Good:
-Absolutely adore the main cast.
-Art style is very unique and suits the game very well, the hand-drawn animated style and the nostalgic photography really distinguishes the childhood world.
-Great soundtrack, while not every song is super memorable there are defo some bangers here and there.
-Really pulls at the heartstrings, some scenes capture some really powerful emotional moments.
-Certain battles were done pretty well and hold a lot of emotional weight, such as the Church encounter with Aubrey.
-Combats ok for what it is, using emotions as an RPS system works quite well.

Bad:
-Pacing is a bit shit, I get that theyre trying tell a story with the real world and the child world but the "unusual" moments inbetween sort get in way of the pacing. You never really know if its Omori or Sunny dealing with which traumatic experiences.
-Some of the heavy moments are teased for way too long.
-The quirky "imaginary" characters are a tad forgettable, some of their stages were a bit too long as well.
-Tedious puzzles such as the sprout queue and Humphreys
-These characters also seemed to have little to do with the main cast outside of "oh we played/watched/read that as kids". (Also what the hell was the Whale/Witches about?)
-Why was there so much focus on Sweethearts character arc that went nowhere?

-decent combat system could have been explored more with deeper fights.
-bit too many "credits roll" moments, many scenes hinted "that was it" but it just kinda kept going.
-"disturbing earthboundy-ness" game feel with these kind of rpgs has been done to death at this point. A lot of it was necessary and is good in its context but a lot of the disturbing parts felt like they were just there for the hell of it (the black space doors). I get that the game started development 6 years ago so it wasn't as overdone at that point, it's an unfortunate timing with the release. In fact I imagine if this was released a few years ago the "earthboundy" problem wouldn't be much of an issue.
-final fight was kinda unfullfilling, there was very little strategy or skill to it compare to say Undertale where it is monumental gameplay wise as well as story wise.

What I'd do different:
-Make some of the quirky headspacs worlds and levels a tad shorter, have the fictional characters that they grew up with relate more to their realworld selves. Example: The Space Captain character could reprimand Omori for distracting himself with his Cartoon universe instead of dealing with his trauma properly.
--This will in a sense make the "headspace" world's story more worthwhile, because its beginning to reflect the actions/consequences of what the characters did in the real world.

-Include much more harder fights that aren't just paced to conveniantly to tie in with character dialogue. Really test the player in the heat of an emotional moment.
-Have a full blown encounter between the childworld chars and their real world selves. Or better yet have the main cast in the realworld temporarily use their childhood powers one last time. This could be your moment to really test the player on everything they've learned about your game.
-Give more flashbacks and context as to why Mari/Sunny had the argument which eventually led to "that moment". This is arguably the most crucial moment of the entire story, clearly there was some animosity growing between Mari/Sunny yet we never see any of it?
-Spend less time on "lol gruesome Basil imagery" and more time on explaining/describing why he does the things he does. What's his motive? Why does he feel the way he does outside of "we dun fucked up Sunny".
-Have Aubrey beat the ever loving shit outta Basil after the end credits for the good ending

Personal note:
I've been following Omocats progress on this for about 3 years and I'm really happy that they managed to get this done. One day I hope to share this same feeling with my own project!

(SPOILERS FOR P3, P4 AND P5)

Jotted down a few things while playing the game, here are some observations:

Good:
-Starts with a bang. The FF7 style opener works surprisingly well for P5. You're already in the first dungeon by Day 3. On top of that the real gameplay (i.e palace/social links) starts 4 or 5 days into the game. Massive improvement on P3/P4.
-Music/Graphic Design/Style is all perfect
-Ambient whispering and dialogue boxes helps make the city feel massive.
-I'd go as far as to say this game has the best "First Act" out of any game I've played, the entire Kamoshida arc was perfect and makes you really hate him.
-Overall Dungeons are so much better than previous games, big emphasis on making it feel like "infiltrating a base"
-lot more interactive with enemies, talking/negotiating etc.
-3 collectable Will Seeds in each dungeon encourages exploration nicely
-lot of references back to the palace owners desires builds character, really helped with Kaneshiero.
-It really feels like you're "infiltrating" bases, pulling off Heists.
-Ryuji is a way better "best friend" character than Yosuke/Junpei.
-Similar to how Devil May Cry is basically Jojo, the clear inspirations of Death Note are interesting with the L/Light Joker/Akechi parallels.
-Incorporating Request function into Confidants makes them more compelling while slightly predictable
-Cast is very charming, in particular Yusuke adds a funny awkward Peep Show-esque dynamic that really adds a lot to the dialogue.
-BIG fan of the Mishima confidant twist. I'd maybe go as far as to say it's the best Confidant in the game alongside Akechi's
-Better use of Nostalgia, toned down out of place references to older games, while having old battles themes play depending on Jokers costumes is a really nice touch.
-No need for grinding in this game is a good addition
-Kaneshiero's Palace is excellent
-Sae's Palace might be the most fun I've ever had in a Persona dungeon

