The Persona series is as anime as it gets. There are beach vacations, hot springs, grunts and teenagers fighting God… and it’s awesome. For context, here is the timeline of my Persona journey: watched Persona 4 the animation, watched Persona 5 the animation, played Persona 5, played Persona 5R, played a little Persona 4G, played Persona 3R. I’ve enjoyed my time with the series, but it never seems to go quite as deep as it pretends it does.

The premise is that you are the new kid in town. Your dorm-mates discover you have latent abilities and invite you to help them rid the world of creatures called Shadows. Every night The Midnight Hour takes place between time and the world transforms into a hellscape. Your team is tasked with scaling Tartarus, clearing shadows and other obstacles in your path. You must also balance your social and school life with this responsibility.

I was really excited to jump into this game initially. I enjoy the way the series presents itself and was ready to witness the story for this iteration. There were points of exposition that felt unnatural, but it was a solid story. The first instance of unnaturalness came with one of the initial team meetings. Right before this it shows some characters in their rooms talking out loud about something personal to them. Yukari’s father specifically is the one I remember most because during the team meeting, a revelation is made about him. It felt like some things were forgotten early on and subsequently added in later.

There are big emotional moments where a character dies, but you don't really get to see enough of them for it to mean much. I will admit that the first time this happened I did tear up, not because of the loss of the character, but from the reactions of the main cast. The second time this happens it is way less impactful, because only one character reacts and it is very similar to the initial reaction they had for the first death. Both of these character deaths could have been developed better. The impact was minimalized because of the execution and the lack of integration of these characters with the main cast. Another couple characters die after a “twist” you could see coming from a mile away. This twist does absolutely nothing for the narrative and was only used to kill off characters. It does affect one of your friends, but shortly after they are back to their old self.

Characters are all over the place. Some have really well-earned moments and other times their developments seem superficial. Yukari and Ken are two characters that are handled well in this regard. Akihiko has some good moments, but overall was underdeveloped. Mitsuru, Junpei and Fuuka did not get enough time to really become their truest selves. Their hyperbolic emotions could be attributed to the fact that they are all teenagers, but this feels derivative of their capabilities. These teens are fighting unmentionable horrors in a hellscape shrouded in darkness without any real fear. They could handle some real character development. Aigis is the prime example of a great character arc. She deals with being an automaton in a very philosophical way and her development directly intertwines with the story and the player character organically. The player character has major “protagonist energy” and he wears it proudly. His role in the story unfolds in a way that is fluid, but like many other aspects of the game, underdeveloped.

Confidants are a mixed bag as well. Each has their own struggles they are dealing with, however most of their concerns are superficial and don’t evoke any true feelings from the player. Maiko and Akinari’s plots were two of the most impactful to me, but given the diversity of viewpoints considered, your takeaways may vary.

Villains are half-baked as well. Chidori, Jin and Takaya never have much to say. Their origins are not uncovered until it’s too late to care, so the impact of this is not felt. If introduced earlier, we could have had some sense of sympathy for them, or a back and forth between the S.E.E.S. group and their ideals, but unfortunately a different route was taken, resulting in a story that never quite hits its stride.

The pacing of the game is horrendous. Initially you have 3 party members because Akihiko was injured and Mitsuru has to navigate. As the game progresses you unlock new party members at a breakneck pace. Aigis, Ken and Koromaru all join back-to-back and because of this, none of their additions make much of an impact.

The progression of confidants has some interesting quirks. For example, you won’t unlock the Strength arcana until you progress the Chariot one. This philosophy is not bad in concept, but does make it seem as though you need to progress every confidant to ensure you don’t miss one.

In regards to arcanas, I cannot forgive how late in the game you gain access to your party members’. Also, it’s only for the girls. This seems like a complete oversight as you should be able to get to know your “friends” a lot sooner. Then again, most of their stories are surface level and ultimately are just them simping over the player character. There are a few good emotional payoffs for some confidants at the end of the game, so not all of it was a waste. I just wish your party members had more time to develop. Progressing their arcanas feels like a regression of character, because most of their (minus Aigis) concerns have no correlation with what they’ve been through. Some do mention recent events, but their actions do not echo their words.

I’m not sure if I did something wrong, but in the final month of the game, I had nothing to do. I had 31 days until the “end” came and I had no confidants or stats to progress. I spent a few of those days grinding in Tartarus, then decided to just do the party interactions for extra items. The only arcanas I had available were my friends’ and that was only on school days in the afternoon. I felt like I wasted my time in the last month, but at that point I wanted to be done anyway.

The gameplay is a mixture of take-turn combat and dating sim. These two concepts complement one another, but both become monotonous by the end of the game. Combat is a lot of trial and error. You are attempting to find the opponent’s weakness and knock them down for ease of victory. Few enemies challenge this formula, other than ones that have no weakness. The affinities can sometimes be easy to guess, other times it’s less obvious. You can also perform Theurgy attacks with each character when their power-up gauge is full. These moves are quite powerful and ignore resistances. The performance of these moves is quite flashy, but did get old after a while. Aigis’ were absolutely wild and Junpei has one that hits the feels a bit. If you have played any other Persona game, this one does not innovate on that formula for better or worse.

Tartarus itself has no personality at all. The environments are bland and do not change in every new section. The floors are very similar in structure and offer no puzzles, or traversal methods to keep it interesting. All “treasure” is verbally called out to you and marked on the map so there is no sense of discovery. Initially, Monad doors offer a break from the weaker enemies with an optional challenge battle that usually awards decent rewards, but late game they become another tedious side quest. I ended up skipping the random ones near the end, because it wasn’t worth the time. I was 60hrs in and wanted to be done.

The game would have benefited from reducing the overall length or adding more variety to what you do. Adding minigames or more dynamic traversal mechanics would have allowed for a much needed change of pace. The characters deserved more development time and more correlations needed to be made between their confidant progression and the story events. Despite these gripes, I did have a good time with the game. I wanted more, because this game wrote the formula for the other series entries. With this remake, they needed to carve a new identity out for this game to differentiate it more from its sequels. Its aesthetics alone cannot carry it when its combat and character work is this shallow. The overall message is still valid and the game is still good, but it falls short of creating a truly one-of-a-kind experience, since other entries in the series do everything it does better.