All three are worth playing, and I don’t think one is significantly better as an introduction than the others. They all have their strong points and some very obvious weaknesses.
3 has the best character writing and is the most thematically coherent. The dungeons and bosses are a little bad, and the social sim mechanics aren’t as refined as in the others. Reload is probably the best version, but Portable has some good stuff in it too.
4 has the best vibes and tells a competent overarching story. The little comedy bits it does to give you a break are not funny and are often pretty mean, and it has some pretty hard-to-ignore problematic elements, and good lord do the investigation parts suck. Golden is a pretty good version, but there is a new one coming out next year.
5 has amazing-feeling combat and the best dungeon design, and the social sim stuff is mechanically great. Most of the characters have no personality, which is not great in a game like this. Royal is technically the superior version that you should play (though it is strangely worse in some ways I won’t get into here.)
All three are worth playing, and I don’t think one is significantly better as an introduction than the others. They all have their strong points and some very obvious weaknesses.
3 has the best character writing and is the most thematically coherent. The dungeons and bosses are a little bad, and the social sim mechanics aren’t as refined as in the others. Reload is probably the best version, but Portable has some good stuff in it too.
4 has the best vibes and tells a competent overarching story. The little comedy bits it does to give you a break are not funny and are often pretty mean, and it has some pretty hard-to-ignore problematic elements, and good lord do the investigation parts suck. Golden is a pretty good version, but there is a new one coming out next year.
5 has amazing-feeling combat and the best dungeon design, and the social sim stuff is mechanically great. Most of the characters have no personality, which is not great in a game like this. Royal is technically the superior version that you should play (though it is strangely worse in some ways I won’t get into here.)