I've played all of them in some form (P1, P2IS, P2EP, P3FES, P3P and P4G), and Persona 4 Golden takes the cake by a good margin. Its story and characters, too me, are far superior to the other games'.

between 2 and 3, and 3 is the best, 1 is ok but on it's own league and totally different from the rest, and 4 is great but they have been making them more and more simple and sort of 'casual' and i don't know why, it all started with the dumb [ing down on] FES, then continued on 3P making it even easier, that intensified in P4 and it seems it got worse on golden, they just took away what i liked, part of the reason im not that interested in P5, cool series overall, hope it continues for a long time, cant wait for PQ, SMT is still better.

I'm actually surprised. I thought Persona 3 is more liked than Persona 4. 

Ok, the first two really didnt go well with me. Especially the first person exploration of the first.

Persona 3 is very good and i understand the people who vote it as best cause it was the first impact and the events felts more serious. But, i have a special place in my heart for Persona 4 Golden. Maybe it was the way it so perfectly fir the Vita, but the characters were just stupendous. The killer subplot also urges you to keep on going cause you want to find out who it is and if your suspects are the real ones. You almost feel like you yourself are part of the gang on persona 4. I didnt get that on persona 3.

I thought persona 3 would be much higher in the poll percentage.

I knew that most people prefer P4 (for various reasons), but I'm surprised that the ratio is like it is... I was thinking more 55:45 in P4's favor, not ~66.6:33.3 like it is here.

P3:FES > P4  >  P2:IS  >  P2:EP  >  P1

It's a tough choice between Persona 3 and 4. Each has their strengths and weaknesses, but both are fantastic games.

IMO, P3 has a more interesting story, better atmosphere, better "monthly" boss battles, it's the one that redefined the series and has Mitsuru <3. Also, Aigis is possibly the best character in the series. However, the dungeon crawling was pretty bland especially since you were exploring the same dungeon throughout the game, and it did have serious pacing issues. It also had Fuuka and her annoying voice.

Persona 4 fixed mostly all the gameplay complaints from P3, had better characters, superior soundtrack, and more memorable & hilarious moments. With that said, the dungeon crawling was still bland (but was given different looking dungeons at least), had a copy-paste scenario for half the game's story, and the boss battles were just boring. There was no strategy involved; it was just attack them with your strongest skills.

In the end, I go with Persona 3. Maybe I'm biased since I played it before P4, and it was such a refreshing experience. It holds a special place in my heart.

I'm too early into P4 to judge it, really... but I was so involved with P3P at some point, I don't see P4 doing the same for me. Sure hope I'm wrong. :)