Persona 3

• 1. Introduction

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  Persona 3 asks its player to press a gun-shaped device against their own head and fire. The device is called an Evoker, and the shot summons a Persona, a physical form of the shooter's psyche. Atlus developed this role-playing game, which appeared in 2006 as the fourth main entry in the Persona series. That series belongs to the larger Megami Tensei franchise, and outside Japan the game carried the longer title Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3.

  The story unfolds around the Dark Hour, a mysterious twenty-fifth hour that most people never notice. Around that hidden hour, the game builds something very ordinary: a single school year, lived one day at a time.

  That pairing raises questions this documentary will follow. How does a calendar of classes and friendships sit beside a tower full of monsters? What secret lies behind the hidden hour? And why did one game keep coming back in new forms?

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• 2. Days and Nights

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  Three attributes named Academics, Charm, and Courage decide what a student in Persona 3 may do with an afternoon. Players raise them by performing certain activities or by picking correct answers in conversation. Every day splits into a daytime and an evening segment, and most activities use one up. Outside of scripted story events, the player chooses how each segment is spent. Which activities and characters are available depends on the day of the week and the time of day.

  Evenings are when the party can climb Tartarus, the main dungeon, to gain experience and collect items. Conditions apply. The absence of certain characters, for example, can rule out a visit that night. Inside, the player can order companions to scatter and explore or to attack Shadows on sight. Boss floors demand the defeat of a powerful Shadow, and some floors stay sealed until the story advances. Civilians sometimes stray into the tower and end up stranded on a floor. Rescuing them before the full moon rises earns bonus rewards.

  Two conditions, “Tired” and “Sick,” punish players who spend too long in Tartarus. Either one weakens a character in combat, and either can interfere with activities such as studying at night. Remedies include certain items, a visit to the infirmary, or an early night. The calendar also drives the plot, because each day of the full moon brings a boss battle that moves the story forward.

  A fight begins when the player touches a Shadow, and striking first matters. Hitting an unaware Shadow gives the player the edge, while being hit first hands it to the enemy. The party consists of whoever is nearby. Fights run on the “Press Turn” system, where both sides take turns using weapons, items, or Persona abilities. A Tactics menu lets the player assign a battle AI to each companion. Attacks come in three physical types and six elements, and both Personas and Shadows can be strong or weak against each.

  Physical abilities cost HP, while elemental and support magic cost SP. Exploiting a weakness or landing a critical hit knocks an opponent down and earns an extra turn, a trick enemies can use too. Knock down every foe and the party may unleash an All-Out Attack, in which every able member strikes for massive damage. Winning splits experience points among the party, and enough of them raise a Persona's level, improving its stats and unlocking abilities.

  How strong those Personas become, though, depends on what the protagonist does in daylight.

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• 3. Personas and Bonds

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  The Major Arcana of the Tarot give Persona 3 its organizing logic. Every Persona is a creature or figure tied to one Arcana, with its own strengths, weaknesses, and abilities. Those abilities range from attacks to support to passive effects that help the wielder. Each main character has a Persona of their own, and some of these evolve at key moments in the story. The protagonist alone can carry several and swap them between battles.

  The Velvet Room is where new Personas are made. Fusing several existing ones produces a new Persona that inherits certain moves from its parents, though the protagonist's current level limits what can be created. Other Personas arrive through Shuffle Time after battles. Earlier ones can be summoned again from the Persona Compendium for a fee. The Velvet Room also hands out quests, such as retrieving particular items, in exchange for rewards.

  Persona 3 introduces bonds with several characters, each representing a specific Major Arcana. Spending time with a character raises the rank of that bond. Creating a Persona of the matching Arcana then earns an experience bonus, larger at higher ranks. Carrying such a Persona also helps a bond edge toward its next rank.

  Bonds can sour. Choosing wrong dialogue or dating several characters at once can reverse a bond or break it. A broken bond blocks the protagonist from using Personas of that Arcana in battle until he reconciles with the character. Only a fully maxed bond lets the player create certain special Personas of its Arcana.

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• 4. The Journey

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  The story is set in 2009, in a Japanese city that the Kirijo Group built and funded. Experiments carried out there ten years earlier created the Dark Hour, a stretch of time that sits between days. During it, most people are turned into coffins without ever knowing. A select few are not affected. Gekkoukan High School, where most of the cast studies, becomes the labyrinthine tower Tartarus. Shadows roam it and prey on the minds of anyone still conscious, leaving victims near-catatonic once the Dark Hour ends.

  The game's instruction manual describes a Persona as “a second soul that dwells deep within a person's heart.” The students who wield them form SEES, the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, to investigate the Dark Hour, the Shadows, and Tartarus.

