A different approach to the JRPG genre that is executed extremely well
In Persona 3 FES, you play as the main character, a male high school student who is moving into the city. Along the way to your new dorm, a strange occurrence happens right when the clock strikes 12 midnight but nonetheless, you make it to the dorm safely. After a few days of a normal high school life, you quickly get drawn into a situation where you are recruited into a secret organization known as SEES which exterminates strange and dangerous beings known as Shadows using a special power known as "Persona" which allows them to summon strange beings to help them out. The story itself is quite unique and interesting as it takes place in modern Japan instead of the overused "swords and magic" fantasy world. It's also separated into two sections, "The Journey" which is the main story and "The Answer" which is some sort of epilogue, both of which are very satisfying to play thanks to the gripping emotional moments in the later parts of each mode and the great character development of the main protagonists and the minor support characters.
The gameplay of Persona 3 FES is pretty much split into two sections, the normal RPG parts in which you fight normal enemies and bosses and the "dating sim" parts (The Answer is pretty much a pure RPG though). Much like any other JRPG, this game has some sort of big imposing threat that your characters must fight for various reasons. This threat is known as the Shadows which are strange beings who lurk around a tower known as Tartarus. In the Dark Hour (a hidden hour which is only experienced by a few at midnight), a huge tower known as Tartarus appears and it is in Tartarus that your characters must go to in order to fight Shadows using the basic weapons and items but can also use their powerful Personae. A mysterious man (and his assistant) can also fuse various personae that you receive to make more powerful and useful ones and the amount of combinations that can be done reach a grand total of around 170. The battle system is also somewhat different from your usual JRPG because the game really emphasizes on exploiting your enemy's weaknesses. Every time you exploit an enemy's weakness and knock them down, you gain an extra turn and your ultimate goal in battle is accumulate as many turns as possible (you can only knock down an enemy once a turn though). You also cannot control your allies (only set up tactics for them) so it's very important to take advantage of this.
Now, you might be wondering why I mentioned that there would be dating sim parts earlier. That's because while you fight enemies at Tartarus during the Dark Hour, you're still a normal high school student which means you have to attend classes at Gekkoukan High School. While in the school, you can try making as many friends as possible and deepening your relationships with them. You might be wondering why you would want to be friends with everyone in the school but there's a very good reason. It's because by building up your "Social Links", you can create more powerful Personae which level up faster. If you find a person in the school who you can really relate to and you want to build a relationship with, then the Personae which correspond with that person will end up being very powerful so it's definitely worth it.
While the battle system and the emphasis on the community are both very well done, that doesn't mean that the gameplay is perfect. Some people will find it quite repetitive going through Tartarus. It has many floors and while the environments change and the enemies get harder, the basic concept of the battles remain the same (exploit weakness, kill enemy, explore, find another enemy, rinse and repeat) which can lead to some repetitiveness. Some people might not like having to build up the Social Links, but personally, I thought that some of the character developments in them were really great and by the end of the game, I felt really touched by what many of the characters came to realize about themselves and their changes. Other than those few factors, the gameplay is executed very well.
The graphics of Persona 3 FES are a pretty good as it embraces the technical limitations of the PS2 and puts an emphasis on art over graphical quality. It's a PS2 game so obviously it won't have the most mind blowing graphics but the varied city environments, creepy level designs for Tartarus (complete with faces coming out of the wall and bloodstained floors), and colorful character portraits which are pleasant to look at make a wonderful combination. One of the strange blemishes in the graphics of this game is the anime cutscenes. For some reason, the animations of these cutscenes are really low quality with poor lip-syncing, lack of detail, and for some reason the voices almost become harder to hear. Luckily, in The Answer, the anime is done much better and a good amount of detail is put into the animation but sadly, the same doesn't hold true for The Journey. Regardless, aside from The Journey's anime, the game is very nice to look at.
The sound is where many people have different opinions. The game is full of J-pop, techno and guitar riffs. If you're one of those people who got too used to Final Fantasy's music and can't seem to like anything else in their RPGs, then you'll absolutely hate this game's music. However, I personally liked it as it fit very well with the setting (as this game takes place in modern Japan and the style of the music that is in this game is somewhat popular in Japan today). There are some terrible tracks like the second school theme which features a woman who's screaming "eeeee!" like some sort of banshee but the rest of the tracks are pretty good, especially the battle music.
The voice acting is a mixed bag. On one hand, we have certain characters like Mitsuru and Junpei who do a pretty good job at voice acting. On the other hand, we have voice actors and voice actresses who sound absolutely terrible like Ken Amada and Fuuka. A result like this is expected as all the voice actors also work on anime (most anime also have varied results of voice acting) but it would've been nice if all the voices were good and some of them didn't sound very forced.
The replay value of this game is astounding. The game has three difficulty levels to choose from (Normal being the recommended for first-time players), a New Game + mode, and over a hundred Personae to fuse. People who want to complete every single thing in this game will be spending over a hundred hours on this game as The Journey can already last a good 70+ hours while The Answer can stretch up to 30+ hours. I myself already spent 130 hours on the game and I have yet to unlock every Persona, finish The Answer, and complete the game on Hard Mode. Basically, if you want a really fun game to play over a long vacation, this is it. However, the game does require quite a bit of devotion and time so do not go buying this game unless you have a lot of spare time on your hands.
Simply speaking, Persona 3 FES is a definite success. It offers you over a hundred hours of play time, over a hundred Personae to experiment with, a few unique touches to the usual JRPG gameplay by combining dating sim elements, two lengthy game modes, and some pretty nice music. I'd definitely recommend this game to all JRPG fans looking for something a bit different as this game is definitely a great experience that they can happily devote a lot of their time to.