Did you know there are 25 hours to a day? At the stroke of midnight, hidden between one second and the next, is the time of the Dark Hour. It is when the world takes on strange hues and contrasts, all devices stop working, the bizarre tower of Tartarus springs up toward the sky, and the mind-devouring Shadows are about. Most humans are oblivious to all this, transmogrifying into coffins for the duration. Only few are capable of experiencing the Dark Hour, and they are subject to Shadows' attacks. Some of these people, however, have the potential, the ability to tap their inner power, and call forth a Persona to protect themselves.

The hero — whose name is yours to decide — is one such person. Due to this potential, he is, while transferring to a new school, put into a dormitory of Persona users and placed under discreet scrutiny. Soon enough, under the unblinking eye of full moon, a powerful Shadow attacks, and he awakens to the truth. With his new friends, his hidden war against the monsters begins.

One of Persona 3's most striking departures from traditional role-playing games is its adherence to a calendar and daily cycle. Every day, you can make only limited number of actions as each turns the clock forward to next phase of day. As the hero and his Persona-using comrades are all high school students, school activities play a significant role during non-holiday weekdays. Because the story takes place in Japan, all the special days are according to Japanese calendar.

Certain daily activities will increase one of your three main statistics of Academics, Charm and Courage — such as taking time to study, watching a French movie marathon at the cinema or eating the local fast food chain's secret-ingredient surprise burgers. Other actions, such as joining a club or meeting people in school or around town, will forge new friendships, known as Social Links. Each link is classified under one of the 22 major tarot arcanas and plays an important role during Persona creation. Not all links are available at the beginning; you will need high enough score in one of the statistics to open some, while others become available only after main plot has progressed far enough.

During these Social Link events, you are presented with one or more multi-choice questions; your answers impact how quickly the friendship will develop. In a move reminiscent of dating simulator games, the links you form with your female school friends can be taken beyond simple friendships if you decide to put on the moves. Of course, trying to date more than one girl at the same time carries its own obvious risks. If the soured relationships are worth taking all the links to their maximum level is a decision left to your discretion.

Another good reason to pursue Social Links is, despite them essentially being side quests, their total sums up to a significant portion of the game's narrative. And every avid gamer is guaranteed to get a chuckle out of the social group associated with the Hermit arcana.

The last type of activity available is exploring Tartarus, the twisting tower that is also at the heart of Shadows' mystery and apparently their nesting ground. Naturally, this can only be done during the Dark Hour. The tower has a massive amount of floors, and its corridors bend to new shapes each time you visit. While you have a map and radar provided by the support Persona user, it is wiped clean after each visit due to the transforming paths. Going downwards is not an option, as stairwells will close behind you. To exit, you either have to find a transporter that takes you down to ground floor — available on many levels — or a two-way elevator, which connects the immutable special floors together. These special floors have powerful guardians that need to be defeated if you wish to progress higher.

Tartarus also divides into discrete sections, with the pathways in between opening only after specific plot events have been completed. These events are tied to the calendar — full moons to be precise — and involve boss battles. It is advisable not to fall behind the expected level curve, or you may face extra-long sessions in Tartarus in order to catch up with their levels.

Taking your own time in the tower leads to its own problems. Strenuous activities during the Dark Hour tire people quickly, and tired or sick characters do not fight at normal efficiency. Similarly, filling your day with as much activity as possible also can wear you down. There's only one cure to a subpar condition: going to bed early and forgetting about late-night activities for a while.

Persona 3's combat is mostly the expected RPG fare. Your allies, however, are wholly under artificial intelligence control. They can be issued orders, like to heal or support or to attack a specified target. You will gain more combat commands as your Social Link rank with your fighting buddies goes up. The AI's also clever enough, so you're almost never frustrated with your allies' actions.

Your two main attack methods are with the weapon you wield for various types of physical damage and by summoning your Persona for an elemental-damage attack. Melee weapons have the capacity to do chain attacks up to a three-hit critical strike, but they also have the chance to have the attacker fumble and fall prone. A critical hit gives you an extra action and the target a prone status, and if you manage to do that to all enemies on field, you can launch a devastating all-out attack.

