More mainline SMT game rather than Persona.
Mainline SMTs are about the demons and dungeon crawling with the social stuff as an added mechanic where Persona focused more on the social stuff and dungeon crawling.
I know it sounds dumb to say that, but as longtime shin megami fan, there's a noticeable difference.
Mainline games focus more on the overall story arc where Persona focuses more on the character stories/interaction.
I'm not super far into it, more or less have just done the very first section of side quests before moving on, and just now opened the place where you fuse demons (circus in this game)
I'm digging the beginning of the story so far, and being fair, never played the first Soul Hackers. It's still early and I'm hoping for killer writing to make up for what feels like a stripped down demon system.
It's a standard SMT grindfest with super repetitive gameplay. But as of now, it feels a little lacking and shallow.