Obviously this is my opinion as I know Naoto has a lot of fans.
This blog will have liberal spoilers I might add so if you have intentions of playing the game or haven't Naoto yet, STOP READING NOW.
THIS IS YOUR ONLY SPOILER WARNING.
1. Her skillset is no good, granted she's your only dark and light skill user but that's about it, she's useful in random fights and even then only good in the heaven dungeon, she's useless during bossfights as all she can do is mind charge and Megidolaon, she never learns spell master so you need to get her the chakra ring to halve her mp cost by half(a relic which you may or may not find in the heaven dungeon).
2. She's an exposition fairy, from the moment she joins you she regurgitates everything that's happened, she does in the december dungeon and the true ending dungeon as well, I for one hate exposition fairies, I am not an idiot, I don't need a character who's sole purpose is to tell me what's happened.
3. Everytime she shows up the game is constantly pushing her on you as all the girls in your party gush on how amazing Naoto is and how cool, same with all the random classmates NPC's, Naoto is great, yada, yada, she wasn't, she was boring.
4. Her reasoning for joining you where quite weak compared to everyone else, she wanted to solve the mystery, that's it, everyone else had some kind of deep reasoning for being there, not her.
Overall I think Persona 4 would have been just fine without her, in the end she provided nothing to the story, she added nothing, she wasn't a good fighter and she didn't even solve the mystery as it was the MC who came to the conclusion of who was the real killer. Hell the MC outclasses her in every way when it comes to fighting.
Even her S.link was weak, you don't learn that much about her and she still doesn't feel comfortable as a girl and once again, the MC is the one that solves the mystery through most of the S.link(depending on your choices though so this one could be up to debate) vs everyone else who make a drastic change.
Yosuke feels he's the MC's equal.
Chie doesn't feel insecure about herself or her friendship and realizes just how much she cares for Yukiko.
Yukiko realizes she wants to stay home and run the inn and becomes more outgoing.
Kanji embraces the things he grew up with and decides to be less insecure about them.
Teddie finds his reasons to stay in the real world and grows beyond what he truly is.
Even the NPC S.links where more interesting than Naoto's.
She was the only flaw in an otherwise fantastic RPG.
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You forgot that her twist was ruined by poor voice acting.
END SPOILERS
I really didn't have a big problem with her though. I rarely used her in battle but I like that she offered something completely different than the other characters. Perhaps my biggest problem with the game were the poor movesets (imo) for the other group members.
SOMEONE FINISH THIS ONE OFF.
This must be how Kanji feels...
Her persona is awesome. Having able to use Hama and Mudo skills on the fly (with the boost), it makes some of the harder enemies look like wimps. Mind charge with megidoloan are useful skills during boss fight.
I do agree with you that her S.Link story is a bit on the stale side. There were times I was clicking the X button just to speed up the story.
Naoto isn't the strongest party member, but she's definitely not "the worst"; that's Kanji.
2- Eh.
3- They did this in P3 with Mitsuru and I didn't really see what the big deal was with her either.
4- She had jsut as much a reason to be there as anyone else, she just didn'thave the -same- reason as everyone else. I mean, really, I don't know wha more you're looking for on this front.
And, uh, the point of her Slink wasn't for her to "become comfortable as a girl" it was about her learning to accept the childish part of herself that she was trying so hard to ignore, and to come to grips with the duality of her gender issue; not necessarily to resolve it. She has just as much of a revelation as Kanji, in any case.
Hahahaha, Kanji, worst party member, good one.
Kanji has a full party buff and the strongest phys attack in the game, hama and mudo are useless against bosses, why waste a slot on her during boss fights when Yosuke, Kanji and Chie hit harder than she does.
And hama and mudo skills are expensive and still have a chance to miss, she runs through her SP pool quite fast, she was only useful in the heaven dungeon, beyond that, there was little reason in using her.
(Teddie is awesome)
Kanji's ONLY advantage is that he has Matarukaja, which Teddie also gets and you can emulate with a relatively common item. His element in Zio which the MC gets more of than any other kind of spell, so he's essentially a moot point in your team. The only things he can do, other characters can do much, much better than he can.
The very fact that Naoto nulls both Light and Dark -by itself- makes her more useful than Kanji in your team(Not having any natural weaknesses along with death immunity is a biggest asset than you seem to realize). The fact that she can deal massive amounts of untyped hit-all damage, has more cost-effective and almost-as-powerful Phys skills, AND can clear whole groups with Hama/Mudo(With the boost the chance for that shit to miss is like 10-20% which is not really something to be concerned with. Occasionally she'll leave an enemy alive, but the fact that she knocked 4 other enemies out of the battle for just 30 MP is pretty spectacular.) makes her a much larger asset to the party than Kanji can ever hope to be.
Blackfreefall: Power Charge multiples damage by 2.5, so Kanji would have to use Primal Force 3 times at greater HP cost to outdamage Chie. Kanji is worthless.
Also, Chie learns Power Charge in the 60's so by your logic, she's useless up until that point.
And I just like to win arguments. :3 It has nothing to do with Atlus or their games.
Teddie is the best character in the game, Maybe not in fights, but in all round awesomeness, he's the best by a mile.