The majority of this game is solid. Like, REALLY solid. The combat, enemies, graphics, story... I love it all. There is one major flaw that I have a hard time looking past, and it is the disconnect between the main, linear storyline and the optional confidant building stories.
There are over 20 characters who become confidants, which are characters tied to a Arcana type. As you level up your bond with the character, Persona of that same Arcana can become more powerful. But not all of these confidants are mandatory. If you aren't careful, you can miss some. We will get to those. It's the ones who are mandatory that are part of the story that cause problems to me. Let's say that you put in the time and boosted the rank of the shopkeeper. This is not part of the main story and it was completely optional. He knows that you are a great person, and you have helped him out of a few jams, and your bond has turned into a blood pact. But then you get to a main story beat, and the story part plays out the same no matter what your confidant ranks are. Depending on how you develop these bonds, it can lead to some pretty big disconnects between the two parts of the game. One minor example for me, I was doing this side mission building the bond with Character B. During that, a character that I had already developed a bond with, let's call them Character 5, shows up. Even though my relationship level with Character 5 was really high, they talked to me the same way they would have talked to someone who didn't develop that bond at all. While this may not seem like a big thing, and this example wasn't, there are some times where the disconnect is so wide that it ruins the scene.
There are some characters that were added to the Royal version of the game, which makes these disconnects even more obvious. Even someone who didn't play the original would be able to tell which parts were added, because it is not seamless. All of the new parts stick out in a way that is just uncomfortable.