Persona is the first of the anthology series analogous to Shin Megami Tensei, and is probably the one to carry over most of the genes from its thematic predecessor (being Shin Megami Tensei if...), from the high school setting to the first person dungeon-crawling, it's an experience to be had since from here this little spin-off series have taken the original by storm and even though it's a series that often forgets its origins, elements that mark the difference from a common Megami Tensei game to a Persona game are seen very early on.
Persona as a basis has a very big focus on the characters and its story, and the story told with the ensemble cast of St. Hermelin is one highly inspired on paranormal investigation and mystery anime and manga from the 90's (The ones with the wacky dubs and that very distinct traditional artstyle you'd see on Twitter aesthetic accounts), this game is sort of like that, the mystical and abnormal events that occur are nothing short of bizarre and philosophical, yet also somewhat "edgier" and feverish for a JRPG of its time making Persona a title with a unique aesthetic to it and why it has become a cult classic among people who are big into the genre. (It also features a really well produced, immersive and extensive soundtrack that got shafted in its way to the PlayStation Portable, and we're lucky that there's a partial patch for it since this is the most accessible version for now, but please be in the lookout for whenever the de-localization of Revelations: Persona releases if you're planning to dig into this title anytime soon.)
I won't go into detail for the story since it's a bit all over the place, even if it ends up standing on its own quite nicely it feels like they tried to do too much, but it's forgiven just because of the really good mixing of people we have here, all of the main cast you can bring along are pretty nice and act accordingly to situations and every character seems to have that one thing to them and in their majority are well expanded upon, so good job for that one. Except for Brown, we don't like Brown.
Sadly though, every positive of this game kind of goes to the bin whenever the discussion about its gameplay takes place, it's not horribly bad but most of the times fights and the dungeon crawling can be a bore, it's outdated and slow as hell and the dungeons are just hallways, so in case you have the handy Fast Forward button close you're gonna have to engage slowly with the most shoehorned in grid system that had really no place in here at all, couple that with the fact that you have to grind for Persona Levels to make good use of your cards to fuse higher level and powerful Personas, yeah I don't know why they had to add another level count for how high you're actually allowed to fuse, and the fact that not everyone levels up accordingly so you're bound to have one teammate thats lower level than everyone else and makes the ability to actually negotiate with Demons impossible. So even if the game is super easy to go through (I never struggled with anything more than one-shot attacks, I was fine in money and levels and everything else) you're forced to eventually grind to get your Persona Level up and unlock their abilities faster. At least this is somewhat easy when you have the Auto option since you can just replay what you've done before, but this messed me up sometimes when against Demons who could reflect, and costed me a couple of hours of progress.
Feels like they also should've piped down when it came to the sheer amount of elements and ailments there are in this game, there are SO many of them that you can inflict or be inflicted upon besides the fact that you have actual, real guns to fire with and melee weapons. Makes figuring out weaknesses of bosses a real pain when you have to cycle through everything just to find the guy is weak to Earth damage or something and then you can't hit him because the only party member who has access to that is charmed and the grid doesn't let them. They really could've simplified it and I am horrified to actually know what they'll do whenever they eventually remake it.
All and all, can't blame people who couldn't get into it, but when you get on the groove of things and put up with its stupidities of yore, you have a very solid game, with great music and characters and a convincing enough story. Could definitely use a good face washing in this day and age.
(Didn't play Snow Queen Quest because after SEBEC route I felt like I already had my fill of this game, and don't get lied to whoever tells you that is essential, it's more of like a thing you can do that gets sorta referenced later on and nothing else.)
Persona as a basis has a very big focus on the characters and its story, and the story told with the ensemble cast of St. Hermelin is one highly inspired on paranormal investigation and mystery anime and manga from the 90's (The ones with the wacky dubs and that very distinct traditional artstyle you'd see on Twitter aesthetic accounts), this game is sort of like that, the mystical and abnormal events that occur are nothing short of bizarre and philosophical, yet also somewhat "edgier" and feverish for a JRPG of its time making Persona a title with a unique aesthetic to it and why it has become a cult classic among people who are big into the genre. (It also features a really well produced, immersive and extensive soundtrack that got shafted in its way to the PlayStation Portable, and we're lucky that there's a partial patch for it since this is the most accessible version for now, but please be in the lookout for whenever the de-localization of Revelations: Persona releases if you're planning to dig into this title anytime soon.)
I won't go into detail for the story since it's a bit all over the place, even if it ends up standing on its own quite nicely it feels like they tried to do too much, but it's forgiven just because of the really good mixing of people we have here, all of the main cast you can bring along are pretty nice and act accordingly to situations and every character seems to have that one thing to them and in their majority are well expanded upon, so good job for that one. Except for Brown, we don't like Brown.
Sadly though, every positive of this game kind of goes to the bin whenever the discussion about its gameplay takes place, it's not horribly bad but most of the times fights and the dungeon crawling can be a bore, it's outdated and slow as hell and the dungeons are just hallways, so in case you have the handy Fast Forward button close you're gonna have to engage slowly with the most shoehorned in grid system that had really no place in here at all, couple that with the fact that you have to grind for Persona Levels to make good use of your cards to fuse higher level and powerful Personas, yeah I don't know why they had to add another level count for how high you're actually allowed to fuse, and the fact that not everyone levels up accordingly so you're bound to have one teammate thats lower level than everyone else and makes the ability to actually negotiate with Demons impossible. So even if the game is super easy to go through (I never struggled with anything more than one-shot attacks, I was fine in money and levels and everything else) you're forced to eventually grind to get your Persona Level up and unlock their abilities faster. At least this is somewhat easy when you have the Auto option since you can just replay what you've done before, but this messed me up sometimes when against Demons who could reflect, and costed me a couple of hours of progress.
Feels like they also should've piped down when it came to the sheer amount of elements and ailments there are in this game, there are SO many of them that you can inflict or be inflicted upon besides the fact that you have actual, real guns to fire with and melee weapons. Makes figuring out weaknesses of bosses a real pain when you have to cycle through everything just to find the guy is weak to Earth damage or something and then you can't hit him because the only party member who has access to that is charmed and the grid doesn't let them. They really could've simplified it and I am horrified to actually know what they'll do whenever they eventually remake it.
All and all, can't blame people who couldn't get into it, but when you get on the groove of things and put up with its stupidities of yore, you have a very solid game, with great music and characters and a convincing enough story. Could definitely use a good face washing in this day and age.