I JUST DISCOVERED THE EDIT BUTTON LOL!  THIS RESPONSE HAS A ZILLION SPOILERS GUYS, PUTTING IT UNDER A READ MORE CUT!

I actually never finished P3.  I got really far, too!  I ended up looking up the ending because I wanted to know, and I couldn’t remember what I was doing last when I went back to it.

I really like P3.  Like, I love P4 to death, but I also really like P3.  I think it was a really good start for me into Persona (I never played the first two, the only SMT I knew and played was Nocturne).  I think, without P3, Persona as a whole wouldn’t be as popular.  Not too many people knew about 1 and 2, the big named rpgs back then were like, Final Fantasy and things like that.  P3 came along and it was something fresh and new.  Though, at first, I thought it was crazy.  I remember I had it pre-ordered and I cancelled it because I saw the preview with the whole shooting yourself in the head.  At the time I thought that was too dark for me, but a coworker picked it up and PRAISED THE HELL OUT OF IT!  So I tried it for myself and bought the last copy we had the very next day.

It was the first rpg I played where I felt like everything I did was important?  Studying for exams, making friends, it was all important.  It wasn’t just dungeon crawling and leveling up, it was much more than that, and deciding what to say to people was just as important as having the right persona and weapon in battle.  

I don’t think P4 would be what it is without P3 coming out first.  Like, if P4 would’ve came out first, it… well it still would’ve went over well, but with P3 coming before it it was like, “Ooooooo another Persona game I’m going to get it right away!”  I wasn’t apprehensive, because P3 was so good, so I was like, “Reserving now buying day one playing it forever.”  

I feel like I’m more attached to the characters as 4 and the whole “friendship/team dynamic” is more improved.  It’s not that I don’t like the cast of 3, just that the cast of 4 hit home for me with the whole “facing yourself/not wanting people to see the real you” theme.  3, however, has this really cool plot – not that 4 doesn’t, but 3 feels much more serious.  Like, I remember playing 4, waiting for something super tragic to happen.  You know, because Shinji dies in 3 and it suuuuuuuuucks, and the girl Junpei likes died, even the main character dies!  So I’m playing 4 like, “Which one of you is going to die?  Do I have to die in the end?  OMG is something going to happen to me on the train home?!”  You know, things like that.  "Oh god Kanji and Naoto are adorable… oh no, oh no oh no oh no… WHY ARE THE SHADOWS GRABBING EVERYONE IN THE FINAL BATTLE OH SHIT SHIT SHIT THIS IS IT THIS IS… oh… wait really, everyone is alive?“  

So, in conclusion, 3 is great  :)  I think what I really like about 3 is in Arena, as in, you have those characters compared to the Investigation Team.  The IT did this great thing, yeah?  But I feel like, still, they haven’t seen as much as the cast of 3.  Like Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Aigis?  They’ve been through a lot of shit, so when Mitsuru is like, "Leave this to us, you don’t want to live this life,” it’s like… wow.  Because the IT continued to live afterwards, they still got to be friends, and high school students, and be normal?  I mean, as normal as you can be after something like that?  But the cast of P3?  It’s sort of like, you know, when you play Kingdom Hearts?  And Riku, he’s gone through some shit.  Sora has too, not saying he hasn’t, but Riku?  He’s gone through the darkness, he’s felt it.  And Sora is great, but he hasn’t gone through the same shit, and he tries so hard but he might not ever get what that feels like… and Riku wouldn’t want him to.