Had a lot more fun with this than I thought I would. I think I even prefer this open world to BOTW/TOTK's open world.

Combat is essentially an improved version of XC1's combat, with a lot more build variety and options. And while a lot of that complexity is somewhat reduced once you fully abuse Overdrive to its limit, the endgame and postgame challenges really test your whole game knowledge. Exploration is also probably the best in the franchise, every hex on the map had a meaningful interaction, such as enemies that drop important materials, or a Tyrant to challenge yourself with.

As for the plot, it's certainly a downgrade when you compare it to the rest of the franchise. But I wouldn't say it was ever really bad, but just a 7/10 sci fi action plot. Although Tatsu can go fuck himself. But the side content certainly makes up for it, these are probably some of the best sidequests i've done.

The new class was a lot of fun to play around with, since we finally got a good critical recharge playstyle again. The ability to craft accessories is neat, but the RNG aspect to what you get is pretty annoying. At least you can get items better than most of what you can find naturally.

The roguelike gauntlet mode is fun, but also tiresome and very long to do (particularly the pro gauntlet). I enjoyed the new costumes as well, definitely a step up from wave 2 and a nice throwback to previous games.

Finally decided to go back and do the challenge battles. Most of them are entirely forgettable, with a couple of waves of nondescript enemies. Only the 5-star challenge battles pose any real challenge, and in reality it's more like 2 in particular (Four Devas and Heroes Frontline). These two require a complete understanding of the combat system and how to build your characters (which nothing in the base game ever really pushed you to do), and were the most enjoyable part of the challenge mode. You also get swimsuit costumes for beating them which were whatever. Definitely a downgrade from XC2's challenge mode.

The new hero Ino was also pretty disappointing. Her exclusive Inoswap feature was pretty much just a glorified soul tree that requires collecting a new type of ether found in the overworld. Her class is also pretty bad, although the concept of a tank becoming stronger as they die more could be interesting if it was actually done well.

In terms of gameplay, it's probably the most refined of the 3 modern persona games. Dungeons actually have level design instead of a randomly generated series of hallways. Baton pass is a great mechanic that should definitely return in all future games, and the new fusion alarm was a lot of fun to mess around with. Art and music are fantastic as always, liked it better than 4's but probably not as much as 3's. Social links are a mixed bag like in all of these games, but they seemed to be a bit better on average for this one.

The story is kind of a mess though. It feels episodic in nature, and not really like the party is making any real strides towards achieving their goal for a majority of the game. Certain character arcs make no sense, and there are also out of pocket moments where people do things entirely out of character for a quick gag. Half the characters in the party felt like they had their one arc against a certain villain, and then took the backseat for the rest of the game. Even ignoring that, I feel the least attached to this party compared to SEES or the Investigation Team. The new Royal story content is good though, but I definitely would not have liked this game's plot if I had played the original.

Overall, I think my enjoyment of the gameplay and stylistic elements outweighed the mostly mediocre story, but this version of the game is definitely the one to purchase due to having the best story content within its additions.