Well they can't all be winners I guess.

I tried, I really tried but The Caligula Effect Overdose, a PS4 port of its original release is just derivative. It's Persona but with the charming colourful aspects that make that enjoyable rinsed out until you get this bland white paste left over. It's not even that it's bad so to speak, I guess it isn't, it's technically functional but it's just utterly forgettable. I'll at least remember a bad game, I won't remember Caligula Effect Overdose excpt what I wrote here for posterity.

The start of this game is kind of a mess of disjointed scenes, poor pacing and clumsy exposition to find you're essentially in the Japanese High School version of the Matrix. You've seen the glitch though and know what you are. You join the Go Home Club, a group who realise they've had their memories tampered with and are trying to break out of this virtual world. Like the idea is fine, even pretty decent if not wholly unique but the execution following these stumbling story reveals is where the game falls on its sword and twists a bit for good measure.

I instantly disliked the cast, either bland or just fundamentally unlikeable. I played for 3 hours and just didn't form the slightest spark of interest in any of them or their issues. I can't even tell you one of their names, it just didn't matter. The reason it didn't matter is they are practically the same as every other white uniformed generic looking character walking around the school. I don't like to use the term but the game is so bizarely generic whilst trying not to be. Almost every NPC has a name, hobbies etc. You can talk to them 3 times in a row to make them your friend and then find out what's troubling them underneath their bland looking exteriors. There are over 500. Five hundred with maybe 6 character models. It's like they took the social link idea from Persona, applied it to every NPC whilst missing the point of personality, attachment and emotional investment.

The dungeon design is the same, I never beat the first one. It was a large sprawling school of the same one corridor, two rooms, and 6 NPC types wandering around. It was needlessly huge sending you from point A to point B. By the time I got to the 4th section and it still looked large and the same, I just couldn't deal with the idea of playing anymore.

If I had to be generous, the music seemed decent and has a cool idea that the track plays all the time but singing only kicks in during combat then transfers to instrumental while walking around and the character art seems nice?

My main take really though is that I may hate Unlimited Saga but at least I remember it and can talk about it passionately where as this I don't really want to talk about at all.

No this game isn't transphobic or fatphobic, if you say this or if someone has told you this then they haven't beaten the game and it shows. Anyway,

Overview
The story of the game is about a bunch of people trapped in a virtual world named Möbius (a maths concept about a one sided shape) by a virtuadoll (virtual idol) named μ. Your character is part of the Go-Home Club, a group of high schoolers who also know the world is fake and want to get out. In your way are the Musicians, a group of people who know the world is fake and want to keep everyone in it. They do this by writing songs for μ to sing, her songs brainwash the residents of Möbius and keep them dependent on it and these songs are used as the dungeon themes.

Characters
When you name your character and choose their gender, you're asked a few questions that make it clear that people forced into Möbius are ones that have experienced terrible things in the real world, be they minor or major. The people you meet in game seem fine when you interact with them but if you take time to increase your affinity with them (haha persona), you can dive deep into their traumas and help them recover.

You increase affinity by beating enemies with your party and doing this unlocks ranks for what is basically social links for each GHC member. There wasn't a single bad social link in the game. Even the worse ones like Naruko who's basically White Girl Syndrome incarnate are entertaining.

The issues the party members have can range from "hm that doesn't seem like that big of an issue" to "wow that guys fucked" and the writing + voice acting manage to portray it in a relatable way. It's nice to watch the characters stop coping over their issues and start making steps to actually fix them.

Something I really loved about the social links (named Character Episodes here) is that unlike Persona 4 and 5, if you say something stupid or jokey during a serious moment, the game will punish you by cancelling the link right there. You can't continue it unless you reload a save or unless you spend big amounts of skill points to fix it. Getting all the way to rank 9 successfully rewards you with a character's Ultimate skill which are usually pretty OP.

Music
Sex incarnate. Chances are if you've seen another Caligula review they've hyped up the music and let me tell you, it really deserves the hype. The OST itself is okay, a few standout tracks but mostly okay and was done by SMT veteran Tsukasa Masuko.