  Makoto Yuki is the canonical name of the silent protagonist, whom the player names at the start. He was orphaned as a child after his parents died, and now returns to the city to transfer to Gekkoukan High. His first teammates are Yukari Takeba, a popular and cheerful girl, and Junpei Iori, a class clown and his best friend. Akihiko Sanada is a calm senior who leads the boxing team. Mitsuru Kirijo, the student council president and daughter of the Kirijo Group's leader, supports the team in battle. Later arrivals include Fuuka Yamagishi, a shy girl who replaces Mitsuru as support, and Aigis, an android the Kirijo Group designed to fight Shadows. Ken Amada is an elementary school student whose mother was accidentally killed by a Persona user. Shinjiro Aragaki is a former SEES member who quit over past events. Koromaru is a dog that can summon a Persona.

  On his third day in the city, Makoto is attacked by Shadows and awakens to his Persona. SEES recruits him. On full moon nights, the city is struck by a Shadow stronger than any in Tartarus. After several such attacks, Mitsuru reveals where it all began. Ten years earlier, the research company her grandfather founded gathered and contained Shadows to harness their power. The experiments went awry, and the Shadows escaped and merged into twelve larger creatures. SEES leader Shuji Ikutsuki tells the team that defeating all twelve will end Tartarus and the Dark Hour forever.

  While vacationing in Yakushima, Makoto meets Aigis, a Persona-wielding war machine with an unexplained need to be near him. After the twelfth Shadow falls, SEES learns that Ikutsuki lied. Each defeated Shadow freed a piece of Nyx, the creator of Shadows, called the maternal being. If fully restored, she will end the world. The Appriser, also called Death, draws her toward Earth. Ikutsuki wants to sacrifice the team, hasten her arrival, and become the prince of the world she brings. He is wounded in a gunfight with Mitsuru's father, Takeharu Kirijo, and jumps from Tartarus to his death.

  Ryoji Mochizuki, a recent transfer student at Gekkoukan High, turns out to be the Appriser. In December, he and Aigis explain that the old experiments produced the Death Shadow in an incomplete state. Unable to defeat it, Aigis sealed it inside Makoto, who was a child then. Its purpose is to usher Nyx into the world and bring about the end of life on Earth. Ryoji insists Nyx cannot be defeated. He offers an alternative: if SEES kills him, the members will forget the Dark Hour and Tartarus and live on unaware of their coming death.

  On New Year's Eve, the player decides whether to kill or spare Ryoji. Killing him cuts to Graduation Day. Everyone except Aigis has lost their memories and lives in blissful ignorance until Nyx brings about the Fall and humanity dies. Sparing him leads, on the 31st of January, to a climb to the roof of Tartarus, where Ryoji has become the Nyx Avatar. SEES defeats it, but Nyx keeps descending. Makoto awakens the power of the “Universe,” seals her away, and returns the world to normal.

  On Graduation Day, Makoto and Aigis stand together on the school roof. Aigis thanks him for giving her a purpose in life, which is protecting him. Makoto, who has felt tired and unwell, closes his eyes.

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• 5. The Answer

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  The 31st of March is the day on which The Answer begins, shortly after the original story ends. Its opening sequence shows that Makoto died at the end of The Journey, and the other characters speculate that his fight with Nyx was the cause. The school year is over, the dormitory is about to close, and SEES is drifting apart.

  At their last dinner party, the members discover they are trapped in the dorm and that the same day keeps repeating. A large door-like hole opens in the floor. Metis, an anti-shadow weapon similar to Aigis, attacks the group. While protecting her friends, Aigis awakens to the Wild Card ability that Makoto once held. She subdues Metis, whose actions were an attempt to end the time skip and save Aigis, whom Metis calls her “sister.”

  Beneath the dormitory lies the Abyss of Time, a multi-layered dungeon responsible for the time skips. At the bottom of each section, the characters witness memories of themselves awakening to their Personas. Behind the seventh and final door, SEES fights a Shadow-like version of Makoto, and each member then receives a key. Combined, the keys could end the time skip and free them from the dorm.

  Metis offers a different use. The keys could also carry the group back to the time before the fight against Nyx and Makoto's death. Unable to agree, the members descend into infighting. Aigis and Metis claim all eight keys, which fuse into the Final Key. After more debate, the group finds a third, new door in the Abyss of Time and uses it to travel to the moment when Makoto sealed away Nyx.

  There, Metis explains that the seal was never meant to hold Nyx herself. Its purpose was to stop humanity's despair from calling out to her and bringing about the Fall again. People's unconscious wish for death keeps giving birth to the monster Erebus, which summons Nyx to destroy the world. Metis implies that its contact with Nyx caused the Fall. SEES realizes that the wishes behind Erebus came from them too, and the team fights and defeats it.

