8/10 Yosuke is the goat, and Long hair chie is a babe. godly soundtrack and really good premise but as the story goes on the serious plotlines get worse written. The funny parts stay good beginning to end. Social links are hit or miss, really good ones like shu,dojima, daisuke. Mid.boring ones like naoto, yukiko. Combat is the worst part of the entire game and is my biggest problem with the series, after mid game once everyone has their elemental hit all attacks it just becomes (hit with your biggest move, heal, hit with your biggest move). Very boring and after kanji's boss fight all of the bosses are just stat checks to survive whatever damage the boss does, and then hit and heal repeat. Games story is solid up until the reveal after the heaven dungeon, then after that (if you unlike, me did not fall for the fake ending and have to replay the game) the writng gets much worse, especially in the golden epilogue. Where unlike the beginning of the game where they dont bash the player over the head with the themes, basically the narrative version of yellow paint on interactables, every theme and idea trying to be conveyed in the story is repeated and explained by each member of the investigation team, along with any story beats/events that are happening in the scene, which was my big issue with persona 5 and why i dropped that game. THis also makes it so that the last few months post hospital reveal take as long to complete as the first half of the game, because now every characters lines are quadrupled to make sure the most illiterate of fans are able to understand the story and ideas. (but only post hospital reveal???) And spoilers ahead but man the golden content/post nametame content felt tacked on, its basically a dungeon each month with absolutely 0 story beats in between besides the ski trip, and it really feels like the game is out of gas at that point in the game, all youre doing is grinding social links. THe story also gets irritiating, its OH WE FOUND THE REAL CULPRIT CASE SOLVED, OH WAIT WE FOUND THE REAL CULPRIT, OH WAT WE WERE WRONG AGAIN. WE FOUND THE REAL CULPRIT THIS TIME CASE SOLVED. OH WAIT WE WERE WRONG ETC ETC. I was genuinely laughing at the izanami reveal, like what the hell were they thinking with that. THe story was more intrguing when there was less explained honestly because i found the explanations to be uninteresting, and the philosophy spewed at me at the back end of the game to be elementary drivel. ANy point they made was already clear by the time naoto appears undoubtedly. Speaking of which I found naotos inclusion forced, why did she have to be a genius detective. THey could have just made her a smart kid and nothing would have been changed and she would have been more believable and less shoehorned in of a character imo. Also for having a M rating they dont do much with it which while not insulting liek it was in persona 5, was still disappointing. They have some real powerful and interesting dynamics brought up in the dungeons that are not brought up again afterwards, in exchange for a flanderizing simplification of the character's traits. Yukiko wants to be saved from the monotony of her rural life and wants to break free of her reliance on chie. Chie looks down on yukiko for being inept but also holds jealousy because of her popularity with men. These ideas are brought up and dropped immediately after their dungeons. Kanji is trying to balance his brave facade with his softhearted inner self to navigate the society which has mistreated him etc etc. ALl of the main cast had some good ideas that are pretty much never touched on in their social links, and chie just becomes a karate autist who falls for you. Yukiko wants to leave, takes you on errands, than changes her mind, yosuke is just getting pushed around by his coworkers, and stays heartbroken over his crush (who literally had like 10 lines of dialogue before getting Shadow worlded) for his whole social link. It just seems like wasted potential. On that topic my god, they should have made the SLs like 5 each, they obviously didnt have the time to write complete ones for each, or didnt have ideas for some of them, some of them such as maries arelike 10 minute scenes, and some with other characters are literally like 10 lines of dialogue. And to me besides some of the better ones like the ones I listed earlier dont add anything to the character, and I feel that most dont honestly. The only perfect social link I think was Shu's where there was a real character arc and development, but honestly they just feel like FIre emblems supports but instead of 4 of them theres 10, and by the end of them I felt like I didnt really know the characters any better, and they didnt fet fleshed out. They do have some gems here and there like yosukes outlook on life changing, ai's depression, daisukes girl problems but those few lines dont make up for all the mid. Also for some reason they tied the tier 3 personas to them as well which I think was not a great choice. They really should have made that the reward for clearing the dungeons a second time or something. ALso the game is long as ♥♥♥♥. I wondered why so many people larp persona until i finished this one. 100-140 hours for a true ending if ur not skipping through everything, and actually reading and taking your time is crazy. Thats two full weeks of 10 hours of persona a day. And thats accurate since it took me about two months of playing this game for the majority of my free time to beat it. Pretty nuts. Another con is that it doesnt respect your time but again thats due to the bosses being stat checks and the grinds I mentioned earlier, also fusing anything decent is a pain in the ass because of the persona limit. A lot of issues overall, but I still recommend it. God tier art, god tier soundtrack, and good storybeats. I'd say its worth your time if youre interested in it, but feel no need to rush into playing it if ur short on freetime, as for the time investment I think you could get more out of other games/media. This is literally one of the longest games I have ever played, you could finish multiple shows, or other games in the time it takes to beat this one. Again look at the flaws. To conclude though, I enjoyed it, but its definitely a flawed/ unpolished gem. Not a extreme masterpiece like a lot of people claim.
