Game Review: Persona 3 (Playstation 2)

It may be time to be fitted for my katana and silk shirt adorned with Chinese dragons. Persona 3 is a very Japanese RPG, with the typical art style and an actual anime based on the game coming out soon. Persona 3 garnered fairly positive reviews, but flew under the radar here in the states - probably a good thing, as it no doubt would have sparked controversy and had the politcal hand-wringers up in arms. More on that later.

Turn-based battle.

Persona 3 puts you in the role of a teenage orphan who is transferring to a new high school on Port Island in Japan. You shortly learn that there is crazy shit happening here: every night at midnight there is a phenomena known as The Dark Hour. It's basically a 25th hour wedged in where the normal population transmogrify into coffins and shadows come out to play, infecting the citizens with Apathy Syndrome - which is exactly what it sounds like. Those with the ability to summon personas are also awake and aware during the Dark Hour. Personas are basically second souls that manifest themselves as monsters capable of casting spells and fighting for the summoners. You summon your persona by putting an evoker to your head and pulling the trigger. An evoker isn't a handgun, it just looks and sounds exactly like one. The suicidal overtones make the game a little disturbing, and it's just as unsettling watching your character put a gun to his head and pull the trigger as it was the first time. If anyone had played this game, you'd be hearing about it like Doom, GTA and the such.

The game operates on a day-to-day calendar year, with each day broken up into 2 distinct phases: daytime and nighttime. During the day you'll attend classes, go to the mall, hang out with friends and do normal school activities. At night, you'll head to Tartarus, a huge tower that springs up around the high school where the shadows spawn. The nighttime portion of the game is essentially a dungeon crawl with bad guys, loot, treasure chests and the occasional boss battle. Combat is turn-based, and your party is AI controlled though you can give them directives to focus on, such as "healing/support" or "all-out attack." Each enemy has an elemental weakness that will knock them on their ass if you hit them with it. If you knock all the enemies on their ass, your party may perform an all-out attack where they rush the bad guys and fight in a cloud of dust, complete with Batman-like "Wham!" and "Pow!" exclamations flying about.

Call the governor!

During the day, the relationships you have and the bonds you form directly affect the new personas you create, and all of this is tied in to the tarot. Every person and every persona in the game are associated with one of the major arcana. For example, I befriended a little girl at the shrine in town, which in turn made any personas tied to the Hanged Man tarot more powerful. Your character also is rated on academics, courage and charm, and between keeping your skills up, maintaining your relationships and keeping up with the storyline, the days are quite packed. It's an unusual RPG system (at least in the US) and it's a welcome change from the norm. It is, of course, not without its flaws.

The largest of which is the game's repetitive nature. Going to Tartarus is always optional, but you have to go pretty regularly otherwise your party will become underpowered. Tartarus gets old pretty quick, as the floors and setup are unchanging. I'm 40 hours in, I just bypassed the 100th floor and it's essentially just like all the floors before it. Thankfully, the dichotomy between day and night play offset each other pretty well. The game is best played in 1 or 2 hour chunks, anything longer and I end up groaning and rolling my eyes before each trip back into the dungeon.

Studying at the library improves your Academics, kids!

Persona 3 stands out thanks to its original style and setting and unique social-style gameplay system. Its music is brilliant in places, terrible in others. The voice acting and translation are surprisingly strong - no Engrish here. If you like RPGs and can stand some repetition in your gameplay, give Persona 3 a look. If I had wombats to hand out, I'd give this game 3 of them.