  After breaking the time skip and leaving the dormitory with the Final Key, the group learns that Metis is a manifestation of Aigis's rejected human emotions. Aigis merges with Metis and embraces her humanity. The members of SEES resolve to make the best of their lives in honor of Makoto's sacrifice. Mitsuru, however, understands that Erebus will return, because humans will never stop wishing for death.

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• 6. Making the Game

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  Work on Persona 3 began in 2003, after Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga were completed. In March 2006, the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsū ran a three-page reveal that gave a Japanese release date of the 13th of July. The article covered the premise, the combat systems, and the social link system, which Japanese players know as “community.” It also profiled the protagonist, Junpei, and Yukari, with their Personas Orpheus, Hermes, and Io.

  Shigenori Soejima served as character artist and art director. The previous Persona games' character artist, Kazuma Kaneko, passed the job to him so he could gain experience. Soejima felt pressure not to disappoint the series' fans, and he wanted Megami Tensei players to feel glad they had supported Persona. He compared the game's look to a fantastical manga, pointing to the mecha-like Personas and Mitsuru's flamboyant styling. Soejima later returned to design Metis for the extended edition. The interface used a blue palette meant to feel cool and stylish, and Point Pictures animated the cutscenes.

  Lead director Katsura Hashino explained to the magazine Play why computers control the party members: “I think it's more fun to have the party members controlled by their AI, so each member's characteristics and personality are on vivid display. There were no objections raised among the Persona 3 development team, either.” He also admitted the system “wasn't well received” by players. It was later described as a stylistic choice that reflected the game's theme of conquering the fear of death through bonds. Each character was their own person, and the player could only influence them by interacting with them.

  The game also dropped negotiation, the earlier Megami Tensei practice of talking to enemies mid-battle to recruit them or earn money and items. The developers treated the social elements of Persona 3 and its successor, Persona 4, as the equivalent. Nich Maragos told 1UP.com: “negotiation isn't gone...And it still factors into Persona Fusion; it's still a big part of the game. I feel like it's disguised, but it's there.”

  Maragos and Yu Namba handled the English localization. They tried to leave as much Japanese material intact as possible, continuing a trend begun with Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. One idea was to use the game to introduce Japanese culture to Western players, so character honorifics were kept. Maragos said they “added so much more meaning to the text.” Namba told RPGamer that jokes that “made absolutely no sense in western culture…were replaced with jokes that at least somewhat parallel the originals.” School tests built on English-language questions had to change. Mitsuru's second language became French instead of English, a choice influenced by her cultured appearance. References to the original Shin Megami Tensei became references to Persona 2.

  Shoji Meguro composed the score, which Aniplex released in Japan as a two-disc set on the 19th of July 2006. It leans heavily on vocals. From earlier Persona games he brought back “Aria of the Soul,” the Velvet Room theme. The battle theme “Mass Destruction” began as a prototype, but players reacted so warmly that it stayed in the final game. On the original PlayStation, hardware limits forced him to compose with samples of 100-200 kilobytes, which he felt sounded “pretty cheap.” The PlayStation 2 allowed real-time streaming of music. Meguro calls it “the point at which he was finally able to express his music without making any compromises.” He still worried about how the English lyrics would be pronounced.

  An arranged album, Burn My Dread -Reincarnation: Persona 3-, followed in Japan on the 18th of April 2007. It holds eleven arrangements and an extended version of the song “Burn My Dread.”

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• 7. Editions and Releases

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  A collector's edition box carried the North American release, holding the game, a soundtrack disc, and a 52-page art book. The launch was set for the 24th of July 2007. Several days before that date, Atlus hit a manufacturing problem with the art book. The company chose to push the game back three weeks to the 14th of August rather than ship without it. Its press release said the package would have been “irreparably compromised” otherwise.

  Persona 3 FES arrived in Japan on the 19th of April 2007 in two forms. The Regular Edition held a director's cut of the original game plus the new epilogue on a separate disc. The Append Edition held the same material but needed the original disc inserted for the first play. FES added a Hard difficulty option. Hashino said the subtitle comes from the word “festival.”

  The epilogue, The Answer, plays like The Journey, but its daily-life system is gone and the player no longer attends school. Owners of the original game could transfer certain save data, including the compendium, social stats, and maxed social link items.

  Atlus had no apparent plans to release FES abroad until February 2008, when a North American date of the 22nd of April 2008 was confirmed. Koei published the European edition on the 17th of October 2008. An exclusive Amazon.com bundle followed on the 28th of November 2008 with the Art of Persona 3 artbook and a soundtrack disc. On the 10th of April 2012, FES reached the PlayStation Network as a PS2 Classic for the PlayStation 3.

