Recent reviews by Avicebron Mahogany Ibn Gabriol

How to describe this game...*sigh*

I was waiting for it for ages. And it's disappointing. I'll try to do pros and cons.

Pros:
-The Persona designs for the Phantom Idols and Party members are great. They're all thematically rather fitting, even if their nature takes away a bit from the symbolism.
-They could have easily recolored bosses, but the designs are unique enough to stay positive about. The villains manage to be rather bland in terms of motivations, but hammy enough about it all that they're amusing enough to watch.
-Highlight attacks are visual spectacles that also do enough damage to be worth using.
-The "Use 3 social points for more rewards" idea definitely makes quick runs easier.
-Lufel is cute enough and makes me want my own little bag-pet.

Cons:
-The story is a tamer, defanged version of P5s with different characters. Compared to the threat the palace rulers had in all P5 games and spinoffs, the Menaces lack the same level of threat. Yes, they can ruin lives if left unchecked, but none of them ever gained the same level of enmity that the Palace rulers gained. Especially the first two. Both of the party members gained are essentially carbon copies of existing P5 Char storylines, in one of the cases even being 2 rolled into one. Honestly, this game would be best for someone who has never played Persona 5 before, and yet the game is using the chars from P5 and their crossover storyline as the key marketing...it's a paradox, honestly. Someone described it as "We have Persona at Home:The game" which is an apt comparison.
-The fact that the combat has both an auto-mode and 3x Speed is telling. While the combat is entertaining enough, the fact that you cannot skip grind missions you've already cleared before can make the game a case of "rush the dungeons, let the battles fight themselves" which can become monotonous quickly.
-The main character has no real personality. Yes, he's meant to be a self-insert, but at the same time, he's forgettable and has no real story or motivation to him. Joker from P5 had a compelling motivation to do his phantom thief gig. Even the P4 Protagonist had a bit of a backstory to him that gave him a reason to bond with others. Wonder is a case of "just happened to be there" protagonist that got randomly chosen by the Metaverse navigator. They try to give him a motivation with the whole "watching how a world without desire actually looks" motivation, but it just kind of rings hollow. It's easy to just turn off your brain and think of him as a faceless character, which makes me think that actually making him a "create your own character" model would have been a better idea.
-The Phantom Idol idea is neat, but I think it would have been more fun to be able to actually meet characters first and then have them become Phantom idols after that. I still don't know where you find half of the cast, I've met some of them in other Synergy Events, but I can't really connect to chars I don't know about. I love their designs, but it's giving me dragon quest "create your party member" vibes which always was a odd thing for me.
-The minigames are oddly designed pace-wise. The Music Club minigame requires perfection for the full rewards, which is difficult when the detection messes up. The soccer game requires you to play specific levels when using stamina points to increase your proficiency in the sport, which you need to gain more rewards. The timegating makes them awkward and fussy to play.
-The game constantly pitches FOMO deals to you. The fact that the european version has a "discounts" button on the main menu constantly with a popup number when you have a limited time deal is telling, not to mention the link to the premium store on the banners. I hated it in Dislyte, and I hate it here.
-Might just be a me problem, but the fact that the game's story is addressing the apathy that humanity has towards each other is a bit uncomfortable. Persona has always addressed topics like this (P5S and AI, P5 and how people turn a blind eye to people of authority and power) but the scene at the very beginning where people just stand around while someone does something rather harrowing (Trying not to spoil) was a bit on the nose to it all.

And then, let's just get to the obvious part, and the main reason why people are hating on the game.

The above flaws could be somewhat excused in a game you could play at a casual pace. Timegating on the soccer? You're supposed to spend time on it. The story? Could improve down the line. (The next story chapter is around the corner, so...who knows.) But the game isn't giving the players time. The game's pace was sped up, using the excuse that they want to make the game catch up to the CN timeline. Except...no. You don't do that. People need the downtime to gather resources, to explore the game properly, and more. This rushing of the game and especially the banners is a shallow cash-grab attempt to force people to pay money by weaponizing FOMO. More characters == more deals == more people paying more money to get the characters before risking missing them. The changes done to the EU/NA version just completely spat in the face of casual and F2P players.

Listen, companies. You make a game more generous towards the players, they want to give you more money out of gratitude, and feel better spending money. Rush them and remove things that they were expecting or looking forward to, and you get this. People telling others not to spend money out of sheer spite. The changes done and the lack of actual rewards for them (Timegating Marian by six months? Really Sega?) puts the game's flaws into a much stronger view, and makes the apathy in the playerbase grow. I am going to continue playing, but I won't buy any of your big packs. Because if this is how the game treats us, it's not worth the money. You have no excuses when other games are innovating more.

Is this game fun? To a degree. If you have P5? Play that instead. Better story. OR just wait for Persona 6. This game is being pushed to an early EOS because Sega is greedy. And the lack of communication during the livestream was just the final insult. There is literally a list of things that NA has done worse out there in a google doc. We don't need the speed up. Just give us more time. Don't cram the updates in, or two months down the line, you'll be running out of players.