This game is incredible and the story completely floored me. As someone who hasn't played the original and only roughly understands it's story, I can't speak to the changes made in the story. It is worth noting that when playing Remake, I could very easily guess what was new stuff. I think the fact that I still do not know kinda shows that this games story is a lot less bloated yet still long enough to justify the games length. The open world is pretty damn good. It is not the main draw of the game so it is not an issue that it is somewhat simple. Most of the tasks you do are fun and the same goes for the sidequests. The combat properly clicked with me finally and I honestly loved it. the music was incredible and the game visually is just eye candy. ALL of the characters worked for me compared to Remake where only really Cloud and Aerith intrigued me. The one issue that stops me from giving this game a 5 is the overabundance of shitty minigames. I understand this was a component to the original and that many are optional but that is no excuse. Out of all of the minigames, only a third were fun. Others like Chocobo racing were fun until you find out there is like 20 courses and you have to win like 10 to complete one quest. The protorelic minigames are by far the worst though. Especially the robot building game. They were so bad that I didn't complete the research for the Junon and Grasslands regions. Other than that, the game is a masterpiece. I can't wait to one day, pay someone to play the minigames I don't like and then replay the fun parts!!

In many ways, this game excels above both persona 4 and 5 but the shortcomings prevent it from being my favourite. The combat system is just as good as ever, the music probably tied with persona 5 in terms of how good it its (still prefer 5 tho), the story is probably the best of any persona game with the characters interacting and developing the whole way through (yukari, aigis and junpei in particular have incredible arcs), the games aesthetic and design are both beautiful. BUT, the repetitive tartarus burnt me out by the end especially with basically the same music playing throughout, there is a lack of content during nighttime in comparison to other games, many of the social links are a tad bland, and the story does take a bit to accelerate. there are other issues too but i can't really fault this game for not having things the other two games do have as it laid the foundation upon which the rest of the games were built. an amazing game but not my favourite persona game