Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 for the PS2 hit shelves yesterday.  Mythical, candy-covered, unicorn shelves, they be.

Hello, my creamy, caramel centers.  It’s Wednesday, August 15th, 2007, and you’re not.  We’re taking a ride on the preview train, and if you’ll ignore the overdue inspection stickers, you’re all invited.

The Persona series, until now, consisted of 3 RPG titles for the PSX by Atlus: Persona, Persona 2: Innocent Sin, and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.  Persona 2: Innocent Sin, the first half of the Persona 2 over-arcing story, never made it to the US, because the people at Atlus felt the lack-luster English translation just wasn’t enough to confuse its already limited audience.  They had to cut out the first half of the story as well.  If you’ve never heard of these games, consider yourself the norm.  Sasquatch has had more reliable sightings than one of these discs.

In general, the Persona games are known for placing the player in control of modern-day teenagers out to stop mystical, demonic forces.  Translations were fair to bad, and Japanese pop-culture references are common place.  Unique approaches abound, for better or worse, and dialog plays as much of a part in the engine as combat.  Still, they never fail to be unique.  For example, in Persona 2, the evil baddie has placed a curse over the land that causes popular rumors to become true.  In order to progress through the game or find secrets, you’ll often find yourself starting and propagating your own rumors to your advantage.

Despite a few returning characters, Persona 3 is a new world.  You are a high school student, transferring to your new school.  Attacked in the dorms by a monster, an inner spirit is awoken and comes to your aid.  Welcome to the dark hour.  Between midnight and 1 am, you and the few other possessed students are able to stay awake during the horroring hour that no one else could possibly imagine.  Grab your evoker, it’s going to be a rough ride.

If you know anything about Persona 3, then you’ll notice I haven’t mentioned the evokers yet.  If ever the media discovers this game, there will be hell.  In order to summon the spirit held within, these teenage children hold the evoker to their head and fire.  The evoker is a pistol.  They pull the trigger, there’s a bang, fragments of light fly out the other side, and a helpful spirit comes forth and performs an attack or ability.  These are effectively your spells, and so you’ll be blowing your brains out repeatedly in every battle you engage.  Still, the game got a ESRB of M (Mature, for Language, Violence, Blood, Partial Nudity), so if your kid ends up with this in his hand, you have yourself to blame.

In between the action, Persona 3 plays out almost like a Japanese dating sim.  Your personal relationships with people have an impact on the spirits you gain and what you can do with them.  Not since Brave Soul have I gotten such a mix.  Brave Soul, however, had much more gratuitous fan service, nudity, and sex.  Remember, kids, it’s alright to imply teenage suicide, but premarital sex is just plain wrong.

The battles move quickly, not really asking for your input unless you want to change tactics or do something special.  Your characters are fragile, so you have to stay on top of things.  Certain elements like enemy weaknesses and knocking the enemy down make strategy important.

Most likely, expect Persona 3 to sprinkle down a few copies across the country, then disappear from the radar forever.  There is, however, that small chance some parent will walk in on their kid playing it, just as some teenager pops off a spell, and raise the world into a frenzy.  If this happens, expect sales to instantly rise and your chance of ever finding a copy to plummet.  Atlus has never been known for releasing anything to the US in quantity.

Europe, you can expect your first taste of the Persona series with this title in 2008.

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