Will never understand why this is as acclaimed as it is, because I've never seen a more unredeeming piece of garbage. The promise of "it gets SO GOOD" is one that goes unfulfilled. There's maybe 3 hours of interesting content in this 50 hour waste of life. This is time I will never get back. I should've just read GANTZ or Berserk again. The absolute most dryly written VN I've ever stumbled onto. Huge exposition dumps & redundancy. The protagonist's rambling drivel made me want to end it all. Any time lore is brought up it fizzles out so you can read forty paragraphs of the protagonist making something up the spot. "To be honest, the reason I felt the way I felt is that I learned to feel differently because I watched you look around and accomplish a goal one time, like that time you made a sandwich. And honestly I may be in the wrong here but I'm just thinking you thought a certain way I didn't agree with." It's just endless mindless ranting. I just kept hoping something interesting would happen. It really never did. The only reason I am ok with giving this half a star is because Meiya is a cool character, and also it inspired Attack on Titan, which does every single theme this tries to do infinitely better. I loathed this VN from start to finish. Wild that I enjoyed the first part more because, at least it was sometimes funny lmao.

Making a bad remake of this was kinda hard to do, since the original had its own issues being their first shot at what would become the staple of the Persona formula. I might just be feeling a little bit nostalgic 'cause I played it a long time ago, but it really made me notice how those little details and the direction that the original had, especially in the anime parts, made the game so memorable for me, even after all those problems that it had.

Maybe it's because of the switch to the Unreal Engine or the saturation of the "Persona" franchise in these last years, but some things just didn't hit me the same way the original did. Still, for someone who isn't a fan of remakes, this is one of the better ones out there. Stuff like the new Tartarus, linked episodes, and gameplay additions like the pass and theurgy moves that add to the narrative of the game are all nice welcomes and it makes me even a little bit hopeful for "The Answer".

I still encourage you to check the original game, even if this gets considered to be the "best" version of the game by some people, it should never replace the original, maybe you could even notice some of those details that stick with me after all those years and made me cry like a bitch at the end of the game in my teenage years.