Ugh, you smurfers are going to make me decide this?

Oof. This is a bit tough for me. While P3 is comfortably in my top 10 whereas XII isn't as close, two factors make this a bit more of a toss up. That list was based off vanilla XII and TZA really did fix a lot of issues I had with the original. Secondly, P3 to me is more amazing for the sum of its parts as opposed to it's individual merits. Here's my breakdown:

Characters: This one is a tough choice, I love the cast of both games. I love Matsuno's style of characters, and with a few exceptions, I feel Akiyama and Watanabe did a great job keeping it in his style. You just don't get that kind of writing in games or media, so that's a plus. P3's cast is certainly the more bombastic and emotional group. They are a bit more anime tropey than I would care for, but P3 stands in a weird transition of still feeling like real people (like in P2) and not sliding straight into pure anime sitcom like the later persona games. I appreciate that all of the cast grows within the plot and isn't just relegated to optional side content. Both casts hold onto the central themes of their games really well. So for me, this is a tie.

Music: I like Sakimoto's music, and much like the characters, the score he composes for the Ivalice titles feel really unique. It is more atmospheric than I would care for, but the game still has some major gems like Esper Battle, Battle for Freedom, To be a Sky Pirate, and Penelo's theme. P3's score was unique for its time and I feel it holds up really well. The pop soundtrack works really well and it's likely my favorite of the Persona soundtracks with only P2 and P5 coming close. Sadly, I still feel Meguro's best work is in the mainline series, but if we're being fair. I feel Sakimoto's work in Vagrant Story, FFTactics, and BoFV are a bit better. I'm going to give this to Meguro though because I probably love P3's score a little more than FFXII's score.

Replay value/Side Content - Haha! Yeah I'm going to echo Karifean here. XII has P3 beat in this category. Don;y get me wrong, I love P3's side content but I find P3 has a more linear progression in term of building Persona teams. The customization is strong, but the lack of a defensive game that the mainline SMT games had with Press Turn hurts a lot of the replay value for me when it comes to optimization. Elizabeth and Death are fun boss fights, but with Elizabeth, I'm not keen on a pattern based super bosses, because it leaves little room for self expression. I feel that's the big difference here is that XII's replay value goes farther because there are several ways to tackle optional content and the game in general. The disposable nature of persona's means that building an uber cool Jack Frost doesn't mean much past the early game. You do get more leeway in The Answer, which featured more challenging gameplay, shadow mobs that required multiple elemental types to win, and more restrictive building that made customization matter more, but the content is far too short and the Once More system in general isn't quite the main event gameplay draw that Press Turn or ADB battle is for me. XII's got more options and the superbosses have a little more wiggle room for a player to bring their own style to the fight. XII is also built for side content. Social Links never felt optional, you just prioritized the ones you liked the best. XII wins this easily for me.

So that leads me to a... draw. Okay smurf it, I'm RNGing this. Persona 3 suffered it's own MegaTen death. It forgot to wear a Persona with RNG defense and was sneaked attack. The MC took critical damage and then it was all over the following turn. FFXII managed to squeak by a victory.