There's a lot of discussion in other reviews about how this game is nostalgic to people, but as someone who didn't play it until recently it feels pretty charmless. Party characters range from their stories starting out interesting before taking a nosedive (Chie, Yukiko, Kanji, Naoto) to being intensely aggravating from the jump (Yosuke, Teddie), and the game's mystery and plot similarly start out interesting before succumbing to a repetitive structure and a dismal post-game ending. The dungeons—procedurally generated for the most part—lack the craft that other SMT games have, and this combined with the game's decision to replace fighting demons with repetitively-designed Shadow enemies leaves dungeon traversal to be a slog.

There are some positive points—the non-party character Social Links are generally well-written, the soundtrack is fantastic (Heartbeat, Heartbreak is an all-time video game song), and the small town murder mystery atmosphere of the game is lovely—but overall, Persona 4 is a lackluster entry in the SMT series.