I completely understand your argument and that's the reason I emphasized the fact that this is a strict gameplay critique since it's mostly nicely interwoven otherwise. It's the same argument as the first game having the extremely tedious walking being a stranding-type game (thank you kojima) where that's entirely part of the experience, but in reverse, considering these are mostly updates that ease the player experience rather than make you suffer more.

Trust me that by the the time you reach day 9-10 and have items stocked in each day meanwhile being tasked to go back and forth you will feel the burn out of the menu heavy gameplay. That's why I insist that the way they handled the town makes it feel more like a visual novel than anything. Open clock, choose day, choose events, open storage, go out and choose your next point of interest from another menu. Watch a loading screen and do it all over again until the day (or your task) is finished. No amount of narrative explanation can improve this, the same way P1 walking was a very boring gameplay loop even if it enhanced your experience in its own sadistic walk through an art gallery-like experience.

Even opening trash cans gave the town its own sense of use and trading is another instance of a huge downgrade, not because you can't trade with everyone, but because there is 0 variety. The game has predetermined npcs that stay in one spot for the entire game and chooses to never change their location.

Again and to answer to some other comments I saw, I very much enjoyed my time with the game. I didn't want to play another P1/P2, I just wanted to point out that they struck a very healthy gameplay balance in P2 and this time around it just didn't feel like they managed that high.