Even aside from Persona 5 Royal being better, regular Persona 5 just isn't very good imo. I love the first arc, I love the 6th Palace, but the game nosedives in the middle with the only real highlight being Palace #4. The messages of the game get so confused and muddled. "Grooming your students and sexually assaulting them are bad! Anyways, you can get groomed by your homeroom teacher and other adults." "Takameki-san doesn't want to be seen as objectified. Anyways, here she is in latex and a whip and is being objectified in cutscenes." It's hard to be engaged with Persona 5 with how it mixes the messages, and Yaldabaoth is the worst example of this. I hate how he comes out of nowhere just for the twist, and while it is a cool twist due to the hints in the voice, it's still really lame. It was a clever usage of having Igor's Seiyu pass away, I'll give it that.

When Persona 5 takes itself seriously, like with Futaba's Palace, it can be stunning. It's so great to see a character trapped by her traumas overcome them slowly and over the course of time. I also enjoy how the confidant arcs are... mostly. I wish say, if Yoshida's confidant is maxed out, he can run for office and change the story, or if Mishima's confidant is maxed out, he's less obsessive. It feels like not much changes within the world of Pesrona 5 due to the confidants. It sucks to be so harsh on Persona 5, especially because Royal does fix at least a few issues I have, but I think others would enjoy it more than I did.