Bad:
-Morgana. I really don't understand why they had to have an entire dedicated to not just pure Exposition/Explaining the rules of the metaverse, but a character that is a constant nag to the player. Did playtesters really have little to no clue what was happening?
-Character motivations for going after Madarame are a bit weak. They offset this slightly in future targets such as Futaba having a personal interest to cooperate with Phantom Thieves outside of "lets get random Big Bad"
-Futaba's Palace: Ho boy this was not good was it. Very tedious repetitive palace theme, as well as extremely boring puzzles. The metaverse rules we're very ambiguous compared to previous palaces. Changing the rules for the sake of plot
-Party feels more like a main-protag harem than previous games, P4 felt like a group of friends while P3 they we're awkward dorks who grew to like each other
-Please develop characters without having dead parents. Its fine for one or two characters but its literally everyone in this game. (The new "my mother collapsed")
-P4s trip to Persona 3 setting was way more charming than Hawaii.
-Morganas Post Hawaii meltdown
Alright, first off the gang had EVERY reason to be doubtful over using the number 1 voted Okumura as a target. Everything was based on sketchy rumours and press. The fact Morgana spit the dummy here is incredibly dumb.
-Okumura twist was obvious, why doesnt the phantom thieves just put out a big press statement on their big website saying they didn't do it? (More dead parents fucking hell) Also Haru doesn't react like a normal human to her father dying.
-While this game does have some good villains (Kamoshida, Akechi, Shido, Maruki) I don't think they really hold a torch to Adachi.
-What was the researcher/shady cia guy thing about with Sae?
-A lot of the combat sequences in boss fights are a bit messy. They just sort of throw random sequences together instead of exploring the games mechanics. They push in random extra mechanics or gimmicks to draw out fights or make them different. In P3/P4 while having simpler combat it felt like it was using its mechanics better.
-Madarame/Okumura's boss fights could have been done way better
-Unspecified Deadlines on Confidants is big Zzzz
-P3s/p4s "last semester" themes are way better than p5s.
-End game pacing is weaker than P3/P4
-Fast Travel: this is a weird one, but while convenient, does it make the game feel less immersive? Like instead of wandering around Tokyo you spend most of the game looking at your phone. Lack of worth in exploring the overworld really.
-The rumour mill compared between p4 and p5. It works better in a small town like Inaba. Whereas a massive city like Tokyo its a bit more far-fetched.
-Yaldabaoth: The "God" cop out doesn't work as well as P4. In p4, Izanami is pulling the strings from the very beginning with the Gas Attendant. Whereas P5 he just kinda appears.
-How did Maruki know Morgana didn't want to be a cat?

What I'd do differently:
-More incentives to explore Persona overworlds
-Some more Personas based on notorious criminals and vigilantes would be nice (seriously where tf was Jack Ripper?)
-Futaba Arc: They could have EASILY had some sort of hacker villain instead and have Futaba come in from the outside to support you, this hacker group could have been responsible for leaking her mothers research to the government and getting her killed.
-Shido's Palace is very cool. Though everything being cognitive is a little wack, would have been more creepy to see the real corrupt VIPs making use of the metaverse, ESPECIALLY after they did it with the police force in the Casino
-The whole mementos depths thing comes a little too quickly after shido, no time to celebrate, I would have gave the player the satisfactory shido moment but then crept in societies ambivalence in the new year to overlooking shady shit again.


Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics/Art: 10/10
Music:10/10
Style:10/10
Story:9/10
Characters:8/10
Dungeon Design:8/10
Bosses:8/10

Overall: 9.5/10 (rounded up to 5 stars for Backlogged)

Persona 6 and beyond:
-Now the interesting thing is, I really don't know where Atlas goes from here. They will have a new Director for P6 who has said that there will be no Calendar system. On top of that long term Composer Shoji Meguro will no longer be making music for Atlas. So Persona 6 on paper is going have a completely different vibe and feel. But with the nature of the Persona formula they theoretically have an infinite number of plots they can work with.