If I were rating this game on story alone, it'd easily be a 4/5. Being a continuation of Innocent Sin's story, naturally, one would need to play it to understand this game. As a story, I enjoyed it. This is the only Persona game ever with a primarily adult party, and we never got another adult party member ever again until Strikers with Zenkichi.

As a game however, along with the problems with grinding ranks from Innocent Sin applying here, this game is not on the same block of difficulty as it's prequel. While Innocent Sin usually put you into 5v1 boss encounters where you overwhelmed them with your sheer numbers and Fusion Spells, Eternal Punishment usually faces you off against either groups of enemies or enemies that can hinder you, like the Joker bosses and their Old Maid skill.

As this is the PSP version, Tatsuya's Scenario is available, and I do like how we get a glimpse into what our Paradox Boy was doing while Maya and the gang were in the middle of their business. The third part is pretty long and has the same encounter table as the final dungeon.

As for the finale, Nyarlethotep is brutally hard. He can be made harder, but even the weakest form made me work for that victory. It's a real shame about Tatsuya, though, that he has to go back to the Innocent Sin world. You know, the one where the planet's rotation stopped and destroyed the world aside from Sumaru City.

I'm giving it a 3, mainly because of the grindy nature of the game. This was originally a PS1 game, so I shouldn't be too surprised it's a bit on the grindy side, but the primary reason it's getting a 3 is due to how demons sometimes refuse to give you the rumors they want, making you run into more encounters just to find them again, contact, and pray you get the rumor.

Also like Innocent Sin, the encounter rate is absolutely insane without Estoma, which is in very limited supply early in the game.

Reviewed on May 07, 2023


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