I want to be the counter voice here as some one who finished Persona 5 and ended up being quite disappointed by it. My aim here is to provide another voice without being a jerk.
Much like how many of you can't understand why certain people don't love Persona 5, I can't understand the devotion to it. I was actually with you during the first forty hours or so, but I was making a lot of assumptions. I thought the game would get less heavy handed. I thought it would stop over explaining itself. I thought the characters were going to develop more and go beyond basic anime story lines and concepts. I thought that more confidant story lines would be unique and interesting like Takemi. I was able to look past the issues I was having with it to focus on the great style, fun gameplay, and the basic premise was appealing.
I disagree with the praise being unanimous on Persona 5. Initial reviews were great, but I noticed more and more people became disappointed by it as the weeks went on. The AV Club review and the comments for the various parts was the first one I saw that stressed a disappointment. Then there were varying opinions at Waypoint. Then there were various message boards where I saw some dissent. Finally, I finished the game and came to terms with the fact that I felt it was mediocre and felt it wasn't the bastion of greatness most made it sound like. It had significant problems to me.
I felt the characters were flat and the story was all over the place and sadly turned out to be a big dud with some baffling and cliched decisions. Akechi's "redemption" may be one of the most awful and unearned things I have ever seen in a game. All the characters were heartbroken when he died, but the guy was a total slime ball who not only murdered countless people heartlessly and caused the problems the characters were combating, but killed a main character's mother and sent that character into a suicidal depression. But he reluctantly sacrificed himself to kind of save everyone else, so I guess he wasn't so bad. I liked the early dungeons a lot, but 5 and beyond I felt were kind of varying levels of garbage. In fact, I am surprised to learn everyone hated the fifth one the most because I felt the seventh dungeon was the worst. Not only do you have needless padding with having to go through multiple stories that all were basically the same thing, but you got those rat "puzzles", which weren't really puzzles, but frustrating experiences with a ton of back tracking and battling. Also, having the fight four hundred bosses at the end was the worst and I didn't find it rewarding at all.
On top of this, I think this game lacked the freshness that P3 and P4 had when they came out ten years ago. Yes, they definitely had their problems, but there were less modern age school stories with dark and mysterious overtones mixed with supernatural horror esque elements back then. Now, basically all anime and anime games are modern age school stories with dark and mysterious overtones mixed with supernatural horror esque elements. And on that front, I couldn't help being reminded of "The World Ends With You" during this entire game. They have the same setting, similar styles, and as it turns out, extremely similar over arching stories.... and that game came out in 2008.
I just want to stress that not liking the game is a valid opinion and it is more then overblown criticism. Ben seems to still like the game, but has issues with it. Ironically, I will say you guys are actually doing what you are claiming Ben to be doing. He answered the question from the top of his head with the first thing he thought of as an example and people are making it sound like that simple thing is the only reason he was disappointed.
Believe me, I think it's great you all loved it so much. I wish I loved it. I tried really hard to love it. I just advice to cool it on the fanaticism and the lack of understanding why certain people didn't like it. We don't know Alex's final thoughts yet, but they could be negative. Fanaticism can be quite off putting. I mean, when we were all hoping that some Giant Bomb staffers would play P5, it was a possibility that they wouldn't like it. And as a person who didn't like the game very much, I will say that the talk of "it's the best game ever and you're just nitpicking if you don't like it" just kind of solidifies my problems with the game and makes me dislike it a bit more. That kind of talking is very divisive and offputting.
BeyondStrange's comments