I dabbled in P2 a lot, but it never really stuck. I have both for PS1 and the one for PSP. And from what I can tell, they are alternate universe tellings, its not a "this happens after this" type sequel. At least from the bits I scathed from it

Also they are extremely slow playing games. Random encounters that have to load, really slow attack animations, you frequently have to spend a good amount of time having long conversations with monsters rather than fighting them. Its also a good idea to go back and forth sometimes, fight one battle, talk another. It can wear on you pretty easily

That being said, the writing was indeed good (too bad the voice acting couldn't match lol but it's campy bad, not bad bad). And I was legitimately interested in the story and characters. And if you're not in a hurry to get through anything, and don't mind lazily drifting through a game with mildly repetitive and slow battle mechanics, it's a really interesting game. I think I just don't have enough free time, and it would be hard for me to feel accomplished if I play for 3 hours and it's mostly just battles and conversations and no story progression