[PS2] SMT: Persona 3 (The RPG to keep talking about, since :awesome:) Now with more PEZ.

NA Release Date: July 24th, 2007
Platform: Playstation 2
ESRB Rating: Mature for Blood, Language, Partial Nudity, Violence
Official US Website: Persona 3 FES Website

Game Description:
In Persona 3, you’ll assume the role of a high school student, who was orphaned as a young boy, and has recently transferred to Gekkoukan High School on Port Island. Only days after he arrives at the school dorm, he is attacked by a Shadow. The assault awakens his Persona, Orpheus, his only chance at defeating this creature of the night. He soon discovers that he shares this special ability with other students at his new school. From them he learns of the Dark Hour, a hidden time that exists between one day and the next, swarming with Shadows that have been slowing claiming victims known as The Lost—poor souls who have inexplicably been turned into walking zombies. Under the supervision of school chairman Shuji Ikutsuki, he joins his new friends in confronting this evil threat.

With your school as the primary battlefield, you’ll be forced to juggle between two lives: student by day, defender against evil by night. And your greatest challenges await you on the eve of each full moon.

Features:

• Engaging Social Link system lets you build intimate relationships with friends and love interests alike!
• Unforgettable characters and professionally-acted dialogue bring the story to life!
• Massive replay value with over 20 Social Links and a complex storyline encompassing a full school year.
• Highly stylized designs grace the beautiful 2D character portraits, detailed 3D animations, and heart-pounding cut scenes!
• Intense, strategic battle system; find and exploit enemy weaknesses with the help of your allies!

Game Bonus Features:
The game is listed for $49.99 and comes in a boxset which includes a full-color, 52-page art book packed with character art, concept sketches, and more. It also comes with a soundtrack CD featuring the hip urban-techno music of Shoji Meguro, composer of the haunting and unforgettable scores for Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga!

Intro Movie:

YouTube Video
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Screenshots:

Spoiler:

Here it is! Persona 3 in English! The game was originally released in Japan a year ago and has taken until now to get localized. The Persona series has always been a spin off of Shin Megami Tensei and for some reason they decided to add the Shin Megami Tensei to the title of the US version even though the first 2 were released here without it I'm still just going to call it Persona 3 anyway.

The Persona games have always been wacky modern day based RPGs with demons and a cast of High School students who fight them off with guns and their Personas (more or less alter egos or other selves). Well, except for Eternal Punishment which didn't have High School kids. Unfortunately the English versions of the game were always incomplete in one way or another. Persona 1 was Americanized as in the characters themselves being renamed and slightly changed to appeal more to North Americans. The most drastic change being a Japanese kid with freckles being transformed into a black kid. Besides all this they cut a section out of the game for whatever reason. And the game had a sloppy translation. Persona 2's localization was handled much much better, except we only got the second half to the game. Let's hope we don't get screwed again with this third game and Atlus localizes the expansion disc which has the true ending to Persona 3.

This one is drastically different from the first two. The game is now a dating sim and dungeon crawler. You live the life of a teenage Japanese student. You wake up in the morning, socialize with friends, go to classes in school, jjoin clubs, and everything else you could do as a student. Building relationships is key to becoming stronger for the dungeon crawling. This game also uses an interesting method of summoning personas. The kids actually shoot themselves in the head every time they summon them. I wouldn't be surprised if this and the whole emo high school kids in school with guns is the reason this game jumped from a 12 and up game to Mature in the states.

I'm looking forward to this game just because I've always been a fan of persona and I'd like to play a game that strays away from the usual RPG formula and tries something completely different. It isn't very often we get titles like these brought to our shores. Plus the game has so much style to it. Just listen to the music and watch some videos to see what I mean. I say its worth 50 bucks just because you get a long game and a ton of nifty extras with it.

Go pre-order. NOW!

I've always like the Shin Megami Tensai series... Although I've never beaten any, this one seems to grab my interest more than the other ones have. Probably because of the random school setting.

I might just go ahead and pre-order this.

Oh God it's been so long.

I loved Eternal Punishment to death. Shin Megami Tensei turned out to be a great replacement for a time (and then Devil Summoner to a much smaller degree), but this is what I've been waiting for. Don't fail me now, Atlus.

