Persona (ペルソナ)

Persona starts from a Jungian idea: everyone wears a social mask, and the character summons theirs to fight. The series found its definitive shape with the third instalment in 2006, by layering two games — a dungeon crawler at night, a high-school life simulation by day, where you choose who to spend the afternoon with.

That structure does everything: time is a resource, social bonds make the character stronger in combat, and the Japanese school calendar becomes a game mechanic. Persona 5, released in 2016, sold over ten million copies and exported an aesthetic — red, black, cut-out typography — borrowed everywhere since.