This review contains spoilers
I did enjoy the overall game and experience, but only for the first 25 hours of gameplay; after that point, I was already praying to get to the ending as fast as possible.
I´ve seen many people say this, but it really does feel like this game tried to appeal to everyone in the SMT and Persona fandoms. In doing that, it ended up failing and not reaching the interest of any side of fans.
For the positive things, I did enjoy the characters artwork and design (except Arrow and Milady, but you do get used to them), and I really like Ringo`s and Saizo`s expressions on their portraits. Combat itself felt pretty enjoyable; I enjoyed most of it. Normal encounters, bosses, and challenge battles were fun. Fusing new demons and getting their gifts, acessories, and mistiques were fun to do and did make me feel stronger through the game. Some songs are good; none of them are extraordinary, but they do fit in very well.
That´s about it for the good part; as for the negatives, dungeons, the Soul Matrix, story, characters, and side quests are very mediocre. The initial dungeons you go to are fine; there are not many cool mechanics in them, but it works, but the final dungeons and the last floors of the Soul Matrix are just horrible; they are made out of a terrible gimmick and just force you to walk for so much time to get to places.
The story was all over the place; they had cool concepts and possibilities open for them, but they took the most boring path, never really diving deep into any of them. Never really explaining what covenants are and not giving enough motivation for characters decisions, such as Figue's, which ended up feeling like an annoyance rather than an important, heartfelt decision.
Characters are pretty whatever, but Ringo and Saizo are the best ones; they have the best lines and most enjoyable interactions out of the rest of the group.
Side Quests (Requests) were all very boring to do; almost all of them required you to backtrack through an old dungeon, with a lot of them making you walk around blindly until you find your objective, which was just annoying to do.
Overall, in my mind, this game can be defined as "good ideas and concepts, but they are never realized, expanded upon, or executed in any particularly good way." If you have Xbox Game Pass, maybe play it if you enjoy this type of RPG; otherwise, I would not recommend a purchase.
I´ve seen many people say this, but it really does feel like this game tried to appeal to everyone in the SMT and Persona fandoms. In doing that, it ended up failing and not reaching the interest of any side of fans.
For the positive things, I did enjoy the characters artwork and design (except Arrow and Milady, but you do get used to them), and I really like Ringo`s and Saizo`s expressions on their portraits. Combat itself felt pretty enjoyable; I enjoyed most of it. Normal encounters, bosses, and challenge battles were fun. Fusing new demons and getting their gifts, acessories, and mistiques were fun to do and did make me feel stronger through the game. Some songs are good; none of them are extraordinary, but they do fit in very well.
That´s about it for the good part; as for the negatives, dungeons, the Soul Matrix, story, characters, and side quests are very mediocre. The initial dungeons you go to are fine; there are not many cool mechanics in them, but it works, but the final dungeons and the last floors of the Soul Matrix are just horrible; they are made out of a terrible gimmick and just force you to walk for so much time to get to places.
The story was all over the place; they had cool concepts and possibilities open for them, but they took the most boring path, never really diving deep into any of them. Never really explaining what covenants are and not giving enough motivation for characters decisions, such as Figue's, which ended up feeling like an annoyance rather than an important, heartfelt decision.
Characters are pretty whatever, but Ringo and Saizo are the best ones; they have the best lines and most enjoyable interactions out of the rest of the group.
Side Quests (Requests) were all very boring to do; almost all of them required you to backtrack through an old dungeon, with a lot of them making you walk around blindly until you find your objective, which was just annoying to do.
Overall, in my mind, this game can be defined as "good ideas and concepts, but they are never realized, expanded upon, or executed in any particularly good way." If you have Xbox Game Pass, maybe play it if you enjoy this type of RPG; otherwise, I would not recommend a purchase.