After finishing Persona 3, a few minutes ago I figured I'd come and do the predictable thing: offer my musings on it in blog form. 
 
*Here be spoilers, ye be warned*
 
First, a few stats: 

Play time: 56 hours 48 minutes
Difficulty: Normal
End level: 96
Party: Yukari, Akihiko, Mitsuru
Maxed S.Links: Magician, Lovers, Sun, Star, Devil, Emperor, Hermit, Fool, Judgement, Death
Favourite Personas: Lucifer, Surt
Least Favourite Persona: Messiah [such a let down... who would know that the ultimate Persona would learn bugger all useful]
Nyx Avatar Finishing Blow: Armageddon [for dramatic effect, killed it at about 1/10th hp left]
 
I bought Persona 3 a couple months ago, after I'd been looking for a while I finally found an NTSC copy selling for dirt cheap on Ebay located in London, and damn, am i now glad that guy was selling it; otherwise I'd likely not have bothered importing it and would have missed out on this masterpiece. 

Overall, I was a little let down by the length, as after watching the Endurance Run, and from what i've read online I was expecting this to take me about 80/90 hours to complete [it's worth noting that I have vanilla P3, not FES, so this isn't including The Answer, which may be why I finished faster than I expected.], however I suppose it says wonders for the game if after almost 57 hours I'm still craving more, can't say I've ever experienced that before. 

I can honestly say the only reason I'm not posting this blog two weeks ago is because, well, I didn't want to finish the game. I had to almost force myself to sit down and load up my save that had been sitting at 30th January 2010 for half a month. I simply didn't want the game to end, and so I artifically lengthened it by allowing it to sit in limbo, my characters forever hyping themselves up for a battle they might never get to fight; but eventually I told myself enough was enough and sat down to finish it. 
 
The final few battles were rather awesome, Nyx Avatar especially, although a complete pushover. It may have been my level at the time, but Jin and Takaya were both God Handed, critted and killed by the rush in my first action... rather anti-climatic for a group who could talk so much trash.  The Nyx Avatar was similarly easy, although it took significantly longer [mostly because of the awesome journey through a humans life, as told through the Tarot arcanas], it still didn't pose a threat, with Almighty Attack only dealing 100 or so damage and it's strange habit of spamming either Agi or Bufu at the MC. Lack of difficulty aside, I felt that it was a suitable send off to an astounding journey.
 
The actual finale was perfect, from the 'battle' with Nyx; to playing two last days of school; to the final, beautiful scene between Aigis and the MC. Then there was Kimi No Kikou... ahh... Kimi No Kikou...
 
I'll leave you with my favourite piece of music from the game [and that's saying a lot, from this soundtrack], I love how this manages to incorperate multiple tracks from the score, and merge them into one epic piece that forces you to reminisce on the journey that you undertook to finally face Nyx.
 

After finishing Persona 3, a few minutes ago I figured I'd come and do the predictable thing: offer my musings on it in blog form. 
 
*Here be spoilers, ye be warned*
 
First, a few stats: 

Play time: 56 hours 48 minutes
Difficulty: Normal
End level: 96
Party: Yukari, Akihiko, Mitsuru
Maxed S.Links: Magician, Lovers, Sun, Star, Devil, Emperor, Hermit, Fool, Judgement, Death
Favourite Personas: Lucifer, Surt
Least Favourite Persona: Messiah [such a let down... who would know that the ultimate Persona would learn bugger all useful]
Nyx Avatar Finishing Blow: Armageddon [for dramatic effect, killed it at about 1/10th hp left]
 
I bought Persona 3 a couple months ago, after I'd been looking for a while I finally found an NTSC copy selling for dirt cheap on Ebay located in London, and damn, am i now glad that guy was selling it; otherwise I'd likely not have bothered importing it and would have missed out on this masterpiece. 

Overall, I was a little let down by the length, as after watching the Endurance Run, and from what i've read online I was expecting this to take me about 80/90 hours to complete [it's worth noting that I have vanilla P3, not FES, so this isn't including The Answer, which may be why I finished faster than I expected.], however I suppose it says wonders for the game if after almost 57 hours I'm still craving more, can't say I've ever experienced that before. 

I can honestly say the only reason I'm not posting this blog two weeks ago is because, well, I didn't want to finish the game. I had to almost force myself to sit down and load up my save that had been sitting at 30th January 2010 for half a month. I simply didn't want the game to end, and so I artifically lengthened it by allowing it to sit in limbo, my characters forever hyping themselves up for a battle they might never get to fight; but eventually I told myself enough was enough and sat down to finish it. 
 