The real highlight are the dungeon/boss themes. The dungeon songs are actually played in canon which is cool because like I said earlier they're used to keep the residents of Mobius dependant on it. Each dungeon has a unique song as well as an instrumental version that plays when you aren't in battle and a remix that plays when you fight the boss of the dungeon.

These songs were composed by famous Japanese guest artists and their efforts combined with the excellent performances by μ's VA create one of the best collection of character songs in video games ever. Her performance is so good, it's hard to tell that it's the same person singing all these songs sometimes.

Some highlights I'd recommend listening to regardless of whether you play the game or not are CosmoxQueen, Distorted Happiness, Cradle, Suicide Prototype and Orbit. Writing this made me go to Spotify and start listening to the music again (you should too)

Gameplay
It's a turn based jrpg but with some cool twists. You can have up to 4 members in a party and each character can have 3 actions per turn. Combat is based around a system called the Imaginary Chain that shows you how the actions you choose will play out as well as what the enemy will do alongside a percentage that shows how likely your attacks are to be successful. You're supposed to adjust the timing of your attacks to maximize your damage, dodge enemy attacks as well as support your teammates by following up on what they do.

There are a lot of cool systems but the game is too easy for you to need to use all of them. Playing on hard does help give some of the bosses actual challenge but it also makes dungeon encounters more tedious than they need to be. What I did was swap between easy and hard when I was exploring a dungeon and when I'm doing a boss respectively.

Dungeons are meh, just a bunch of corridors with some occasional nice puzzles. Music and combat are great though so it shouldn't be a big issue.

Changes made in Overdose
Overdose added social links for the villains too and honestly I'd rank some of them over the GHC ones.

It also added the ability to play alongside the villains. It's not a typical route split though, early on in the game the main villain finds you and asks you to join her side since you're the powerhouse of your team as well as the leader. She knows better than to force or blackmail you though so instead if you agree to hear her out she lets you operate with the Musicians under a codename and a costume that doesn't reveal your identity, that way you can help both sides until you decide who you really support. Getting the good or bad ending is based on a decision you make before the final boss so there's no need to worry about accidentally locking yourself to a route.

In theory all this is great and l do like the new segments with the villains alongside new social links that they get, but the execution is sorta lacking. Every few dungeons the story stops for the villain segments which are just redoing past dungeons but with the villains. But besides that the ability to play with the Musicians along with their new social links ensures that every character in the game is fleshed out pretty well.

Overdose Changes part 2
Besides that Overdose also massively revamped the UI for gameplay and regular dialog. The gameplay UI is far superior to the original and the new camera angles are really good at letting you see the action. The general aesthetic is worse than the vita version though. It works perfectly but it lacks a bit of character.

Overdose also has different lighting since it's basically the original game moved into Unreal Engine 4 and the new lighting is worse. Not a terrible issue, but some areas can be really bright and the new lighting is actually worse at showing of details on character models compared to the Vita lighting which was cooler in color tone and fit the pale art style more.

Overdose also added new characters for both the GHC as well as the Musicians and they're integrated very well. I didn't even know they weren't in the original game until a friend told me. They come with new social links to do as well as a mini story that connects them and it's very well done. I was honestly more invested in this side story than I was in the main story, which I don't mind since this is a character based game. Sadly for some reason this side story doesn't get a satisfying conclusion at all. If you get the best ending possible it just sorta ends with minimal conclusion and this bummed me out.

Conclusion
Good story, great characters and music alongside great gameplay make this a must play for anyone who can tolerate slightly janky low budget games. Every now and then I get a sudden urge to return to this game, it's world, music and characters. It's just that good. Even if you didn't like the game you have to admit that it's proof of potential for something really good, I've been playing the sequel recently and I think it's lived up to that potential, I have to beat it first to know for sure lol.

If you're looking for a quick TL;DR: it's a flawed game, but it's a solid one! Not terrible, but it doesn't quite shine either. I think it laid a pretty solid foundation for the sequel, and in retrospect it really shows. If you enjoyed The Caligula Effect 2, then I can guarantee you that you'll find at least something enjoyable in this game.

