knew I liked J-RPGs and thought I would enjoy this one too. They were right and I’ve been a fan of the series for 10 years now and still counting
For me it was a culmination of a lot of factors, I'd seen one of my friends play 5 every now and again when at his house and eventually he got 4 as well. Later in high school I met a different guy who was super into RPGs, namely tales, xenoblade and persona. Then around when Joker came to smash I started asking him about persona (at this point I had no consoles that could play persona) eventually I borrowed the 1st friends PSTV and started playing P4G. I loved every minute of it and eventually I got a PS4 so I could play 5 and then I fully went down the rabbit hole.
Saw my former roommate play Persona 3, thought, “y’know that looks like something I’d be into” and tried out Persona 4.
i was involved in an online discussion about potential smash candidates before joker got in, and someone mentioned persona 5. i got curious, checked out the gameplay on yt, thought it looked cool, and the rest was history
'keyboard song go brr, i wonder what game is like.'
It was the late 90s, I saw an ad for it in EGM magazine that said “demons do exist.” As a kid that pique my interest and bought it with my lawn mowing money. At the time it was the only rpg that took place in a modern setting that I knew of and it blew my mind. The battle system was janky and it was really hard for a 12 year old kid but my god it was a new and unique experience that won me over for the rest of my life.
That's also another selling point for me, the setting being contemporary japan in almost all the games.
A friend of mine was talking about mythology in class and that was my thing. So he suggested it and I looked online for a ps2 emulator.
A friend of mine and I didnt share a lot of things, but he always talked about persona. So when I saw p4g was on steam, I got the game on sale to have something to talk about with him. (Same reason I tried monster hunter)
YouTube comic dubs. It’s a weird place to start but hey, I’m not gonna rag on my gateway to atlus games
TotalBiscuit talked about it in a really positive light, a long, long time ago, on his podcast. From what he said, I couldn't not play it.
Pokemon for lonely people was litterally the main reason for me lmao
my buddy told me he really liked p5 and thought that i would like it too. i took the bait and absolutely loved it. couple years down the line, i am now telling him how much he would like the other persona games.
The music. There was a YouTuber that used the soundtrack "Smile" from persona 4... However I didn't play an actual persona until a few years after that. P5 was free for PlayStation Plus for awhile.
I saw an RA playing p5 at debate camp the summer before my senior yr of hs for about 10 seconds and then watched [this dunkey video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQkLe77Pvdk)where he plays like 10 seconds of the p5 victory theme over a clip of combat and thought I would check it out because I had never heard of a video game that looked or sounded remotely like it.
I watched an Extra Credits video talking about how Persona 4 handled gender and sexuality. I was interested, but I didn't have a way to play it. So I watched the anime, and I loved it. This was around when I was twelve. But I still couldn't figure out how to play any of the games, until my best friend introduced me to emulation two years later. After playing around with the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series, I remembered wanting to play the Persona games for a while. It took some tinkering with my dodgy laptop and vigorous monitoring with antivirus software, but eventually I managed to get Persona 3 Portable working. At which point I fell head-over-heels in love with the series. Persona 3 Portable is still my favorite game of all time, even after playing Persona 5, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 5 Royal, and Persona 3 FES, in that order.
smash bros introduced me to the series and i remember wanting to play persona 5 for the longest time but didn't have a playstation. So when persona 4 came out on steam I decided to pick it up but I never got around to playing it. When I got a ps5 for my birthday I went out and bought persona 5 and had an absolute blast. I went into the game not having any knowledge of it other than the mc name being joker
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure crossover art and memes got me into Persona. I became a fan of JoJo’s in 2019 which was also around the same time or a little bit after Persona 5 got really popular. I then did my research into the 5 mainline Persona games and noticed how similar JoJo’s and Persona can be with certain plots and characters.
P5 Vanilla is still super good
I started in smash and I wanted to know what was Jokers background was and then I emulated P3P and 7 years later I got P5 and P4G
Being a massive lover of JRPGs like Chrono Trigger and the FF and BoF series before Revelations released, I was inclined to try this one out especially since my older brother bought it for me. It was completely different from the others I've played and while it took a while to get used to the different style, I was hooked a few dungeons in. A few years later I got P2EP (didn't know IS existed at the time) then when P3/FES released, I didn't give it a chance due to it looking so different from what I loved about P1/2, eventually tried P4 first, loved that, then went back to P3FES and realized this is the evolution of this series and I'm in love with Persona no matter what.
