This was my first ever SMT game.

Yep.

I fucking hated my time with it initially, that game made me angry beyond reason, it was a legitimately awful experience as a new-comer.

It's hard as balls, the dungeon design Will kick you in the balls, and the story just wasn't clicking with me.

But the more I looked back on it... This is honestly a pretty excellent dungeon crawler, and one of the better written SMT stories out there.

And as well, the issues I had with dungeon crawling were entirely self-inflected from picking this game first. I'm more than sure I'd do a lot better on a re-play now.

This should absolutely not be your first pick for an SMT game but, as a 3rd or 4th pick? Yeah, absolutely give it a shot!