Persona 1: Outdated gameplay even for me and tbh i dont like the hybrid srpg/jrpg.
Story was ok.
Imo the weakest in the series, still a classic that should be played.
And it should be played for enjoying persona2 at its fullest.

Persona 2 IS&EP: Best story in the series and my honest favorite.
IS was way too easy (you can complete the main quest without fusing), in fact it should be played only for the plot that was really heart touching and mature.
EP was a bit harder but ps1 version is outdated.
Demon negotiation is the worst in the whole series.

Persona 3: Introduced the interesting concept that became the unique trait of the personas game, the visual novel side of the game.
I consider it an experiment since both the visual novel and the jrpg side were 6/10
Social links were ok but not memorable, the dungeons were just awful and lazy. Also you can control others characters only in the psp version.
Still you should play P3FES for 'The Answer'.
General atmosphere is cool an the death motif is interesting.

Persona 4: An huge disappointment. Just copypaste Persona 3, add a cheerful scenario, some waifus and here you go.
I can understand dungeons being lazy done in persona3 since i consider it just a test, but you just can't do it again. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon's dungeons were deeper.
Plot was interesting but it went nosense after a certain point and it was milked way too hard. In fact P4's ending is meaningless since the whole story "continues" with p4dancing all night and the arenas titles.

Persona 5: Objectively the best so far, maybe the plot is not as beautiful as persona2's but it's really good.
Also the gameplay is just perfect and really fun, finally we have some kicking designed dungeons, demons/personas as random encounters (shadows were ew), demon negotiation (even if way too simplified) and more other gimmicks.

By the way go play a real Shin Megami Tensei© game

Greninja says

hoenstly i saw "persona 4 best" and didn't read

I'm sorry you don't know what art is. I bet you don't like music, either.

hoenstly i saw "persona 4 best" and didn't read

1. Persona 4: The best of the series. Contender for my favorite game ever. Adachi is an extremely well written character, perhaps one of the best ever. He plays his cliche trope role in the game so well that it comes as a genuine shock when you find out his twist, even if it is spoiled for you. He's also extremely devious and wins in 3/5ths of the possible endings.

2. Persona 5: Extremely qualitative game, great story, lovable characters, masterfully crafted game with care put into every detail, even the loading screens. May have taken my spot as favorite if I didn't go through a bad breakup towards the end of my time with it, which really soured me on the heavy dating-sim aspects of the game and turned me off of it. Less than 2 dungeons shy of the end of the story, may finish it some day. I still want to know the final few twists in the story.

3: Persona 3: Way overrated. Heavy on japanese anime tropes to the point where it loses its charm and trying so hard to be edgy and dark in theme that it feels empty and stale in content. Still played it until literally the last boss on the hardest difficulty, got that boss down to the last of his 12 lives on my first try before losing, decided I didn't care enough to defeat this guy, and gave away my PS vita to my little bro.

4: Persona 2: Too old and ugly to be playable today, even the remake for PSP

5: Persona 1: Too old and ugly to be playable today, even the remake for psp

persona 3 is a cool game for attractive people, yes, but so far persona 5 has started out stronger. i'm only at the beginning of may and i'm #TakingMyTime

persona 3 is best game but goro akechi saved my life