Interestingly fun.
Part high school sim, part suicide, part RPG, Persona 3 combines all these quirks and meshes them to some excellent gaming. During the day you go about your normal school life. What you do in the day affects your combative abilities later at night.
Battles take place between the hours of midnight and 1 am-ish. These are known as a the shadow hours. How you battle is a bit gruesome. You use a pistol-type weapon called the evoker and by pointing it to your head and firing off the casing you summon a being.
Later on you can combine these beings to one more powerful summon, but the abilities of the two are kinda random so beware.
I didnt have that many problems with Persona 3, but the ones I did have I felt could have been avoided. One is inventory.... in order to swap out gear between characters, you have to walk up to them instead of taking you to a menu screen and doing it there. Also the level design is kinda repetitive... I wish they had more locations but I am willing to overlook it.
At the end, what you have is one real quirky game that is sure to please most RPG'ers out there. A great game for the PS2's aging career!