This game came out during an era where it seemed every single player Nintendo game was padded for length. TTYD is no exception. Even if we assume the designers had no desire to artificially pad the runtime, the game just doesn't feel like it used its space well. Twilight town and the train are two particularly bad examples. What's most frustrating about these are that they have really interesting setups, but most of the gameplay was walking from one place to another.

I do think that the designers had a playtime in mind they were shooting for and designed the limited content they had in a way to achieve that goal. Most of this comes down to level design and I think this game would be significantly improved if they reworked some of the levels to quicken the pace overall. Maybe this will be done in the switch remake, but I am not holding my breath.

In addition to the mechanics, presentation, and QOL features copied directly from P5(R), the tone of P3R is also nearly identical to P5(R). This is a problem because the story of P3 really lends itself to a darker, more melancholic tone. Just watch the opening cutscenes from each game back to back. (P3 , P3R). The original opening scene is so much darker and tense. Why is Yukari talking so much in the new one? It doesn't work for me and many of the changes are like this.

P3R is essentially P5(R) DLC (credit @mikesinouye). Folks from ATLUS gave an interview about how careful they were to not change too much, but playing the game makes me laugh at this. Like they changed nearly everything mechanically to be like P5(R), even in cases where it doesn't make sense. The example in the article of what they preserved is keeping cell phones the same lmao. It's just silly.

Some of the changes are good and the game is good overall. But by mashing together the gameplay/tone of P5(R) with the story and setting of P3, the result is worse than the sum of their parts.

Also, 'So dance, while I put you in a trance' with that fucked up vocal performance is actually absurdly good. And 'So dance if you want, go ahead / Free to do whatever, I'm chilling on my bed' in monotone mumble rap is trash and makes me cringe every time I hear it.