So I was thinking, I have a bunch of games for the Playstation Portable and I really felt like I should review one of them tonight. Pondering over I remembered that Persona 5 was just announced, therefore I have decided, in honor of this occasion for Shin Megami Tensei Persona, a remake of the original persona game, to be my first ever review for the PSP. So, read on if you want to hear my thoughts about this game!
Yes, as you can expect from viewing any of the other half dozen main Persona games, you take on the role of a deathly silent protagonist who is leader of a group of students (Despite his silence) who wield special demon summons called Persona’s. This time around however, the game takes you back to its roots when the first Personas were discovered, and in all honesty had much more of a greater effect on the wider community than the PS2 adaptations. This is also unlike prior games on the PS2 where it does not focus on forming social links with classmates, has optional character recruitment, multiple Persona use for every character, and most interestingly, actually seeing the person who sings The Poem For Everyone’s Soul, okay so maybe not very interesting but something interesting I just spotted whilst typing this.
Here is a summary of the game taken from the official website.
The rumour around St. Hermelin High is that by playing the “Persona” game, you can get a glimpse of your future self. When the protagonist and his friends try it out on a lark, nothing seems to happen. But then the protagonist and his friends all share a common dream after blacking out, in which they meet a mysterious man calling himself “Philemon“. Who and what could he be?
This summary ends here, however I shall add just a few lines to the summary.
After these events, your teacher advises you to go to the hospital to visit one of your classmates. Whilst you are there, she ends up really sick and has to be taken to the ICU. As the supportive friends you are, you wait outside the ICU waiting for the news. During this, an earthquare strikes and you find that the door to the ICU has been bricked over and demons now run rampant. As you are being attacked, suddenly Persona’s appear to protect you… and so begins your journey to eliminate the threat and save your friend who has disappeared.
I suppose you could consider this storyline similar to the main Shin Megami Tensei series which have demons already running rampant and yourself having to get rid of them, unlike the newer Persona’s which treats the enemies as less demons and more monsters getting in your way. Overall, it is not the storyline which I am used to, but it was enjoyable overall. Storyline did move at a much slower pace than other games and it did involve several detours which I would have liked taken out, such as the fact that I had to go running around a town to rescue people at random places to have them ask me if I can let them in my party. Especially considering that you only have five party member spots without them allowing you to switch people in and out. There are overall four people forced into your party with another four to potentially join you. Of course, the game doesn’t actually tell you this UNTIL you accidentally recruit a party member in which all other people will automatically shun you like they don’t care anymore. Then there is one of the party members which just seems to disappear entirely after getting her at the start… pity, she seemed pretty helpful towards the main storyline. The storyline is constant through, so you progress without any time to rest or take a few days to talk to others, it is a no fuss storyline that despite not being as great as the social link system, is still pretty good and portrays the storyline well.
The graphics used within the game look like they came off an old gameboy colour cartridge, since they definitely look like something that came out a decade ago. Of course, this game did come out over a decade ago and taking into consideration the limitations of the system in relation to storage size and the old version of the game itself, it isnt that bad. Honestly, the one problem I do have is identifying the sprites apart, since a few look so familiar to each other. Despite that, anyone who has played the original Persona: Revolutions before, you will be happy to know that the western localisation of character designs is finally gone, so you can enjoy all the character designs without the modifications to make it more acceptable to American standards. Character facesets are pretty well designed considering they were taken straight from the original release. No blurring and despite the fact that there are very little variation made depending on emotions, I found it acceptable. Just the fact that the characters smile when they could be killed is just a bit weird to me….
The music used in this game was much better than I expected. I was expecting something that was a direct rip from the original PS1 title, however after realizing that it was Shoji Meguro both composing and directing the game, I was plesantly surprised that we would be having the P3/4 style of music within the game. The opening theme was really enjoyable (See the youtube video above) and kept that Persona feel to it, even if it is the darkest of the four animated openings they have offered so far. My favourite track in the game is definately the battle theme “A Lone Prayer” which I would consider a half-way between Reach out to the Truth (P4) and Mass Destruction (P3) and actually sounds as good, if not better than the two of them. Voice acting is only present in the cinematic cutscenes which all sound pretty good and as with every other game, the characters will scream either Persona! or their skill name. As an added bonus, even some of the enemies will scream out their skills. I am satisfied with the music/sounds overall.
