I reviewed the game for French website Sega-Mag. It is definitely a strong entry, with the same level quality/polish that we saw in P5R.
Having played P3 P4 and P5, I still find the dungeons section really poor and repetitive (and enemy design is really poor in this game), and I am quite sure that people play these games because they enjoy the social parts first and foremost. It has this comfy feeling, after a day of work or whatever, of going back into an immersive world with people you get to know after tenths of hours of playing.
However, the dungeons and battles are frankly super boring en repetitive, and the issue is that it tends to drag. You can't cut spells or the all out assault. I have listened hundreds of times the same first minute of the battle theme song, and I had to turn down the volume to avoid getting crazy. P3 still is much more bearable than P5 as far as dungeons are concerned. P5 was constantly interrupting you with explanations and shit and every little thing took ages... Here at least you get your hundreds of randomized levels and you don't have too much interruption along the way.
Persona games are highly casual games, targeting an audience that has little experience in RPGs and they never want to lose the player. You are constantly being reminding what you should do etc... Good for casuals, but as an experienced RPG player, it has become difficult having to endure the super slow pacing and constant hand-holding. Interesting bits are way too far apart. And I tried Difficult mode (rather than Normal) but did not see any changes in weaknesses. Enemies simply hit harder and had more life, which led to battles dragging even more.
Might sound negative, but as stated, this will be enjoyable for more casual play and its social aspects and still gave it a very strong score.
