This one will stick with me for a long time, maybe forever.

It might be because of the strange overlap between the protagonist’s life and my own, where I spent most of 2009 as a third-year high schooler with strikingly similar hair, working in a local cafe and trying to figure out how to connect with others. It might be because — at least at the time — I was deep in the throes of depression without the vocabulary to properly describe how desperately apathetic I was about everything. People saw me as charming and intelligent and mysterious, and I saw myself as a blurry non-entity. I simply was, although I did not want to be. Looking at Makoto was like looking into a mirror. Uncomfortable until affirming.

Above all, Persona 3 is about time. How long will you dig your heels in before considering forgiveness? How long does it take to open up to someone new? How long do you even have left? The answers are never clear, nor should they be. Our relationship with the time we spend alive is, at its core, marked by the assumption that there is more ahead of us — for better or for worse. We can delay or we can strive, both in service of “then” instead of “now.”

But Persona 3 revels in “now.” Every day of the calendar is another opportunity to push outside the boundaries of who Makoto believes himself to be. Work at the cafe every day, and the added pocket change is just a backdrop to the human element. After weeks and months of toiling away, dealing with customers somewhere on the spectrum from hostile to jovial, you’re slightly more charming than you were before. These experiences, mundane or not, add up. A change in our being and a change in our outlook takes tremendous effort, and — of course — time and repetition. What came before builds us into who we are, and what comes next will build us even higher upwards upon that foundation.

Makoto is not alone, the dormitory building he finds himself in is inhabited by a group of students all struggling with their own internal crises. Healing takes help as much as it takes time. Over the course of the school year, these tenuous acquaintances blossom into a magnificent fellowship — the bonds between them feel lifelong, unbreakable. The more Makoto begins to find his own reason to push forward, the more he finds the power within himself to come to the aid of others around town. An elderly couple who lost their son, a disgraced monk who ran away from his family, and a woman who retreats into the virtual world of an MMO to escape her sadness are all looking for those same two things: More time, and a little bit of help to find it.

It’s through these relationships that Persona 3 finds harmony between its exploration of theme and gameplay. As the aptly named “Apathy Syndrome” takes root amongst the population, the collection of misfits within Iwatodai Dormitory need to strike a balance between saving the world at large and saving their own personal worlds. Nights spent climbing the seemingly infinite tower of Tartarus are occasional otherworldly skirmishes sandwiched between exams and days spent playing games at the arcade. The human experience is all-encompassing, and sometimes everything feels like navigating a tower of nightmares.

But the funny thing is, just as time heals, time also paves the way towards making the tower of nightmares more manageable. Tartarus starts as a metaphoric and literal burden, but ironically grows into a place of comfort. Before long you’ll bump up against the limitations of how high the tower will let you climb and you may — curiously — find yourself disappointed there are no more floors left to ascend for the night. You’ll just have to wait until the next full moon.

And the cycle repeats. Spend time with others, push yourself to be better, handle the hard stuff as best you can, keep moving forward. It all works in such perfect unison that I find myself days after the finale missing the world of Persona 3 deeply. But as much as I miss it, I’ve found myself carrying it with me all the same.

Because I could keep going on about its narrative and how fluid its battle system feels, and I could sit here and tell you exactly what Persona 3 is trying to say about our lives, but it’s the hours I spent living Makoto’s that continues to resonate.

You need to live it to feel it.

You need to put in the time.