Persona 2 is one those works you consume and desperately want someone else to try it because you just need to talk about it, but unfortunately, you can't recommend this to everyone, the gameplay manages to be worse than P1 or even SNES era SMT, the beggining is slow, the combat is slow, the encounter rate is absurd, and to top it off, the game is unbalanced, but after some hours of eating up the shit you think the game is, you are suddenly envolved in the deepest most interesting story you've ever seen in your life, in that moment, Persona 2 brainwashes you to stop caring about the shit he's putting you through gameplay wise, you just wanna see how the story develops, what will be the next crazy shit Atlus wrote for this game, and that's when you realize that you're at the end of this borderline unplayable game, and even worse, you're fucking loving it, i feel bad for people who feel like the story, characters or atmosphere don't make up for the gameplay, because when you're vibing with the game, it's the best thing you ever played.

I really enjoyed my time with Man of Medan but there is one thing that constantly went through my head; Juxtaposition.

Let me explain, this game is gorgeous, great looking environments and character models in atmospheric settings. The camera angles are obviously designed for a cinematic claustrophobic feeling setting up the feeling of dread and scares. This is entirely ruined by the terrible animations and controls, sometimes to hilarious effect. As an example fairly early in the game when walking down some hollow metal stairs the camera swoops down slowly behind the stairs watching your feet walk down them and giving a narrow view down a corridor. It's an angle I've seen films use before and the effect was really nice. The illusion is shattered like a glass hitting a wall though as my friend and I struggle to control our wooden walking puppet characters as they bump into each other and scenery as walking along even in a straight line felt like a constant battle. Sometimes it was like aliens had taken control of humans and weren't used to their bodies having so few limbs. Characters would stop sometimes for no reason, turning felt like trying to drive a T-34 tank and it generally felt like a cumbersome mess to actually play

A shame really, I like a lot of what this game does otherwise. The story is actually pretty well done with some interesting jump scares and revelations though I had figured out what was happening very early into the game due to one of my favorite TV shows from the 80's using a similar idea. It's actually based on a supposedly real ship and situation though its a bit sketchy on details how true the events are. Don't look it up until you finish the game as it will spoil it but a fascinating tale.

I played it through in co-op a few times with a friend and seeing the characters expressions every time we were making a decision was never not hilarious. The sudden silence, eyes darting around with a look as if they just realized they left their front door open before they went out never got old. Speaking of the co-op, it's got some really cool moments where you split up controlling different characters exploring different areas then re-meeting up again with decisions you make effecting how the story plays out and who lives and dies. The game wasn't hugely stable for us playing online though, had a few disconnections, bugs, glitches and crashes here and there sadly.

It's pretty short but with fairly decent replay value, collectables, endings and some making of documentaries attached. We are definitely interested in the others in the series as I hear they get better from here, and this one was pretty good. Recommend giving it a try.

Edit: So an update was released with a PS5 version but included a whole new ending, improved UI and other changes. The UI and difficulty options are good, as is the new ending and faster walking speed. It's still full of bugs though. The update introduced an infinite loading screen stopping movie night working and wiped game saves. Absolute mess.

+ Gorgeous visuals.
+ Co-op mode has some neat ideas.
+ Interesting story and atmosphere.

- Characters control like Octodad.
- Quite a few bugs and crashes.