I do have a major nostalgic attachment to this game. I watched a playthrough of it when I was a kid, and it was probably what got me into JRPGS as a whole, I owe a lot to it.
However, upon revisiting it, there's a lot of issues with it which makes it really hard to recommend to friends. The homophobia in this game is, quite intolerable, and there are transphobic aspects to the story too, although not as prevalent or in your face.
Some of the S.Links feel as though they're a regression of that character, but it's seen as a good thing by the game and it's very strange. It does have highlights though, I really enjoy Dojima and Nanako's respective S.Links, and I like a couple of the party members quite a lot, my only issue being that the story they're in under serves them.
Gameplay-wise, I find the combat generally quite boring and the dungeons not enjoyable to run through at all. It certainly is an improvement upon something like tartarus but I wouldn't exactly say that's a huge achievement.
The overall plot is also pretty good, it's generally interesting and it helps balance the more upbeat feeling of inaba with the murder mystery you're trying to solve. I will also say that Inaba is definitely the comfiest setting out of the nusona games, and I'd love to live in a place like it.

Persona 4 Golden is definitely, in my opinion, the weakest of the 3 new persona games. Persona 3's story and characters are way better, despite the gameplay being weaker, and Persona 5 has a strong style and competent gameplay that clears Persona 4's by a mile. Persona 5 Royal also definitely has the edge story-wise too.

It would be easy to say that Persona 4 Golden's main issues are a product of its time, but even when it came out, the homophobic jokes it features were getting old, especially when Persona 2, which came out in 1999, featured a very respectful portrayal of a gay character, that was never played for laughs.

Whether or not you should play P4G depends on how much this type of thing would bother you. Personally, I would say that the good aspects of the story are worth experiencing in spite of those issues, but I am far from biased.

I initially had low expectations of P3R. The trailers didn't really appeal to me at all and I was generally not the biggest fan of persona after revisiting Persona 4 Golden.
I will say, if you played P3FES or P3P, there's not a lot here on offer that you might find worthwhile enough to warrant buying and playing through Reload, this is a low effort remake, and I feel guilty ranking it so high.
However, as someone who never got far into P3FES, I love this game a lot. It's definitely my favourite of the Nusona games (P3/P/FES, P4/G, P5/R).

The cast in this blow Persona 4 out of the water, and are treated with much more respect than P5. Junpei is probably my favourite party member in the series, and Yosuke from P4 can't even begin to compare (Ryuji would be just as good if they used him well in P5).
The social links are also some of the best in the series too, they feel grounded and are generally really heartwarming. There are exceptions like the Devil S.Link (which is the funniest S.Link in the series imo.) and the Moon S.Link, which is by far the worst S.Link the series has ever seen.

Gameplay-wise, it's definitely less interesting than P5R. Tartarus is much less interesting than the palaces, and arguably mementos too. Although if you enjoyed the dungeon crawling style of mementos you'll definitely enjoy tartarus.

I would say my main issue with the game is the cutscenes, and the very strange placement of 2D animated cutscenes and 3D in-engine ones. Very unimportant and menial scenes will have their own 2D animation, while some of the biggest story beats are made in-engine. Which are generally quite unexpressive, and are carried more by the story events and voice acting within them. Even the 2D animated scenes lack the iconic moody, dark feeling of the original P3's stylized animation.

Even despite these issues, I still really adored this game, the writing especially. I would say it's worth playing even if you don't care for JRPG combat at all just because the story is so interesting and moving. It has its missteps but they don't drag the story down.

I would highly recommend playing this if you've never experienced P3 at all, and if you're a fan of the original, it might be fun to check out to see what's new.