  Portable borrows from Persona 4 in its battle system. Players can directly control every character, guard, and count on allies to take fatal attacks for the protagonist. Outside Tartarus, the player moves a cursor around instead of walking the world, and characters appear as on-screen portraits. In-game graphics replace the anime cutscenes. Meguro wrote ten new tracks, mostly for the female protagonist's path. Cameos include Yukiko Amagi from Persona 4 and Vincent Brooks from Catherine. Portable contains only The Journey.

  A port reached Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on the 19th of January 2023. Limited Run Games offered three physical versions, including a Grimoire Edition with a SteelBook case and a S.E.E.S. Edition with a replica Evoker. Pre-orders ran from the 29th of September to the 12th of November 2023.

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• 8. Reception and Afterlife

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  A Metacritic score of 86 summed up the positive reviews that greeted Persona 3. Shane Bettenhausen of 1UP.com called it a “refreshingly new take on the MegaTen concept” and “the best RPG hitting the PS2 this year.” He praised the “excellent” AI directing the party, which he felt produced “the series' speediest and most dynamic battle system to date.” Jeff Haynes of IGN disagreed, because the AI could occasionally get the player's own character killed and trigger a game over.

  GameTrailers called the game “a rare supernatural delicacy.” GameSpy's Patrick Joynt found the social links “almost universally fascinating,” though he suspected the simulation elements would be the biggest hurdle for genre fans. Heidi Kemps of GamesRadar enjoyed the teenage themes as “a refreshing change,” since they touch on social awkwardness. Joe Juba of Game Informer found the settings weak, noting that “most of the game takes place within one tower.” He also warned newcomers they had some catching up to do on fusing Personas.

  The Evokers drew their own comments. Bettenhausen called their inclusion “a ballsy and shocking move” that matched the game's dark tone. Kevin VanOrd wrote that using them “never gets old and it never gets any less awesome to watch.” Atlus USA kept them in the worldwide release despite the possible controversy. Maragos said on 1UP.com's Retronauts podcast: “There was never any Jack Thompson-ing…we didn't get any letters from concerned parents.” 1UP.com later gave the game its award for “Most controversial game that created no controversy.”

  Persona 3 FES scored 89 on Metacritic. Bettenhausen said The Answer provides “much-needed narrative closure.” VanOrd called FES a “wonderfully enhanced version of an already-great RPG.” Several reviewers faulted the epilogue for lacking the social elements, and Haynes said the change came at the expense of what “made Persona 3 so intriguing in the first place.” Persona 3 Portable also earned 89, making it the third best reviewed PSP game on the site. GameTrailers nominated it for Best PSP Game and Best RPG, though it lost to God of War: Ghost of Sparta and Mass Effect 2. RPGamer, RPGFan, and RPGLand honored it in annual awards.

  In Japan, the original sold 127,472 copies in its first week and 210,319 by 2008. Persona 3 Portable sold over 158,000 within its first month. Famitsū named the original the best role-playing game of 2006, and GameSpot and RPGFan did the same for 2007. It lost the Best RPG nomination at the 2007 Spike Video Game Awards to Mass Effect. IGN placed FES fifteenth in its list of the top 25 PS2 games of all time. In 2010, RPGamer ranked Persona 3 first among the top RPGs of the decade.

  An internet meme turned a typo, “Burn My Bread,” out of the signature song “Burn My Dread” and went viral. Meanwhile, the cast kept appearing in other games. Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, a Nintendo 3DS dungeon crawler, joins the Persona 3 and Persona 4 casts and reached Japan on the 5th of June 2014. Persona 4 Arena and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax continue the story of the SEES members. Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight, a rhythm game, came out in Japan in May 2018. Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth followed on the Nintendo 3DS and adds the Phantom Thieves of Hearts from Persona 5.

  Shūji Sogabe wrote and illustrated a manga adaptation, which paused when Persona 4 was released. It resumed on the 7th of November 2011 in Atlus's Persona Magazine and had reached 11 volumes by February 2017. The anime Persona: Trinity Soul began airing in Japan in January 2008 and ran for twenty-six episodes, set ten years after the game. A four-part film series was announced in June 2012, with the original Japanese voice actors returning. Radio dramas included a Drama CD titled A Certain Day of Summer, along with five character CDs released between February and June 2008.

  Five stage musicals also appeared. The first, The Weird Masquerade: The Blue Awakening, ran at Theater G Rosso in January 2014. The protagonists in the plays were named Sakuya Shiomi and Kotone Shiomi. Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku reviewed the second play favorably, but found the musical numbers “out of place” and the protagonists had “zero personality.”

  Figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu used the songs “Battle Hymn of the Soul” and the Reload version of “Mass Destruction” in his ice show Echoes of Life. On the 1st of June 2025, Kakuda City in Miyagi Prefecture announced that its 2025 rice paddy art would show a memorable moment from his Mass Destruction program. In it, Hanyu points to his head to summon his persona.

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