>>717990109
>picks hard in nocturne
>suffers
kinda funny, but you picked this fate. Hard in nocturne goes pretty unfair sometimes.
Someone recommended V:Vengeance and while it's good gameplay-wise, I really don't vibe with the giant desert map and no dungeons. The game had a big 'unfinished' feeling to it with base-release and while V:V is polished, the thing I hoped to get fixed the most (The story, or the lack of it) just kinda had a bandaid thrown over it and it was called a day.
You should try IV as a pallate cleanser before V, it's a much more fleshed out setting at the cost of being on the 3DS. Two giant desert games in a row would tire me out, but you do you
also has dungeons unlike V
If you're feeling Spinoffs then Digital Devil Saga duology is also pure kinematography, along with Soul Hackers (1) and Strange Journey, though the latter two have a bit of a harsher entry for an outsider to the series.

>>714702720
Forced social links were a big deal for me once the demo straight up told me to go to talk to homeless people for 3 days or I won't unlock a dungeon and a shop. The UI is unironically too fucking bright and eyefucky, going through menus shouldn't flash a hundred million colors in your face like that. I thought Persona 5 was bad for it but Metaphor made me realize it can get even worse.
Combat was okay but the archetypes or whatever they were called were boring, demons are much cooler and have better designs. On top of that despite the game letting you spec anyone into anything, there's always a BEST option for your party members that's their ultimate archetype or whatever.
If it tried being more standalone like it seemed for the first 3 hours of the demo, i think it'd be an interesting game. Then it reveals it's colors as a reskinned persona 3-5 clone with swords and catgirls. I don't see why they didn't include romance options (not that I really give a fuck about that in megaten games) while including social links. It should have been the other way around.

The calendar is also a fucking stupid system unless backed by a good reason for it to exist. Persona 3 did it alright, then every next Persona game tried copying the concept without understanding why they put it in P3 to being with. While it sorta kinda made sense to have a time limit in Re:Fantazio, it's also stupid and pointless because the game forces you to spend your days talking to homeless and poor people on the streets rather than getting your goal done. Just let me go to the next fucking dungeon already like any good JRPG.

tl;dr it started off like a standalone game (reminiscent of DDS in some places) but quickly devolved into persona with a high fantasy template thrown over it.