Persona 3 is an odd game. Every male character is blatantly metrosexual. These boys are slim, wear elaborate clothes, and have feminine facial structures.

Look at this guy

His shoes are fabulous

As is his gun

Here's the main character's Best Friend.

Aww yea, rocking the big belt buckle and the jacket with the fur lined hood

Check out what the game's Art Director Shigenori Soejima has to say about the upperclassman Akihiko Sanada pictured below

That's right, Akihiko is the least fashionable guy in Persona 3.

And yet, in the year 2006, Persona 3 was the second best PS2 title according to metacritic.com, beaten only by God of War 2. A game with a rough sex mini game.

So why is Persona 3 so critically acclaimed? Maybe the game play. Let's examine this possibility.

Half the game is "life as a Japanese school boy", the other half is a turn based version of Diablo.

In the former, you get to do such things as: study, listen to lectures and experience story sequences about your classmates. In doing so, you up your "intelligence" and "courage" stats, and learn what's really going on with the confident guy in the track suit, or the nerdy looking girl from student council (hint, she's nerdy). The best part is that you get to plan the week ahead. Will you go to track practice after school Wednesday? Will you play MMO's all day Sunday?

In the latter, you manage your MP and your elemental weaknesses while playing out turn based J-RPG battles.

...

P3 has a fruity Japanese aesthetic, and the gameplay is boring dungeon hack + a dating sim. Nope, gameplay isn't what made P3 such a critical darling.

So, with that lengthy introduction out of the way, I can get to my main thesis.

Persona 3 is fun, because the main character perfectly embodies the ideals of Confucius, the influential Chinese philosopher.

Confucius called for ethical and moral perfection, but with a focus on the existing social context. The path to perfection has three parts: study, manners and empathy. In each of these pursuits, the adherent seeks a kind of purity and perfection.

1. Study.
In Persona 3, you end just about every day by studying.

It's repetitive, but immensely satisfying to be a character, sitting at a desk and studying. Let's examine the desk.

It doesn't have a computer on it. It's very neat and tidy. There is a lamp, an open textbook and an open notebook. Your character isn't listening to music. He isn't taking breaks. He just sits and studies for about an hour. Just about every time he studies, he makes good progress.

The desk is perfect. His discipline is perfect.

2. Manners
Have you ever canceled a date in Persona 3? Doing so even once puts that relationship into a kind of purgatory. Even if it's really reasonable, like one friend is on the brink of an emotional collapse, and the other wants to go to the new noodleshop. Cancel on that noodle guy and he'll get pissed.

Then there is the character's metrosexuality. In Japanese culture, personal appearance is very important. Good grooming is a signal: it means that you care what other people think. It means that you are a normal, sociable person.

Bad grooming is at best a sign of antisocial tendencies, and at worst a signal of other-worldly evil. The best example is the long-haired child monster from Ringu, Sadako.

Look at that long nasty hair.... Holy sh*t she's trying to eat my soul!

3. Empathy
Relationships are really the only way to level up in Persona 3. Fighting monsters very quickly leads to harsh diminishing returns (%1 of the xp needed for the next level per battle). Relationships on the other hand, give a fixed number of LEVELs of experience that scales as the game goes on. A good relationship could give your character abilities 10 levels above his current max level.

To build a relationship, you pretty much just have to be there for people. Listen to their problems, help them out, buy them a burger when they're feeling down. It's not about being really witty, exciting or funny. It's just about emotionally connecting with them.

Conclusion
The idea that you should pursue perfection in each facet of your life. The idea that morally correct friendship is the most important thing in life. The idea that you can improve over time with satisfying hard work. Persona 3 embodies the Confucian ideal. In a way, it's representative of all "Eastern" philosophy. It is in direct opposition to Western consumer capitalism, and Western Christian ideals.

In consumer capitalism, the goal is pleasure and material advantage.
In Christianity, the goal is to be one with God's will, and the broader social context is almost always in opposition to that will.
In Confucianism, and in P3, the goal is social harmony.

In an age when many of us are atheists and agnostics, these Confucian ideas have great appeal, and therefore Persona 3 does too.