[GameCareerGuide here presents the latest in a series of narrative reviews written for a contest supported by GDC Austin in association with the IGDA Writers' SIG. The goal is twofold: to encourage students to look at game narrative and writing with the intensity and depth that they do other aspects of game development, and to reward the students who excel at game narrative analysis. To read the first entry, and an in-depth explanation of the contest, click here.]

Platform: PlayStation 2

Genre: Role-Playing Game (RPG)

Release Date: April 22, 2008 (for FES version)

Developer: Atlus

Publisher: Atlus

Game Writer: Yuichiro Tanaka

Overview

Persona 3 FES (or P3 for short) chronicles one year in the life of a transfer student at Gekkoukan High School. By day, the student, the protagonist of the story, attends classes, meets friends, and lives a mostly normal life. By night, Gekkoukan transforms into a garish and deadly battleground where the student must fight creatures called Shadows to save the world.

Cutscenes and traditional RPG dialogue boxes drive the narrative in P3, but the strength of its narrative lies in the quality and detail of the writing. The player controls the transfer student and forges Social Links, or relationships, with various students and denizens of the town surrounding the school. The events that spiral out of these relationships poignantly illustrate facets of Japanese culture and comment brilliantly on the human condition in general.

Characters

The characters here do not represent a complete list, but they include enough to illustrate P3's narrative tone.

• Protagonist - The player avatar; the player chooses the Protagonist's name and defines his personality by making choices for him in conversation. The story begins when the Protagonist enters a new town to continue his schooling. He arrives at his new dormitory at night, in the middle of an attack on the dorm and joins SEES (Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad), a student club formed to battle Shadows, creatures that run around town at midnight, infecting people with a coma-inducing condition. He receives bonuses to his combat abilities by forming bonds with various people around town, and his presence has a powerful effect on the lives of the people he meets.
• Bunkichi - Bunkichi is a gentle, elderly man who runs a used bookstore. He takes a liking to the Protagonist because the student reminds Bunkichi of his late son. As the Social Link with Bunkichi intensifies, the elderly man and his wife ask the Protagonist to help petition against a plan to cut down the tree that their son, a teacher at the Protagonist's high school, planted years ago on school grounds.
• Yuko Nishiwaki - Yuko attends the same school as the Protagonist. A determined athlete, Yuko makes up her mind to help a group of kids win a foot race. Once the player forms a Social Link with her, the Protagonist helps her coach the kids.
• Maiko - Maiko is a little girl who is torn between her parents who are threatening each other with divorce. Forming a Social Link with her embroils the Protagonist in Maiko's family affair.
• President Tanaka - Tanaka (named after the writer, perhaps?) is a businessman who runs the Home TV Shopping Show "Jika Net Tanaka." If the Protagonist forms a Social Link with him, Tanaka exposes the player to the seedy side of business -- Tanaka seems to represent a typical Japanese businessman lost in his work.