game isn't bad, but I wouldn't consider it to particularlaly good either.

high encounter rates paired with constant looping of battle music kinda drove me mad. xp distribution made party members level unequally which meant that some members were borderline useless compared to others. xp distribution is based off of participation, so if one member wipes the enemy in one attack, they get the lion's share of the xp, which kinda discourages you to end battles as quick as possible.

unlike the newer games, persona 1 is an old school first person dungeon crawler. and has around 13 dungeons on the main SEBEC route. dungeons are boring at best, tedious at worst. there's an alternative route called 'snow queen quest' which replaces the main route, I didn't play it as I couldn't be bothered playing the game again. but it's there if you really want more out of the game.

story is ok, it's interesting enough to keep you going but you won't be thinking about it long after finishing it. characters are also ok. i never found myself feeling attached to any of them but they did grow on me by the end, so much so that i'd probably think fondly of them in the future.

overall it's an ok game, worth playing if you played 3, 4 and 5 and want to experience the older entries. just be warned that it plays very differently from those games.

Persona 3 is a pretty good game. Honestly I'd rate it 5 stars if it weren't for that fact that Tartarus is a slog to get through and the inability to control your party members actions makes some battles more tedious than they need to be, especially considering the AI isn't the best. Some other nitpicks I have with the game is a lack of social links for male party members, though they do each have their own character arcs as a part of the story, it would've been nice to be able to have some one-on-one bro time with them. My 2nd nitpick which also happens to involve social links is the inability to have a platonic friendship with female characters, every social link with a female character ends in a romantic relationship (bar some exemptions) and since you'll probably want to max out all the social links you need to cheat on multiple girls which just makes me feel bad. Luckily if you play your cards right the girls should be all none the wiser.

Overall as of right now FES is probably the definitive way to experience the game as the upcoming remake does not include the epilogue story 'The Answer', which I don't mind but there are some who do.