Be careful: playing this game means that you will be involved for weeks and weeks, getting impressed everytime more
GRAPHICS:
The graphics are good for the PS2, but with a great artistic design. The main dungeon looks mostly the same, but with some tweeks as the game goes on, and, though looks a bit repetitive, it looks good. Most enviroments look pretty good, and models for the characters are nice, though facial features lack. There are also some anime-style cutscenes, which look fair. 4/5
SOUND:
The music in the game is truly amazing. Most track have a different feel from themselve, which lead to a great variety of sounds. Voice acting is also really good and beliveable. 5/5
GAMEPLAY:
The game is a turn based RPG, with dungeon crawling. You play as a unnamed protagonist, who comes back to the city after some years. Upon ariving, you enter a dorm where a group named SEES is, and, after a few events, end fighting mosters named Shadows. I already spoiled some, but I don't want to a lot, since the story is really good. It is dark, gripping and has some plot twists. You will definitely love it. The characters are really realistic, but most of them are a bit annoying, and you wouldn't want to ralate yourself with them. In this game, you have to summon demons named Personas, which are described as facades of your personality. You get one in the begining of the game and others as you progress on the dungeon of the game, called Tartarus. Now, you may think that only one dungen would make the game short, but Tartarus has more that 200 floors, and your first playthough the game will take you more that 60 hours, and other more that 40, since that game has a lot replayability. The game also has some dating sims elements, where you can make relationships with other characters, to stablish Social Links, which make the Personas you make stronger. The Social Links give the game a lot of replayability, and are really interesting side stories to the game. The Personas and the Social Links are divided by the Major Arcanas of the Tarot game. In battle, your allies are controled by the artificial inteligence of the game, which does a good job, but it still would be great to control them directly, since they sometimes do things you didn't want them to do. I know i've said a lot already, and there still is a lot to talk about, but all you need to know is that the gameplay is really balanced and will keep you focused. For last, the diferences between this and the original is the adition of a new Arcana and Social Link (Aeon) and a new story to play called "The Answer", which details what happend after the events of the main quest, dubed "The Journey". While the story of The Answer is strong and it is fun to play, the new story is insanely difficult and dosen't have the Social Links, but still is interesting to play, if you are up to challenge. 5/5
OVERALL:
Persona 3 is an incredible game, and FES is an even better version, but if you could choose, i would say that you pick the PSP version, which I think is superior (i will soon review it), but i still think this version is incredible.
Pros and cons:
+Amazing sound design
+Social Links are universaly interesting and useful
+Core gameplay is fantastic
+Lenghty campain' with replayability
-The Answer is really hard and lacks the Social Links
-Can't control allies directly