OnlyGoken
2000
Extremely flawed, yet I still love it. Another fun 100%, great music still, and my favorite X series story. But man when it's bad, it's baaaad...
1997
Zero controls like a dream, X controls great too, but I adore the music even moreso, love how the game looks, and I enjoy the difficulty and challenge. The story of the game is tragic too for Zero, and X... it's aight,
1994
Honestly, probably my favorite X game. It's always so much fun to 100% as well, and the bosses are less cheesable in some cases (with a few exceptions). I adore this game and I love everything it does, with my smallest criticisms still not bearing much compared to the greatness of X2.
1993
Honestly, one of the classics. It's not my favorite X game but holds up so well for the time. The game looks, sounds and controls great, and I always love going for 100%.
Amazing story, decent gameplay, but... not great design.
If you ignore the mediocre story this game is actually fucking great and is the best Command Deck game. The flow of the game is phenomenal, music is really nice for being bit-crunched, and the gimmicks it adds are so fun. I think most of the hate comes from either their favorite YouTuber saying so, or the story, because let's not act like Dream Drop is better when it has a frustrating story AND bad gameplay. Olympus being a turn-based RPG is such a fun idea, and the Keyblades all functioning differently is such a cool concept. I love the buffs and debuffs the level system has, and I adored the mini-game-like level design the Datascape levels had. Come into this game with an open mind, I think you'll appreciate Re:coded for how great the gameplay loop is.
Horrible story, horrible gameplay, decent music, but the command deck here is at its most braindead. It's just the Spam Balloonra game, and the mechanics just aren't fun at all. Flowmation makes the level design atrocious, and bosses have no hitstun, which is honestly why it gets a single star. The boss fights are so fucking dreadful as a result.
It's genuinely shocking how they fit this game on a GameBoy Advance. That's the best part outside of the gorgeous Sprite Work to me. The story is decent, and for a Game Boy Advance game, the combat is honestly pretty decent, but it's... missing something.
In spite of how rough 1FM can feel nowadays, the combat is still a ton of fun and the story is genuine and beautiful. I love the music and the magic system, but the game definitely hasn't aged the best compared to 2 Final Mix a few years later.
2012
I wish I saw what everyone else sees but I gave up after Rise's Dungeon. The story is amazing but the writing falls flat to me, and the Investigation Team doesn't feel that friendly. Unlike in Persona 3, I think it hurts the game here where people are kinda just unpleasant. Adachi, Nanako and Dojima are absolutely phenomenal characters, but the sloppy writing at times made it hard to sit through. I'll eventually replay the game and actually experience the ending properly, but for now, I'm sadly shelving it. I plan on replaying Golden properly, because I REALLY wanna see what others see.
2019
This review contains spoilers
I think that Royal fixes some of my issues with Base P5, but why is it this much higher? Third semester's story is genuinely phenomenal. I think Maruki and Kasumi are truly incredible characters, and it takes Akechi, a pretty weak link in terms of Persona 5's original story, and makes him into an incredible character. The other QOL changes are incredible, and I'm so happy that it streamlines some of the more annoying handholdy segments. Maruki's a beautifully tragic character, pretty much the best character since Maki and Naoya from Persona 1, until Zenkichi came in.
2016
This review contains spoilers
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.
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.
2020
Persona 5 Strikers takes every single narrative issue with Persona 5 and manages to improve upon them. There are no character arcs that get shafted, the new characters are phenomenal, and the music remixes are fantastic. It even takes the musou gameplay and does such a fun spin with the Megami Tensei mechanics, and Zenkichi is the best character in Megami Tensei since Maki, Maruki and Naoya imo.
This is literally Xenoblade 1 but better in every way lmao. It's still the weakest of Takahashi's games imo, yet it's still an amazing game.
2010
After the rough reception of Xenosaga after Episode II, I don't blame Monolith Soft for playing 1 so safe, but it's the least Xenogears-like of Takahashi's main games. It's SUPER impressive for a Wii game, with an incredible OST and a really engaging story, but the characters take a hit unfortunately. It's still a fantastic game, but play Definitive Edition, it's better in every single way.