this game is really good but holy shit this game is confused. its got great graphics and music and so so so much style. and then theres the story! okay i understand that this game is going for a death note sort of "no one should have this power" angle but atlus. you cannot show me a sex offender harming a teenager, then have the protaganists bring him to justice by forcing a confession, and then at the end be like "oh actually thats bad bc you took away his free will" like??? like i get it okay we live under capitalism and if this game wanted to be super progressive and have this revolutionary theme it wouldnt be approved by the shareholders and the higher ups but holy shit it was so frustrating. i haven't finished the royal ending yet i only have the true ending and i kind of don't like these games as much as i used to so its hard to motivate myself to go back and play them again but if it resolves any of this i will come back and discuss it but if not then yeah the normal ending upset me. anyways this game is still very fun and rpg enjoyers will like it. but again atlus cut it with the anime stuff please stop sexualizing teenagers its disgusting. also also atlus please stop making gross charicatures of queer people. also also also please have dark skinned people in a main cast role and stop putting dark skinned characters on the sidelines and/or not featuring them at all. my verdict on this game is that its fun and enjoyable and has some positive messages but is too muddied in atlus's inability to get with the times and be actually progressive.

This may or may not be my favorite game I've ever played. Now, I do get that it is long. It took me 83 hours to beat. But it uses those 83 hours well. It makes you form deep as hell bonds with the phantom thieves and other confidants you decide to do. The gameplay is great as each palace feels like a new challenge and even at its lowest (Okumura arc) I was still having fun. Are there flaws? Of course. We are all not perfect. But out of every game I've played, this is the only one that has left me speechless for 15 minutes after finishing the game and the 3rd semester. 10/10

Take your heart (and time)

I have a long history with Persona 5. This is my first Persona. I started the vanilla version, on PS4, in 2022: I knew the minimum about the game and the universe, I was attracted by the style and music. After playing for probably 10-15 hours, then I ran out of PS+, moved, and somehow I stopped playing it. But I had the Switch with me and in October of the same year I played another 20 hours, but Ragnarok was coming and I preferred it. Of course, I played in fits and starts, but I didn’t get involved and put it off. For almost 2 years it hung in my backlog and waited in the wings. And that hour has come

I decided not to start the game again and continue the hours I had already accumulated - I didn’t want to go through the Palace tutorial: the story could be read in the menu, and the gameplay is not difficult so as not to have to figure it out again. And I got very involved. Despite the fact that I leveled up the first confidant to the maximum somewhere around the 50-60th hour, I got involved in the gameplay itself and the global story. And so, after the first upgraded confidant, I began to intensively upgrade the rest, intensively upgraded the stats of the Joker himself, and enjoyed the game as a whole. There was even a moment when I sacrificed sleep and played all night, as if I was a teenager on vacation again and I didn’t need to go anywhere in the morning. And so it turned out that over the last two to two and a half weeks I played 80+ hours, finishing the entire game.

What I liked

The stories of Futaba and Makoto, the chemistry between Akechi and Joker (this is literally the inversion of Kira and L from Death Note in the world of the persona), the periodic glimpses of naivety in the Phantom Thieves (they are, after all, schoolchildren). Kawakami and Takemi's social links are really sad. In general, the development of side confidants is very cool. I may not have completed all the possible ones (weapon salesman, arcade kid, even Futaba), but I appreciated the stories I completed.
Maruki's story is really very sad, you can sympathize with him. The level of their relationship with the Joker is characterized solely as respect for each other's moral and life principles.

Awakening Personas. This is such a well-calibrated theatrical production when one of the characters, in a moment of complete despair, finds the strength within himself to rebel against injustice

The work itself is with the collective unconscious, with the vices of the Palaces owners. I can't say it's downright brilliant, but it's very cool.

What I didn't like

It seemed to me that Atlus was strongly positioning Kasumi as a conventionally canonical romantic relationship for the Joker - at the time of the school festival, I had already romanced Ann and the cutscene was, well, a direct hint that Kasumi was the right choice.

Result

I fell in love with Persona.