The Playstation 2 has always been well taken care of when it comes to the RPG market as many franchises prove. Some have been additions to the vintage stalwarts and had their fair mixture of success, like the Final Fantasy and Suikoden titles. Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer’s Call appeared from nowhere along with a selection of new brands just itching to get a piece of the Role Playing pie. Sure, Shadow Hearts and Disgaea did their bit for spell casters and healers everywhere, but there was always a good vibe that came from the Tensei bunch.

Even though the PS2 has pretty much levelled up, Atlas still has one last throw of the dice left in the form of Persona 3, which takes a completely new story stance from anything that’s come before it. Most of the time it was all post-apocalyptic places and transmogrification into demons that needed to eat enemies to keep their health up, while the setting for this adventure couldn’t be further removed.

The first set of events sees you as a school kid at a normal academy and a dorm in which to live. Before being accepted into your living quarters a young boy (who sounds scarily like Michael Jackson) gets you to sign a contract, not knowing why. After the paperwork’s done, you meet your fellow tenants and spend some time over the following weeks getting to know them and the school.

It all sounds rather normal, but there’s always going to be a crazy tangent to fly off on and after about an hour of playing, we finally get to see what’s unravelling. The “dorm” you’re in is actually the HQ for the Specialised Extra-curricular Execution Squad (S.E.E.S.) and all the roommates have a special ability that allows them to fight demons at a specific time of night called the Dark Hour. Naturally, you’re asked to join these do-gooders and set about kicking ass.

During the Dark Hour, all normal civilians become encased in coffins and are blindingly unaware of the fiendish creatures and activities surrounding them. The future of the world is in your hands (No.5 in the top 100 gaming cliches - Ed.).

When you look back at the Shin Megami Tensei games there’s always been some clever ingenuity about the way the players use their characters both in battle and in their surroundings. This time, our young warrior is capable of summoning personas that can be either picked up after battle or created by using these cards in the velvet room.

There’s also a fair share of “They can’t be allowed to have that in a game, surely.” (don’t call me Shirley – Ed.) contained here too. The only way to summon these allies is to shoot yourself in the head with your evoker weapon, which pretty much looks like a big bloody gun. Now, I know this is a game and all, but considering the things that have happened in real life recently in some schools, is this really an appropriate concept? You’ll have to be your own judge, but be prepared.

There’s definitely a cyberpunk feel to this. The music is extremely Japanese and unless you can name most of the characters in anything that involves a trading card or a small yellow rodent, is very irritating after the initial few minutes. The spot FX are firmly stuck within the anime strain of sound with over the top hits and slashes. My advice would be to grab your MP3 player and stick the earphones in if you’re not into all of that kind of stuff.

The graphics, for a PS2, are surprisingly decent, considering how old the Sony warhorse has become. It does have a quirky style about it which helps to give a manga feel to the proceedings, with big action shots and little touches here and there to make you feel like you’re watching Saturday morning TV. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing, however. The only snag is that until you spend a lot of time opening the game up, you’ll feel like you’re treading the same old water over and over again.

Tensei’s gameplay is rather hit and miss. One minute you can feel yourself captivated by the story and feel the need to go and speak to a new friend you’ve found at school to boost your social link, building up the persona creatures. The next you’ll be trawling through floor upon floor of repetitive monsters and environments, which in an RPG is a bad move. I played about five or six hours and only then got into a new section of the Shadow infested tower which gave me a beautiful respite from the same dreary interiors.

The closest comparison would probably be the Dreamcast classic, Skies of Arcadia. Why, you may ask? In SoA, you had to go through a hell of a lot of storyline to get somewhere, and just as you think about switching off the machine, the plot suddenly grabs you with that horrible “just another hour” trait. The game also feels like it’s holding your hand for quite a bit until you get the grasp. It takes 45 minutes to an hour to get in your first fight, and another half an hour to feel a full level of control.

Persona 3 has the makings of a really decent RPG and the ideas contained within are certainly well thought out and clever. Character building is surprisingly easy to grasp, but difficult to master. The difficulty level is a bit less than previous games in the brand, but levelling up never hurt anyone. Random battles aren’t here either, as it follows the Blue Dragon method of finding a character and hitting it if you want to engage.

To sum up then, Shin Megami Tensei - Persona 3 is a welcome addition, but doesn’t entirely match up to some of its forbearers. Credit to Koei for getting it over here, as well as Atlus for finding a different slant to take it down, however. It’s most definitely a game that rewards patient players, so if you’d rather shoot things or race something, stay clear, but RPG fans should give it a go.