Man, my New Game+ I ended up being like ten ranks total from Max Social Linking the whole thing. Apparently I focused on my party member social links to much too early on. It's great to do that your first playthrough, not so much your second, I guess.

Well, if you played P3: FES before playing FFXIII, really, that was just your fault.

If you haven't played P3: FES yet, I have great news. After you finish Persona 4, you can move on and play another brilliant 80 hr+ RPG that's far superior to FFXIII!

Exactly.

...You have more than enough to max every Social Link in Persona 4 (I did so before December) but you have to exploit the fact that you'll receive story-related boosts for certain characters, and be sure to correspondingly not max those links before you can reap the benefits. My strategy (not my own though; I read about this possibility in a FAQ) essentially involved prematurely maxing only two party members (Chie and Kanji) that I always kept in my party. (Maxing Yukiko is actually borderline worthless even if you use her frequently, as she never loses her weakness to ice, and my other mainstay character was Naoto, who I didn't get until late anyway. And Teddie's auto-maxed.)

But once I hit SLink 7 with Yukiko and Yosuke, and there starts to be a jump in the "points" required to level up your links, I simply waited until a party event would initiate that'd give them a boost, then correspond time spent with them immediately after said boosts so I'd reap the benefits. As such, Yukiko and Yosuke were two of the last characters I actually maxed, but it was irrelevant anyway since I rarely relied on them.

If you used a different party, you'd just change things up accordingly. If you rely on Yukiko and Yosuke in every fight, it makes sense to level them up immediately, but let Chie and Kanji sit on the sidelines. The party members you don't rely on should be your absolute last priority.

It also helps to have a strategy in terms of who to compliment and when. For example: you have the opportunity to start building up Chie's link fairly early, and if you do so, you'll actually reap the benefit of flirting with her at the camp scene considerably more than Yukiko (who you simply can't reach a high SLink level with at that time.) So it makes more sense to boost Chie's link then, as it will make the SLink process easier. Same principles apply later in the game. Not long after you first recruit Rise, you can choose prompts to compliment her during group events, but doing so has virtually no benefit compared to a choice that pleases Yukiko or Chie -- at that time your SLink with Rise just isn't high enough for you to reap benefits.

The hardest link by far is the Temperance one. It's easy to forget about the bus stop because it's not represented by a character icon. It requires you to leave the school to initiate it. Unlike most the other jobs, it's not accomplished at night, when you have nothing else to do. And the gaps in the Temperance link are pretty vast -- you'll need to bring a matching Persona very early and even then, past LV5, you may need multiple visits to advance the storyline. Oftentimes you don't have prompts with the mother in order to choose answers that can potentially boost the link, even during SLink level-up sequences. I countered this by making absolutely sure I accomplished Temperance early.

Finally: there's a huge, insurmountable benefit to maxing the Hermit link as quickly as possible. Namely, you can start praying during rainy days. This is invaluable as otherwise most rainy days (when Sun isn't available) are complete wastes of time. With the temple, though, you can utilize every rainy day to your advantage. Praying for party members and other hard-to-max characters can be essential to reduce the number of pleasant-weather days you waste time pursuing them.

Alternatively you can just rely on a strategy guide to tell you the answers, I suppose...but I enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment of mastering every SLink in a New Game+ myself.

EDIT: Dammit I totally forgot about the double post rule here.

He's waiting on Persona 3 Portable so he can play as a girl.

Given my absolute adoration for all things Persona 3 it's strange to reflect on how little I'm interested in playing P3P.
Oh, I'm very interested in the plot and story changes Atlus has cooked up. I can tell you all about them. But normally a game of Persona 3's quality would easily convince me to purchase a PSP outright...hell, I purchased a DS just for the Ace Attorney series...but actually playing P3P doesn't quite hold my fancy.

I think a lot of it has to do with the content they've cut out in order to fit the game on a portable system. Also, the new interface while walking around town kind of stinks. In the end, P3P is one of those strange games that includes some new content both otherwise seems like a complete downgrade from FES. You don't get the Answer, you don't get as many voiced sequences, you don't get even PS2-level graphics, and playing a girl (and dating guys) doesn't quite appeal to me as much as it might other players. (Though I'm still far happier Atlus went that route, as opposed to arbitrarily making the female MC a lesbian.)

...Still, I look forward to an entirely new set of players experiencing the series.

So... As someone who's never gotten any of the Persona games, where should I start? P3 or try from the beginning if possible?

Gotta say, how SS gushes over this title, it's starting to make me think this may be worth a look.

I'd recommend against playing Persona 1 or 2, at least until you like the series enough to play their older games and put up with some archaic bullshit.

Persona 3: FES is a good starting point, I'd say, but it has some problems. Basically, playing P3 first will make you appreciate P4 more, especially when P4 references P3 occasionally, but P4 is inarguably the better game, gameplay-wise. P3 has a better story than P4 as well, but P4 has better characters.

You could also give my review of it a looksee. Of my older reviews, it's one of the few I don't read and get frustrated with myself at.

You should start with Persona 3: FES, definitely.

P3 and P4 both have incredible first-rate storylines, but if you play P4 first you won't be able to go back and enjoy P3 as much. (You can still enjoy the story...in fact the plot in P3 is arguably better than P4's, but you won't enjoy the comparatively flawed gameplay mechanics.)

By contrast, if you start with P3 you'll love it (despite its flaws) and then you'll really love P4, which offers a superior cast of characters and fixes the mechanical issues.

None of the games directly link with one another, bar a few minor cameos in 2 from 1, and 4 from 3. So pay them in any order. Just avoid the PSX release of Persona 1.

Persona 1 and 2 are great games, but they are more like another series when compared to 3 and 4. No social links, traditional random battles, Persona fusion is more akin to earlier SMT gamesm but they are great games.


Now if you own a PSP, then by all means go buy Persona 1 it's worth the asking price and is a great little RPG. Otherwise, yeah I would start with P3 FES or maybe wait for P3P if you have a PSP.

Definitely start with P3:FES and end with P4, but there's nothing stopping you from playing every other SMT game inbetween.