For more thoughts, though:
I see a lot of people call this game "mean-spirited," and initially I would agree, but after sinking time into several of the character episodes, I have to disagree. It's initially incredibly jarring when the cast starts slinging some of the most horrid insults at each other (especially so early in the game), but once you take the time to really sit down with them, get to know why they react the way they do, many of them recognize their mistakes, own up to them, and go out of their way to rectify it and improve their behavior. I think that's what I loved the most about this game: that it wasn't afraid the show the ugly side of trauma. That trauma isn't just "waaah I'm sad, but with the power of friendship I feel better now!" but rather it can bring out parts of ourselves we never knew we had, and the worst parts at that.

The game touches on a plethora of heavy subjects, ranging from suicide to eating disorders, and it doesn't cut any corners. The characters react accordingly --- they lash out, panic, hyperventilate, shut down, etc, and as upsetting as that sounds, it's simultaneously refreshing to see a game that refuses to shy away from portraying emotions and topics that a good portion of its target audience have likely experienced themselves. Hell, what's even better is that completing all 9 character episodes doesn't automatically absolve someone of their trauma or their actions. They still struggle to alter their behavior, but from a cognitive standpoint they make a commitment to change, and that's inspiring as a player to see.

Overall, this game is undeniably rough to play, but to read is an entirely different story. It's overall narrative falls a little flat for me, but it doesn't even matter because the characters carry this game unbelievably hard.

I like this game! :D

soulful 5/10

has really vomit inducing combat, visuals, and the game takes a good while to motivate you to stick with it, but the things that stick out are pretty good in my opinion. mileage may vary drastically but the game has mostly interesting characters and a killer soundtrack (for the most part), with a lot of fun dynamics that gave me a few chuckles i aint gonna lie.

without spoiling, the game isn't nearly as problematic as some people make it out to be, especially since most of that is addressed way later, but there are some weird inconsistencies on what the game wants to intend off certain things due to lackluster writing on those departments which makes it valid to interpret it as outright bigoted.

it still has a generally positive message i can appreciate in spite of stumbling on itself a lot the way there, but it definitely takes it sweet time convincing you of that.

like squirrel shit, it smells like shit, it looks like shit, it is shit, but it came from a living being, one with feelings just like us, its soul, and its our job to pick that shit up and throw it in the trash.

eiji best character dont @ me

Unfortunately, CE:OD falls into some of the usual traps when boomers write a story for The Youth; which in this case is that it's generally sympathetic to it's character's struggles unless it's something they deem worthy of being made fun of, resulting in some pretty nasty fatphobic and transphobic comments during certain arcs of the game. There's one character that is anorexic IRL - and in her case, it atleast makes sense that she's got a short fuse towards the former because of her insecurity - but the gross way a male character with a virtual female avatar gets treated is absolutely unnecessary, and does make it hard to recommend if either of these things (understandably) offend you.

That being said, the other 95% of the game is really good, and the way the game uses it's setting to the fullest with all other characters is incredibly well done. Characters might seem typical one-note archetypes at first, but though I hate using the word because of how ridiculously overused it is - it's a fantastic deconstruction of the general characters you're used to, and it's fascinating how much the characters grow on you despite not seeming like they're all that at first.

Everything Overdose adds is fantastic too - being able to side with the Musicians to get a more clear vision of their trauma is incredible, and all three of the new characters added to both sides of the parties are incredible. Provided you pretend Stork doesn't exist. Trust me, it's for the best.

So yeah, it's hard to really call it great when it goes out of it's way to be so unnecessarily vile to certain characters, but I do genuinely believe everything else makes up for it if you can put up with that.
For better or for worse, this game doesn't cut any corners with it's topics - so there's plenty of characters I could painfully relate to which made the game really comforting thanks to seeing them overcome their struggles and dare to go home despite the hardships that might await them.

