The Persona games are unlike what you think of as "overreact among themselves for motivation." They feel more human and real to what people in the real world would react, despite their anime nature. Whenever I go through political/faction driven plot in Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre, there's way too much in the plate for the plot to condense itself for someone like me to get involved in the story. It can be construed that I just need to pay more attention in order to be invested in it, but you don't have to go through that huge amount of grand scale to get something out of the plot. Every time I'm trying to get invested into the characters and their struggles, it feels more like a chore than an easy story experience in say Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky or Persona.
It appears we just look for different things in our games.
I have Persona 3 on the PSP and 4 on the Vita, both of which I've tried to start a few times.
But when things get rolling I find myself tuning out and losing interest as the characters spend time and energy talking about their days at school, the people they like (or don't), and various emotional issues. Their interpersonal collisions which drive character development grate on me. And while maybe they are accurate representations of teenage behavior they just aren't something I find compelling (although maybe I'm expecting too much, how many teenagers are rational actors anyway?).
To me those things are just as much a turnoff as the political maneuvering of Tactics Ogre is to you.
