Gotta like Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4's random encounters- you see the Shadows in the dungeon, so you can avoid them if you want to (your friends are spread out behind you, so fights only start when you touch the Shadow). The trick is, Souji (or whatever you named yourself) can hit the Shadows with his katana to get the first round in combat (if they touch Souji, the Shadows get the first strike instead.)
Combat itself is pretty standard RPG fare- use magic and attacks to kill the Shadows, but with two catches: If you (or a Shadow!) exploit an elemental weakness, you get an additional combat turn.
The other, and slightly more aggravating catch, is that if Souji dies, game's over, even if one of his friends has Recarm ready for casting or a Revive Magatama handy. There is a plot reason for this that I shall not spoil. (SMT is popular for this- Nocturne, Persona 3, and SMT Strange Journey also end if your character gets killed off, though Nocturne and Strange Journey's revival items/magic explicitly say they don't work on humans.)
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