A remake of Revelations: Persona
Persona is a philosophical game that takes place in a world close to our own. It is a departure from the typical swords and sorcery, and it delivers a tale of dreams, the purpose of life, and who we are as individuals. In Persona you have modern weapons like an Uzi and an AK-47. And instead of always fighting monsters, you are given the opportunity to talk your way through a confrontation. By talking things out, you can earn components of spells the more components you have, the more powerful your spells become.
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Presentation is interesting but the gameplay is atrocious. In desperate need of a remake.
LIVED IN BURIED MEMORY
WITH FEAR-RIDDEN SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS
I'M JUST A LONE PRAYER
WITH FEAR-RIDDEN SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS
I'M JUST A LONE PRAYER
This review contains spoilers
Review for SEBEC Route only, I just restarted to play Snow Queen.
I absolutely loved this game. I got through the main story in about 30 hours, but I chose to spend 20 hours grinding just for fun (which ended up being the deciding factor for me playing Snow Queen). The grinding in this game is almost an idle game to me, only occassionally needing to change things up and after a while I had the enemies well memorised.
I missed the fusion spells Persona 2 has to offer, and I'll admit that the area limitations (in terms of what a character can hit based on where they are) were something that initially scared me when I tried to play this years ago. However, I actually adapted really quickly and only needed to change up my team layout a couple of times. I loved the first person perspective combined with how fast you move - bouncing off the walls brought me such great joy throughout.
The game is super clear in what you need to do and when unless it's something secret/unlockable (such as the Snow Queen Route - which I almost stumbled into doing the first time by pure chance - or having Reiji as a playable character). I was never struggling for where to go and there was only one occassion where I grabbed a guide and it was because I failed to notice a staircase on the map and a minor glitch later showed on the map that I'd already been down it when I hadn't.
I really appreciated the story for how the idea of Personas was handled. The game puts emphasis on the lack of a true self (in contrast to what later installments would insist upon) and confronts the fact that there are many aspects to what makes a person and those change depending on the situation and your existence in other people's eyes. It addressed the conflict of feeling like you're not being true to yourself because of how you act in different situations, the concept of someone being "fake", and recognised that that can be something difficult to navigate. In the end, it did give the simple answer of "it doesn't matter. Stop getting lost in the details. It's all you. You're you and you're real no matter what." and I think that is beautiful. I think it's something that is worth addressing regardless of age because anyone can get caught up in the concept of being "genuine". This game really reminded me why I loved Persona 2 so much and Persona 1 is now my second favourite in the series because of how frank and real it feels.
One thing is I really wasn't sold on Maki having feelings for the protagonist. I appreciate their relationship doesn't seem to come to anything, because it just didn't feel like it really made sense. Honestly, was cheering for Mark and Maki quite a bit - their relationship was pretty cute!
Controls wise, I found the d-pad difficult to work with compared to the joystick. I'd definitely recommend joystick for playability.
Songs are absolute bangers, I never got sick of the battle music and Battle Tesso is iconic. I'm desperate to use that track in any situation.
I wasn't completely enamoured with the 3D in the cutscenes - I'd have preferred 2D for them - but they don't look bad. They're clearly higher quality than the Playstation 2 models Atlus were using at the time.
I absolutely loved this game. I got through the main story in about 30 hours, but I chose to spend 20 hours grinding just for fun (which ended up being the deciding factor for me playing Snow Queen). The grinding in this game is almost an idle game to me, only occassionally needing to change things up and after a while I had the enemies well memorised.
I missed the fusion spells Persona 2 has to offer, and I'll admit that the area limitations (in terms of what a character can hit based on where they are) were something that initially scared me when I tried to play this years ago. However, I actually adapted really quickly and only needed to change up my team layout a couple of times. I loved the first person perspective combined with how fast you move - bouncing off the walls brought me such great joy throughout.
