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Rating: 
-
I'd say the most interesting thing about this game is the fact that, from the get-go, you feel like you're playing an anime. The music is fantastic, the storyline is engaging, and generally the character interactions make it a fun addition to any RPG collection.
During the day you build relationships and progress through character interactions to unlock higher levels of card fusion (I'll speak more of this later on) for a particular arcana of cards. You also have to keep your skills up, charm, braveness, and knowledge if you want to begin interacting with all the characters.
One thing to note, it can, at times, feel tedious going to school every single day. You'll have to answer questions in class (sporadically not every day and the questions are often about Japanese culture so you'll often get them wrong) and you interact with the other students on particular days. The interactions are interesting but a lot of them seem tediously boring so you kind of click through the text, you're only there for the fusion skill boosts anyhow.
Once you get through the day you can choose to go into this giant dungeon tower that appears during an hour that exists only for persona users when time freezes for normal people at 12:00 AM. During this time you use personas to cast spells and use skills while you rely also on your characters weaponry to fight. The personas are given through a end-of-battle card selection process that sometimes appears; you see a bunch of cards, they are flipped, switched around, and you pick one.
Once you have the cards for the personas you are allowed to combine them to create personas of equal level with different arcanas. If you built up your relationships this allows them to level up without you even using them which gives them new skills.
Generally, it's a fun game but the school scenes get repetitive and I often found myself doing the day work for 95% of the time between story missions and then just grinding right before the story mission. It doesn't feel like a normal RPG in that sense but still is fun and has an interesting story.
The game also plays like a dating sim at times which may or may not be interesting to you depending upon if you like that sort of thing. There are plenty of girls who you can talk to at school and the more you talk to them the more of a relationship develops. Be careful, however, because if they start to like you and see you talking to other girls they get really upset with you and it's hard to get them on good terms again. It doesn't make sense they force you to date the girls just by talking to them (can't everyone just be friends?) but I guess the dating sim aspect of this requires it.
If you're looking for something fun to play either pick up Persona 3 or Persona 3 FES (it comes with the original but also has new missions) Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES.
Action RPG fans stay clear of this but people who like the romantic aspect of playing as a school kid and going through a subtle progression of steps to become the popular kid you may enjoy this.
Rating: -
I don't have a PS2, though there are several games pushing me toward buying one. This game was one at the top of my list though so I thought I would try it with emulation. On my system the game is unplayable, an there seem to be some bugs in pcsx2 that render it less playable even on a high-end system.
Tested on a Lenovo Thinkpad, dual-core 1.6Ghz, ATI video chipset, Gig of ram, etc.
Rating: 
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WHAT YOU HAVE TO KNOW is that you should end every visit to Tartarus by registering persona in blue room. Write them down on paper, too, or in txt file .
WHAT YOU HAVE TO KNOW is that you should try test fusions AND WRITE DOWN how you get stronger personas.
WHAT YOU HAVE TO KNOW is that you should do something before going to bed
WHAT YOU HAVE TO KNOW is that monday is sales day and new stuff arrives at the beginning of each month....
WHAT YOU HAVE TO KNOW IS THAT YOU NEED SOMEONE W NULL CHARM, Raphael. You alsoneed database of personas and fusions. Get different persona s with different abilities and weaknesses. Never go home after school, find people, walk around.
Buff your team so that main guy is 74th llevel before 31st of Jan.
OK NOW ONTO REVIEW:
SPOILERS AHEAD:
I beat Persona 1 and Persona 2 on Playstation, after long time of not playing RPGs . I loved how Persona one has that SSI games feeling, with positioning characters on 'battlefield' and deep and vast labyrinths with first person view.
Persona 2 was more fun oriented with fusion spells AND you could save game at almost any moment, as if you played PC game.
Persona 3 is not bad game at all. I liked, for instance , SMT Nocturne better AND Shadow Hearts one was cool and maybe more original, if not better than P3. So far, I spend about 23 hours playing P3 . There are colourful personas like in part two , you also have city map and you have small quests both on and off combat. There are dialogues and they can bring you exp for some personas you are about to make IN ADVANCE, and some stories are really noble, like one with girl whose parents are divorcing, kendo master w bad knee and so on...