Awful dungeons that not only are repetitive, but they always forces you to take longest path.
Boring and simplistic combat where you'll probably set it to auto or just press one button all the time.
The only saving grace when navigating through the mazes and awful combat was the music. Some of them are so good.
Well, I would not say this is a good game. It has good characters, touches some themes well, others not so much. But would you say dragging yourself through 20~30 hours of an annoying experience is okay? I'd not unless it had excellent characters and an excellent story. That's not the case here.

One of the weirdest games i've ever played. Has some of the most garbage content in anything in the form of the dungeons and some of the writing and to counterbalance that theres really fun and creative gameplay and some of the coolest character arcs i've seen in the character events. It very clearly suffers from about 40% of its content (being mostly really good) only being added in the remake. While the original games content has some highlights basically exclusively in the form of the character events which for the Go Home Club are basically all really good. Both the endings im not so sure on either

This game is very weird because while i would recommend people who like JRPGs to try it out (extra recommendation if you like Vocaloids since the games music is Vocaloid stuff and its amazing) but even then you need to suffer through the start of the game which mostly fucking sucks.

This is gonna be that very rare unrated game for me since i really cant form a cohesive opinion on it which can be seen from this review basically being rambling.

I played the Switch port of this and you can tell that it was a poorly optimised port of what looks like a budget Vita game, with slowdown and some weird graphical glitches here and there. It's still playable but it does have an impact on the experience unfortunately.

The game itself is alright. It's a nicely paced 25-30 hour JRPG that doesn't waste the players time with fluff. The dungeons are very SMT/early Persona like, basically corridor/hallway like in design and unfortunately don't really deviate enough with puzzles or memorable gimmicks so they can drag on a little. The music for the dungeons is incredible though, each with their own unique song that gains lyrics whenever you enter a battle which is a nice touch. They could've done with having longer loops as they can get repetitive but the songs are all really good.

Now where the game really shines is in its characters, story, and setting.
As someone who fell in love with the concept of a digital world with Digimon, seeing something else explore that with the addition of virtual idols is right up my alley. Basically people who are done with their real life are drawn into Mobius, a virtual world, after they hear a virtual idol singing. It's a place where people can be whoever they want and abandon their trauma. The Virtuadolls take away their negative energy in hopes of making them happy and it's a really cool concept.
What's also cool is its wonderful cast of characters, each with their own stories where you can delve into their trauma and find out why they are the way they are. These characters all deal with something that is bound to be relatable to someone out there. Eating disorders, abusive parents, bullying, suicide and more are all tackled as you dive into character episodes and it's great to see a game tackle these issues. I can't say it handles everything perfectly (there are some scenes that poke fun at obesity which feel out of place for example) but I did find myself relating to a lot of these characters and the problems they faced in their lives and that is what makes this game special. Kotono has become one of my favourite characters of all time because of how much I could relate to her specific issues.
And it's not just your party members you can bond with for these episodes, Overdose lets you bond with the enemy Musicians you fight throughout the story and while some of these characters can be extremely difficult to stand at first, the game does an excellent job at explaining what their trauma is and even allows them to show a lot of growth for their actions which is really well done to pull off.
There will be moments that might test your tolerances to certain subjects but if you can make it through then there is a memorable cast to be met.

Overall The Caligula Effect is a flawed new ip but one whose concept lays a fantastic foundation to build off. The characters carry a slightly messy jrpg experience but if you can stick with it, then you will find something to love about it!

This makes a really rough first impression, starting off with one of the most bizarrely structured intros I’ve seen from a JRPG, its low budget immediately apparent with the shoddy presentation, and following up with dungeons that I had to drag myself through to stay interested in continuing. Still, I pushed past the first few hours and by the end I guess I didn’t hate it? It does have some good qualities that aren’t apparent at first, which could’ve made for something more compelling if it weren’t let down by its other aspects

The game revolves around a bunch of students trapped in a virtual world called Mobius that’s meant to be an escape from harsh reality, and your group called the “Go-Home Club” tries to fight the Musicians keeping everyone captive and break out. The story itself’s kinda lackluster, but where it shines more than I expected is with the characters. Each get their own scenarios where you can learn more about their trauma and what secrets they’re hiding about themselves, eventually figuring out their true personalities in the real world. In addition you can actually decide to side with the Musicians early on and become one of them as Lucid, secretly working with both teams throughout the game. Some are handled better than others, but it generally does a good job fleshing out not just the main cast between dungeons, but also the villains who get their own scenarios too. I enjoyed this part of the game the most