The game is super clear in what you need to do and when unless it's something secret/unlockable (such as the Snow Queen Route - which I almost stumbled into doing the first time by pure chance - or having Reiji as a playable character). I was never struggling for where to go and there was only one occassion where I grabbed a guide and it was because I failed to notice a staircase on the map and a minor glitch later showed on the map that I'd already been down it when I hadn't.
I really appreciated the story for how the idea of Personas was handled. The game puts emphasis on the lack of a true self (in contrast to what later installments would insist upon) and confronts the fact that there are many aspects to what makes a person and those change depending on the situation and your existence in other people's eyes. It addressed the conflict of feeling like you're not being true to yourself because of how you act in different situations, the concept of someone being "fake", and recognised that that can be something difficult to navigate. In the end, it did give the simple answer of "it doesn't matter. Stop getting lost in the details. It's all you. You're you and you're real no matter what." and I think that is beautiful. I think it's something that is worth addressing regardless of age because anyone can get caught up in the concept of being "genuine". This game really reminded me why I loved Persona 2 so much and Persona 1 is now my second favourite in the series because of how frank and real it feels.
One thing is I really wasn't sold on Maki having feelings for the protagonist. I appreciate their relationship doesn't seem to come to anything, because it just didn't feel like it really made sense. Honestly, was cheering for Mark and Maki quite a bit - their relationship was pretty cute!
Controls wise, I found the d-pad difficult to work with compared to the joystick. I'd definitely recommend joystick for playability.
Songs are absolute bangers, I never got sick of the battle music and Battle Tesso is iconic. I'm desperate to use that track in any situation.
I wasn't completely enamoured with the 3D in the cutscenes - I'd have preferred 2D for them - but they don't look bad. They're clearly higher quality than the Playstation 2 models Atlus were using at the time.
So this review will only be about the Snow Queen route. I played the SEBEC route years ago, so it's not that fresh in my memory, however I can confidently say that if you plan on playing this game at least once, go for the SEBEC route.
So yeah, I love Persona 1. I'm the Persona 1 strongest soldier, I will do the 10 hours grind for the max ambrosia run no problems. But I cannot recommend this route to other people, because I know everyone will hate it.
Still I will try to tell you about the good things. The Snow Queen route has an interesting plot, some may say it's even better than the SEBEC one, and you get to play as Yukino or Yuki, which is not possible in the other route. And since Yukino is an important part of the Persona 2 duology, it's nice to see her younger years play out.
Another great thing about this route is the how to unlock it. You have to learn these rumors around the school about a play with cursed mask. You need to run around, collecting information and talking to the right people in the right order to trigger the event to start the route. These type of things are awesome and I'm sad that thanks to the internet we don't get to have moments like this anymore. Imagine being a kid in high school in 1996 that just finished Persona, and suddenly you heard a rumor about a another huge campaign hidden in the game, and this rumor is about an in game rumor, I would have rushed home so quickly and would have play non stop all over the weekend just to see if it was real, man so cool...
Anyway, back on topic. Once you start the route you get to choose which of the three dungeons do first, and the order will affect your playthrough a lot. Also inside these dungeons you will find options that can affect the ending. So in theory, all of these paths will offer a lot of replay value, sadly here's when the game stops being fun...
About the negative things... I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, the gameplay will drive you crazy. I don't have an issue with the random encounter, which is one of the things that people complain the most, I think it's okay. The real issue the length of the battles.
In this game, your party has 5 members, which already makes the battles really long, and on top of that some battles have 6 enemies. So imagine 11 turns for just one round, it is pretty exhausting. And it is not well balanced either, because sometimes those 6 enemies will spam insta-kill skills, or at the beginning of the battle they will use 6 powerful area magic before you can even act once. So prepare to lose randomly at times.
Another stressful thing about this route is that the dungeons have a time limit, and once you enter one you cannot get out. So if enter one and you start to get a hard time in the upper floors, there's nothing much you can do. All those levels that you gained will go away if you lose, meaning that you cannot grind inside dungeons. "Luckily" there is an extra dungeon where you can grind, but it is not open until you beat the first dungeon, so if you want to beat the hardest dungeon first you will have to grind at the very beginning of the game. That's right, you have to fight over and over and over again against the low level enemies of the hospital.