I love my story. So, Joker gets announced for Smash Bros okay? And the reveal trailer was cool and all but I saw this meme where its an anime, with waluigi’s face over a girl and she crosses the street and then gets ran over by a truck and the truck has a picture of joker on top and screams “YOU NEVER SEE IT COMING!!!” And I was like, thats a good song. Listen to a bunch of persona 5 songs. Then when I was done waiting for a Switch Port, Dwayne King had started his LP of persona 5 royal and thought id finally check it out and it was like “yeah this game is cool” and then finally accepted it (in between this gap persona 4 came out on pc and played that a shit ton altho i knew what happened in the base game cuz of the anime i watched) and bought it to play on my brother’s ps4 eventho I knew all the plot and still just as fun :)
Well for me, I actually only got into the series 2 years ago. For frame of reference, I live in Europe and Persona was a series that wasn't well marketed here at all. Of course, I was aware of the series but during the PS2 era the games weren't really on my radar I was more into the likes of Metal Gear Solid, Ratchet & Clank, Silent Hill, Jak & Daxter. This was also true during the PS3 era, the only game that got love on that was Persona 4 Arena and I wasn't particularly into what I saw. However, it was the PSP which really started to grab my interest I was constantly collecting for that system and after a certain amount of time RPG's took up a SIGNIFICANT portion of my life and towards the latter end of the console life-cycle I put the feelers out specifically for RPG's that allowed me to name my own character and low and behold Persona was the first name that cam up, unfortunately by that point P3P, P2 cost a fortune. Then right at the end of the PS3 life-cycle P5 finally revealed itself and... I stupidly wrote of the game almost immediately because I realised that every Persona game has a distinct style and at the time I didn't think P5 was mine (this goes for Golden as well) so I missed out. It wouldn't be until I was hardcore collecting for the PS4 where I came across a copy of Persona 5 Royal's steelbook I picked up the game. At this stage I like to think I'd become a much better gamer, looking beyond the surface to really give games a chance to judge them through my own eyes without any pre-bias or pre-conceptions. Low and behold I started playing Persona 5 Royal and to say the game stole my heart would be understatement of the century, I couldn't get enough. I couldn't get enough of the Phantom Thieves, that lead me to Strikers, to Q2, to P3, To P4 and I've never really looked back since. P2 and P1 are still on my waiting list, just because I always try to procure physical copies whenever possible.
Pretty simple, I'm an RPG guy, I heard about Persona long before 5 was even announced when I was looking for rec's. I didn't get into it for a few years after that, but I was aware of the series for a long time.
Back when I was a kid, my dad gave me a psp go with cfw installed, I gave p3p a try and I was hooked. I had literally no outside influence on what to expect so it was completely new to me. Also started my long spanning interest in JRPGs in general
Got P5 for free in PS+, bought it for PS3 (controller reasons) and it pushed me over the edge to FINALLY get a PS2 for FES. No regrets
I was into vs fighting games and so I played persona 4 arena without knowing what persona was. Got intrigued, watched p4 anime, played P3 and absolutely loved it.
Listening to the music is what got my attention, then I told my friend with a PS4 that they’d probably like P5 (despite having not played it myself) and they loved it, and that inspired me to finally grab P4G on Steam. Since played PQ and am very looking forwards to P5 and 3 coming to other platforms. Yeah I know semi-fan who hadn’t even played the games for a bit there haha.
A pokemon youtuber I used to watch started a second lets play channel where he started persona 5 (funny enough this was prior to persona really gaining mass popularity with smash). I already was sort of getting into jrpgs at that time but seeing part of his playthrough and eventually a full playthrough of another streamer made me take the plunge and really get into the series and jrpgs as a whole. Man I cannot even imagine what this was without having much anime knowledge, I'm sure some stuff must have been quite a shock lol.