I'm not sure about this one. even if it look nice, I have always like the shin megami tensei series mainly for they dark atmosphere and their weird demons. I really don't like the dating sim thing... well I didn't test it but I don,t think it fit the atmosphere...

Anyway it still seem like a good game, I just don't like the new look for a shin megami tensei game

It seems like I've been waiting for Persona 3 forever! I was pretty much sold when I saw how the persona are summoned, last year. I'll definitely be pre-ordering this one very soon.

I pre-ordered this several months ago as soon as I heard about the soundtrack and 52-page artbook. At first I was slightly impressed that the Gamestop manager knew it was listed under Shin Megami Tensei when Persona 3 didn't come up in the computer, but was quickly unimpressed by his claim that the creator was getting greedy by sticking his name in the title after the first two were just called Persona.

I've yet to actually play a Persona game, but this looks fantastic. Nocturne and especially DDS were both great games, and I can't wait to play Persona 3.

The guide's by Doublejump, too. So that'll be an extra 20 bucks extremely well spent. I dunno how many of you collect/buy guides, but if it's done even half as well as their Nocturne effort was, it'll be insane.

Originally Posted by Inhert

I'm not sure about this one. even if it look nice, I have always like the shin megami tensei series mainly for they dark atmosphere and their weird demons. I really don't like the dating sim thing... well I didn't test it but I don,t think it fit the atmosphere...

Anyway it still seem like a good game, I just don't like the new look for a shin megami tensei game

I was a little put off by the dating sim thing too, but considering that this is Atlus and that the conversation systems in SMT3 and Persona 2 were so absolutely hilarious and awesome, odds are good that they can do a dating sim that's not too offensive...except in those ways where it helps to be.

im up for playing this, but im not completely sure how i feel about the fact that your characters shoot themselves in the head to cast magic, even healing lol

im sure ill still buy it

well it still a shin megami tensei game... just in DDS they even cannibalize them self and eat other demons so I guess shooting in the head is nothing really out of the ordinary for this series XD

English website is officially up now with tons of information, English trailers and gameplay videos.

Hmmmm upon reading a bit from that summary I'm a bit more disinterested in it than I was before. I played a little bit of the first Persona games, owning the second one, but I dunno. I'm sure this will play like a 'classic' Japanese RPG right? I'll probably wait for some reviews before I purchase this one.

Just an FYI to any of you thinking buying the Mitsuru figure off play-asia or any other import site. Come late September, its gonna be available in US and for $30-$34 to boot. [According to Diamond] Tfaw has already started preorders.

Quote:

Due to a manufacturing error with regard to the Persona 3 Art Book, the title will regretfully narrowly miss its scheduled ship date of July 24th, 2007. This was an unforeseen scenario, and one regretfully out of our control.

Presented with the choice of compromising on the quality of the art book, or shipping the game without said extra, we decided to have the art book redone with a higher quality binding, which will cause a very short delay in the ship date of the title.

While all other materials and packaging related to the game are complete, we were unwilling to sacrifice the art book, and as such will expedite the manufacturing process to the best of our ability in order to release the title as soon as is possible.

We appreciate your understanding and will release a formal announcement when Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 ships.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!

Oh man, this is horrible news! I was so looking forward to having this on Wednesday that I tied up all my lose ends with other games that I have been playing (i.e. finally beat them).

Well, hopefully it won't be THAT long of a delay, but I wouldn't have really cared if the binding on the art book was of sub par quality. Not like I'm going to look at it a BIGILLION times or anything.

Originally Posted by Miles

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, I was sitting on a pile of bricks by the time I saw the ship date changed from 7/24 to 7/31, and that last one feels like a placeholder date to me. Either way, can't get too upset considering what we're getting along with the title.

Well, at least they aren't willing to ship out artbooks with faulty bindings just to meet the ship date. Still, I really hope this doesn't cause more than a week or so of delay. I was looking forward to having a full month with the game before school starts back.

Oh, also, here is a very positive REVIEW. It's good to see, even though it's coming from RPGamer.