What I dislike is that a game is repetitive , since all combat so far takes place in some kinda tower with same floors and school days pass monotonous (like in real life). Ok, I usually complain how all RPGs are underground, but here, you basically do shopping in one place, do fighting in Tower and you are pinned to run around 7-8 locations.
What I SERIOUSLY dislike is bizarre way people summon Personas. Why, o why Atlus had to make such a risky move and spoil a game which is not bad at all and so far not about suicide at all ??? I REALLY miss that PER SONAAAA shout that was trademark of series !!! And yeah, it was nice dealing with enemies verbally and getting someting, like in one and two.
-------------MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD-----------------------------
I beat 66 and half hours of a game . There was a hype during game itself, , characters were saying: 'Let's beat boss 12' , 'Oh please god let us beat boss no. 12' and so on. And what happens then? IT IS NOT END!!! You feel like sucker and this is just another trick to extend play time without much imagination, it seems. I will play it till end boss, but I am really asking myself why I play RPGs after I beat main games on PC and PS systems. I was almost sure to get PS3 one day, but I loose a reason each time I play new 'great' games. Back to you soon...
---------------AFTER BEATING PERSONA 3 the game--------------------------
Game's masochistic a bit with all that leveling up but main boss is challenge to every serious RPG fan. End bought me, totally. Almost tear jerking. You really needn't be more than 74th level before 31 dec. It's also boring how school and city are basically few 'stages' and that's it.
All in all, this game glorifies friendship and humanity. See for your self. Beat it.
Rating: 
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Well picked this game up after hearing a lot about it. It really sounded great. It was very different from some of the other RPG's I'd played. It started out pretty good, loved the whole school part of it and the dungeon crawling at night was fun as well. But it really started getting tedious to me. The story was ok, but it really just didnt hook me as much. I just wasnt able to finish it, I just started to get kind of bored playing the game and moved on to something else.
Rating: -
Heres the basis of the game (as far as I've gotten anyway).
The games dungeon only deals with the Dark Hour, the 25th hour, aka the hour between days where all creatures are frozen or "transmogrified" as vulnerable souls. The school transforms into a gothic dungeon where creatures attack and search for transmogrified souls for food, those eaten, the person becomes a near-catatonic shell of a person called the Lost, or people affected by the "Apathy Syndrome". As usual, the defense of mankind falls in the hands of post-adolescent teens who have dark issues of their own, besides our well-being. Within the Dark Hour creatures attack.
Unlike other RPGs where doing things that seem like sidequests in helping people get you specialized skills/weapons/whatever, Persona 3 here tells you all the normal everyday relationships you do are connected to your powers and abilities, nothing is trivial to the progress of the game, they're all integral to advancing. The choice is where you wish to advance.
Okay, so let's get it straight, this game is layered with so many headtrips and things to do. Relationships level up your summoning abilities. Battles are not dictated randomly, and you have command of your party semi-realtime because they themselves are semi-autonomous, such as telling them to split up and either search for the next floor, avoid combat, clear the floor of enemies, etc. The idea of the game is balancing studying, dating, friendships versus training, fighting and defending people in the late hours. Sleep, sickness, and lack of study affect you. Choose wisely, don't push your body, and be aware of how far your team members can go.
I think it's ironic for a game to encourage being outside and about with people in this day and age with MMORPGs and big fantasy/sci-fi settings. It promotes you to build relationships. However, you as a player representative of the main character are motivated only to make friends to gain power. So that's how I see it.
Despite the supernatural aspect, this game is the most relative to our lives (being students at one point or another) over even Grand Theft Auto which seems to be devoid of children and school.
So remember, this game adds and reinforces perspective on peoples social standings. Later, I'm sleepy as you can read from my rant. Either way, my OCD keeps me playing the games' days on end.
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