Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

Persona 4 is arguably Giant Bomb's most beloved game, and deservedly so. It is a superb JRPG that is a welcome reprieve from the hours of dungeon trawling, loot farming, item-ferrying one would normally associate with the genre. It is accessible, compelling, and rewards players who see it through to its "true" ending with 70 or so hours of amazing gameplay. The storyline's many twists and turns will leave you constantly nonplussed as you try to get to the heart of the game's mystery.
 

The game starts innocently enough: Souji Seta moves to Inaba (a sleepy town out in the boonies) as his parents have moved abroad for the year. You are then taken in by Dojima (your uncle), and Nanako, his latchkey daughter. The plot then takes a dark turn as the town becomes the stage for a string of murders by a serial killer with a strange modus operandi (hanging his victims by their feet from high places). Seta then discovers that he is able to enter televisions (which he later discovers is where the murders are actually conducted) and gain access to a strange world populated by demons (Shadows). 
 
Upon bringing his skeptical friends into the TV world, he realises that he is somehow able to summon an avatar (Persona) of the Japanese god Izanagi. This then kickstarts your journey to help your friends realise their own Personas, rescue the victims, and discover the true identity of the killer. All this happens while juggling the minutiae of Seta's life as a teenager (a nice breather from medieval settings): managing burgeoning friendships, bonding with his foster family, studying, working night shifts, and other extra-curricular activities. 
 

The game's core RPG mechanics are solid, and very accessible. One can engage in turn-based combat through engaging any of the amorphous mobs skulking around the corridors of the game's themed labyrinthine dungeons. For the most part, players have to discover, and then exploit the elemental weaknesses of their foes. Attacking a mob with a spell it is weak to will floor it, granting the player another turn. Successfully flooring all the mobs in a combat instance will grant your party the ability to pile-on them and initiate a very Adam West Batman-type combat sequence (complete with "BIF! POW! SOCK! BAM!") that eliminates most foes. 
 
Another major departure from most JRPGs is how combat is done by using a person's Persona for the most part. Anyone who has played Pokemon with an open mind will surely understand that weird, yet satisfying feeling of collecting Personae. As you progress, you'll be able to fuse Personae together to create more powerful ones. However, despite its interesting take on turn-based combat, Persona 4's gameplay doesn't stray far from the tried and tested JRPG school of buffing and debuffing, observing enemy patterns, and counter-strategizing. As such, veterans of other games in the genre such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest will have no problems getting into Persona 4.
 

Another major aspect of the game is the socializing, or Social-Linking. Seta has to build up five different attributes (Dilligence, Knowledge, Courage, Expression, and Understanding) that have a very real impact on how you interact with Inaba's denizens. Whether you ace those midterms and finals, explain the concept of death to your adopted little sister gracefully, date that too-cool-for-school chick in high school or land that somewhat-lucrative job as a hospital janitor pivots heavily on whether you develop these characteristics through dialogue choices, self-improvement books, and the like. As it is your goal to develop the many relationships in the game for you benefit (each character is linked to a type of Persona that increases in power as you advance in the Social Link levels), you'll find yourself spending as much time just wandering around and talking to people.

This sort of "social grinding" would be boring, if not for how artfully Atlus handles its dialogue. The characters you meet are engaging and interesting people, and you'll feel a personal investment as you support them in their times of need: coming to terms with their sexuality, grieving for their departed relatives, coping with the backlash that comes after retiring from the Japanese teen idol industry, trying to connect with their stepchildren, etc. The S-Link set-pieces do an especially good job of making you see your party members as real friends, and I found myself really feeling for these characters very early on in the game, especially Nanako (who's a real sweetheart of a kid sister), and Kanji. The dialogue is nicely complimented by voice acting that musters up the right amount of gravitas without being melodramatic, and light-heartedness without sounding corny. All these factors combine very well to give you a great sense of closure and satisfaction upon finishing the game.
 

Atlus overcomes the limitations of the aged platform by employing great art direction and a distinct visual style that is quite refreshing. The simple dungeon layouts are window-dressed with nice themes that correspond to the inner thoughts of the people you are trying to save. Enemy and Persona designs are audacious and memorable (you can't quite forget commanding a team of Hindu deities to down a squad of demonic Hulk Hogans).  
 
Persona 4 is scored extremely well, and the charming Engrish-laced songs will be stuck in your head for more than a few days on end. The track list is quite limited, and the fact that I still enjoy listening to the BGMs is testament to how great the music is. If you haven't guessed already, my personal favourite is Your Affection.
 
The game isn't without its faults, though. The camera controls when dungeon crawling are far from perfect (which Vinny will attest to readily), and more than a few of the enemy character models are reused. Even so, the charm oozing from the rest of the game makes it very easy to look past these shortcomings.

I'm stumped here trying to think of a nice, tidy way to sum up how amazing Persona 4 is (well, beyond employing the so-true but overused "better than the sum of its parts" epithet). Let's just say that the possibility of a sequel to a modest game that had a mere 17 month development cycle (rather than the Metal Gear Solids and Final Fantasies), helped me elect to buy a PS3.