Persona 3

Persona 3 is a must play for every RPG-gamer. You need to be a little open-minded, as this game does not follow the standard city-dungeon-new city-new dungeon-... formula. Actually, it is more a role-playing-game than any other, it simulates about a complete school year at a high-school, including classes, exams and social life. Only at night, you meet with friends to go exploring the dark secrets of your school and the city, this is when the game turns to more classical dungeon exploration which reminded me a little of the .Hack series. You can only control your own character, but you can issue some commands to the others (like concentrate on healing, save magic points, fight with brute force, etc.). Special attacks are performed by so-called personas, demonic manifestations of aspects of the collective human psyche. This kind of Pokemon-for-adults concept was always what made the Persona series stand out, in this game it is even darker because you perform a summoning by shooting yourself in the head with a special gun called 'evoker', blasting out a fragment of your soul that will manifest as a persona and perform a special action (attack, raising attributes, healing, etc.). So in every battle, you'll see your characters shooting themselves countless times, which is really intense and macabre. I will not say anything about the plot here, but expect it to be dark, really weird and going David Lynch all the time. Being about 60% social sim, 10% character setup with persona fusion and 30% dungeon crawler, Persona 3 is something new and should be added to every RPG-gamer's collection.

You play as a nameless protagonist who is sent to live at a dorm, where upon arriving he meets a girl holding a gun. Well it turns out that gun is known as an Evoker, a magical device that is used to summon spiritual creatures from within certain people called Personas. These Persona users are among a select few who stay awake during a hidden hour called "The Dark Hour", where you and your party have to fight creatures known as shadows.

The story starts out simple enough, albeit not typically. Be patient, the RPG formula is turned on it's head in quite a few ways.For instance, we've seen plenty of games where the world is in danger, so much that it's pretty much expected in every game to the point but I've seen no other game that actually goes into depth about the possible end of the world. The depression, anxiety, feeling of hopelessness, this game actually uses the idea of apocalypse as more then "wow, uber cool man, look at like, all the fire" There are many RPG's that try to be dark and edgy but this one is.

The characters are all, for the most part, fully fleshed out and well developed. You'll fall in love with these characters, 3 dimensional and despite the fantasy element, very realistic.

But hey, it's not all gloom and doom. There are many lighthearted and humoruos moments throughout the game, some that will have you busting a gut for sure.

Graphics are solid for PS2 game. They won't blow you away but they are satisfactory. Of course the bigger players have an anime design when you see them talking, and there are well made anime cut scenes(though most cut scenes are the traditionaly done stuff) The environments are beautiful and the characters well drawn.

The sound is great. Voices are all clear and not muddled at all. The voices they chose for the characters are absolutely perfect, not a single voice didn't do justice. Of course I can't forget the music which was unique, using Japanese pop among other things, but also has some melodies that put some of the other heavily praised RPG soundtracks to shame.

Now for the gameplay. The gameplay is divided into 2 sections, and I will discuss each one individualy:

Stage 1:Normal Life

Part of this game's originality is that it's part high school dating sim. Monday through Saturday you go to school, usually with a brief cut scenebefore each day where you talk to a party member. From there you might have to answer a question, get a chance to catch up on sleep, etc. After school you can walk around the school, talk to characters, and form social links. There are certain characters you can form social links with. By either them inviting you to hang out or you find them, you can maximize social links and depending on the arcana of that social link, it can make the Persona of that same arcana stronger. In addition you can go to places like the mall or stations where you can buy stuff. You also have 3 social stats:academics, charm and courage. Studying at night and going to the library can increase academics, seeing a war or horror movie or singning at a karaoke can increase courage, and charm can be increased by answering a question right or seeing a romance movie. There are other ways for each of them of course but I can't possibly list them all. Doing this makes it easier to attract girls for dates, who may or may not be your main goal(although for the gays out there, sorry to say the most you can be with a guy is a good friend)When you go to your dorm, it automatically becomes night. You can go to sleep, talk with your party members, or go to Tartarus.

Stage 2:Tartarus

Tartarus is the only real dungeon in the game, and it goes for 250+ floors. Although you'll be required to have reached the top by the end, it's really more for level building then actually storyline development. Every floor has graphics representing shadows. If you hit them, your team get's an extra turn, but they can do the same to you. Although you can give your team mates strategical commands(heal only, conserve SP which is this game's MP, etc.) for the most party you only control yourself. By giving them the right strategical commands, you can prevent them from making too many stupid moves, although even without commands they're surprisingly competent. This game also has a unique element system. If you hit an enemy with an attack it's weak against, you can attack again and the enemy will be "down", which will require a turn for them to get up(careful, this can apply to your characters as well) If you can knock all enemies down, your team initiates an all out attack that can deal massive damage. Random encounters can be challenging but are fun so that the constant leveling up for the next boss isn't as tedious as other RPG games. On certain floors there will be guardian shadows, like mini bosses. On these floors special devices are set, markers you could say, that allow you to go right back to that floor. You'll be told in advance when you're about to enter this floor. You can simply use the device to return to the bottom, instantly restoring your party's stats, and then return up to fight(if you want to right then and there) One more thing to be aware of here is the fatigue factor. Too much time in Tartarus may cause a character to become fatigued. They'll miss more often. If you return to the bottom with a fatigued character, they will go home.

Oh, and beware, just about every month there's a boss battle. Just keep leveling up in Tartarus and you should be fine.

This game took me 97 hours and 43 minutes to win on my first play through. Normally, I would not ever want to touch the game again seeing as how it lasted that long, but I can see myself playing this one again. The story, is very intriguing. A boy goes to a new town to start at a new school. He becomes involved with an organization that is involved in the elimination of a creature known as shadows. These creatures only appear during the dark hour. What is this you ask? A forgotten time that occurs during twelve o'clock and is unknown to most. The exceptions, poor souls who are unlucky enough to be prey for the shadows and our heroes who have the ability to wield an ability known as persona's. Yes, sounds complicated, and it is. Your school also transforms during this time and is called the tarturas and this is where you do the majority of the fighting at. The fighting is turned based with a twist, you really only control the main character and this will make some fights more difficult than necessary. However, I won the game with the battle level at normal rather than easy and while there was some tough spots I got through most of the game rather smoothly. During the day you proceed with normal school activities and this is important as the more friends and stuff you have the more powerful persona's you can make through fusing. Yes, it is somewhat complicated to explain. You will notice that the main character's persona looks like the many enemies and such that you have encountered in other games made by this company like Digital Devil Saga and the very hard to find Nocturne. This one though is my favorite of the bunch though they are all rather good...though I am not crazy about Devil Summoner. So when you play this game be prepared for it to take a while, as the last boss fight alone took me over an hour to beat. However, be prepared for a lot of fun too.