Though there’s also another aspect called Causality Links, where you can actually talk to any NPC in the game and form a bond with them for passive skills. But instead of just a handful, there’s over 500 walking around each with their own name and quest. Conceptually this is interesting, but unfortunately doesn’t work well since that’s far too many to keep track of and their interactions are shallow. So beyond a couple I didn’t bother with this part much

The combat’s fine if too simplistic. It’s turn based, and you can see how everyone’s turn plays out before you chose it which lets you set up stronger attacks and combos (it won’t show if you miss your attacks though which does happen very often). But there’s not much variation to speak of aside for a few basic skills you’ll unlock as you level up

Unfortunately it gets pretty repetitive simply because of how bad the dungeon design is. Every single one is just a maze of the same environment asset that gets progressively more tedious as it forces you to take the most long winded paths toward your objective. You’re likely to wander aimlessly if you aren’t staring at the map since the pathways go on forever, and it’s made even worse that you’re running into the same type of enemies the entire game. On top of that you have to go through all these dungeons twice if you opt to join the Musicians…

I did like the music at least, especially with how the dungeon tracks only switched to vocals whenever in battles which made them less fatiguing to listen to. And despite the lackluster 3D visuals, the menu and character art was cool

I’d hesitate to recommend it given its flaws, but wouldn’t say my time was wasted. If you can get past the frankly awful first few hours and it's poor dungeons then this might be worth checking out. I’m curious to see how the sequel improves on it

(Update: The sequel's a dramatically better game to the point I would just skip this one and go directly to that lol)

has some good ideas but awful execution in basically every regard. the characters are a mixed bag, the aesthetic is diluted and unremarkable because of the remake's graphics, gameplay is intrusively bad and only requires you to hold one button every battle for 20+ hours. music is pretty good and I actually like the art a lot, but the clever designs and great artwork only really shine in the menus since the graphics ingame are dogshit.

there are some really good characters such as izuru, eiji, and kuchinashi, but they are pretty heavily outweighed by the uninteresting or down right awful characters, and most of the ones who dont suck take over half of their social link to get interesting.

regardless it was pretty entertaining at times and from what I've heard it seems like they made a genuine effort to improve upon its issues in the sequel, so im prolly gonna check that out despite this game being pretty shit

The Caligula Effect: Overdose is an absolutely poor attempt at a JRPG on just about every front, which is a shame because I was initially very interested after watching gameplay of what seems to be a unique and gratifying combat system. The combat however, was woefully undelivering on what made it seem so fun, which is unfortunately the first of many things wrong with the game.

To start; the character in Caligula Effect are one-note JRPG anime mumbo jumbo with absolutely zero depth. If you've played character driven RPG's like Mass Effect, Red Dead Redemption, Final Fantasy VI-X, and even Persona 4 & 5, you're familiar with what an engaging and personable cast of characters feels like in an RPG. They are people worth fighting alongside, people who supply memorable experiences and have depth beyond what the protagonist does. In Caligula Effect, you have none of that. This game is trope galore, with resident "Angry and stupid but has a heart of gold," "The Futaba #Socialmedia keyboard warrior," "Male tsundere," the "EEK! Female Character," and nobody's favorite, "The Silent Protagonist." You've seen all of these characters before, and none of them provide any depth to the game throughout the story. About halfway through the game it came to my attention there was a social link system, if its that hidden that is not a good thing. After completing a few of the early social links, I quickly determined that going through each person's story was a complete waste of time.

