If you want exploration outside dungeon crawling, then you're looking at the wrong game. Persona revolves around character interactions and dungeon explorations.
so what exactly is so awesome about persona's gameplay?
there's zero exploration and combat is as basic as it gets for an JRPG (there aren't even a few bells & whistles added to the combat to shake up the stale formula)
the only thing persona does different is combining a dating sim with a traditional JRPG, which like I said, if you're not a lonely otaku loser isn't really gonna appeal to you