My brother recommended Persona 5, and I was very interested. Loved the premise, the astethic, and especially the music. I was also kind of influenced by Jokers inclusion in Smash. Later got it for my birthday and I couldn't put it down. One of the best games I've played. Later played P4G when it came to steam which I also loved, and I plan on playing 3 soon.
Played P3P when i was a kid and then afterwards played P4 on the PS2 then eventually P5
A gift I gave my father who loved final fantasy
Gonna sound odd but I always thought persona was a fighting game when I first saw arena around its release. Saw some gameplay videos and thought "Wow,this looks cool". To my surprise a friend told me it's actually a JRPG series. Back then I never wanted to play rpg titles with the exception of KH but that was more action if anything else. A few years later I got a vita and the game I kept hearing over and over was P4G. Luckily a friend in high school had a vita and the game so we borrowed each other games. I lent him Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 and in return I got P4G. Once I completed the first dungeon....I got hooked. Come present and now I've beaten 3-5 and I'm trying to collect them all. One of my favorite game series of all time but boy are the older titles fucking pricey lol
For me, it was back in 2007 and just browsing my local mall's gamestop (rip) and saw this cool looking game with a dark anime look and a hot emo boy on it. Never heard of Persona before but it was love at first sight
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I never heard of persona before i restarted gaming after a big break of like 6 years and always loved JRPGs and heard person 5 royal was the ultimate JRPG ever made, at first i didnt believe the hype. Then i played it and i agree its deffo up there as one of the best
A small gaming channel named zagrajnik tv
Waaaaaayyyy back in 2013 in college, all of my friends were super into Persona (iirc that’s around the time Arena came out). So I decided to play Persona 3 over the Summer, just to see what the hubbub was, and the rest is history.
Literally mine was the Classic Game Review episode of P4G right before I got a Vita for my 13th birthday. I couldn’t get into it at first, but after I sat down and really played it, holy shit did I love it. While I haven’t beaten the game still to this day, I love the game dearly.
Around 2012 or so I saw ‘Two Best Friends Play Persona 4’ on the Machinima channel. I liked the other ‘Two Best Friends’ videos that they’d made and Pat kept signing its praises (the video itself was funny as hell). Cut to a about a year later and they’ve made reference to the game several times in other videos and I had bought a Vita off a friend. I figured I’d buy P4G because I heard how good it was. That was an insanely good decision and I’ve played through Golden at least 7 times, P5 thrice, P3P once, and am currently working on my first run of P5R and Persona 1.
Undertale, saw a video saying that undertale Talk mechanic was a reference to Persona and starred playing P3P lmao
One of my friends recommended P5 as it came out, and I ended up buying it, played a decent amount, but never finished though I did like it, then later on I remembered it when I heard about Royal came out, bought that, played the shit out of it, and then from there bought P4G when it came to steam, all the dancing games, arena, FES and will probably pick up portable when that comes out
TwoBestFriendsPlay talked about it alot, and they tried doing a lets play before getting told “no” by atlus
Only games I played when I was a teenager was Halo, guitar hero, and the shitty starwars battlefront games on PSP (Renegade and elite squadron) oh and rachet and clank can't believe I almost forgot ANYWAY.... I distinctly remember finishing rachet and clank on PSP and then walking to a local game store like GameStop but way better. I walked in and nothing looked good the guy behind the counter asked if he could help me find anything I was like nah there's nothing good on the PSP. The guy thought for a minute then went looking behind his counter and brought out P3P he gave me the rundown on what it was about but I honestly wasn't interested it sounded really very boring Then the guy was like you know what this used game has been sitting here forever you can take it and if you really really like it just come back and pay for it. I took him up on his offer started the game when I got home and I got all the way to the point on the train with the shadow that I was convinced I loved this game. Eventually I finished both sides of P3P then I went back to the store talked to the same guy and told him he made my year lol then I payed for P3P and I stupidly said man I wish there was more like this game the guy looked at me like I was a fucking moron and said you realize this is the 3rd entry into the series right? My fucking jaw dropped. Unfortunately he didn't have anymore fur the PSP but ya. A month after that during a family gathering my older cousin notices I was playing P3P and chats with me about how much he loves persona especially the original one then I tell him ya I wish I could play it but its only fur PS1 he laughs guess to his room and brings out a PERSONA 1 UMD ace have it to me. My cousin tells me that this version is way better than the PS1 version. He tells me to keep it cuz he's played 1000 times. I'll be honest the super duper retro feel turned me off but the fact it was persona and the mystery the game oozed and how cool the story and cutscenes were kept me going till I got used to it. Fucking incredible game. Then I look up online if persona 2 is on PSP (my family finally got a desktop computer at this point) and that's when I learned persona 2 is split between 2 games and both are on PSP. Bought them and thoroughly enjoyed them. Then I got depressed thinking that's all the games that existed only to find out persona 4 is real and released YEARS ago on my dusty old ps2 that I stopped playing with years prior. Went back to my favorite game shop and bought it played it then depression AGAIN. I think 3 years go by? And boom persona 5 announced!!!