The final few battles were rather awesome, Nyx Avatar especially, although a complete pushover. It may have been my level at the time, but Jin and Takaya were both God Handed, critted and killed by the rush in my first action... rather anti-climatic for a group who could talk so much trash.  The Nyx Avatar was similarly easy, although it took significantly longer [mostly because of the awesome journey through a humans life, as told through the Tarot arcanas], it still didn't pose a threat, with Almighty Attack only dealing 100 or so damage and it's strange habit of spamming either Agi or Bufu at the MC. Lack of difficulty aside, I felt that it was a suitable send off to an astounding journey.
 
The actual finale was perfect, from the 'battle' with Nyx; to playing two last days of school; to the final, beautiful scene between Aigis and the MC. Then there was Kimi No Kikou... ahh... Kimi No Kikou...
 
I'll leave you with my favourite piece of music from the game [and that's saying a lot, from this soundtrack], I love how this manages to incorperate multiple tracks from the score, and merge them into one epic piece that forces you to reminisce on the journey that you undertook to finally face Nyx.
 

How the heck did you finish it that fast at that character level?  I spent over 120 hours on that game.

Congratulations man! 
 
You could write a review for it... 
 
And an awesome music!

i beat it a little while ago and killed nyx with a mind charged ragnorok..... then yelled out PWNED!!!!!!!

Congrats on beating it. You must have done some mad grinding to get your character that high that fast, I spent close to a hundred hours and was only around level 70. But even at that level Jin and Takaya were still both pushovers (in fact speaking of pushovers, I beat Chidori before she even summoned out her persona once, I don't even know what it looks like :P ). And I get the whole "letting the game sit in limbo" thing, I didn't want it to end either.

Dude what, 56 hours. I spent almost 80 hours just to finish the game.

I had P3 FES took me 89 hours to finish the main game, around 30-40 hours to beat The Answer.
 
Much lower level too, didn't do a whole lot of grinding so every fight was never a push over. 
 
Overall, I think P3 is a better game storywise. While P4 shows improvements in the mechanics, but falls a bit short on the story.
 
 That might also be true because both main deceiving villain types were so similar I saw the P4 one coming easily.
 
Though this is just a personal thing, I like the shot to the face better than crumpling a card. And armbands over glasses.

Wow, I wonder if they changed the way XP is dolled out between P3 and P3 FES because I too put many more hours into the game to hit a similar level.  Even taking out all the dilly-dallying time spent trying to get the right mix of skills for newly fused persona, that would still be considered a speed run in my book.   Mind you, I haven't found anything written to back this up although there do seem to be some more things to do in FES even before "the Answer" that were not in P3.  Either way, congratulations on completing the game.
 
I finished both P3 FES and P4 this year and prefer P3's story, characters and overall tone.  Not to say, I have any dislike for P4.  In fact, my initial problems with the game mechanics were admittedly unfounded and I actually prefer all of the changes that were made game-play wise in P4.  But, I had more fun and enjoyed the world of P3 more.  I look forward to seeing what P3Portable will look and play like whenever it gets an English localization, and what P5 will be like as well.  
 
Ha-ha, maybe I took so long with the game because, I too didn't want it to end.  I wanted to stay and further develop relationships with all the SEES team as well as the students of Gekkoukan High.  And then when it did end, I was really sad and wistful.  I didn't feel that way at the end of P4.  I left that game content.  Both are good feeling, but P3 left me with more to think about, both within the context of the game and about the experience.  Only really good games evoke a special feeling inside you long after they are over.  P3 FES does that for me.

I took 120 hours with my first playthrough, but I'm sure that's because I loved to run around and obsessively talk to every npc character almost every single day. It was kind of interesting; a lot of them would develop their own mini-stories which unfolded over the course of the game.

>Messiah
>Useless
 
WHAT

Dude you blitz that game. It took me about 76 hours first play through and I only get my character to level... I want to say 75? I am not sure I cannot remember. I used the exact same party as you and my favorite character though much of the game was Surt but I also likted the Thor/Take-Makewhatever combo for that Thunder call manouvere. I also played the vanilla version of the game as it is the only one available to get locally. It was hard enough finding a copy of P3 and 4 as it was. So I don't know how FES continues on from where the main game left off.