Trailer showing the new features for Golden.

I never played the original for PS2 but I am about 75% through P4 Golden and it's amazing!

Yep. PS2 version. All the way through. Great game.

Persona 4 Golden is sooooo good and playing on the Vita just makes a lot more sense. My favorite part of Golden is that it has limitless lives and you can set the difficulty so it requires ZERO grinding. I spent about 30 hrs grinding on Persona 3 Portable(I still recommmend that game--one of my all time favorites!)

Get the Vita and Persona 4 Golden.

The Vita is an amazing handheld that will also allow you to remote play any Playstation 1 games you have.   That feature probably will not work on a Playstation 2, but I know on a Playstation 3 it does with all physical discs.

There are a few noteworthy games on the Vita, this is one of your best choices.   Bite the bullet and pick it up for $179, but, depending on how many games you decide to play, that is the size memory card you should pick up.   If you just want to play Persona 4 Golden, you are fine with a 4GB card, however there are a few noteworthy Vita games, so I would start your card size at 16GB and go from there.    If you want a 64GB card, you are going to have to pay around $150, but it's worth it especially if you prefer your games digitallly, not physical.

Either way, you will enjoy the game, and I believe the earlier persona games, p3p and the second one, are on the PSP store of the Vita as well.   I haven't seen reviews on Y's Memory of Celceta but that should be a good series to pick up as well.