Many enemies have weaknesses against certain damage types and immunities (sometimes even absorb or reflection ability) against others. You can have your support Persona scan enemies for these and use them to your advantage. Your AI-controlled teammates also will exploit this information. Attacking an enemy's weakness scores an automatic critical hit. Note that weaknesses are a two-way street, with each character having their own according to the Persona they control.

The main character has a unique ability to gather and summon multiple Personas. This allows for greater flexibility in battle as you can switch your Persona once every round to respond to enemies' weaknesses and strengths.

Winning a battle grants experience points to both characters and their Personas. Leveling up brings straightforward bonuses to attributes, but at certain levels, Personas also will learn new abilities, according to their assumed roles in battle.

After every combat, there's a random chance for a card shuffle. During shuffle, several cards are laid out face up for you to inspect. Once you are ready, they will be turned around and shuffled at increasing speed through random moves, after which you are asked to pick one. The cards can be either major arcana cards, which grant you new Personas, coins for extra money, swords for weapons, cups for health or wands for extra experience.

There is a place between dream and reality that, out of all your Persona-using friends, you alone may access due to a special contract you have singed. This is the Velvet Room, a large elevator cage of wrought iron and soothing blue, ever climbing up within an infinite shaft. Soon after you've become acquainted with your powers, its two residents will offer you their services.

Their first main service is Persona fusion. By taking two or more existing ones, you may create new types of Personas of higher (or lower) level with both new abilities and ones they inherit from fused ones. The ability inheritance largely follows Personas' elemental predilections and affinity to physical combat. As you can only fuse Personas to your level, and each Persona has certain minimum level, opening new possibilities requires leveling up.

This also is where your existing Social Links come to play. Personas fall under specific tarot arcanas, and they derive extra experience points during fusion based on associated link's level. This is a quick way to open Personas' level-based abilities you normally would need to grind out by fighting.

Another provided service is Persona compendium. As you are able to carry only certain amount of Personas, rest can be inscribed into the compendium and summoned from there as necessary — for a fee. The entries can be updated whenever a Persona has gained experience and new abilities. The compendium is a great asset when experimenting with fusion, as it supplies you with infinite amount of summons, provided you have the money.

The last available service is requests. Since the residents apparently cannot leave the Room, you can run errands for them, ranging from common to curious, from fetching items to acquiring rare loot in Tartarus and fusing Personas with certain abilities. Some of these requests will have a deadline. Rewards vary equally, from money and equipment to curios, such as a broom you can wield in combat.

The game's graphics are something of a mixed bag. Because the game's play area is somewhat limited, the graphicians obviously have had time to concentrate making outdoor locales good and give them a lived-in feeling. However, characters and Personas are many times bland and lacking in polygons; their animation is on the simple side. The 2D representations, drawn in manga style, are big and well-done, however, coming in a range of emotions. Infrequent cutscenes are nothing to sneeze at either, but do not compare them too favorably with your average animated TV show. Tartarus is certainly a problem by itself. Once you have spent hours inside similar corridors, they start looking extremely dull. At least they change between each major block.

Persona 3's soundtrack is mostly jazz-ish tunes with a dash of rap and J-pop. While decent — sometimes even slightly catchy — and neatly fitting the moods and locations, there's nothing really memorable beyond the opening theme.

In contrast, the voice acting is very competent. Each actor manages to portray their character very well, all the way down to various undertones. They also manage to stay in character during heavier plot moments and give the characters realistic, believable faces — ditto with the comedic relief moments, of which there are a quite a few. The only exception is the main character, who gives us traditional RPG "silent treatment" — we never hear him, nor even see his thoughts in writing, except when you are faced with a multi-choice question. I suppose this is some kind of gimmick to make us feel more in character, but all it ever manages for me is to distance me from the character as his personality remains a boring, blank slate. All in all, something I wish we'd see less of as it got old with Suikoden I.

With its cross-genre experimentations and several unusual features, Persona 3 is an all-around winner. While its Tartarus exploration part has the highest chance to start feeling repetitive, there are enough diversions with the well-paced plot that keeps you on your toes, the extra activities and the multitude of side quests. The game's well worth anyone's time interested in the RPG genre.