This game was a big reason why I decided to buy a PS Vita and for the most part left me satisfied. While I still personally prefer Persona 5 Royal, this game is still very good and I understand why this game left such a big impact on so many people. While the themes in this game don't personally effect me as strongly as some other people you have got to admit these are very strong and are very intricately woven into the story. One disappointing thing I found with the game was the gameplay and level design. After playing Persona 5's palaces that were always a ton of fun to play through along with some very memorable tracks. Here I found the level design of just finding the next set of stairs very boring and bland compared to the really engaging design of Persona 5's. While the combat is a lot more fun, I'm gonna be honest I prefer the QoL and just not having the need to grind so often. That last part is more of a nitpick and really just my personal preference. However the Characters in this game are some of my favorite in a video game. Kanji and Naoto especially standing out. The Story and the Villain are also very engaging and well written. I won't spoil the villain of this game but looking back it's super obvious but everything is in hindsight. Nevertheless I really love the villain in this game. Story suffers from a handful of pacing issues with too many random events that can last days for no real reason. It really leans into the anime tropes, while it's not a bad thing necessarily it got a bit annoying by the the 5th or 6th time. However, whenever the focus was on the story I was engaged and I was looking for anything and everything in the dialogue. This game has strong story and characters, but is a little bit bogged down by the level design and gameplay mechanics. This is still a game any Persona fan or JRPG fan in general should give a shot however.
8/10