Need some help [spoilers]

[Ashe]

Okay, so I just finished my first playthrough, but I think I got a bad ending? So, after beating Namatame and saving Nanako, after a bit of time passes with the town covered in fog and immediately after final exams, the game basically just ends after the bit at the hospital where Yosuke and Kanji want to through Namatame into the TV in retaliation for the murders. I convinced them otherwise, Nanako woke back up, Kuma went back to his world, and then the game just skipped like 3 months to March. Then it just ends, in a pretty unsatisfactory way.
I'm pretty sure there's more game, like I read somewhere that you need to max out Marie's SL before late December to get the Golden exclusive part of the game and the true ending, so I was sure to do that earlier, but then it skipped right over December. Also, I've been somewhat spoiled by youtube thumbnails and memes about Adachi being a bad guy, but then I was really confused because the bad guy was Namatame, and Adachi didn't really play much of a role. I figured that after beating Namatame, that Adachi would be the subject of the next dungeon, but then there never was a next dungeon. Plus there's supposed to be a ski trip in the Winter. Yosuke mentions it much earlier in the game, and there are screenshots of it on the store page for the game.
I guess I probably didn't max enough social links or something, since they say something about being your eyes to see the truth or something like that when you max one. I don't know; it's all a bit frustrating, and I really don't know if I have the energy to replay a 70 hour game just to get the actual ending (though I suppose it'd take a bit less time on NG+ if I keep my SL and social stat progress).
I had come from playing P5R, and honestly I liked P4G *a lot* more. The characters feel more believable, and the whole affair feels a lot more intimate. P5 is so incessantly serious in tone all the time, and with such higher stakes, and all these high concept ideas about reforming society at large. It just never felt all that relatable, and the social side of things never really connected with me in the same way that P4 did. P4 really nails the vibe of just hanging out with people in a small town. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that I overall loved my experience with Persona 4, much more than Persona 5, and it's a shame that the ending I got (which I know isn't the actual ending) put such a damper on the whole thing for me.
Do you guys think it's worth the time to skip through dialogue for another 20 hours just to see the actual ending? I worry that the tedium of that would blunt the impact of it even if it is really great. And if so, without as little spoilers as you can, what did I miss in order to have things go differently?

[fireheart126]

You probably screwed up the Namatame room dialogue. How many social links you max for the true ending doesn't matter as long as at least Marie is maxed.

To get to the Normal Ending *at minimum* you need to answer the Namatame prompts with these answers in order.

“Wait a second here ...”
“We’re missing something.”
“Namatame’s true feelings.”
“Something’s bothering me.”
“We’re missing something ...”
“Calm the hell down!”

[Ashe]

Oh, well then I guess I can just reload the last save. Damn, that's pretty unclear what dialogue you need to choose there. In Persona 5, choosing not to turn your friends in to Sae during the interrogation was a much more obviously correct choice.
Okay cool, so I don't have to replay the whole game. Thank dude.

[Turbo Alice]

Unlocking the true ending in this game is tricky especially for first timers, make sure to pick your dialogues carefully.

[fireheart126]

Originally posted by Ashe:

Oh, well then I guess I can just reload the last save. Damn, that's pretty unclear what dialogue you need to choose there. In Persona 5, choosing not to turn your friends in to Sae during the interrogation was a much more obviously correct choice.
Okay cool, so I don't have to replay the whole game. Thank dude.

Don't worry about it. My first run of OG Persona 4, I got the bad end too. It's really easy to mess up the Namatame scene if you don't know what you should be doing. It's not enough to just get them to back off from killing him, but you have to get them to realize there is more to the case. You'll know you're on the right track if the Judgement Social Link begins.

Keep in mind, this scene only guarantees the Normal End. There's another thing you have to do later to get the True Ending, but that's gonna be several in game months later. (During March, specifically)

[frymenot]

basically the Namatame choices leads to 3 routes
bad end if you decide to kill him
normal end if you stop your team from killing him but can't convince them there's something wrong
true end route if you convinced them, and this leads to more gameplay time