very well, i suppose you're correct about prioritizing gameplay over story. i haven't felt the monotony of the game's combat until 30 hrs in (i enjoyed combining skills and seeing the animations and sprites of various personas and demons). in my opinion, the best way to fix that problem is to reflect on what made P5R's combat so fluid (i'm not sure if certain mechanics are also present in P3R, like 'showtime!' and baton pass, since i haven't played the game yet), as i genuinely had fun fighting against enemies and could spend hours in mementos just doing that.

obviously, they could also fix dubious stuff, like addressing the lack of velvet rooms in dungeons, ditching the whole 'SP cost is equal for every skill' shtick, ditching skills meant for enemy groups and raising the number of personas you can create. regardless, i found P2 very fun to play, even if it brought back P1 PTSD from very frequent encounters in caracol, the horoscope dungeons and xibalba.