ive played the first persona, it was fantastic... apart from the translation, which was godawful. i prefer persona 2 eternal punishment to the first one though...
im making decent progress in digital devil saga 1 right now. i find the skill aquisition system quite compelling, even if it is similar to ffx's grid system. overall i think DDS1 has a better skill learning system then nocturne, since you never lose any skill, ever. that was one thing that pissed me off about nocturne. though the monster fusion system made it like a demonic pokemon of sorts, it worked quite well. if you knew what you were doing, you could make some god powerful monsters for your team.