I'm almost done with this behemoth of a game (Royal rerelease), currently at the so called third semester aka "the misadventures of MC and his homicidal friend in dreamland." Don't get were all the hype comes from because there's nothing special about P5 once the shinny gfx and presentation novelty wears off, unless it's your first foray into jrpgs or Persona land. Story is a jumble of animu power of friendship + adults are bad, okay? + oh noes someone wanna destroy humanity. Igor being a major plot point was unexpected though, so credits for that at least.
Unfortunately the game shares a fatal flaw with Persona 4, in that the main cast character growth is locked behind their social link. It is disappointing that out of the three nuPersona entries, P3 was the one to get it right by tying character development to story progression, social links being restricted to extra information and fusion experience. It would be interesting to see Atlus try their hand at branching choices and storylines in the next installment, a la Devil Survivor, but they probably think the formula is too good to risk changing it now.
Combat fundamentals are fun yet the encounters are all so easy even in Hard and require so little effort and thought that the whole thing is moot: "attack weakness -> all out attack" will carry you through the whole game, save for the Okumura boss battle. Now this one makes you fully utilize the forgotten baton pass mechanic to efficiently dispatch enemies on time and later on abuse technical combos to speed up the fight, since there is a game over countdown running in the background. It was the sole encounter to brake the mold in a 100+ hour game.
All in all, my favorite part of the game is also the one freely available on the net, which is the soundtrack. Hands down the best out of the Hashino trilogy.
Honorable mention goes to the Char Aznblade expy boss fight.