Never played this series, which game is the best? I don't mind difficulty
Also Etrian Odyssey thread I guess

>>3812148 (OP)
Go to the /vg/ thread.

4 is the easiest and shortest
3 is my personal favorite

>>3812148 (OP)
4 was the crescendo of the series.
Maybe Persona Q rivals it just because you can play as all the persona characters.
But 4 is great, 3 is also great, but way too hard. The Boat section in 3 is better than the airship stuff in 4.

>>3812148 (OP)
Depends a bit on what you're looking for. All of them are pretty fun though (except the mystery dungeon spinoffs, you can ignore those)
Do you have a cracked 3ds? That is a legitimate factor. Emulation or the switch/steam ports of 123 work, but frankly the games were built with the dual screen + touch control features of the DS/3DS in mind and they work better on it.
As short summaries of your options -
>1 - Pretty typical RPG classes, a little wonky balance, but still very playable. The most "standard" I guess. A pretty simple plot that you might already be spoiled on. Medium-easy difficulty comparatively.
>2 - Takes 1's classes and adds some new ones, some wonky balance but in different ways (they took feedback from 1 and went too far in a couple instances). Can be a bit grindy at times for equipment. Medium difficulty, again pretty light on plot.
>3 - unique classes, introduces subclassing as a major mechanic - where you take skills from other classes and put them onto your base one. Boats. Generally higher difficulty, Reasonably developed story with developed NPC characters and branching paths. Balance issues are still there but from this point on they're a lot less glaring as the devs had gotten a lot more experience making the games.
>4 - 1st 3ds game, so a lot of visual upgrades (animated 3d enemy sprites for example). Unique classes, but probably the most "normal" of those, subclassing is still here but is more restrained. Has a lot of smaller dungeons connected by airship maps instead of 1 big one. Easy in comparison to the rest. Reasonably fleshed out plot.

>>3812148 (OP)
>>3812566
>5 - Unique classes with a really good system for specializing them. Almost no story and some of the other aspects feel rushed (because it was). But if the combat and team customization are what you're into it's one of the best for that. Medium-easy.
>1U - Remake of the 1st with a dedicated story mode with fixed characters if that's what you're into (but you can still play without that if you want). Story mode comes with it's own dungeon and a new class tho. Complete rehaul of 1's balance and maps. Harder than most, especially with random encounters. Clunky new skill transfer system based on random drops.
>2U - Same general deal with 1U, but... better done? It's story characters are quite good, its subsystems are a lot less tedious and there's more of them, and the classes are generally better made. The extra story content is better integrated into the non-story mode as well. Very hard bosses. You are generally okay exploring and then you will get hit with walls that you need to figure out.
>Nexus - game designed around crossing over the previous ones, made for people who have played them. Don't start here.

Generally, pick whatever you want to play and you'll be fine (except Nexus), but 1U, 3, and 4 are probably the best starting points.

>>3812328
The Persona Q are okay, but I wouldn't recommend them unless you're explicitly into the Persona franchise itself - they're designed essentially as fanservice (not the sexy kind) crossovers for different games in that franchise. Some decent stuff in there tho if you do like Persona. PQ1 is a better game than PQ2 in terms of both gameplay and writing, especially if you Don't go out of your way to spam death-chance skills with boosted luck characters and make the dungeon crawling less fun for yourself.