Massive Spoilers, naturally.

I cannot BELIEVE that there’s never an exchange with Maruki where you actually discuss anything with him, or address the hypocrisy of the Phantom Thieves, or any number of things. “Futaba, Makoto, and Haru’s parents (and also Kasumi) could all just be alive? Ha, actually, it’s better that they died because it made them stronger. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to my home planet with my talking cat who gets to live because I don’t suffer consequences.”

It’s just such a massive missed opportunity for interesting writing, instead resulting in the blandest and stupidest defenders of the status quo I may ever have seen.

• The main person pushing you to side against Maruki is Akechi, who is a serial killer. I think Haru mentions this like once and everyone else tells her to just forget about him murdering her dad.
• The MC is going to go to jail, where by all means Shido’s co-conspirators should just have him killed. Or at least that’s what should happen, but you avoid that by using your powers to mind control people into getting you out. Convenient that you’re allowed to use your powers to solve the problems of yourself and your friends but nobody else can solve broader societal problems. Curious.
• Maruki is messed up due to his own trauma, but instead of overcoming it and healing people’s pain in a healthier way I guess he has to become a taxi driver lol.
• The MC really has no idea how personas or the metaverse actually work. If Maruki can create his own palace consciously, someone ELSE (like, say, Shido’s co-conspirators?) are eventually going to figure out cognitive psience (they have Wakaba’s notes, after all), and then what?

I’ve never played vanilla P5 but man, P5R is fucked gameplay wise. Camera Strap accessory gives everyone infinite SP, and you can just summon some of the past game bonus personas and win the game.

As a final aside, it is ridiculous to me that the MC can’t just stay at Shujin for their last year of high school.