Recs.
Updated
Persona 5 is an RPG set in Tokyo, containing both social simulation and dungeon exploration. You play as a highschooler, rebelling against a corrupt society.
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Living the life of a highschooler is surprisingly fun
Your character is one of the very few highschoolers in a game that actually has to go to school. This includes attending lessons, answering your teacher's questions, taking midterms, and many other things, which is actually kinda fun. Then when school's out, you can go spend time with your friends or alone in Persona 5's version of Tokyo. You can hit up a karaoke, a batting center, or numerous other locations, all the while meeting new people and establishing connections with them. All of this makes it a refreshing change from most modern games where you're always trying to kill or blow up someone.
Pro Well-balanced story
Even though the story dives deep into heavy themes such as abuse, loss, and depression, it never becomes too overbearing. That is thanks to its lighthearted moments, funny situations, and feel-good subplots to ease the gloom of a sullen reality. This creates a wonderfully woven story with a satisfying conclusion.
Pro Entertaining dungeons
In Persona 5 you'll explore many unique locations, including a medieval castle, an ancient pyramid, and even a futuristic spacecraft. Each location is filled with bizarre enemies, interesting puzzles, and various secrets. The great variation in enemies, layouts, and theme keeps the exploration exciting and will keep you interested in seeing more.
Pro Protagonist is extremely likable and still feels like an extension of yourself
Making a video game protagonist can be challenging, because players want to feel like they ARE the protagonist. Many developers' way of doing that is to make the protagonist a blank slate who doesn't talk much on their own or exhibit personality. Effective, but it often has the annoying side affect of the character coming off as dull. Other devs are bolder and try giving the MCs more life of their own (Fallout for example). This can be fun, but creates a sense of distance between the gamer and the character.
And then you have the Persona approach, aka the BEST approach: start with a basic, likable personality for the character, and then give the player freedom to develop the character into a badass in the way they see fit.
Essentially, the key is that P5 makes the immutable aspects of Joker's personality things that would already make sense with the plot. He has a sense of justice. He sticks up for people in trouble. But the flavors beyond that are up to the player, who gets to control both Joker's daily life and dungeon crawling. Dialogue choices are consistent with Joker's core, but differ enough to give the character more feeling of control
Cons
Con The pacing structure is kind of bad
For most of the chapters, the story is very front-loaded. While this makes sense, it can be jarring going back and forth from 10 hours of story to 15 hours of combat/daily life each time. The story could be more spread out and sprinkled. Some of that was achieved in the first chapter, but after that it largely goes away.
Con The time management might feel constricting at times
Persona 5 uses a calendar-based time system, advancing the in-game date after you've done several activities during a day. The main drawback is that you're constantly trying to meet story-enforced deadlines, which require you to clear a dungeon before it's too late. This constantly puts you under pressure, causing you to spend more time on dungeons and less time on side-activities. It makes it feel like you're forced to do what the game tells you, which might dampen your enjoyment at times.