Battles are played out on a two sided board with your side on the left and the enemies on the right side. The same sprite sets seem to have been used in the battle mode as the out-of- battle mode, however with different animations of course. There are a variety of choices to choose, and my number one tip is to try and avoid the AUTO tool, since whilst you can end up having a quick way of battling, there are times when all your characters can be set to guard whilst they are being pummelled by simple demons you could have defeated. With that, there are a large variety of elements ranging from the normal fire, ice etc to more odder ones such as gravity, force and nuclear. What each of their reasons for being in the game I don’t know, but it also means that characters can quite possibly have 3-4 weaknesses which their enemies can exploit.
The big feature is the CONTACT command, which plays out like in other Shin Megami games such as IMAGINE where you can use social skills in order to have the demon do things such as:
- Give you their Persona Card, which allows you to fuse several together so you can form a Persona.
- Give you some uncommon items.
- Have them leave the battle
- Have them attack your enemies or
- Annoy them so that they are more violent and hostile towards you.
It is a fun system, however the downturn is you get no EXP from using it, so it is not good for people who just need the extra levels. On the word of Persona Cards, the Velvet room this time takes the place of a shop, and Igor can fuse two or more of the cards you collect to fuse a much more epic persona, since individual cards are useless. Each persona has a card affinity (Fool, Magician etc) and each playable character has a certain affinity to types as well, so if a character has a bad affinity towards Judgement, then they cannot use Judgement persona. Both characters and Persona have different EXP requirements and each character gains different amounts of EXP depending on how effective they were in battle, which makes sure that players balance all characters effectively. As well, I do like how they actually show you the EXP requirements in detail, so it saves you having to go through all the menus when you have the one nifty page.
The one flaw I would like to mention is the navigation of the world. First of all, unless you know that you have to press a certain button, you could go aimlessly walking around town wondering where the heck the hospital is (Top-Right of town). An even bigger complaint is the actual building navigation. Navigation within buildings and dungeons are similar to the navigation system of Etrian Odyssey, where you wander around corridors in first person. Now, one time I was asked to go to the library. There is no map of the school given so I was forced to wander aimlessly around, with the only assistance of locating it were #-$ Class Room signs and the occasional room name in Japanese. Would have been nice for some form of translation so you wouldnt spend precious time locating a room that is at the other side of the building from where you are searching. What I did find funny is that every building has giant save trees within them. it just made no sense walking through a harmless door to find a giant save tree or a fairy heal spring behind it.
They did kindly add a bonus feature into the game which I believe was omitted from the PS1 English Release of this called the Snow Witch Chapter. By following a certain procedure near the start of the game, you can go on an alternate storyline where you have to rescue a teacher who has been frozen and being forced as a sacrifice by the ice witch. This does add to replayability since this is much harder than the original storyline and has time/save/etc restrictions put on each individual tower, which makes it more fun. As well as the sheer fact that the whole town magically gets reduced to one floor of the school building where only a few smart people seem to find a problem with a casino being added to the school building.
Would I suggest this game to others? The problem with this is that Persona 3 Portable has been released on the PSP in Japan and will be out in english in a few months. That game itself is far superior to this game in my opinion, however that being said, this game is a classic, it should be contrasted to other games in the series and that if you were to get it, despite its flaws, you will most probably get dozens of hours of enjoyment out of it. So yes, I think it is a noteworthy purchase. For my fellow Aussies, this is not out on the market at the moment and with no official release date. So, you may have to import it or wait patiently for it.
Score
Storyline: 7
Characters: 6.5
Graphics: 5.5
Music: 9
Gameplay: 8.5
Replayability: 8
Personal Opinion: 9
Overall Score: 8
