This review contains spoilers
i've been past the point of help since early april. i did not like this game until the third semester, but third semester made me love it and made me play the entire series. akechi is truly one of my favorite characters ever and i think everything that was done with him is on a level of genius that atlus may never achieve again, and this is genuinely outside of me being a fujoshi. maruki is the best palace ruler and is genuinely saying something. and you can kill me for this one but i adore morgana. every other character is either mediocre or fails in some deeply disappointing way, but special shoutout to futaba who had the most interesting introduction and then kind of didn't make a ton of impact after that, makoto who didn't really have a ton of potential and then became a cop, and sumire. i believe the cutscene where kasumi dies is the best cutscene in the entire franchise. but sumire's social link is too interested in her being a love interest that it really sets her back. it seems that sumire decided to stop emulating and obsessing over kasumi in favor of emulating and obsessing over joker instead. SAD!
aside from the third semester, the palaces are boring and don't say a lot. akechi feels very much like a reference to light from death note, but when you think about it, are the phantom thieves, by changing individuals' hearts, also kind of killing people in a way and also being light from death note? whatever. that's why i loved the third semester so much, and why i love the bad ending. it's the only time in the game when the actions of the phantom thieves are reckoned with. i just kind of hate moral righteousness and power fantasies and a side portrayed as good no matter what, (can you tell why i might like akechi so much? sigh) so third semester tackled that in a huge way. should it have been longer? yes indeed, but we can't win em all and what it did in its short time was amazing. but i have to say, my brain was still mostly off until i reached 2/2 for the first time. i liked third semester but i wasn't expecting it to really do a lot, and it played with my expectations in a way that i'm not sure if i'll experience again in a game. taking 100 hours to get there to give me a chance to really stop thinking too hard about anything at all, and it was a shock to my system and that is one of the reasons why this game hasn't left my head. it probably feels like not a huge deal to some people but for me it was everything. like i was in a funk. i was not really enjoying the game. third semester intrigued me and i had fallen deeply for akechi at that point and i had bought into the yaoibait so it was worth it for that but i thought the game had no more tricks up its sleeve. i was complacent. i was off adderall because there was a shortage and every pharmacy in my area had run out. i just wasnt thinking. and you know what i had said just a few days earlier, after he died? march 28, 2023? "resurrect him already. sick of this charade". documented on my blog. lifechanging.
also, the gameplay is good, what can i say. i found it tedious at first but then once i started liking the game and then after playing through p3p i truly understood, that it was good. also, mementos is very connected to morgana to me. and i love morgana. the end
aside from the third semester, the palaces are boring and don't say a lot. akechi feels very much like a reference to light from death note, but when you think about it, are the phantom thieves, by changing individuals' hearts, also kind of killing people in a way and also being light from death note? whatever. that's why i loved the third semester so much, and why i love the bad ending. it's the only time in the game when the actions of the phantom thieves are reckoned with. i just kind of hate moral righteousness and power fantasies and a side portrayed as good no matter what, (can you tell why i might like akechi so much? sigh) so third semester tackled that in a huge way. should it have been longer? yes indeed, but we can't win em all and what it did in its short time was amazing. but i have to say, my brain was still mostly off until i reached 2/2 for the first time. i liked third semester but i wasn't expecting it to really do a lot, and it played with my expectations in a way that i'm not sure if i'll experience again in a game. taking 100 hours to get there to give me a chance to really stop thinking too hard about anything at all, and it was a shock to my system and that is one of the reasons why this game hasn't left my head. it probably feels like not a huge deal to some people but for me it was everything. like i was in a funk. i was not really enjoying the game. third semester intrigued me and i had fallen deeply for akechi at that point and i had bought into the yaoibait so it was worth it for that but i thought the game had no more tricks up its sleeve. i was complacent. i was off adderall because there was a shortage and every pharmacy in my area had run out. i just wasnt thinking. and you know what i had said just a few days earlier, after he died? march 28, 2023? "resurrect him already. sick of this charade". documented on my blog. lifechanging.
also, the gameplay is good, what can i say. i found it tedious at first but then once i started liking the game and then after playing through p3p i truly understood, that it was good. also, mementos is very connected to morgana to me. and i love morgana. the end