This game's story is impossibly bad and I vastly prefer the combat in every other SMT game. The world design is really good though, it's lots of fun to search for Mimans and do janky platforming around the beautifully designed sections of dilapidated Tokyo. But wow, the story does absolutely nothing. Like Nocturne's story is pretty minimal, but I actually felt somewhat connected to the characters there - it's minimalistic, sure, but actually quite effective. It's oppressive, depressing, but has depth to it.

There is just nothing going on here. There was a bit when the story finally started (Bethel fracturing) that I got interested, but I knew it was so late in the game that we weren't going to get any development like we did of the factions in any other SMT game.

And the gameplay - it's solid, but doesn't get to the heart of why I love SMT games. More than anything, I love going from smol baby with pixie and bad demons with 3 weaknesses to a near-invulnerable powerhouse alongside some of the most significant figures of the world's religions while using buffs/debuffs in important ways. You do definitely get better demons as the story progresses, but since everything still has weaknesses, you never truly get the feeling that you've progressed from the beginning of the game. And worst of all, buffs just aren't that good in V. They're short and ineffective, and if you want them to stay around for any worthwhile amount of time, you need to waste a late-game skill slot.

It's a truly baffling game. I enjoyed my time well enough, but every other SMT and Persona game is better than this.

It's a truly weird game. It has real quality Uchikoshi writing - the writing is delightfully wacky, starts with an incredibly solid murder mystery, and talks about wild urban legends/conspiracy theories at the drop of a hat - but it's not quite as cohesive as the first AI game. There are lots of characters from that game that appear here without a real purpose. Everyone from AI 1 existed for a reason and helped construct an incredibly engaging narrative, and a lot of those characters are back! But without a real clear reason to show up.

Somniums are really solid overall. It's been too long since I played AI 1 but I remember being frustrated with a few Somniums there. There's overall a lot of great ones in here, but some sections in 2's Somniums are worse than 1 ever got - primarily when it tries to do stealth, for some reason. But some Somniums, especially both Amame somniums, are incredibly engaging and genuinely creepy.

And then the central twist - incredibly ambitious and really cool, but once I start to think about it, the whole story becomes significantly less engaging. The very original core mystery is still there, both players and characters are baffled by the original setup of two halves of someone's body appearing six years apart, but after the twist, every other murder is reduced to normal (yet gruesome) killings. It's a cool effect but cheapens the mystery bigtime and has quickly soured my opinion on the game. Really, the build-up of the mystery is based on lying to the player. I'm not against lying to the player, even for some twists, but when so much of the intrigue in the game is based on that? It starts to enter questionable writing territory.

Also, fr, these games need to stop having action sequences. I can suspend my disbelief and I love anime nonsense, but when you have literally hundreds of people with guns and it takes them 10 minutes to shoot any bullets? It's nonsense. And having an action sequence of boneless choreography cap off the story just feels bad.

I have a feeling we'll be back for one more round of Somniums and I just hope that the twist in the next one doesn't sour quite so quickly next time.