There’s some incredible stuff in here, stuff that’s really daring for an established Japanese developer like FuRyu to include. Subjects like single motherhood, cyber bullying, and self-cutting are explored in a pretty earnest manner that doesn’t shy away from the ugliness while doing its best to humanize the cast. If this game was almost exclusively focused on the Character Episodes, I’d unreservedly love Caligula. This game pushes the envelope in addressing taboo social issues, in a way that makes the toothlessness of modern Persona transparent.

Unfortunately everything else is kind of miserable, honestly. The main plot lacks a lot of the energy that the Character Episodes bring, mostly because the Musicians just aren’t nearly as interesting as the party members, not to mention the mean-spirited angle that some of the Musicians get in the writing. Sweet-P is the prime example for being relentless assaulted with transphobic and fatphobic writing, to the point of invalidating a party member’s own struggle with anorexia. Any attempts to empathize with body image issues feels hollow when the script will turn around and insist that actually, fat people are pretty disgusting. The empathy given to the party members is not spared for the rest of the cast and it’s intensely hypocritical.

Combat is simultaneously way too simple and convoluted, the worst of both worlds. It’s a system that’s neat in theory for how much control it allows of your characters but it quickly devolved into button-mashing because most enemies die quickly and some simple BnB can take care of bosses, so taking advantage of trickier movesets/strategies feels pointless. There’s also one of the worst sidequest systems I’ve ever seen in a game, extremely bloated and filled with pointless busywork with no real incentive. Having said all that, I still really look forward to the sequel for the potential to take the good ideas, leave some bad stuff behind and polish what remains.