Great story, great setting. Probably helps that subsequent games drew more from smt I than it. I will also say however that a lot of it felt bogged down. Like that somehow I wasn't getting the fullest or richest image of the story here, which I assume is due to technical limitations.

Gameplay wise it's only really a marginal improvement over I. And to be completely honest, it was never clear to me whether separating your party into two rows ever made a difference in a way that wasn't there with how the original release of smt I did it.
And backtracking is definitely a big sin of this game that none of its predecessors shared. That definitely makes me wish for this game to get a remake more so than smt I (as unrealistic as that is).

Somehow one of the most important work of the entire mainline series of SMT, in the same line as SMT III. Despite to being the first of its kind, it has the most interesting conclusions and treatment of the basic alignment system. So why is it rated lower than all other ones ?
CAUSE THIS GAME IS DOGSHIT. I did not think it was possible for a sequel to be more tedious than SMTI, yet here we are, and as usual, the fact that it's so old held it back massively to portray the scenes properly to leave an impact. A remake would make it one of Atlus's best work, and another timeless classic.