Persona-adjacent turn-based tactics RPG Demonschool just got its second big patch, seems like now is the time to dive in

The Persona games sound fascinating. Tactics RPGs about students who fight demonic analogues of small-town problems at night, yet have to balance that with school and social obligations by day? I’d say sign me up, but even the shorter ones take 80+ hours and the longer ones demand well over 100. I tried Metaphor: ReFantazio and gave up in boredom during the second dungeon. They are not games that respect your time.

So Demonschool, which seems to basically be a Persona game in all but name and the fact it can be wrapped in under 40 hours, should have been an instant slam-dunk. Our reviewer, Mollie Taylor, liked it well enough, praising the intricacy of its battle system and the wit of its dialogue, but had an important reservation. At launch, it suffered from “some wonkily-threaded narrative beats” and “some general visual bugs and systems that felt a little obtuse at times”.