In retrospect, playing two modern JRPGs in a year constitutes a mistake if you have literally anything else going on, and especially if they're the two latest revamped mainline Persona titles. Given the ubiquity of complaints about P5R's length, I don't think this game runs out of steam before the end. I ran out of steam. I struggled to care after hour 110 or so.

I played on Merciless, which I learned is considered more or less easier than Hard, except for in certain circumstances. As in P4G, the game is too easy for my preference, even when underlevelled and playing with specific loadouts. (I think I got three suckerpunch Game Overs, but struggled at no other point.) I want the blockaded, puzzle-derived combat hinted at by the '1 More' system, but rarely realised. The rhythm of fighting is gorgeous, though.

Style almost overcomes all issues. The UI and soundscape are revolutionary, and have rightly skyrocketed the franchise to iconic, industry-leading status. Just moving through the menus feels better than the combat in most action games. The dungeons have received a huge, and extraordinarily expensive upgrade, turning them from procedurally generated flowcharts into unique, 3D environments.

But there are still problems for me. The premise of the plot started in melodramatic but tangible territory, with a charismatic man taking advantage of his privileged status to sexually abuse young women. The first clanger dropped was the psychic empowerment of a woman who had survived his assault. Ann 'realises' her Persona and is plopped into a skintight PVC dominatrix outfit with a boob window. Maybe this is her taking control of her own sexuality, but it doesn't seem that way. She seems genuinely distressed by it. I can't really think of a more insensitive way to have a young woman 'empowered' in your story than to sexualise and gawk at her while telling her she no longer has to be subject to her abuser.

And that first dungeon is the high point. After that, the rest feel concept-led, and some of the bosses' motivations barely hold together. One guy stole a painting. Another has become a bit callous because she's struggling against the glass ceiling. Hardly supervillain stuff, is it? There is a big 'gotcha' plot turnabout at the 100-hour mark. It's all done with a charming sense of fun, but it's exhaustingly contrived.

If a didactic whole is conveyed at the end, though, it's: be kind; be patient; and listen to your friends. I can go with that. The confidants are nice. The sense of place in Tokyo is very efficiently delivered. P4G's homophobia returns, but downplayed and very infrequent.

I dated the fucking cop girlfriend by accident AGAIN

This gets a long way on concept, art, and music, although I found the writing tough to take at times, and I felt the core mechanism was crucially underdeveloped. I understand this is still a mammoth achievement by a very small team, but I can only be honest about my appreciation for it.

The commitment to the PC-98 visual novel (and shooter!) experience is wonderful, and achieved faultlessly (although I got an audio bug on Steam Deck if I left the game open for too long). And I understand that removing a time limit from the drink-making is a choice. But for me, the bartending felt a bit too predictable for the amount of labour involved, except for unexpected moments where memorisation was suddenly expected. Similarly, the money limits were never an issue for me until the very end of the game, at which point I had no ability to meet the last one, even though I had no way of knowing that, and played perfectly on all remaining days. I got the bad ending, although, looking it up, I also seem to have met the criteria for several of the good endings. I was expecting a Dorothy ending, but oh well.

That said, I think I would have accepted the limitations of the 'game' part of VA-11 Hall-A if I had enjoyed the writing more. I don't mind shout-outs to other developers and the publisher's other games, but the language was very frequently aggressively objectifying. I don't really mind vulgarity, and I was pleased to see an unflappable sex worker as a regular character, and the sometimes unkosher ways we can start to talk about people who break our trust, but this game is awash with possessive talk about women's bodies. It doesn't go unjudged, exactly, but it felt pretty gung-ho for a game written by a man. The character arcs are mostly cute and empathetic, although I sometimes felt a little bludgeoned with the message that 'people are messy and complex'. Some patterns of behaviour are just bad imo.

Still, the game is absolutely gorgeous, and does what it sets out to do very well.