P3P is one of those rpgs that shows flashes of greatness behind a unique premise, but is hampered by trivial dungeons.
As a port of the original PS2 version, P3P casts the player as a Japanese 11th grader who balances a social life (academics, sports, clubs, and girlfriend/boyfriend) by day while fighting demonic-like creatures called "shadows" by night. From the beginning of the game an emo-esque (yes I just made up a word) atmosphere is established with a cut scene of a main character pointing a gun to her head, possibly contemplating suicide. However, as the game progresses you learn that the gun is simply an evoker that is used to summon an inner spirit called a persona that helps the player and his party fight off the shadows. As the game progresses it must also be noted that various allusions are made to various religious beliefs and social issues that many face in contemporary society. At times the allusions are subtle while others right in your face (for example, minor spoiler: you and your party are kidnapped, and almost crucified at one point), these allusions add a certain substance to what would be your average run of the mill jrpg story line.
Pros:
-an incredible and engaging storyline that will keep you glued to your psp screen (the story alone was what kept me engaged for the seventy plus hours of my first play through)
-a unique social system that encourages players to form bonds with minor characters in order to strengthen personas
-a unique persona creation system where the player can fuse various personas to create stronger ones, with over 170 different personas it's fun to mix and match to see what you can get
-a decent turn based battle system that allows for strategy through the implementation of an extra turns before the opponent if the player manages to exploit an enemy weakness, or inflict a critical hits
-playing as a girl provides a new storyline for players who have played the original
Cons:
Although there are few, they are significant enough to throw off players not willing to book various hours of game play
-unlike most rpgs that at least provide various locations to explore and dungeon crawl in, P3P with the exception of boss fight levels, provides only one such location called Tarturus, that's pretty much just one huge tower that you climb up that is split up into various blocks (this wouldn't be much of a pain however you are given 250+ floors to climb which you are expected to hit the top of by game's end)
-Tarturus itself is split into very bland colored mazes and are filled with pretty much the same recycled monsters with three different paint jobs depending on the block you are in
-lack of the animated cut scenes from the PS2 version, can make various dialogue exchanges seem boring to some (I was not one of those people, however I would have loved animated cut scenes)
-a little overwhelming when you are first given a day of freedom where you are given to opportunity to micromanage you characters life
In short, P3P is an excellent game if you have a whole lot of time on your hands, and want to get immersed in an animated world. However, if you are not willing to put up with monotonous level grinding and dungeon crawling, buyers beware.