Just got it! I went out to run errands (and waste time), found out after checking online that it came in a minute or two after I left. Real mad that they left it ON MY FUCKING DOORMAT. Really easily stolen in a spot like that. It was there for half an hour, poor baby ;__; But no matter! Time to play!

My luck has changed!

Only two hours after I last checked whether or not the game was in at my Gamestop, they finally opened the damn box and had it in.

I got my copy now, but I probably won't play it until tonight or something. I can't wait though...

Out of randomness, what's everyone naming their main character?

Emo McHeroson.

I'll go with Minato Arisato, since that's apparently his name in the manga.

I will name him Sora because he represents courage and strength and the lion's spirit that is sleeping in my heart, waiting for me to finally stand up for myself :)

I'll either go with what Jazz said for officalness. Or my own character name, Vincent Kiba.

Well, this is from wikipedia:

He is known in Japanese fandom as Shūjinkō (主人公, Shuujinkou, literally "main character"?). In the Manga version, authored by Sōkabe Shūji , he is named Minato Arisato (有里 湊, Arisato Minato?)

To keep with the theme and flow of the game, I'm going to name him the former, but just "Shuu".

Man, UPS sucks. I showed up at my Gamestop around 1pm hoping to catch the truck right after it arrived. However, they decided to take their time today and not show up with the shipment until 4pm. Glad I had a lot of other errands to run around the mall today.

Alright, I'm now 3 hours into this game.
First impressions are great, the art style and music really fits and are to my liking. The menus are great, controls feel good and battle is fun.

My only worry at the moment is ...

A big thank you for using spoilers so early.

I've decided I'm not going to chew through bricks to get the game via torrent, but wait for my copy to arrive, and then play it. I'm not in a position to be downloading torrents anyway (I have to pay for my upload speed AND my download speed, and to top it all off, it's also capped after 15 gb/month), although if someone could upload it to my ftp or give me a direct download somehow, I definitely appreciate and probably would go for that option.

I'm about 4 hours in and it's awesome. Boo on party members getting sick and a crazy hooray for awesome time management skills! (Or lack thereof)

I tried running this on the PS2 emulator, and it locks up after showing the ATLUS logo and stuff =( Had my hopes up... Now it looks like I won't be able to play it for four weeks after this Tuesday. Sigh...

Anyhow! Two hours in to it and I'm floored. I love this game. The characters, voice acting, humor, gameplay, music, graphics, combat, it's all fantastic. Top-notch. Period.

Got bored and decided to keep my main character's name Japanese to flow well with others. I screwed up and accidentally accepted, but I believe the name is Harima Asado (First, Last respectively). Meh.

This is the first game to draw me in for a few hours in one sitting. Console games are great, but I have the need to get up, check e-mail, etc. I love multitasking, hence why I do computer gaming so much. Anyhow, I played and kept going until nature called. And I figured that was a good stopping point.

A+. $50 well-spent, I must say. I also love how they kept it very Japanese-feeling. ATLUS localizers must love anime, because the honorifics were left in place =) Big plus, since localizing of some nicknames often doesn't work out well. Still, it feels weird to hear an English voice actor refer to Yukari as Yuka-tan. I keep thinking "Yucatan?"

Haha, same here, gave me a lol.

Generally I always choose Japanese voice and English text in my RPGs, because I can't stand English voice actors trying to pronounce Japanese, but I couldn't choose Jap voice in P3 :(

At least the English dub isn't bad though. <.<

It's not as bad as a lot of anime dubs when it comes to Japanese name pronouncing but it's still rather sad anyway. I guess it would bother people more if they changed their names, though, so you just have to deal with it. And yeah, at least the actual dialogue in the dub isn't bad. I'll definitely be trying to get to this game soon, because I have to be prepared for WA5 in less than two weeks. ;(

Sure, it's not Resident Evil, but still.
A student in a very japanese school coming forth saying "SUP DUDE" feels out of place.

Even though the Japanese version of Persona 3 was filled with famous seiyuus, the English version is still pretty good. Here's what I found out from reading the wiki article:

Main character is the same voice actor as Pixy in Ace Combat, Kyle from Suikoden V, Giacomo from Baten Kaitos Origins, Cornelius from Odin Sphere, Serph from Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2, Steve from Rogue Galaxy, Gig from Soul Cradle, Luke from Tales of the Abyss, Derek from Trauma Center..

Yukari's voice actor also did Etna from Disgaea, Elena from Advent Children, Velvet from Odin Sphere, Alicia from Valkyrie Profile 2..

Junpei's voice actor did Alph from Luminous Arc, Edge from Atelier Iris 3, Radolf from Ar Tonelico..

Oh and Aegis' voice actor did the voice for Gwendolyn in Odin Sphere. So, yeah, I don't mind not having an option for Japanese voices in this game at all.

Oh my fucking god. You get internet ='D

I love how it echoes back to P2 ='D Fucking awesome

I'm playing Persona 3 live right now, if anyone cares to watch.
Update: Going to bed now, turning it off.

wow that,s so neat! if only it was more fluid and had sound :\

I'm still waiting on my local stores to receive their shipments. The place I reserved my copy can't give me a solid release date (they won't even check their computers), and Gamestop apparently is just as clueless.

I suppose it kind of works out considering I have to pay an assload for my glasses repair. If I'm presented with an opportunity to buy Persona 3 before Friday, I might just do it.

How's the gameplay, so far? I haven't heard much about the battle mechanics from the denizens of chat.

Enjoying the game more than R&D1's other shit. The big helper is no random battles. It makes the game way more enjoyable. I'm pretty far right now so I guess that's proof of my addiction.

Same here. Just called it quits for the day and my current play time is 11 hrs, 32 mins. Fucking love it, easily one of my favorite battle systems too.

http://static.pici.se/pictures/iiiPhDlYd.jpg

O rly?!