Found this in a discount bin, and am I ever glad I picked it up.

It's part of the Megami Tensei 'verse, with which I'm not as familiar as perhaps I should be.

And man, oh man. Never mind the subject matter: this would be worth a pick-up for sheer style alone. Even the MENUS are overloaded with panache, and the acid jazz musical score is a feast for the ears.

I'm told by people who know more about this than I do, that the real-world locations that they modeled are so accurate, that the locals don't even need the in-game map.

And oh my gosh, the story. Without spoiling too much, the game opens in medias res, with a heist in progress at a casino. The ringleader is captured, and prosecutor Sae Niijima comes in to interrogate him. The next several chapters are played out as a series of flashbacks, starting with the hero's arrival in Tokyo.

I'm going to have to be a little coy about the paranormal aspects of the game, because discovering those is a major part of the experience. What I will say is, the developers didn't just "do their homework"--they did something more like a graduate-level thesis. This makes "The Lost Child" look like, pardon the expression, child's play.

That said, this game takes a while to finish, and it definitely isn't for the squeamish. Some of the transformation scenes when new Personas are revealed, are graphic, nearly to a fault. And at some point, some of the subjects the story tackles, are going to make you squirm.

There are a lot of light moments, to be sure: one of the main characters is a talking cat that's so impossibly cute, it's almost too kawaii for its own good. And some of the clips in the movies that the game ever so gently parodies, are downright hilarious.

Definitely one to check out, if, like me, you've somehow missed it. The supernatural aspects of the game are more involved than I've let on here, because I'm trying to avoid spoilers. But if you have an interest in video games where the real world and the spirit realm collide, definitely give this a look.