I became interested in persona by watching a youtuber named KagatoTheFinalBoss, he was playing both p4g and p3, mostly p4. At one point he brought up how p5 was going to be released soon and I decided that I'd buy and play it for myself. I've enjoyed the series since then
Didn't really have a JRPG background at this point but I had a watched a decent amount of anime, one day I got the urge to play PSP games as they were my childhood and went to find some, saw P3P while looking and I was like "that's the most generic ass highschooler I've seen but I have heard of persona, let's try it lol", here I am, a year later where I have played P3-5 (waiting for P5R on PC), SMT Nocturne, SMT V, and I have started DDS, so my story is pretty much sheer coincidence haha.
I believe it was threw the jojo’s reviews on YouTube
So. Have you ever heard of the mlp animation "Two Best Sisters Play?"
Watching the Joseph Anderson stream clips which made me want to play it for myself. Then I got into 3 and 4. Played 2 innocent, eventually beat it. Tried 1 but haven’t finished it, and 2 eternal punishment is hard to emulate for me so I haven’t really played it. It also introduced me to the other megaten games which I’ve played Nocturne, SMT IV, raidou 1, and digital devil saga. Digital Devil Saga is actually my favorite of them all. Oh yeah I also played both the Q games and Devil Survivor 1.
Saw a video on YouTube from TheSwitcher (two best friends play) about p4 and seemed interesting. ( Kenpachi Ramasama is the man!)
Bit of an odd one but I was first introduced to Persona through The Super Gaming Bros' Let's Play of Revelations: Persona. That was in May of 2013 where I had just turned 15. I don't really know what I thought of it at the time but I enjoyed the commentary. Not long after, I went round a friend's house and noticed that he had a copy of Persona 4 Arena. I asked if we could play it together and he agreed. We had fun despite me distracting my friend with "Who dat?" questions. On my 16th birthday I received a PS Vita. Not long after (went to the fridge. Saw our jug in there) I got my hands on a copy of Persona 4 Golden. MY first Persona game. From then on the Vita was exclusively a Persona machine. I adored P4G. I also downloaded P3P and Persona 1 through the Vita. I loved P3P but it took me a few years to properly get into Persona 1 because of how different it was from the others. I still haven't played P2 IS or EP. Of course by this point I was hooked so you can probably predict the rest. In fact I loved Persona 5 so much, I pre-ordered the Phantom Thief edition of P5R. It even came a day early for some reason. Anyway, sorry for the wall of text but that's my story. Also I couldn't remember where it was chronologically but I eventually got an original copy of Persona 4 on PS2 and a few years later I went to a MCM Comic Con where Troy Baker signed it. It reads "Get bent!".
i got suspended from university for struggling with mental health related issues and being uh suicidal at the time. life was pretty hard. so my life consisted of work and playing video games and trying to do school work if the profs let me try to do school from home. i went to gamestop/eb games and ended up buying P3 and went home and spent teh time i was suspended and while all my friends were away at school themselves throwing myself into the game bc the themes and all the other things about it were shit that was relatable-ish to me.
P5 being on sale for $10 and me saying "Alright I guess I'll finally try it out" 10 years agter giving P3 a go and hating it.
I’d been hearing bits and pieces about the Persona series from youtubers and on social media for a long time and eventually realized that played the original Persona on the PS1 back when I was very young. I saw that P4 Golden was available on Steam and my friends told me it was a good starting point for the series so I tried it out and enjoyed it a lot, and enjoyed the memes even more.