Caligula Effect's story could be cool, and on a surface level the whole "people chasing an idyllic world that they wish not to leave" is pretty neat. However, when you add in the fact that it's run by two Hatsune-Miku-esque vtubers that have little to no depth, it quickly becomes uninteresting. The AI that follows your party is extremely annoying, and her forced humour detracts from a lot of the emotional moments of the game. Going from dungeon to dungeon with no hub world or moments of downtime really just... sucked, but given the lack of quality in the rest of the game, I'm sort of thankful. I can't imagine having to spend more time playing this game. I'm still generally unsure why the story gets player to move from location to location, as its not sensical and adds nothing to the overarching story. It's basically just "new location xD." There's one point in the game where you are meant to make a decision that drastically changes how you play through the next parts of the game, however it was so unsensical and the person enticing you to do so makes such a poor case, I couldn't imagine doing it.

The environments of this game are extremely drab and boring to traverse, and honestly quickly becomes taxing to do so. From the first "dungeon" to the last, you spend your storybeats walking down what feels like the same recycled hallways with soulless enemies (which are the exact same throughout the entire game) ad nauseum. Every mini-objective within the dungeon had a "your princess is in another castle" storybeat. Think you have gotten to the objective and can continue to the area boss? Nope, you have to find four different keycards to open the first door, after which you'll have to fight three different minibosses, and after that you'll have to collect two keys to open the last door. It's like this throughout the games many monotonous dungeons, and it never feels rewarding. I dreaded going to the objective marker because I knew it meant that I would have to embark on some new menial task. Everything when it comes to moving in dungeons felt like a slog, the areas were massive and there was never, not even once, a point a to point b traversal. If your objective looked like it was in front of you, that meant you actually had to curve around the entire map a couple times, fight the same enemies for what felt like forever, and eventually get to the next storybeat. Not even the fun music could save dungeons from their heightened level of boredom and dragged out length.

Combat in this The Caligula Effect: Overdose is what initially drew me in, I saw Youtube reviews and watched on Steam's previews to see how intricate the combat looked, however playing the game "the correct way" just felt like you were shorting yourself. It seems the intention is to select your moves, and use the future play-out the game provides to adjust accordingly to enemy movement, and to create combos. It was fairly early on in the game where I realized that I could just spam the basic attack for my protagonist and hit auto for the rest of the party. This method lasted from then all the way until the end of the game, I'm not even kidding or exagerating. Most bosses ended on the first turn of using what seemed the equivalent of a "limit break" or "ultimate" attack" for each party member. I played on normal and lack of difficulty or need to pay attention to the game's mechanics felt unfulfilling.

If you have an opportunity to play The Caligula Effect: Overdose or any other game, I cannot recommend picking this.

Not only is this game an ugly, broken mess, full of bad dungeon design, lame enemies, boring combat and repetitive music
But it also has the gall to start going off with fatphobic and transphobic jokes the second you leave the first dungeon
Actually awful
If people I trust didn't tell me the second one is better I would never consider touching it after this shit
Do not play this game

If you ever played a JRPG and thought "man, if you gave these high schoolers a diagnosable DSM-5 disorder this story would be fucking lit" you'll probably really like this game.

If you played a Trails/Tales game and thought "man, these combat systems are really good! But if they would add in lower margins of error, more focus on A.I. prediction and turn timing, a little bit more focus on team synergy in exchange of character depth, and then mixed in some kusoge jank the combat would be godlike" then you'll LOVE this game.

Anyone else, you'll probably better off listening to the Love Scope, Sin, Distorted Happiness, Cradle, and ONBORO from the OST and moving on with your life.

There are a lot of RPGs in the world, but I'm not sure any are quite comparable to Caligula, in my mind. A lot would compare it to Persona due to the presence of character episodes (think social link) and the idea of 'people in high school do thing'. Not entirely inaccurate, given Tadashi Satomi's work on it-- but I think it does a lot to set itself apart.

The game has a low budget and doesn't always handle the issues it tackles with the sensitivity it should-- the first dungeon being a glaring example of that-- but it tries in a way most RPGs really don't. It's no excuse for the fatphobia and transphobia, no, but it's good that despite that the character who is bombarded with those hateful words is shown to genuinely be a good person.

