All this E3 commotion got me distracted but:
Persona 2 Innocent Sin:
Wow, just wow. From start to finish I don't think I've ever experienced a Persona game with a plot as batshit insane as Innocent Sin's. From start to finish I was hooked on this one, it not only had one of the best stories of any Persona title I've played but one of the best most diverse cast of characters. I'm absolutely in love with this new cast of characters. A lot of them have similar traits to characters we see in later Persona titles- but these characters feel far more realized and interesting. Eikichi is a lot like Kanji, or if you want to go back, Reiji from Persona 1, he's the hot-headed, narcissistic dude, but you can't help but love him despite his insecurities. I also absolutely love Maya, her optimistic attitude she uses to cover her shady past make her such a viable leader to the team next to Tatsuya.
Persona 2 has quite possibly one of the most interesting premises of the other Persona titles I've played. Rumors start becoming reality which puts Sumaru City at risk, alongside the Joker phenomenon. An urban legend in which if you phone the joker, your wishes will be granted. This all culminates into an adventure with the group fighting off these reality altering rumors, all while revealing past events and a "sin" the group committed that ultimately lead to the current events that unfold and learning the identity of the Joker. Because of the rumors coming to life, the plot gets totally unpredictable at every turn. This all culminates into the prophecized return of an ancient alien civilization that dwells in a UFO beneath the city, which will be used to grant the wish of any holder, which leads into the resurrection of the Fuhrer (Adolf Hitler, yes, really) himself. Eventually, you have two factions fighting for control of Xibalba (the UFO), which ultimately leads to the extinction of the world itself. Yes, Persona 2's ending, is not a happy one, but it's a damn powerful one. The game's antagonists end up fulfilling this prophecy and ultimately bring an end to the earth itself. The group resets the events of the current world- giving rise to an alternate timeline, which follows up on the sequel, Eternal Punishment. Persona 2, even being a fairly shorter RPG, had one of the most powerful cliffhangers ever. I feel like a big message/moral in this game was dreams, and what means we use to achieve them, how they build our character, along with family, for reasons I won't go deep into.
Gameplay has a lot of familiar elements from Persona 1. But one change I've noticed is that they've gotten rid of the sort of weirdly attached tactical RPG-vibe that felt out of place in Persona 1, where you had to position your character in certain areas, in favor of a more traditional turn-based battle system. Battles definitely feel a lot slower, even with the auto-battle function, yet they still feel a lot more interesting than Persona 1, likely due to the enhanced presentation. Demon negotiation is back in full swing, and it's made even more fleshed out here. You still have to make demons eager, but you can also make them happy to have them form a pact with you which shares a bunch of benefits.
Unfortunately, I do have one big negative point I want to speak about for P2's gameplay, and that's the means of obtaining new Persona's. Every Persona and SMT title I've played up to date has fusing, an addictive mechanic where you fuse two or more demons, or cards to get a new Persona. Demon summoning has been made overly complicated in this title. When negotiating with demons, they do not join you, or give you their "spell cards," simply put, there is no fusing in this game at all. Instead, you summon Personas by collecting tarot cards as a form of currency, which you get through negotiating. When you negotiate with particular demons you get some tarot cards from their respective arcana, to summon demons in that arcana. This not only made summoning needlessly complicated, it made demon negotiation an absolute mess and repetitive. If you make demons happy during a negotiation and form a pact with them, you can earn some "free" tarot cards, which allows you to use for any arcana Persona, but this still doesn't help much.
I absolutely love the dungeons this time around, easily some of my favorite in the series. They ditched the old school, traditional dungeon crawling, first-person perspective dungeons in favor of an overhead, third-person view. Not a single dungeon in the game felt like it dragged on for too long, they were all the perfect length, and I hope the sequel, Eternal Punishment, continues this trend.
Music can be dark at times, not nearly to the length of Persona 1 for PS1 though. It does have some upbeat tunes, and you're able to switch between the PS1 soundtrack (a feature which the PSP remake of Persona 1 didn't allow.) Even with this though, the PSP remake didn't heavily alter or change the soundtrack like Persona 1's PSP remake did, the songs instead are just all remixed.
I think P2 is where the series became noticeably more stylized. I understand that Persona 3 changed the series so drastically as a means of seperating itself from the mainline Shin Megami Tensei series, but I think Persona 2 did this just fine. The pacing, even without all the social links, and life simulator elements, felt perfect.
It's very funny how Persona 2 is the black sheep of the series, a lot of people say people shy away from it due to archaic/dated elements, but not once did I ever feel like the game was dated. If anything, Persona 3 feels way more dated than 2: AI party members you can't control, the inability to switch between multiple Persona's, etc. If anything Persona 2 has been by far, the easiest Persona title I've ever played, bosses are incredibly forgiving and never did I feel like the game cheaped me out.
Overall I'd highly recommend Persona 2: Innocent Sin to fans of the series. Unfortunately, Innocent Sin is only half of Persona 2, the series is a duology, and I'm looking forward to starting Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.
