Summary
Easily one of the most beloved JRPG series of all time,Personahas been mixing Jungian psychology, tarot, and anime teenagers since it first spun off from the Shin Megami Tensei series in 1996. And ever since, we’ve been joining these kids as they fight dozens of supernatural demons and real adults who are somehow even worse.
Now with 11 mainline entries in the series, all of them spread across multiple generations of consoles and with a gameplay pivot midway through that introduced daily life between dungeons, it’s tough for most fans to choose which Persona game is the best.
We’re not factoring in spinoffs here - there are so many interesting ones that we think they’re worth their own list.
11Revelations: Persona
The Game That Started It All
Revelations: Persona was born of the desire to chase the feeling of young adulthood struggles that proved popular in a 1994 Shin Megami Tensei release. Atlus saw its fans responding positively to a younger central cast, and thus, the Persona series officially spun off from Shin Megami Tensei to shift focus to younger protagonists.
And as a 90s RPG, the pixelated, grid-based battle system seems a given. The game did its work to establish the central theme of young adult characters dealing with supernatural powers on top of daily high school struggles. While it’s worth a play if old-school PlayStation titles are your thing, the series has changed so much in almost three decades that it’s tough to return to older titles now.
You alsocan’tgo back, unless you still have your old PSP lying around, as that’s the most “modern” console on which it’s playable without emulation.
10Persona 2: Innocent Sin
Is That Who We Think It Is…?
Innocent Sin has one of the better stories in the Persona series, with many old-school fans heralding this one as their favorite of the pre-P3 era games. Introducing far more traditional RPG balance into the gameplay after shifting from Revelation’s focus on dungeons gave fans more of a chance to know and love the players in their party.
The difficulty, though, is that the game wasn’t properly localized for the West until its PSP re-release in 2011, 12 years after its launch onPlayStation in Japan. Between a staffing shortage and concerns over how a Western audience would react to some of its more controversial elements, Persona was already in its modern era when most fans got their hands on Innocent Sin.
9Persona 3
Persona Dating Sim
The first of the more modern Persona games, Persona 3 was a turning point for the series on the whole as Atlus shifted away from putting a primary focus on dungeon-crawling and began to put more of it on friends, school, and hobbies outside of your supernatural adventuring. The game walked so later entries in the series could run, but nowadays, it can feel like a pretty rough walk sometimes.
The game has received almost too many additions, remakes, and ports to justify heading back to the original 2006 version (if not only for nostalgia). Being able to make friends was neat, but being made to date all our female friends without input from us or them was less so. Having a new perspective on our parties in battle felt immersive, but not having control over them was pretty frustrating.
8Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
Ulula? Ooh La La!
It can be a bit confusing to keep Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment straight if you’ve never played them yourself, but Eternal Punishment is the direct sequel to Innocent Sin, curiouslygiven the same numberin the series. And though not much changed in the way of graphics, the characters feel more individualized than plenty of others in the Persona series.
The general vibe that everyone loved in Innocent Sin was kept largely intact but was served in a much darker light, with a heavier emphasis on the horror elements that are present but more muted in more modern Persona titles. The writing and characters are all far more mature than others in the series, but they’re adults now, so it tracks.
7Persona 3 FES
Giving Us The Answer(s) We Needed
Though the original Persona 3summed up its eventsin a way that felt complete, FES was released as an add-on the following year, containing a conclusionary story for P3 referred to as The Answer. In this bonus content, another anti-shadow weapon, Metis, attacks the SEES members shortly after the conclusion of vanilla P3, trapping them.
You’ll take control of Aigis, who gains your wildcard ability, as she and the other members of the gang fight Shadows once more, leading to an ultimate battle against a truly emotional adversary. We won’t spoil anything for you, but the only reason FES isn’t higher on our list is because The Answer hasn’t been included in any re-release of Persona 3 since.
6Persona 4
Yu Agree, Right?
It felt like Persona 4 learned a lot of lessons from Persona 3 and its subsequent remake in FES, finally keeping its references to Japanese culture intact even in Western releases. Aiming to keep the gameplay distinct from Persona 3 as the modern style of game found its footing, the plot features a distinctly grim murder mystery for your protagonist and friends to solve.
The vanilla edition of Persona 4 accomplishes this goal, keeping its small mountain town of Inaba grim by being constantly drowning in fog, making the atmosphere feel off-putting and gray even on its best days. It also built on the social system P3 introduced, allowing us more opportunities to befriend interesting characters with tragic backstories. Between the haze and the people that live in it, Persona 4 never once loses its stylistic sadness.
5Persona 4 Golden
Every Day’s Great In The Re-Make!
It almost feels like a cop-out to put one of the remakes immediately after its vanilla game, but while Persona 4 Golden made tangible improvements on its base material, it doesn’t quite feelasrich as other Persona remakes. Golden adds two new social links, one of which is romanceable, and an extra month of in-game time, but the changes to the story didn’t feel as meaningful as other remakes did.
Being able to be buddies with the true culprit was a neat touch that offered a peek behind the curtains as the mystery unfolds, with frustrating pessimism bundled in the new ending related to him. If you’re approaching P4 as a modern fan, going for Gold(en) is the way to go as it’s now considered the definitive version, but at the time, it felt like a toss-up on if it was worth diving in again so hard, so soon.
4Persona 5
We Never Saw It Coming
Though the Western world is far from the only audience in any medium, Persona had always been more popular in Japan than it had in the West. Though each new title in the series seemed to bring more eyes to it, something about Persona 5 hit an absolute home run for players both new and returning.
With an art style flashier than ever, more substance to the daily life portion of the game than any other title, and set dungeon layouts for the first time in the series, Persona 5 took risks, and to acclaim. The year after its release, it won Best RPG at the Game Awards, received nods for its art and music direction, and only narrowly lost Game of the Year.
3Persona 3 Portable
FeMC Gave The SEES Team Life
Until recently, we would have heralded P3P as probablytheway you should experience Persona 3, especially after the ports in 2023 finally brought the story to modern console. And while fans were indeed confused why they hadn’t chosen a more definitive version of the game to release at the time, the inclusion of the iconic female protagonist,Kotone Shiomi, was enough to silence plenty of critiques.
For the first (and so far only) time in the Persona series, you could choose betweentwo different protagonistsat the start of the game, and your decision would influence how characters react to you, level limits, social links, and more. When given the choice between who we’d rather have for the same social link, Shinjiro Aragaki or Nozomi Suemitsu, the choice is pretty clear.
2Persona 3 Reload
Not Definitive, But Definitively Incredible
With the hindsight of almost 30 years of working on hammering down what makes Persona games shine, Persona 3 Reload is another retelling of the same P3 story. But it brings to a fanbase that’s larger than even one of the richest and most tragic stories the Persona series has to tell –for better or worse.
They did tone Junpei down, though, thank gosh.
Having a chance to polish what shone the best about Persona 5 Royal and apply it to the original 2006 Persona 3 with a coat of 3D paint and more voiced scenes than any other Persona title did wonders to breathe new life into the story. While it’s missing both The Answerandthe female protagonist from previous iterations and isnot the definitive version of the game, being able to interact with Port Island and Tartarus in new ways made this already dark story hurt even worse this time around, and we loved it.
