THIS GAME. IS SO. FUCKING. LONG.
I mean part of it is my fault that my first run took 160 hours, because I was trying to minmax the time slots you have, but goddamn, it's hard to say anything coherent about something with this much story and optional content.

It's really, really, really good, stupid good almost.
Words can't really do the style and finesse put into this game's presentation justice, and maybe not even a video on YouTube when it comes to the combat, but everything just feels so fucking cathartic and cool to do. You could probably make a 45+ minute presentation for every menu and how and why it's laid out and animated.
There's so many things you can do and have to think about, it definitely deserves the title of life simulator.

And don't even get me started on the music, it's sharing the crown for me with the Undertale OST for my favorite video game soundtracks. The only way you're not moving some part of your body to some of these songs is, if you're either deaf or clinically dead.

If I list everything I like or is worth talking about in this game, I will be here until tomorrow, so I'll only mention one more thing:
The way mythology, literary characters and cultural allusions are used, fucking rocks. It feels very cultured and holistic that basically no part of the world is left without a little bit of representation (Ancient Egypt, Hindu culture, the Semitic pantheon, norse & european folklore, and so many more).
It feels like the game (and the series at large) is saying: "The stories we tell and pass on, become more than the sum of their parts and gain a life of their own"
A message which even I as a non-believer find captivating.

So why can't I give this game 5 stars?
Partly because of the length (I would've liked the story a bit more if the stakes stayed more personal and grounded and didn't go to the classic JRPG trope of "Teenagers fight god with the power of friendship"), but mostly because of some of the writing especially in the latter half of the game.
A lot of the confidant arcs are just kinda superficial and don't really tap into the depths of the human experience as the main story does, the Royal exclusive semester with its central dichotomy and Kasumi's arc I find laughably incoherent in terms of what it was trying to say (I'm still more on Maruki's side than that of the Thieves), and Ryuji...

Can we talk about how dirty they did my beautiful boy?
-You can't romance him or Yusuke (that's the biggest crime of them all).
-He's the butt of almost every joke (haha, getting molested by gay guys, can't imagine anything funnier -__-)
[SPOILERS START]
-And even though he has a history of being a victim of physical abuse, when he sacrifices himself for the rest and miraculously survives, he gets beaten senseless as thanks? What the actual fuck.
Fuck anything Morgana had to complain about, Ryuji should have cut all ties with them after that point, that's what I would have done.
[SPOILERS END]

Again there's so much left to say, but I don't think this is the right place for it.

TL;DR A "must-play" if you have a PS4 and like story-heavy games

Oh my god, this game feels like an abusive relationship. You're pining for those really high highs that are possible and are willing to trudge through hours of getting your shit pushed in for mistakes that have to be measured in milliseconds or because the level generation becomes needlessly cruel for a little while (I had Tiki traps block exits and an Ice level with no bombs where I had to use UFOs to create holes, borderline impossible spike jumps, etc.).

When I started playing this in the winter of last year I thought:
"I've seen hundreds of videos about this game, know on paper about every enemy, item and area and even some 'exploits', like breaking the Moai or getting the Kapala refilled by Mummy vomit. How hard can this be?"

AhaHAHAHHSHsahhaHAhAHAHhaAHAhahAHA

Sometimes while playing I wished I could do violence upon the developer (Derek Yu, you seem like a really laid-back dude, but dear god this game)

What really makes this game however are the graphics, the music and the general atmosphere. The soundtrack by Eirik Suhrke is incredibly memorable, the artstyle although noticeably not high-res enough for 1080p is really endearing, and I'm a sucker for settings where you get a smorgasbord of cultural allusions (Egyptian & Hindu mythology, cryptids, Olmec, and so on).

Author's note: I haven't been to hell yet, beaten the Black Knight or the Alien Queen, but my opinion will probably stay the same, even if I do those things.

Huh...
I may have hyped myself up too much.
The majority of the writing of this chapter reminds me more of modern saturday morning cartoon shows (Adventure Time, Gumball, etc.) than of the first chapter and Undertale. It's not bad for what it is... just different, and for me unexpected.
I felt the first chapter killed it in terms of meshing whimsical and sometimes wholesome moments with an underlying sense of foreboding, but here they clearly just wanted to find a chapter theme that allows them to just blast you with one crazy idea after the other. I don't think it's gonna age as well, as the first chapter, especially with jokes about blue checkmarks and such.

Enough underhanded complaining now, let's get to what is awesome:
-The gameplay tweaks, just brilliant quality of life stuff, that makes the pacing of a fight feel buttery smooth
-The music, I mean duh, it's a Toby Fox game. The overworld songs all sadly didn't do much for me, but a lot of the little character themes are killer (the DJ robot tunes give me Toejam & Earl vibes)
-All the gameplay switchups, be it how one must dodge an enemy or some of the "arcade sections"
-The new dynamic Susie has, where she is weirdly nice and willing to show affection. I was a sucker for this with Prince Zuko, and I still am.

I don't say this about basically any game nowadays, but when the rest of the chapters drop, I will not hesitate to buy it at full price. Toby Fox is a real deal renaissance man, who keeps making games even though he has chronic hand pains. You may not like his games, but one cannot forego having respect for this man.

Ghosting a level with the Path of Silence is one of my most cherished video game experiences.

It's so sick that you can do a running jump over a guard with that costume without alerting him, and even sicker is that it's not tutorialized in any way.

Some levels force combat and play styles too much which is why I took off half a star.

The controls blow, the maps however are superb. I'm not a big remake advocate, but doing this with a big development team to make the world more interactable, have more detailed textures, and make some of the mini-games more complex, would be really dope.
Unlike GTA V this one made every area distinct and full of unique landmarks. I wiped my save and looked if I could find every hidden area in a single evening without hints and I did, because even after 10 years I still remember the layout.

Really makes you want to explore.
Doing stunts in the open-world should have an actual reward though.