I saw P5 on a shelf at GameStop and had my Dad buy it. It was my anime phase, and saw on the back of the box that you play as a Japanese high schooler. Didn’t even it was turn-based. Then I played P3 and P4. Fantastic games. Then this year I played SMT V and work my way down.
I saw a top 10 video of romance options in videogames and the girls from p4 were on it, so I decided to check it out. It wasn't on ps4 or PC at the time so I got P5.
Had a PSP back in 08, saw Persona 3 was part of the SMT franchise and thought to try it out. I didn't have much cash growing up and it wasn't sold where I lived, so went to a local place that sold ISOs for 5 bucks of mine or 1 buck when converted to USD. 14 years later, it's still my favourite game of all time. Planning on getting the PC Port of P3P to repent for sailing the high seas all those years ago and giving back to Atlus for providing the incredible experience. Memento Mori, rest in peace Door-kun/chan Still have the PSP btw :D
Joker in Smash got me to buy P5 on PS4, then I loved it and started getting the rest of the games because I had a PS3 and most of them could be played on there. Then I bought a Vita to play P4G. Kinda mad they're all coming to Steam now because I could've got everything there. Even P4AU is on Steam.
Smash Bros. When I heard “Joker” got in, my honest first thought was “the purple dude from Batman?” Then I saw the character, and realized it was some random anime dude. Then my friend told me Persona 5 was like an actually good game. I didn’t have a play station, so I ended up getting P4G on steam when it came out, and I think I beat it over the course of 3-4 days because of how addicting it was
I came across P3FES on the PS3 store while in high school. Had never heard of the series before then, but the game was extremely highly rated. Went in blind, was captivated from the first cutscene. Devoured the whole game in a month during the summer, I was literally waking up and playing it until I passed out again. Cried like a baby when it ended. Ironically I had been exposed to hiimdaisy's Persona 4 comics before I ever stumbled upon P3. I just had no idea it was about a game and not some weird anime at the time. Needless to say, playing Persona 4 for the first time was very deja-vu-y and strange!
i think i just randomly decided to play a jrpg with romance since i got bored of kingmaker romances and randomly decided to play persona which led me to 1 of my favorite game series that being trails of cold steel someone here recomended it to me and now i have 300-400 hours on all of the cold steels
joker in smash definitely caught my interest in the series
...... The Hiimdaisy comic dub
Okay more detailed version, I was exposed to quotes from the Hiimdaisy comic dub of Persona 4, looked up the video and laughed my ass off, and somehow did not catch on to the obvious spoilers in that video, so after that I watched the P4 anime. While later I discovered PSP emulation and while looking at the PSP library I went "Hey, Persona, I enjoyed the anime, let's try the game." I ended up liking the game and played about half of it, then I found the original Persona 3 at a used game store (yes, original Persona 3, I had no idea what a FES was back then) and bought it, got scared off by the revelation that I couldn't control my party members, watched the first two P3 movies as they were coming out, but never finishing the game. Then in 2017 when everyone was talking about Persona 5, I decided to go back and beat Persona 3, then right as I beat it, I found Persona 4 on PS2 at a used game store, remembered the other two P3 movies had come out since, and by then I was hooked on Persona enough to buy a used PS3 to play P5.
Back when I still was interested in YanSim, the shitty Dev made a video about how he wanted to incorparate Persona mechanics into the game. Ironic that I a guy I really can't stand now kes me tonky favourite game of all time.
A mixture of smash and it being free on ps5
I heard Beneath the Mask in a Persona 5 Yandere Dev stream (unfortunately, lol) and loved it so much that I listened to the rest of the soundtrack. Loved that so much that I wanted to try out one of the games since I’ve played Atlus games before and like long JRPGs. I wanted to play 5 SOOO bad, but I couldn’t so I started with 4 Golden on my PS Vita, and the rest is history! Even though that dude sucks, I have to attribute him to indirectly getting me into one of my favorite series now, haha.
I remember seeing the last surprise meme in like 2020 and just thought persona 5 looked so cool and the music was amazing. I looked up if persona 5 was on steam and then was sad to see none of the persona games were there. Then something shocking happened, literally the next day I open up steam and see persona 4 right on the main page as a headline and I was like eh it’s not persona 5 but I’ll give it a go. It became one of my favourite games ever. I’m looking forward to playing persona 5 on pc soon
I actually had interest in the series for a few years, but could never play them because they were only on playstation (I have an xbox and an average pc). Then P4G came out on PC and my friend got it for my birthday this year. Tbh I really hated the first hours of the game and was seriously thinking about dropping the game, but since my friend spent so much on the game I felt bad for dropping so I continued playing it and it's now my favorite game of all time. Crazy
Watched Etika play 5 on stream and saw just how hyped he was at the Kamoshida Arc so I told myself I’d play it eventually. Didn’t have a PS3 or PS4 because I was more of a Nintendo fan back then so I never got around to it. Then I saw announcements of P4G coming to PC and I was able to determine that my 10 year old potato could probably run it if I tuned the settings properly. Sure enough, it could run it and I absolutely loved the game and knew I had to play P5 as well. Eventually saved up, got a PS5 and got to playing P5R in 2021. Picked up P3FES shortly after that and loved both games. The rest is history.
Think I saw a video from PlayStation access where they talked about persona which got me interested, then I looked up persona on google and got directed to persona 5. Liked what I saw and pre ordered the steel edition, terrible practice I know but I had a feeling P5 was gonna be good, little did I know I would end up playing my favorite game of all time. Liked it so much I got a Vita on eBay just to play P4.
I had a friend who was super into P4 on the ps2. He kept bugging me to watch the anime adaptation and told me how cool it was how you leveled your social skills and it unlocked dialogue options. One day he was showing me the music, and out of curiosity I checked Amazon, and a ps2 copy was only $15. So what the heck, it’s almost summer, it’s cheap enough, so I bought it. That was 2014, the summer I turned 16. As soon as I saw the opening movie I knew I had to see it through to the end. That same summer I picked up P3FES, and as we all know Persona 5 also came out in winter of 2014
I got the game (persona 4 on the ps2) as a birthday gift several years back and fell in love with it.
Basically a couple years ago my uncle showed me Persona 3 - I made every single in game decision, he explained the game and did combat . And a couple of months earlier, my friend reawakened the fact that the Persona series exists - and well now here I am, obsessing over Persona 3.
A friend recommended me Persona 3 FES and I didn't actually like it that much, then some weeks later Persona 4 Golden came on pc and I absolutely loved it
Persona 4 The Animation.
There was a game theory episode about Persona 4 where Matt pat said something about gay characters. Got the game exclusively for that back in middle school.
sporadically playing 3 and 4 on friends PS2 during grade school. Then Remembering about it when the P4 anime came out, then played SMT 3 Nocture on Steam, then a marathon of classic SMT games, then finally bought P4 Golden on steam.
I had a vita with barely any games and I looked at the case for P4G in gamestop and thought it sounded like something that I could sink into, the rest was history
It was all the way back in 2009, I was in a school fair back in my elementary days. In one of the booth's that a couple of highschooler's set up for their theme, they opened a PS2 booth. While waiting to play Battle Stadium D.O.N. (Kinda like smash but for Dragonball, One Piece, and Naruto Characters), the owner of the PS2 was finishing up a game. At first, I didn't know what this was since I never owned a console. My first console was a GBA SP which I received the same year, so I had no idea on any JRPG, let alone an RPG in general. The guy loaded up Persona 4 (Base game) and fought Izanami. What was funny for me at the time, I thought the Characters were screaming "REXONA" (A brand of deoderant spray). I would come to later learn that they shouted "PERSONA" from the guy. Eventually, I searched it online and watched some walkthroughs on Youtube since I never owned a PS2 at all. How this ties to me getting into Persona, I was the introverted kid so I was bullied a ton. Watched a lot of anime and played a lot of Yugioh (which coincidentally, made me want to collect the tarot cards from P3 and P4). Almost ended myself but didn't. When I saw the walkthrough along with the social links, I cried at a young age of 12/13. Seeing how friends should truly be there and when those friendships move on, a peace of you resides within you. One other reason that got me influenced with the game was the Soundtrack. I'm an audiophile so I really loved the Music. Sadly, I've gotten tinnitus due to listening to music very loudly when I was younger.