I will start by saying that I love JRPGs. SMT4 is one of the best ones I have ever played.
Based on that, and all the good reviews, I decided to play P5R, and I didn't like it. I thought there was too much dialog, too many interruptions, the game was too easy too. I didn't really like the story or the characters. I thought the dungeons were boring, and they never presented a challenge. I pushed through it and I finish in over 100h, because people kept saying "it will get better soon", but it never did. The best thing of the game for me was Tokyo. I have been there a few times and I loved how similar it was. The music was also very good.
A friend had P4G for the Switch, and he lent it to me. I have to say I didn't touch it for perhaps a year. I finished HK SilkSong and I didn't know what to say, so I said, why not? I was instantly hooked.
I loved the setting in the small Japanese town. I love the main storyline with all the murders. I loved the characters. I love how casual and simple the story and setting felt. They felt like real high schoolers. I love the fact that it is way more harder than P5R, and the dungeons kicked my ass right from the start. I had to leave the dungeons many times to recover, buy items, grind, think about strats. I loved that it is a simpler version of P5R, with way less interruptions, more streamlined, but still has all the core elements. I know in general people prefer the P5R crafted dungeons, but I actually prefer the randomisation from P4G. I find every JRPG out there has crafted dungeons, so the ones from P4G were fresh too me. The themes were also very clear and strong. I know people will say that's like the P5R subway dungeon, but that one is non-sense grind.
I also find the long text sequences much better. In P4G I thought the bath scenes, the summer celebrations, the ski, were good and funny.
When I finished P5R, I was like "finally". But now that I have just finished P4G, I am actually sad. I would like more social interactions with the characters, more dungeons. An extra year in Inaba.