that's not fucking fair mannnnnnnnnnnn........ fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck okay ive tied up all the loose ends, seen the conclusions to some of the social links i didnt finish in time.. and i fully beat the game and started a Little of the new game plus for the first time ever...

I THINK i can type my thoughts in good conscience now

warning this review in particular in your eyes will have me getting sappy and sentimental, but ive never played this game before:

This was the first persona game i had ever even Seen or heard about. When I was a kid watching mat and pat from two best friends play this, i retained almost Nothing about it aside from the two being at each other's throats and Mat may or may not actually deleting Pat's 300 plus hour save file
In sophomore year of highschool i had a really good friend that'd show me the openings for both persona 4 golden and persona 3 portable alike, this was almost comically insane timing because it wasnt often id even have the opportunity to get a new game.. hell i didnt even have a ps4 still, my crappy laptop, wii u and my 3ds for the bulk of the 2010s were what i relied on for video games. It was about 2017 when Persona 5 dropped, and Id actually be able to TRY one of these.. id get it for ps3(while just the Existence of this version of this game being released for such an old console was laughed at.. to Me it was another very lucky moment)
and id love it, id be talking about it so often.. and then thatd kinda just! be it! for a bit atleast
id listen to the music when i was alone, id listen to the other games ost's
it was far from my first JRPG but it felt like a lightning in a bottle moment because id never touched anything SMT before and id hold these thoughts and memories and theyd peter(heheh) out as time marched... i wound up playing persona 1 and having my fun trolling my friends into thinking that id play 3 or 4 next, and i enjoyed my time with that too but in a Different way.
It's been 7 years since i played persona 5
and since then i think i can totally call myself an "smt Fan" instead of just someone with passing interest, ive played about 10 games now at this point and im levelling with you..

I think Persona 4 has the worst gameplay of these 'modern era' type persona games,

No, really!
I think this Process of going through persona 4 dungeons sucks! There's some exceptions here though... the GaMEr dungeon is neat.. the laboratory one.. the two before the endgame one that i wont say the names of..
but in general I think while the aesthetics are a step above persona 3's tartarus blocks... i do wish they took more advantage of sending you back to previous floors or even having mid bosses thatre more interesting, some of them are so utterly stupidly hamfisted in one way or another that just makes them not stand out to me AT ALL compared to persona 3 mid bosses
The closest thing to a smooth dancer or sleepy table moment was the big fuck you jarhead mech asshole that has an ungodly amount of defense
But even in spite of this there's so much variety that goes in with your party and having party members remember shit from doing side activities.. ultimate personas getting a THIRD tier.. its incredible
HAFHAHF INFACT LIKE EVEN THE MOMENTS WHERE A BENCHED PARTY MEMBER CAN JUMP IN AND DO A FUNNY ATTACK ON THE ENEMY WITH THEIR MOTORCYCLES, THE TEAM ATTACKS THAT CAN SOMETIMES JUST H A P P E N, ALL THAT I love that
I love how involved everyone is to the point of even showing up in some random blocks of the dungeons just for idle interactions, persona 3 had some moments like this too! but nowhere Near at this extent even in FES
And thats really why this whole game works for me in general

Yeah you could say the plot technically doesnt kick into gear until the latter quarter of the game, yes there's absolutely disgusting momentary segments of for lack of a better term

'atlus moments' where theres punching down at being queer or even having whole actual just predator/pedo characters in this shit while at the same time having arguably the fruitiest fucking cast in this entire series with yosuke, naoto, kanji and even teddie and the others getting glimmering moments of acceptance and self affirming perspective about them. This is where the game comes into a sort of cognitive dissonance that makes it so conflicting to talk about and I think to wrap my head around in general while playing and even after playing ....
This game WAS written in the 00s after all, and the bulk of the cast that this game centers on.. are kids! freshmen and sophomores just trying to do the right thing out here and it shows. Yosuke MAY be goonerer supreme in some moments of the narrative, and then be one of the most realistic characters in self doubt and isolation and wanting to Be something and have a grip on who he is.. in his social link!.. but bits of that Do trickle into the narrative too.. so you have this guy thats just so gross but it gets brushed off so quick as if the game itself knows its just a stupid silly thing that he had bought girls swimsuits in advance for his friends in a creepy manner...?????????