And that's true of all the 'villains' in Caligula, really. There's almost no one I would claim is purely bad. They're very human in that way-- neither perfectly good nor perfectly evil. They're just selfish-- they want what they want for themselves, and the fact that the opposing group wants something else is what drives their conflict.

I don't reccomend Caligula without somehow looking up the triggers for it-- and like I said, not everything is handled perfectly. It's a very flawed game, but unlike many other flawed RPGs out there, its flawed with heart-- it's a low budget endeavour done for, honestly, a handful of people. It will probably never be the next persona or win any awards-- but I think that's just why I like it. It was made because someone wanted to make it, and Caligula oozes with that passion, even flawed as it is.

quite sincerely the most bizarre thing i've ever played that wasn't supposed to be surreal.

sure, it's a budget game. but there's things going on here that go beyond "we didn't have the money" and are just unexplainable.

the concept of mobius is fascinating, and μ is a joy to interact with whenever you're given the chance to. i really appreciate that, in a way, this game follows cosMoP's warning in "the real disappearance of hatsune miku", wherein a product (vocaloid) that can give those who would otherwise not have a voice in society a chance to share their thoughts and feelings with the world is also a double-edged sword due to the fact that you have people liking the robot more than the human behind it. no matter how much passion you put behind your piece, there are many that will just click because they see their favorite vocaloid singing it and enjoy it because of that. this theme matches the musicians club really well since, as they are they 'villians' of the game, they are the ones who have knowledge of mobius but don't want to leave for various reasons that all have to do with feeling cheated by society by things they couldn't control.
back on the vocaloid/song aspect, μ is the vessel for all the producers, and the music they're making is all very personal to them, but they are lacking the fulfillment two-fold -- they themselves know that the world is fake and that any happiness they receive is from μ's power. the only thing they can create from their heart that μ can't are the songs... but μ herself is the one they have to sit and watch perform their intimate pieces to thousands of NPC drones that will just eat up anything she sings. it's quite a suffocating concept that makes you really believe why people like the musicians would be 'stuck' in mobius, constantly telling themselves 'it's better to be here than the real world'.

if the game focused on all of that, it'd be a real delight! unfortunately, it's bogged down by extremely inconsistent writing between character episode's (this game's version of social links), extremely inconsistent writing between the characters themselves, and a silly main plot featuring thorn v.s. shogo that leaves you a bit disappointed in comparison to literally anything else they couldve made the game's conclusion about.

the combat is a sore spot for a ton of people, but i don't really mind as the game heals you after every battle. with the understanding that you will be fully restored, it makes sense that they chose to go with the unique 'time manipulation' turn based combat since each battle will take a while if you're dealing with any more than one enemy. if you weren't healed, battles would be long and dungeons would take forever to get through due to you presumably having to take even more time to think through combat so you wouldn't lose health/sp. i will appreciate a game making combat something to think about rather than something to smash one button on.

fans of vocaloid and all the feelings of isolation that come with it should definitely at least watch a playthrough of this game. it's got beautiful artwork, amazing and varied music, no sense of consistent tone, and an overall amateur feel about it, so it might as well be a vocaloid song.

As a game, it's a terrible mess. It's impossible not to notice just how low budget it was, and while the battle system is interesting on a conceptual level, the way it's implemented and balanced makes the game incredibly unfun to play.

The main story is also kind of haphazard, and wouldn't be very satisfying on its own. It's fortunate, then, that the character scenarios (the social link equivalents) are all quite thoughtful and (mostly) competently told. Every character is interesting and memorable, with motivations and backstories that are quite bit more down-to-earth than you would expect from a JRPG. The game also treats difficult social issues with a degree of nuance, acknowledging that no one's problems are going to magically be solved by the end of the game; even some problematic elements from early in the story are reexamined and overcome later on. My only real complaint with the character scenarios is that it's pretty clear they ran out of time/money with the last few characters on the "villain" side of things.

If you want a glimpse of what modern Persona could be if the writing actually reflected the real world, please give Caligula a try. Just don't expect it to be a good game, because it's not.

Also, the soundtrack is great, especially if you're a Vocaloid fan.