I just do not understand how this game gets so highly praised. Whether it's group hype or fan loyalty, neither would distract me from genuinely believing this is one of the worst games I've played of all time. It does not help that the only other MT game I beat was Devil Survivor, which I do not favour either.

I was wanting to write a full review at some point, but it's all so tiring. There is no point. The game started off compelling at first, and just became a generic JRPG adventure the rest of the way with horrible systems in place and an entirely immemorable, meaningless journey - in which the final section of the route I was on was the shortest bit, offering me no meaning to the finality of the story I chose. I think nothing, I feel nothing, and I do not like this nothing.
I do not like getting stuck in places for a long time with very little clear navigation or hints at where I must go, all within the same areas. I do not like (personally) spending hours in menus cherry-picking demons for very marginal gain. I do not like the illusion of side quests, equipment, and such JRPG extras if they are practically worthless. I do not like being introduced to characters only to find them less relevant in length to my last night's dinner and having less than the amount of dimensions there are to Terraria. I do not like dealing with battles every coming moment where I must examine tight surroundings, I do not like dungeons that look the same, I do not like mazes, I do not like repetitive music, and most of all, I hate it when games pretend that you're immersed.

SMTIV's story - not gameplay - moves around at a "rapid" jumpy pace, so I can barely remember the several events that happen, all blurring together. None of these beats are connected in the grand scheme of things, and they all feel like minor sidequests. Every time I ended up thinking an interesting segment would occur, I would be let down, usually just to find some boringly morbid result such as death (wow!). The writing is bland and your enemies are no better at not sounding like pushovers who looked in the Anime Quote Dictionary. There is so much you can do to offer up an atmosphere that SMTIV tries to give you only for the game mechanics and generally jank RPG nature to screw things over, once again thanks to encounters, poison, and some stupid events.

Before the final battle's terminal in my route you encounter a strange man there who is simply silly for the sake of being silly. How is he there? What is his purpose? Did I miss it somewhere? For my experience, there is no meaning behind it, like many other events in the game, characters that come and drop like nothing. Likewise there is no meaning to you, the player - it's a journey that pushes you along without feeling like you're a real part of it, and eventually I just couldn't give a damn about any of the other characters or whatever happens to the story at that point. There is no interesting backstory. There is no thrilling conclusion that awards my patience and hard work trying to sift through the game's difficulty (attributed to many resets). A short credits scene and a tiny generic epilogue... There is just... no meaning. To me it seems that fans try to pass this off as deep and intelligent, but maybe that's a special kind of intelligent. Maybe I didn't see all the endings and see everything there is to see, but I don't see the worth in replaying the entire game with pacing that's either a slog in the overworld, or with rocket-tag battles that might end your long playing session simply due to the fact that random crits or OHK moves sweep your team like dice rolls that sum up to "should've had a perfect team for the job" when part of the gameplay is trial-and-erroring weaknesses and strengths. I don't see what strategy there is aside from min-maxing and spamming de/buffs. It entirely works once you have access to all these skills, but it takes a while to get there in which the rest of the game feels like a JRPG snowball.

I already wrote too much but I just have nothing really good to say. Maybe two or three tracks are good with the other majority getting on my nerves for being too short and constantly tempting to stay in this retro, synth style that just doesn't match with the rest of the gloomy surroundings. Not to say it's awful, just very, very droning and repetitive and not music that I can "enjoy". I mention gloomy, and yes, some of the tracks feel like downers, but for this reason I don't like to passively listen to them. In other regards, Yume 2kki, for example, is a series of experiences that can make you feel, ponder, and think about things, all with most of them not being remotely entangled with each other, which is thanks to each section clearly having an identity, a place in its setting. SMTIV tries to etch together something, but it feels like a clustershit of the different ideas of 100 people who just found out about religion or theology but don't have anything to add to it. There's clearly a somewhat consistent theme, but the building blocks are made of play-dough, not bricks. I do not have any immersion to the characters, attachments to the world, and I certainly have not heard of any counterpoints or explanations for why the game itself is actually good on an analytical level. I don't claim my thoughts are very in-depth either, but that's because there's a lack to talk about for me.

So, that said, I have the unpopular opinion - thing is, though, I always used to bash Persona fans too despite not playing either series, but I spoke way too soon. It could be that both series suck after all and that Atlus should return to the Trauma series - despite that, I am incredibly certain Persona 4 is tons more interesting to look at, listen to, and probably follow along than whatever the hell you call SMTIV (which I am never going to follow up on for the other endings).
Play a real peersohna game, I guess.