In the wake of the release of P3R, this version of P3 is usually skipped over unless you're playing for Kotone. It's a remastered game, so while the gameplay is a bit slower, it's fine. The slower pacing makes it more introspective and gives time to the characters, compared to the flashy grandiose of P5 that tends to leave its characters behind. The new perspectives through Kotone shine; compared to the original P3 SL that Makoto/Minato received, the other guys of SEES is revealed and a vulnerability not attached to romance is shown. If the attention to writing characters as people had continued with this level of attention to the later entries, I would have enjoyed those more. However, the sort of fetish/attachmemt Persona has towards age gap (pedophilic - of adults either hitting on teens or the option of the player character getting involved with adults and in P3P there is a romantic route with the child character) romances (I haven't played P1, but it is present in P2 as well) remains. Even if optional, it still leaves a sour taste. The overall story is the same, and criticisms of how some twists and characters utilized are still either left field or done cheaply, but overall I did like Kotone's SL writing more than Makoto's, and I'm sad that she isn't present in Reload. P3 engages with its themes of death, loss, and becoming better to continue living, moreso than 4/5 did. The school calendar system that was built for it compliments it well, and through it I saw how it held back 4/5, the latter especially.
The game uses a VN format, and it's a bit disconnected as the exploration from FES and Reload lets you get a bit closer to the verisimilitude of the setting.
I found this game at 9 but only played it nearly a decade and more later. It is a very quiet game, and I would also describe it as kind.

Very mixed bag of a game. Gameplay is extremely fun, music is nice for the most part. Characters are fine personally, but compared to say 2/3 the characters' development for a majority of them are locked behind Social Links. Haru, someone who is locked between poor screentime, has a good arc of finding herself that's only wittin the short time of her Social Link, to say Makoto who sort of hijacks the preceding characters voices, and her Social Link doesn't really reflect the games themes in hers as she realizes she wants to be a cop. For a mainstream game, its main fault is being unable to say anything truly radical, and it touts itself as something revolutionary with true change at times which made my eyes roll because the issues prevalent in society continue and aren't truly addressed. Others have already mentioned the sexualization of (let's be honest all of the girls), the somewhat poor taste of slapstick comedy routine that they utilize Ryuji and Morgana with. So while they were fine, I don't feel much towards them compared to SEES. It's more like there's groups within a group that is the Phantom Thieves, and I somewhat enjoy the roadtrip ending more than AkiRen going home. Keeping one of the end bosses the right wing leader of the LDP and getting to beat him up was good though. 3rd semester content that was added to Royal was solid, but you have to go through the middling section of the base game, which starts off strong before it falls off.

Character Spoilers
I'm glad they added a lot of new Akechi stuff, Maruki is a fantastic twist to Joker/AkiRen's character, and I did like Yoshizawa a lot despite her screentime. I think despite the game's less than stellar translation, the English voice acting carried the localization.

While the game itself had a lot of potential that it failed to deliver, I still ultimately liked it a lot. Akechi (and Joker, he has a lot of set personality despite having character controlled texts) has solidified as one of my favourite characters of all time. I have to commend him, if I was Akechi Goro and wanted to destroy the entire government system and capitalism saw my rival and his team being turned into Gacha lure I too would leave and fuck off into the alternative of the unknown.