I agree with Spemanig, I love Persona (well, I've beaten 3, 4 and 5, don't know about the first two) games because it blends both an RPG game but with heavy elements of a dating sim game. I'd go as far as say that they're both equally important. It's encouraged to improve your stats, and your stats affect directly in basically... everything. Your relationships matters a lot, so you have to improve your bonds with the people in the world. And it's a huge part of the game, so even if people... couldn't decide to go into these aspects of the game, in my opinion, they're losing what makes Persona a different game. SMT are pretty different in that sense.
EDIT: Well, actually, I'd say it's a "social" sim, that term seems more fitting and probably defines the game better. I think that some people might be afraid of calling Persona games a 50/50 RPG/social sim because it's not... popular. But it is, like it or not.
