Monster Slayer 90210
The player starts as a nameless (named by the player) high school student in a current day Tokyo. The main character is part of a special organized group of students that have the ability to stay awake during a hidden hour between 12:00 midnight and 12:01 a.m. in which strange shadow beasts lurk around the city, coming from a strange tower. The Protagonist and his friends must utilize their Personas, physical manifestations of their psyches, to combat these Shadows and climb the tower in which they make their nest to unravel their mystery. Persona 3's pacing is spot on; every event progresses the plot but adds a new clue to the mystery until it all comes to its satisfying and even heart wrenching conclusion. It also succeeds in producing a cast of characters that you genuinely grow to love and achieves almost every mood that it sets out to establish. The humor is actually funny, the twists are actually shocking and the plot as a whole is full of emotion from start to finish. Special praise to the localization team, who have crafted the best English dub of any outsourced material I have ever seen localized.
Presentation is just as satisfying as the every other aspect of the game. While the graphics produce some well rendered character models and locales, the art direction sets the game apart from most typical RPGs of its ilk. The somewhat gothic visuals mix with a somewhat stylized look to create a game that falls somewhere in between both, resulting in stylish FMV cutscenes and good looking battles. The soundtrack is a hit-and-miss mix of Japanese rock and pop but even at the worst of times it never hits a level of true annoyance.
Persona 3, like any other RPG, focuses strongly on combat and dungeon crawling. Two twists on this formula are implemented in the game that adds to its already unique status though. First is the aforementioned nest of Shadows, Tartarus, being the only dungeon of the entire game. Spanning well over 600 floors, Tartarus changes its format, enemies, and item placement every time the player visits making no two playthroughs the same; the only floors remaining untouched being the rooms with checkpoints. The difficulty increases as you make your way toward the top of the tower, making strategy, regular training, and equipment upgrades essential to advancement. Persona 3's biggest draw however is the fact that the dungeon crawling is only half of the game.
The Personas that the main characters use to fight are developed by the relationships that they make in real life. This plays off of the player's high school student status. How you behave and act in classes will influence the way people view you. The entire section of the game seems like it would be an awkward social simulator but ultimately it becomes the highlight if the game thanks to the writing's surprising amount of depth and its impact on the game as a whole. Spending too much time in Tartarus can leave you too exhausted to do well in school, where as ignoring your training can leave you too weak to confront mandatory bosses. Striking the perfect balance between each aspect is the most entertaining challenge of the entire game.
The Shin Megami Tensei franchise has been infamous for its failure to commercially thrive outside of Japan but games like Persona 3 are proof that it isn't because of low quality. It starts off a little bit slow but for all of its minor balancing issues, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 is one of the freshest RPGs that I have played in a while and reminds gamers that storytelling in video games is still very much alive.