Despite my best efforts, I couldn't generate an interest in getting through Metroid Prime 3 for the time-being, so I just moved on to Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3: FES.

Persona 3 is a JRPG in which you control a male high school student who has just moved into a new dorm and school.  The twist is that by night you fight monsters that turn people mindless using summoned "Personas" by shooting yourself in the head.  I don't understand, either.

Anyway, the game has two sides - the social side where you improve your interpersonal attributes and build up relationships.  You have three attributes: Academics, Charm and Courage.  It's like a flash RPG where you do activities through the day.  Building social links improves the effectiveness of your Personas.  This kind of thing draws me in despite being relatively shallow.

The second side is everything regarding combat.  You can buy new weapons and armour, get new Personas by battling, Fuse personas to create new ones, all in an effort to progress through this one building in which you're trying to make it to the top.  This building is sectioned into Blocks, further into parts segmented by bosses, then further into individual floors.  Right before each boss segment there are checkpoints that allow you to return to the entrance and from the entrance to that point.

Battles are turned-based allow you to use Personas as the usual special/magic attacks that use an MP meter, or you can use a weapon.  Naturally there are strengths and weaknesses in elements.  The one thing that stands out as unique is the knock-down system where if you get a critical hit or hit a weakness, the enemy (or you if you're hit) are knocked down (lose a turn basically) and get to attack again.  If all the enemies are knocked down, you can do an "all-out-attack" where you attack all the enemies.

You also don't control all the characters, only your own and given vague commands to the others,  but usually it's best to let them decide for themselves.  There's also no way of avoiding stupid moves such as if you know an enemy is invulnerable to fire, you can't specifically tell your team not to do attack with fire (though they'll stop for that battle after the first one fails)

The game so far is essentially a dungeon crawler with simplistic social aspects.  My experience is very much in vein with Suikoden V and Radiata Stories in that I am very much enjoying the game for what it is and it's exactly what I feel like playing, but as a game it's not diversified enough.  What you can actually do seems limited and the dungeon sections really simplistic.

Hopefully things pick up a bit.