Yea
This game has some moments like that. and I never like it but I think it speaks volumes on it all when there can be fuckshit in this game and I primarily remember and Felt at the forefront what was going on when it mattered.
Shopping for groceries, getting drivers licenses for the motorcycles, the silly shit at the beach, the camping, the ski trip, going to the movies, yosuke needing help at junes', the fuckup with halloweeennn all of it.. i loved All of that more than the actual boss fights, more than the personas more than any of that more than anything that shit stuck with me

ESPECIALLY when it came down to Nanako and Dojima whichre two of my favorite characters in this franchise now too because in some ways I think it feels like somewhat of a peek into what itd be like if i could be there for a little version of myself going through shit alone with her dad when her mom's passed, what itd be like if there was someone to make things right and close the rift between my dad and i instead of it rolling harder and harder in contempt for one another. This is a lot of projecting im aware, but honestly this is the meat of why this game is even a 4/5 at All because if none of this landed to me, idve probably gave this game a 3/5 at most.
Which still isnt bad, but there's so much here that i think is Objectively hampering whats going on.. but theres so much soul fighting through to the point where itd feel like i was Lying through my teeth telling you this game as a whole sucks
because i loved it so much
I didnt wanna say I did
because everybody and their fuckin mama's goldfish meatsuckle this shit to hell and back
and i think i was afraid of being biased like that too
I even had some contempt for how id been spoiled on this years ago on instagram... but Im so glad i didnt play this as a teenager because it felt like the most brisk wave of nostalgia i didnt think a game i never played could ever give me.. a piece of media ive never experienced evoking so much out of me so different from what made persona 3 so special to me. I grew up in a town where jackshit happened apart from hanging with friends to talk and play games, there wasnt much going on for being one of the most boring towns in the entire state of florida at that too. But it was always PEOPLE that got me through my first time being homeless, it was always people that got me through the passing of loved ones, the decay of my enjoyment of school, first car, venting, movies, all of it bitch
im talking all of it
This made me think about all of that to the point where I think it was around december or january, these stupid asses teddie and yosuke were at the door of your place and i started to cook yosuke for being dumb as all fuck and how karma always shines and repays in full with every stupid ass little thing he says and thinks to do during the game.. but tears kept flowing cause he felt like a friend or atleast someone id know from back in those days and his growth was absolutely felt(until atlus thinks to do stupid shit for a joke)

It's that shit that matters, its that shit that makes the whole journey worth it, its that shit that makes even the several BAD endings that much cooler, its that shit that makes pressing through the social stats feel so much more Earned, its that shit that makes you wanna actually talk to everyone and get to know everyone because the group chemistry is so knit together well. I love S.E.E.S but the Inaba investigation group is so specifically bumbling and sweet and dumb all at the same time that I think they give the vibes of a cast that can literally have conversations about Anything and keep going and going without a writer being pressed for how to handle a situation.
Having been spoiled on shit in this game prior also made following along the killer really interesting too, it even got me keeping an eye open for them at all times and catching onto how their alibis would form and all that
which honestly just made the mystery that much more fun.

So yeah, i only got one more set of Persona(s) to play through
I was gonna make this one the last one and keep my weird play-pattern for this series rolling till my last breath but I really needed something to make me feel Good lately with how heavy life's been. I think this game has and probably still will continue to be there for people like that with how many characters can resonate with you regardless of age and regardless of identity. I think it's beautiful in it's own.. sometimes ugly little way. I cant let some shit slide though so its capped at 4/5 on here because like, THERES TOTALLY SOME THINGS THAT PISS ME OFF

which brings us to this lightning round of things i like and dont like since this is already probably my longest backloggd review

-margaret's social link is a farcry from what elizabeth's was that shit is so depressing and only is nice for some momentary nods about the past i GUESS.

-if you played persona 3 and loved persona 3, and its your favorite one like me, this shit will meatsuckle you like crazy for a little bit and i think thats kindof cool

-shuffle time i THOUGHT was completely fucked up at first, but I think that sweep bonuses and everything pertaining to it are good I just miss the mystery guessing aspect of shit now

-The final boss funnily enough aint even the hardest fuckin fight in this game LMAO

-I think its fucking disgusting that atlus went out of their way to have two bath house scenes that suck ass in this game

-THE PINK ALLIGATOR GOT PUBLISHED!!!!!!!!! AND SLEEPY TABLE HAD A COMEBACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

-This is now my most played steam game at 230 something hours...

-Marie is rly cool

-Kamui Miracle is the best additional skiill in the whole franchise and we should always make it mandatory to have a way to gamble when you fight in a persona game thank u

so yeah this game sucks and i hate atlus, loved it, bye