I thought that all I wanted in life was Persona 3, but done like Persona 5. And by all rights this should be my favourite Persona. It does so much right. Tonally it's just dark enough — even better, it gets ridiculously bleak. Its lore as regards what Personas are, the message it has on what it means to live, its frank relationship with death, are all wonderful.

So why does this game feel so long?

I kept asking myself this as I went through it. I've played other Atlus games. They were even longer than this, but those never felt like they were dragging. I was enraptured by them. I felt like, why does it feel like a slog to just, finally, finish it?

I don't mind the Tartarus format. I actually preferred it over specialised dungeons — though variation probably helps with the runtime of the game — because it felt like this monumental effort I kept chipping away at.

I think overall it's just that I'm less invested in the characters than I was with Persona 4. And that's strange, because by all rights I feel like I should prefer what we're doing here, in this one. I understand why P4 had to turn down the heat a bit — the stakes are ridiculously high here. But I'm really glad that the Hashino trilogy starts out by punching for such ridiculously epic proportions so that they could optimise for what they were good at: slice of life friendship simulators.

I was prepared to finish this game and say as much — hmm, started to drag, whatever — but then the ending of this game just hit me like a punch in the gut. It has such a perfect ending. And this game has still managed to affect my life and get me to reflect on what's important to me. In that way, when all the characters say to Makoto, "you taught me that" — I feel that, too. Thank you.