Boy I haven't been this disappointed in a game in a while. No one to blame but myself, I guess, but I really assumed there would be <i>something</i> else going on here. I assumed that this was like, a puzzle game or something and that all the (iconic) narrative shenanigans were layered on top of that base, a la Portal. But no, no, there's not really a game here at all. It's <i>just</i> the narrative shenanigans, which are pretty neat for a few minutes but I imagine would have been way more cool if the entire concept of the game wasn't already sort of out there in the public consciousness.

Instead, it's just a bunch of short stories built upon branching narrative paths but when there are so many of them, it just gets kind of tedious to replay the opening stages of them again and again. I'm sort of shocked that there's not an option to just skip to the branch.

As a modern Persona (meaning "3-5" basically), I think this one sits squarely in the middle of the pack. I'm not especially twisted about the lack of FeMC or Aigis's post-game content, so that's not factoring in to any of this.

Any of those modern Personas come down to a combination of three things: the story, the characters, and the dungeon crawl. And I've got to say, Tartarus basically sucks. As a location it completely lacks identity--it's just kind of "big tower reaching up to the sky," and even though they mix up the aesthetic every few sections, it just feels bland. You know the combat's nothing to write home about, so it would be better to do it in a place that's worth spending time in, but some of these blocks are just so whatever.

But that's alright because honestly the rest of the game makes up for it. The characters are pretty strong overall, both the main party and the extended cast of social links. There are a few complete duds (looking at you, Gourmet King) but they're outweighed by social links that actually kept me interested in seeing how they'd play out (hi Maya! Hi, dying man in the park! Hi Bunkichi!). The story likewise moves pretty well forward, it's sort of generic but at least it's paced well and makes a sort of local sense as it progresses from full moon to full moon (unlike say Persona 5, which is miserably paced).

It's a fun core that makes any given run really interesting, but I found the jokers were not really distinct enough to give each run its own unique vibe. After a while, it feels like I'm playing the same run over and over with the most minor of variations ("Ah, spades instead of hearts this time! Oooh, I need to max out tarot cards instead of planet cards!"), and the excitement wears off. It just didn't have that classic roguelike staying power that the best examples have (like Hades or Gungeon) where any given run feels like it could go in an infinite number of unknown directions.