LogFAQs > #974921404

First off, I'm pretty much talking exclusively about the story changes. Shuffle time is an excellent mechanic and is honestly one of the best grinding mechanics I've ever seen in any RPG. Turning every post fight into a lootbox is a brilliant idea and I'm shocked more games didn't outright copy it. (I know it came from Persona 3, the point still stands).

Storywise, it's not very good though. The added content really makes the ending of the game drag, the bonus dungeon flat out sucks and doesn't offer anything new or exciting, even though they tried with the whole, "Your equipment and items are gone!" Move they attempted. In P5R you get a better version of the original last boss as the added content.(He still wants to control humanity, but for the "right reasons.")He has motivations, and more importantly, flaws as a character. A flawed villain is so much more interesting than an omnipotent being with purpose but no real motivation.

It really feels like you're just fighting the giant floating eyeball fog spewing submarine of omnipotence over and over again in P4G. The motivation between the last several fights isn't varied enough and the characters aren't interesting enough to provide compelling fights. They feel like the twins fight in Persona 5 Royal in that they feel like optional fights, not story battles. At least the boss themes in Golden are sick...I guess.

I don't really know what quality of life improvements came from P4G other than shuffle time, but it really feels like they crammed in the extra story content and it doesn't really fit within the majority of the story. I will say, having recently watched the P4G anime, that does the added content much better than the game did and probably should have been the route they went tbh.

As for Royal, Kasumi is a nothingbomb of a character, I don't like her, I don't hate her. She's just sorta there like a Joker obsessed remora.

The one exception to the added content being good in Royal is the summer visit to the "Mystery palace" and the subsequent keeping it a secret and not talking about it until it becomes plot relevant again. That's honestly really dumb, but it's the dumbest thing Royal added so it's mostly excusable.

I understand why people prefer P4 to P5(I don't though), and both games start to have bad pacing problems after a certain point in each story, but everything from the end of December onward in P4G just feels like such a slog to get through.

Did anybody else get that same vibe? I play a decent amount of JRPG's so I feel like my tolerance to tedium is pretty high, but this was pretty grating experience in retrospect. It didn't sour me on Persona 4, but It definitely worsened the overall experience by the end of it.