It's a bit rare to be able to say "this game is pretty much average on every level" when comparing it to the series as a whole, but at the same time you can read the statement as "this game is pretty darn good, and a blast to play" even for the second and third time.

tl;dr it's good, rather lighthearted for a Persona game, but a bit of a crawl.

This game follows the Persona franchise model to a T... high schoolers essentially make pacts with demons to defeat the bad guy(s) and protect their town. By day they live as students; the (sometimes) charismatic protagonist bonding with the people in school/town and learning more about them as a diversion from the usually intense plot occurring by night.

This game really focuses on getting you to know the characters and your environment, and for this reason it's 5 or 6 hours into the game before you even have a proper fight. A lot of the game can be considered a slow burn, and boy does it drag on as you approach the golden-specific end sequences. While I appreciate having more interesting content, it would have felt less like an unnecessary diversion if placed better in the timeline.

The port of this game was pretty solid, even as mostly an upscale of a 12 year old game. While a discerning eye can see a lot of problems with the models, particularly in the backgrounds (hello moving pngs trees), the game draws focused to the high-res character portraits in the foreground, which in combination with a lot of energetic voice acting really helps you connect with the characters.

Speaking of characters, I can't review the game without mentioning the rough aging of certain parts of the game. Kanji is a great character, but with the game's overall message of accepting the flaws & fears of oneself and others ringing true throughout the story, it sucks that someone who can be seen as representative of a subset of the player community can almost exclusively be seen as the butt of jokes throughout the game.

There's always more to love with the Trails games.
This one is appropriately difficult and brings in enough new features to entertain the veterans of the series, especially at high difficulties.

My main con is that the story is a lot more predictable in the second game, even getting into the second half.