Persona 3

 So finally after what, nearly a year? Of waiting Persona 3 was finally released out here earlier this year. I actually missed the cool pre-order with the art book which sucked as I really like the character design and artwork in P3. Alas cashflow issues conspired to ruin that plan.

Still point is i do have it and have been playing it fairly often since then - generally the only reason I don’t play it is cos I’m knackered from work or don’t want my whole night to be swallowed up by Persona 3 goodness. I don’t think I’m even halfway in yet though as I’ve really only just started playing it but I’m so glad it came out over here cos I’ve been having a great time with this game.

Sadly we never got the other Persona games out here, I think they were on the ps1 in the US and Japan (originally on the NES I think?) I’ve just been glad to get hold of whatever Shin Megami Tensei games I could like Lucifer’s Call or the Digital Devil Saga’s. That’s a slight tangent though so I wont go into that now.

Persona 3 is basically set in a Japanese High School where you play as the new student there. First night some freaky shit happens and it turns out your a Persona user, which basically means you summon these powerful beings to fight with. You end up joining this group of already existing Persona users who are fighting ‘the shadows’ weird monsters that attack people. Obviously there’s more to it than that as it’s all somewhat shrouded in mystery. Unlike your comrades though, who can only summon one Persona (which are reflections of people’s personalities/psyche’s) your guy can summon different kinds. This is of course due to some *gasp* unknown reason.

This basically lets you collect a variety of ones to use and you can even merge different kinds of Personas with each other to create better or different ones - limited by what current level you’re at since you can’t create something stronger than you. The game is split generally between the social interaction phase at the high school - this is actually cooler and more relevant than it sounds! By building up and strengthening relationships with others you get benefits with different kinds (arcanas) of Personas - so say someone is aligned to the Magician arcana then by making friends and spending time with them you build up an affinity with Magician arcana Personas - so next time your creating a Persona you get a boost in experience points depending on how high you social interaction level is with that person.

The next part is basically exploring this place called Tartarus - which for some as yet unexplained reason (I’m still quite early on in the game remember) is located where the high school is during this hidden hour of the night called the dark hour. Normal people aren’t aware of this hidden hour so only persona users can function during this time. Things also have a tendency to transmogrify - hence the school changing into some big tower full of Shadows (monsters basically). So here you have a bit of level crawling which is made a lot nicer by the fact that every 5 or 10 etc levels you have warps back to the 1st floor which are 2 way - so the next night when you come back you can start where you left off pretty much.

It’s turn based which is great for the kind of game it is, you can switch persona’s in the middle of battle too which is great and means you DO use more than just one or two. Your party is not actually controlled directly by you like in a regular turn based rpg. I wasn’t sure about it at first but it seems to work pretty well and they’re actually really good about knowing when to attack and heal for the most part, though you can set different commands for each party member or even an overall strategy.

Overall I’m totally loving this game and can’t wait to play more of it. It’s pretty unique as far as these kinds of games go and the style and design of stuff is just great. The anime cut scenes also make it pretty cool in my book! Do I think this is probably one of the best games I’ve played? Oh, yes. Now if only they’d release the FES version of Persona 3 out here I’d be all set…