And you may ask, then why would I want to beat the hardest dungeon first? Well that's because this game is a little evil and that's the only way to unlock the ultimate persona of all your party members. (If you do the dungeons from the easiest to the hardest you at least will get the ultimate persona for two party members, and you get to decide which.)
Finally you need to be around the level 60 to beat the final boss, getting there without grinding is impossible. You will get there around level 35 to 40. It is possible to beat the final boss at level 40, it did it, but the fight will take an hour, because, you guess it, the final boss will heal itself, a lot. So be ready.
So yeah, that's the Snow Queen route for you. I hope you have a blast if you decide to do it. I sure did, there's this weird feeling of achievement after beating something like this, yeah anyone can beat a hard game, but a tedious one, that's the real challenge.
So yeah, I love Persona 1. I'm the Persona 1 strongest soldier, I will do the 10 hours grind for the max ambrosia run no problems. But I cannot recommend this route to other people, because I know everyone will hate it.
Still I will try to tell you about the good things. The Snow Queen route has an interesting plot, some may say it's even better than the SEBEC one, and you get to play as Yukino or Yuki, which is not possible in the other route. And since Yukino is an important part of the Persona 2 duology, it's nice to see her younger years play out.
Another great thing about this route is the how to unlock it. You have to learn these rumors around the school about a play with cursed mask. You need to run around, collecting information and talking to the right people in the right order to trigger the event to start the route. These type of things are awesome and I'm sad that thanks to the internet we don't get to have moments like this anymore. Imagine being a kid in high school in 1996 that just finished Persona, and suddenly you heard a rumor about a another huge campaign hidden in the game, and this rumor is about an in game rumor, I would have rushed home so quickly and would have play non stop all over the weekend just to see if it was real, man so cool...
Anyway, back on topic. Once you start the route you get to choose which of the three dungeons do first, and the order will affect your playthrough a lot. Also inside these dungeons you will find options that can affect the ending. So in theory, all of these paths will offer a lot of replay value, sadly here's when the game stops being fun...
About the negative things... I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, the gameplay will drive you crazy. I don't have an issue with the random encounter, which is one of the things that people complain the most, I think it's okay. The real issue the length of the battles.
In this game, your party has 5 members, which already makes the battles really long, and on top of that some battles have 6 enemies. So imagine 11 turns for just one round, it is pretty exhausting. And it is not well balanced either, because sometimes those 6 enemies will spam insta-kill skills, or at the beginning of the battle they will use 6 powerful area magic before you can even act once. So prepare to lose randomly at times.
Another stressful thing about this route is that the dungeons have a time limit, and once you enter one you cannot get out. So if enter one and you start to get a hard time in the upper floors, there's nothing much you can do. All those levels that you gained will go away if you lose, meaning that you cannot grind inside dungeons. "Luckily" there is an extra dungeon where you can grind, but it is not open until you beat the first dungeon, so if you want to beat the hardest dungeon first you will have to grind at the very beginning of the game. That's right, you have to fight over and over and over again against the low level enemies of the hospital.
And you may ask, then why would I want to beat the hardest dungeon first? Well that's because this game is a little evil and that's the only way to unlock the ultimate persona of all your party members. (If you do the dungeons from the easiest to the hardest you at least will get the ultimate persona for two party members, and you get to decide which.)
Finally you need to be around the level 60 to beat the final boss, getting there without grinding is impossible. You will get there around level 35 to 40. It is possible to beat the final boss at level 40, it did it, but the fight will take an hour, because, you guess it, the final boss will heal itself, a lot. So be ready.
So yeah, that's the Snow Queen route for you. I hope you have a blast if you decide to do it. I sure did, there's this weird feeling of achievement after beating something like this, yeah anyone can beat a hard game, but a tedious one, that's the real challenge.