Persona 3 was an interesting release back in 2007, coming as it did almost two years after the 360 (one year for PS3 and Wii). It could easily have been one of many forgotten gems, buried in the sand to be discovered only by the adventurous RPG archeologists among us. Luckily, P3 is a fantastic game with a unique flavor of its own. It not only survived its initial North American release but got a follow-up “expansion” a year later. Riding on that success, it has now been ported to the PSP as of the 15th of July.

While the game is not for everyone, after 25 hours of playtime I’ve come up with a quick recipe that may tell you if you’re a candidate for its enjoyment. You take the dungeon crawling and adventure aspect of Shining in the Darkness (or the dungeon crawling bits of Etrian Odyssey, if you don’t remember Shining) and you add a tiny dash of Pokemon catch-em-all madness and teenagers shooting themselves in the head while sprinkling in large dose of Japanese eccentricity. When you’re done stuffing that into the disc you tie it all up with a mysterious plot involving the end of the world you’ve got the beginnings of Persona 3.  For the sake of brevity I’m only going to concern myself with the combat and exploration elements of the game, but be advised that there’s a whole lot more to this package. Sound good? Let’s continue.

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