I feel like if that's an issue for you, you need to play on a lower difficulty setting. Dungeons are the only time saving matters, and there are like 10 save rooms per dungeons. In the overworld, you just have to remember to save because you can anywhere.

Which is simple. The are benefits to being able to choose when and where you save.

And to be clear, this isn't a "git gud" post. I'm being genuine.

That's the whole point. If you could save anywhere in the dungeon then there would be literally no tension of being knocked out by an enemy who ambushes you at the wrong time. It forces you to have to play smart, i.e. ambushing enemies, abusing their elemental weaknesses to not even give them a chance to attack, covering your own weaknesses with null attributes, making sure to heal after every fight, etc, etc.

I love the fact that you have to traverse the dungeon at least somewhat stealthily and sneak up on enemies if you don't want to get your ass whopped. The enemies also do not hold back when it comes to abusing your elemental weaknesses. So you definitely have to be on your toes at all times. Not a lot of games have that these days.

Yeah, obviously it varies based on what kind of game you're playing... I mostly was just speaking of convenience (as in it auto-saves all the time without you noticing and if you feel like quitting you don't need to track down some "save point" but can just do so on the spot).

That works better in open world games, of course. The save system you describe sounds fine for a game like this. As I said, I've not played the game yet and was just going by the OP's description... not looking for any emulator-style save states.

*Edit*: For the record, though, the "Game Over" screen is never actually a "Game Over" screen these days lol... any game can be beaten at this point, it's just a matter of putting a few hours into it.

To this day I've still not beaten some of my older games.

Still haven't played 5 but that sounds exactly like 4 so I don't see the issue unless this time the game is way harder even on normal. If you are getting rekt too fast just level up safe and save often, or lower the difficulty

In Tokyo Mirage Sessions you can save anywhere even in Dungeons but no Autosave. It doesn't bother me in Persona 5 either as I am a save hog. I have like 7 back up saves and save at every chance. I even right away upload them to PS+....eh long story why I do this now but let's just say I never want to lose save data again.

For the record, I'm not a big fan of autosaving either, due to game-breaking issues it can cause when poorly implemented, I just loathe having to replay the same section over when I lose. There are much better ways to penalize the player for a game over other than absolute tedium like this, especially when the most severe cases are when you get killed by an enemy ambush, which I find more often than not is a result of a poorly typed enemy spawn or me getting caught in some weird maze. Once you get better and start getting Null or Reflect attributes, it mostly solves the issue, but not completely. This isn't a "git gud" scenario, since it's mostly out of your hands once you find yourself in that situation, and abilities mostly grow linearly with the game progression.

Previous mainline SMT games (and also TMS actually) both allowed manual saving anywhere, and neither felt like easier games as a result. The only difference is that I would be able to improve on my own terms without losing valuable progress, rather than have the game force me to build up to back to where I was. Persona 5 is almost there...and I honestly celebrate the fact that save rooms exist this time around, but it still takes the power out of my hands to a certain extent.

Now...I haven't had this issue in P5 yet, but this was definitely my biggest issue with 4 (well, other than the forced English dub). I hold both games in very high regard (P4 is in my top 50, while P5 while likely end up in my top 30 when all is set and done), but I can definitely see room for improvement. Adding in-game limitations like this is a poor way to increase the challenge, and I'll always hold that more options is never a bad thing. 

Guys, I never complained about the difficulty. 95% of the encounters on normal are (too) easy. But look at what happened to me yesterday (yes I was very frustrated when I wrote the OP).

I'm in the 2nd palace, I'm level 18, everyone's average on that day is 16, I honestly feel OP as ambushing enemies means they don't even touch me. I know how to play this game...

I'm on this floor with a security system, run around, have at least 15+ battles without being able to save, although I've achieved things like finding out a password and unlocking security (let me save here at least!!). Then I ambush another enemy and it's this OP level 20 guy. I hit his weakness (I've dealt with him several times, usually he's very easy) and after the all-out attack, he's still alive, does two consecutive Skull-Crusher attacks on my leader, which removes his whole health and kills him.

Now tell me that that's not bullshit and not frustrating. It is and no game should be frustrating and make you lose progress on random shit you can't fight back.

This happened like 2 times in 20 hours, which is not fatal, but still bullshit.

And even if you don't die, it happens quite often, that after hitting some plot points, the game goes on and you're not able to save for at least 25 minutes.
For example: You go to the palace, defeat a boss, discover something, cutscene plays, takes you out to the normal world, some more talking, etc. Then, after too much time, you're allowed to save when you're at home.

Why does the game not autosave after defeating the boss, or in between cutscenes? It happened several times already, that I'm trying to quit and am forced to play 15 minutes or more. Why? This is not a design choice, it's a design flaw!

I platinumed and loved P4G and I'm loving this one even more, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. I also hate the "it's always been like that" argument. Games can evolve, you know.

We obviously won't agree and by this point I'm not trying to change my mind or anything, but let me throw some counter arguments.

If you try to tell me that I could've avoided that death by playing defensively or changing difficulty. Ok sure, but then it'd be very odd to play the game differently to avoid a 1% chance that the only type of enemy that can kill you if he survives the All-Out attack and does two consecutives strikes to your leader. I still see a design flaw in combination of your systems:

• You don't allow me to save for long periods of time
• You keep the general difficulty level rather low on normal, but you always have one random enemy that's too difficult compared to the rest of the dungeon
• Leader death means game over (WHY??)
• The enemies don't seem to focus on the leader, BUT if all stars align against you, your leader can get hit multiple times without being able to intervene and your're fucked

See, it's the combinations of these is not ideal imo. Either you play extremely defensive, although most of time you shouldn't, if you know what you're doing, or you just take on every enemy knowing  that there's a 1% chance that you'll get fucked without being able to do much about it.

Just take any of those bullet points out and it wouldn't be half as frustrating.

• Save every ~5 min => No big deal if this scenario happens
• Keep the difficulty consistent => You either play more defensively or you ARE if full control
• No game over if leader dies => You would've never died in my situation
• Enemies efficiently try to take out the leader => Then it's a game mechanic and you have to adjust the whole gameplay to it.

And out of these measurement, the easiest one to implement is allowing to save more frequently or adding checkpoints.

Oh, and the other half of your post I don't agree at all, sorry. You gain nothing by taking away options from the player.

I know that you experience bit plot points more intesively if you don't interrupt them, I don't like to do it either. But people have lives too, you know. You cannot always afford to sit through the whole thing.

And your other argument is you could auto save or even manually save in a situation where you could not be prepared to beat the next boss or whatever.

That's also a very weak point imo, you have 16!! save slots, again, it'd be my choice if I save manually, and nullifies your whole "GIT GUD" argument about why it wasn't bullshit that I lost 40 min of gameplay.

I hope you don't get offended or anything, just trying to give you my perspective.

Meh, this why I always set most JRPGs or RPGs I play to a lower difficulty level. Not the lowest unless the one right above it is 'normal' difficulty. Different game designers have different takes on what constitutes normal difficulty. It's not that I wouldn't enjoy a challenge, but usually all you need is more grinding in which I opt for less of that. That and with a few exceptions if I can't fully explore every area early on because there are some extra powerful enemies that I can't defeat unless I grind constantly I'll probably forget about it or not care to return to those enemies. With dungeon crawlers it gets very tedious to return back to those same dungeons.

I'm pretty sure you read this wrong: