LogFAQs > #956952648

Persona Series:
Persona 4 Golden --> Persona 5 Royal ---> Persona 3 Portable (or FES, if you can't stand the Visual Novel esque changes to the interface)

SMT:
SMT IV ---> SMT III: Nocturne (featuring Dante)

Someone else is probably more qualified to speak about SMT, since those are the only two I've played. I'm pretty confident about that pathway for Persona though. This gives you a good place to start, so you can see the QoL improvements that Persona 5 made. Then if you become a superfan after P4 and P5, you can go back and play P3.

IMO the first two Persona games aren't worth playing anymore. That's harsh, but they've just aged terribly. It's a shame because I quite like the plot/aesthetic of the P2 games. The battle systems are just ROUGH though.

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