Got to 3-3 on normal last night, lots of fun. Of note: although some here said you can change the difficulty mid game, you can only do so at the bar as far as I know. Save often. In as many new slots as you can. Even with (perhaps because of?) the difficulty, my first few hours were very addictive.
However, this game's story is a lot more clumsly than reviews led me to believe. Dialog isn't always the best, but it's pacing (and literally the timing they activate the different lines of dialog) is questionable, and sometimes just laughably bad.
These people spout out lines like a child is clumsily activating clips on a sound board. It often doesn't sound like the characters are talking to eachother, or that the actors even know the context of their dialog.
And that lip syncing is absolutely absurd. Very very poor in just about every way, timing doesn't match at all, and even if it did the shapes the lips make are way off of looking like they could actually pronounce phonemes, and very stiff.
Disappointing. Then again, I haven't played Persona, or watch much anime, so perhaps my tolerance for this kind of awkwardness is low.
But goes to show the power of games: even with all my personal issues with the presentation, I'm still looking forward to diving back into the game tonight.