I feel the exact same way about Persona 1 that I felt about Shin Megami Tensei 1.

Its a goated premise with some really cool ideas thats just annoying to play due to its very archaic design and awful dungeon crawling. I've played worse but combat encounters are way too frequent, and they are the worst combination of piss easy yet time consuming.

Its an interesting game and I think everyone who likes Persona should check it out, but that dosent mean you should get super invested and actually bother to finish it.

What I do strongly reccomand however, is that you read its manga adaptation. It covers its story in a much better way and even expands on it, giving Naoya (the protag) some very good characterisation.