This review contains spoilers
i think femc makes up for everything, honestly. i understand if it's not for you because of it, but i don't really spend much time in the overworld anyway.
tartarus is boring, but it made me appreciate mementos in persona 5 a lot. it also got me to experiment more with status effects and support skills other than debilitate. finally grew up and broke from my immature pokemon damage dealing mindset. like, i played persona 5 and then persona 4 before this. 5 was fun combat but i couldn't appreciate it because i was not sold on the story until the very end of the game, and i didn't know what was being improved. 4 was tedious both gameplay and story wise, and i wanted to end it as soon as possible. p3p was where i could take the time (there was so much of it...) to really try out things and see what worked and what didn't with modern persona combat. and being able to have a girl-only party is awesome, i won't lie...
story wise, i think femc's route is one of the strongest in the series. (note: i watched a fes playthrough before playing femc, but i didn't play it myself. i think femc improved the story in most ways, but i could be biased due to not playing fes myself, etc. i think it really stands on its own, though. i do wish we had the answer if only so that i could play the answer on my switch because grinding is not as bad on switch to me!) the vast majority of social links hit for me, and making aigis a romantic interest no matter what was such a good move, and making her insecurities specific to femc being a girl was awesome. it really worked for me. every added male social link also felt good, especially shinji and ryoji, who became much more emotionally impactful in ways that drove home the purpose of the game. while i think it was a dumb decision not to have male team members as social links originally, i wonder if the quality of their writing in femc's route can be a partial result of having the team able to sit with them more and really know their characters better. the non-romantic female social links are a little more mixed; i really liked mitsuru's and it honestly felt like a better version of naoto's link from persona 4, but i think yukari's character does actually lose something when she's not dating the protagonist, although cutting the answer also cuts a lot of the reason why i love her so much, so it's not entirely this game's fault. sorry if i lose my feminist card for that one, yukari is one of my favorite characters in the entire series and i think her journey of being so desperately connected to the protagonist only for him to die in the arms of another woman, to be filled with grief to the point where she would turn against her team, and then to be saved by the love of her friends, specifically mitsuru who she brought back from the brink of despair earlier, and then to form a deeper connection with aigis as well.... sorry, what was i saying? i love yukari so much. and her character is done a disservice by cutting off a lot of this.
anyways, persona evolution being dictated by the story and not the social links is a much better decision than what the other games did, because every character can grow and their growth can be reflected in the story. and the relationships between characters, specifically yukari & mitsuru and fuuka & natsuki really added a lot. it really feels like the characters are real and exist outside of the player, and the characters are what brings this game to another level despite its severe limitations in format.
tartarus is boring, but it made me appreciate mementos in persona 5 a lot. it also got me to experiment more with status effects and support skills other than debilitate. finally grew up and broke from my immature pokemon damage dealing mindset. like, i played persona 5 and then persona 4 before this. 5 was fun combat but i couldn't appreciate it because i was not sold on the story until the very end of the game, and i didn't know what was being improved. 4 was tedious both gameplay and story wise, and i wanted to end it as soon as possible. p3p was where i could take the time (there was so much of it...) to really try out things and see what worked and what didn't with modern persona combat. and being able to have a girl-only party is awesome, i won't lie...
story wise, i think femc's route is one of the strongest in the series. (note: i watched a fes playthrough before playing femc, but i didn't play it myself. i think femc improved the story in most ways, but i could be biased due to not playing fes myself, etc. i think it really stands on its own, though. i do wish we had the answer if only so that i could play the answer on my switch because grinding is not as bad on switch to me!) the vast majority of social links hit for me, and making aigis a romantic interest no matter what was such a good move, and making her insecurities specific to femc being a girl was awesome. it really worked for me. every added male social link also felt good, especially shinji and ryoji, who became much more emotionally impactful in ways that drove home the purpose of the game. while i think it was a dumb decision not to have male team members as social links originally, i wonder if the quality of their writing in femc's route can be a partial result of having the team able to sit with them more and really know their characters better. the non-romantic female social links are a little more mixed; i really liked mitsuru's and it honestly felt like a better version of naoto's link from persona 4, but i think yukari's character does actually lose something when she's not dating the protagonist, although cutting the answer also cuts a lot of the reason why i love her so much, so it's not entirely this game's fault. sorry if i lose my feminist card for that one, yukari is one of my favorite characters in the entire series and i think her journey of being so desperately connected to the protagonist only for him to die in the arms of another woman, to be filled with grief to the point where she would turn against her team, and then to be saved by the love of her friends, specifically mitsuru who she brought back from the brink of despair earlier, and then to form a deeper connection with aigis as well.... sorry, what was i saying? i love yukari so much. and her character is done a disservice by cutting off a lot of this.
anyways, persona evolution being dictated by the story and not the social links is a much better decision than what the other games did, because every character can grow and their growth can be reflected in the story. and the relationships between characters, specifically yukari & mitsuru and fuuka & natsuki really added a lot. it really feels like the characters are real and exist outside of the player, and the characters are what brings this game to another level despite its severe limitations in format.