Shin Megami Tenshi: Persona 4

Story:
Prior to the start of the school year, the Protagonist moves to the rural town of Inaba, moving in with Dojima and Nanako, and quickly gaining friends at the high school. Over the course of foggy nights, two murders are reported, apparently tied in with the infidelity of a local celebrity. The Protagonist learns of the Midnight Channel and discovers that it reveals the identity of those who are about to be murdered. He reveals to his friends he has the ability to enter the Midnight Channel. There they meet Teddie, who explains that the victims had been pushed into the Midnight Channel, and that when the fog in the television world dissipates, they are met by shadows of themselves and killed. The Protagonist and his friends realize that the murderer is using this to his advantage, and are forced to save a classmate before a foggy day when she falls into the same predicament. After helping his friends face their own shadows and gain the ability to summon a Persona and to enter the Midnight Channel themselves, they form an investigation squad to learn the identity of the murderer.

The group is able to rescue several others that are forced into the Midnight Channel through their investigations, with some of the characters returning the favor by helping with the squad's investigation. It is eventually revealed that Dojima's partner in the force, Tōru Adachi, is the one responsible for the abductions, but himself doing it for the goddess Izanami. Izanami wishes to show humans their true desires, bringing them all into the Midnight Channel as Shadows, and covering the rest of the real world in fog. The Protagonist, with the combined help of the investigation squad and the Social Links that he has built up, is able to defeat Izanami after transforming Izanagi into Izanagi-no-okami and defeating the goddess with a single blow.

Gameplay & System:
It is there, inside the Midnight Channel, that you discover your second power, the ability to summon forth personae--reflections of your true self aligned with one of the major arcana of the tarot deck. With this innate talent, you can defeat the monstrous shadows that roam the TV world and help your friends to confront their own inner shadows, allowing them to unleash their own personae. Together, you investigate a series of dungeons crafted around the victims' insecurities or darkest fears, which range from the mundane (a castle for a princess waiting for a prince to take her away) to the retro (an 8-bit game complete with pixelated fire) to the twisted (a men's bathhouse for a young teenage punk unsure of his sexuality). Each dungeon is randomly generated, but unlike the 200+ floor Tartarus from Persona 3, they tend to be only about a dozen floors deep, keeping them fresher and more interesting. You no longer have to worry about your party becoming fatigued, and you can explore to your heart's content, though you will often find that the rarity of spirit (magic) point restoring items will limit the amount of progress you can make in a single trip.

Fans of Persona 3's battle system will be pleased to know that it is almost entirely intact with several tweaks and improvements. Shadows still appear as amorphous blobs when you're running around a dungeon, and combat is initiated by either making physical contact or attacking them with your weapon. Attacks are divided into seven types, which both you and your enemies are weak against to some degree, and striking a shadow's weak spot will knock it down and award you with another turn. Downed enemies can be struck again to beat them dizzy and cost them a turn, and if they're all knocked down, your party can bum-rush them in an all-out attack for massive damage. Enemy weaknesses can be discovered only by trial and error, and though you've always got an ally on support to keep track of the ones you've already found for later reference, you still have to deal with their annoyingly obvious narration of your fights. Two other notable changes are the absence of the controversial pistol-like evokers used to summon personae via mock suicide (your inner self is evoked by shattering a tarot card this time) and your ability to directly control party member actions rather than being forced to rely on their AI behaviors. While the former is purely aesthetic, the latter is perhaps the best change to occur in the game because your teammates will sometimes perform inexplicable (and inappropriate) deeds in the middle of a heated fight if left to their own devices.

Spoiler: