Most reviews of Persona 1 start and end at "wow, this gameplay fucking sucks" and… yeah that's so true. It’s overly convoluted and can be either extremely trivial or downright frustrating. But if you found yourself in a situation like me where Atlus executives unlawfully broke into your home and started injecting Megami Tensei loving juice into your water supply or thinking about checking out the Persona 2 duology, I'd recommend trying to bear it for the sake of experiencing this game's unique story and atmosphere.
The franchise is well known for using broad topics, like the importance of aspirations, the inevitability of death, the strength in truth, or resistance in the face of injustice, almost like a backdrop to push the overarching themes of emotional connection and self discovery that thematically connects the rest of the series together. For me, seeing these two ideas in their most pure state within Persona 1’s narrative was a very intriguing experience, in addition to its focus on what it means to “be your true mind.” Being the first game in the series, yeah, it’s pretty obvious that this is where you’d find where the franchise’s roots came from. But while this game does a great job in highlighting those ideas, it brings many of its own unique concepts that the series has yet to try and replicate again, most notably in its atmosphere. The much heavier focus, relative to the other games, on philosophical concepts is perfectly portrayed through dungeons with a sense of atmosphere that could only be described as “dream-like.” Hell, at times, the game goes for an approach that you’d only find within horror titles. Whether it be an apocalyptic city, a zombie infested hospital, or a forest straight out of a fairy tale, the game has many vibrant set pieces that kept me enjoying the experience.
The main storyline, while not my favorite in the series, still goes for something I wish the franchise did more often. It features a cast of characters who initially reluctantly fight together for the sake of getting down to the bottom of the shitty situation they found themselves in, but learn they must find their true selves and confront their differences as the narrative progresses. It’s a concept that I feel only Persona 2 Eternal Punishment and Persona 3 went for and I am an actual sucker for that type of writing in a piece of fiction’s cast. It makes it such a gratifying experience when you see them all come together. I also really love its use of the self-insert, silent protagonist trope. The game actively tests whether or not you’re picking up on the game’s themes through choices presented to the protagonist as a way to showcase his/your world views. It’s to the degree where it’s possible to fail the game and get a bad ending. But by picking the options that lead the cast in a better direction, from a mental standpoint, it reflects on your intuition as a player and the protagonist’s growing role as a leader.
I will admit, with regards to the side route, the Snow Queen Quest, I was absolutely not a fan. While still relatively short compared to the main route, it’s an RPG side quest story stretched to the length of a campaign and the cast isn’t engaging enough to justify it. Yukino is cool, but I feel learning the basics of her character in this route is enough to understand her arc in Innocent Sin. And I have many words to say to Ayase. None of them are nice. I’d definitely only recommend going through this if you’re one of the 18 people on the planet who completely fell in love with the game.
I’ve said in the opening that I’d recommend this game if you’re planning on checking out Persona 2 Innocent Sin and its sequel, Eternal Punishment. This is entirely because some plot beats in the duology act as a direct continuation of arcs belonging to various Persona 1 cast members. It’s definitely possible to play the duology while only knowing a vague outline of this game’s story, or even no knowledge at all, but I’d imagine those storylines would hit harder with the full experience in mind. I played Persona 1 after the duology and it made me realize in retrospect just how well Nanjo’s arc in Eternal Punishment worked, with how it combined Persona 1’s theme of learning to find direction in life with Eternal Punishment’s theme of the responsibility that comes with adulthood.
As I’ve already alluded to, I don’t find much enjoyment in the game’s actual gameplay. It’s not hard, it can just be very irritating to deal with. Regarding the battle system, it can be easily trivialized once you start finding Nuclear spells, which is what the “Megido” class of skills fall under. Earliest you can get one is level 18 on a Persona called Gozu-Tennoh. Some braindead ape at Atlus decided that nuclear spells should have absolutely insane damage scaling in comparison to other spells, which means it two shots most enemies on normal who don’t resist it. Even ignoring the battle system, a lot of dungeons can just be frustrating to go through, especially if you don’t have any experience with first person dungeon crawler RPGs. Regardless, I’d imagine the game not being very fun is an immediate deal breaker for many. And while it ultimately does restrict my enjoyment of the game in the long run, I still recommend trying it for those who hold a great deal of interest in Persona as a franchise.
Regardless of if you come out hating the game, loving it, or just simply casually enjoying and respecting it, as I do, I hope you're able to take something away from Persona as a franchise. Whether it be how far it's come, how hard it fell off, or how shitty it's always been, I feel this game deserves a lot more attention with regard to discussion of the series as a whole.
Also play Persona 2.
Side Note: If you do plan on checking out the game, try to play with the PSX music patch. Despite enjoying modern Persona’s soundtracks, I personally can’t stand the PSP port’s OST. It was changed for the sake of marketing the game to players just coming off Persona 3 and while many are divided on its quality, I’m firmly in the camp who feels it destroys a lot of what the game was trying to go for. But most importantly, it’s a great disrespect to the original composer and sound director, Hidehito Aoki, who passed away prior to this version’s release. While the patch is far from perfect, as it's a simple replacement mod and the PSP port cuts out MANY songs from the original soundtrack, I still feel that it does a decent job of retaining the original game’s vision.
The only other alternative is learning Japanese to play the original. Or playing the US PSX port, Revelations, which features a horribly sloppy localization and a whitewashed cast, so... you do you.
The franchise is well known for using broad topics, like the importance of aspirations, the inevitability of death, the strength in truth, or resistance in the face of injustice, almost like a backdrop to push the overarching themes of emotional connection and self discovery that thematically connects the rest of the series together. For me, seeing these two ideas in their most pure state within Persona 1’s narrative was a very intriguing experience, in addition to its focus on what it means to “be your true mind.” Being the first game in the series, yeah, it’s pretty obvious that this is where you’d find where the franchise’s roots came from. But while this game does a great job in highlighting those ideas, it brings many of its own unique concepts that the series has yet to try and replicate again, most notably in its atmosphere. The much heavier focus, relative to the other games, on philosophical concepts is perfectly portrayed through dungeons with a sense of atmosphere that could only be described as “dream-like.” Hell, at times, the game goes for an approach that you’d only find within horror titles. Whether it be an apocalyptic city, a zombie infested hospital, or a forest straight out of a fairy tale, the game has many vibrant set pieces that kept me enjoying the experience.
The main storyline, while not my favorite in the series, still goes for something I wish the franchise did more often. It features a cast of characters who initially reluctantly fight together for the sake of getting down to the bottom of the shitty situation they found themselves in, but learn they must find their true selves and confront their differences as the narrative progresses. It’s a concept that I feel only Persona 2 Eternal Punishment and Persona 3 went for and I am an actual sucker for that type of writing in a piece of fiction’s cast. It makes it such a gratifying experience when you see them all come together. I also really love its use of the self-insert, silent protagonist trope. The game actively tests whether or not you’re picking up on the game’s themes through choices presented to the protagonist as a way to showcase his/your world views. It’s to the degree where it’s possible to fail the game and get a bad ending. But by picking the options that lead the cast in a better direction, from a mental standpoint, it reflects on your intuition as a player and the protagonist’s growing role as a leader.
I will admit, with regards to the side route, the Snow Queen Quest, I was absolutely not a fan. While still relatively short compared to the main route, it’s an RPG side quest story stretched to the length of a campaign and the cast isn’t engaging enough to justify it. Yukino is cool, but I feel learning the basics of her character in this route is enough to understand her arc in Innocent Sin. And I have many words to say to Ayase. None of them are nice. I’d definitely only recommend going through this if you’re one of the 18 people on the planet who completely fell in love with the game.
I’ve said in the opening that I’d recommend this game if you’re planning on checking out Persona 2 Innocent Sin and its sequel, Eternal Punishment. This is entirely because some plot beats in the duology act as a direct continuation of arcs belonging to various Persona 1 cast members. It’s definitely possible to play the duology while only knowing a vague outline of this game’s story, or even no knowledge at all, but I’d imagine those storylines would hit harder with the full experience in mind. I played Persona 1 after the duology and it made me realize in retrospect just how well Nanjo’s arc in Eternal Punishment worked, with how it combined Persona 1’s theme of learning to find direction in life with Eternal Punishment’s theme of the responsibility that comes with adulthood.
As I’ve already alluded to, I don’t find much enjoyment in the game’s actual gameplay. It’s not hard, it can just be very irritating to deal with. Regarding the battle system, it can be easily trivialized once you start finding Nuclear spells, which is what the “Megido” class of skills fall under. Earliest you can get one is level 18 on a Persona called Gozu-Tennoh. Some braindead ape at Atlus decided that nuclear spells should have absolutely insane damage scaling in comparison to other spells, which means it two shots most enemies on normal who don’t resist it. Even ignoring the battle system, a lot of dungeons can just be frustrating to go through, especially if you don’t have any experience with first person dungeon crawler RPGs. Regardless, I’d imagine the game not being very fun is an immediate deal breaker for many. And while it ultimately does restrict my enjoyment of the game in the long run, I still recommend trying it for those who hold a great deal of interest in Persona as a franchise.
Regardless of if you come out hating the game, loving it, or just simply casually enjoying and respecting it, as I do, I hope you're able to take something away from Persona as a franchise. Whether it be how far it's come, how hard it fell off, or how shitty it's always been, I feel this game deserves a lot more attention with regard to discussion of the series as a whole.
Also play Persona 2.
Side Note: If you do plan on checking out the game, try to play with the PSX music patch. Despite enjoying modern Persona’s soundtracks, I personally can’t stand the PSP port’s OST. It was changed for the sake of marketing the game to players just coming off Persona 3 and while many are divided on its quality, I’m firmly in the camp who feels it destroys a lot of what the game was trying to go for. But most importantly, it’s a great disrespect to the original composer and sound director, Hidehito Aoki, who passed away prior to this version’s release. While the patch is far from perfect, as it's a simple replacement mod and the PSP port cuts out MANY songs from the original soundtrack, I still feel that it does a decent job of retaining the original game’s vision.
The only other alternative is learning Japanese to play the original. Or playing the US PSX port, Revelations, which features a horribly sloppy localization and a whitewashed cast, so... you do you.
TheBigBurger
1 year ago