Does this game get better ?

[Shmingas.]

Just passed through the second main dungeon/palace and this game just feels... almost like it has nothing that's holding my attention.

The battle and progression system has become slightly monotonous by this point, as I just keep mastering archetypes on party members then moving to another to progress through another 20 levels of barely tangible progress with passives that just do ♥♥♥♥ all for me most of the time.

The narrative has a hook with this whole tournament arch so far, but most party member's social links and even main quests and their NPCs have been predictable, tropey and/or generally seem to be in service of a political narrative that is worse than some munted grade-school fanfics I've read.

Someone please tell me this game is just a super-slow burn with a rocky start, and isn't just leading me along to some vaguely political "excuse to kill god for the millionth time" ending like most of Persona 3,4 and 5's content.

Any advice (WITHOUT ANY SPOILERS) would he much appreciated, even with my gripes I've described I just want to say the effort put into this game has made me like far more any RPG from Japan in a while and I'm still probably going to see it to the end.

Thanks :)

[Specer]

No, it doesnt. What you did in first and second city, you are gonna do for rest. Combat is boring, zero exploration, game feels more like a animated novel. But hey thats just my opinion.
Little tip, its better to stay on mastered archetype and gather leafs that grant 1000 A-EXP, by leveling mastered archetypes.

Edit: oh yeah and inheriting skills are used for match monster weaknesses. Depends on difficutly you are playing.

[RDG]

I for one enjoyed the game very much but yeah it isn't for everyone. I think most people can enjoy the story, the mechanics you either like em or you don't. If you really find it boring (like the previous poster), I would recommend putting the game on very easy or story mode.

You get more companions and classes that could maybe revitalize your interest in the game.

But if even the story is not being fun, I recommend just stop playing it, I always shake my head when I see people with 100s of hours in a game just to come in the forum and say they hated it lol (not saying it is your case). Don't hateplay through things, too many good games and things to enjoy out there.

[Kyutaru]

Nope, it's pretty much the same throughout. Even on Hard mode, you do what you do pretty much the rest of the time... grind. You have no fear of running out of resources either... switch to Mage and one shot packs of mobs to recharge your MP infinitely in dungeons. Reset the mobs by visiting More. One shot packs of mobs again, and this time do some yellow or red mobs with abilities they are weak to. Switch to Mage again and recharge your MP infinitely. Switch to Merchant to farm money when you need it.

For a game built around time, you seem to never have to worry about it. You can spend literal days in a dungeon just grinding EXP, AEXP, MAG, and wealth until your characters are more than suitable for the challenge. There's no challenge if you put in enough effort. You can aim for low level runs or minimize your investment into certain heroic archetypes, but ultimately that's a self-imposed handicap. The story isn't epic like Persona 5, there's no mystery involved since you know EVERYTHING at the very beginning including who the villain is and why, and character growth is basically troped to hell and makes the game feel like a cheap cash grab.

If you want to play the game anyway, I recommend Storyteller difficulty. You'll farm insanely fast so grinding won't be needed, you'll breeze through story cutscenes to keep you engaged in the plot, and you won't have to constantly switch archetypes to recharge MP.

[Konachibi]

It gets way better once you reach the third city and beyond. In the early game it's tricky because a lot of the starting archetypes are kinda 'meh', you only have two other team members which doesn't offer much in the way of strategy, and the game is spending all of it's time world building.
Once you get past that part, the game starts indulging in it's own unique properties, and all of the things it's taught you up until that point start to shine as you gain more party members and archetypes.

I felt the same way when I started, it just felt like Persona 5 wearing some boring generic fantasy skin and a janky combat system, but push through, and it becomes quite an interesting story, and extra party members and archetypes makes the combat much more fun.

Actually, more on the combat, it sits somewhere between Persona and Shin Megami Tensei, it has set skills for archetypes in the same way characters in Persona have set skills, but also offers a multitude of ways to strategize and play the way you want to like SMT does thanks to skill inheritance. The further in you go, the more creative you can get with it all, till you eventually build a team that feels like your own creation, that you can just tweak for optimising damage output depending on what enemies you're facing, and find ways to finish fights before the enemy even gets chance to have a turn.

It is a game with a rough start, but once it finds it's footing and stops trying to be generic fantasy, I think you'll really start to enjoy it.

[OgreMage]

I had an amazing time playing this for 103hrs. Loved the dungeon exploration and the time management. Really feltl ike I had to prepare ahead of time to not waste a day going back to town.