Innocent Sin is the continuation of the Persona anthology series, and a lot went into the mix while making it. Mainly ramping it up in gameplay and story, but it mainly succeeds on having a really loveable cast of main characters that are greatly expanded upon and are given so much development in so little, coupled with the story and narrative around them being actually batshit insane (in the positive sense), Persona 2 is simply not afraid to do whatever the hell it wants to do and its one of those games that would definitely get shafted in a localization nowadays just because they would most likely not let a lot of it slide.
It has a lot of "edgy" rocker spunk to it that is highly missing in the Hashino games going forward, but for a game that I abstained to play for the longest time (because I wanted to play the first one beforehand) even if the first quarter of the game was rather slow, it was a very neat surprise to see the direction it was going and how much more complex things get in the latter part of it. I just love how this group of seemingly strangers get put into some very dire and chaotic situations off the bat, to be in a death or life situation a lot of the times really makes them way closer together than most Persona parties in the series.
I also particularly like how you get a lot of mileage if you've played the first Persona before this, even more if you've played Shin Megami Tensei if... or Devil Summoner (somehow) making this trilogy really feel the most connected despite its anthology nature.
Then sadly there's the gameplay department. It still comes from the first Persona game so it's a buncha auto and fast forwarding and later on hope you don't get one shot and die instantly, lucky for everyone the PSP version of it is so easy you can beat with the Personas you get at the start, middle point and the endgame, so save for a few fusions you won't really need to bother with it which is great because fusions SUCK here with the stackable tarot card system, it's so grindy and annoying for no real reason and I have no clue why they changed it from the one they had before. They also kept random encounters which in general is a shitty concept, especially since despite having a grid map you don't really move in a grid in the dungeons so you can take one wrong step and trigger a fight. At least dungeon crawling and most exploration is not a hallway simulator and you can actually move around in 3D environments and see the characters interact in a comic way since the 2D character sprites got an upgrade and are now way more emotive so it gives way for more slapstick humor that goes well with the mentioned already ensemble cast.
I often don't point out the soundtrack in games I play but this one deserves it, just like Megami Ibunroku Persona in the PSX this game also has very extensive and very immersive sound for the most part besides some real great tunes in the dungeons or places you can visit in the overworld, it's also got a double OST but thankfully the rerelease version didn't completely changed up the vibe but made it a little bit more techno which is alright.
I'm pretty happy I finally got around to play this considering everyone in the Persona fandom liked it so much, and yeah I agree, it's better than most modern Persona games and I wish they could revisit these characters in some capacity in the future since they're so good. Hell, I'd even take a Dancing game if that's all we can get.
It has a lot of "edgy" rocker spunk to it that is highly missing in the Hashino games going forward, but for a game that I abstained to play for the longest time (because I wanted to play the first one beforehand) even if the first quarter of the game was rather slow, it was a very neat surprise to see the direction it was going and how much more complex things get in the latter part of it. I just love how this group of seemingly strangers get put into some very dire and chaotic situations off the bat, to be in a death or life situation a lot of the times really makes them way closer together than most Persona parties in the series.
I also particularly like how you get a lot of mileage if you've played the first Persona before this, even more if you've played Shin Megami Tensei if... or Devil Summoner (somehow) making this trilogy really feel the most connected despite its anthology nature.
Then sadly there's the gameplay department. It still comes from the first Persona game so it's a buncha auto and fast forwarding and later on hope you don't get one shot and die instantly, lucky for everyone the PSP version of it is so easy you can beat with the Personas you get at the start, middle point and the endgame, so save for a few fusions you won't really need to bother with it which is great because fusions SUCK here with the stackable tarot card system, it's so grindy and annoying for no real reason and I have no clue why they changed it from the one they had before. They also kept random encounters which in general is a shitty concept, especially since despite having a grid map you don't really move in a grid in the dungeons so you can take one wrong step and trigger a fight. At least dungeon crawling and most exploration is not a hallway simulator and you can actually move around in 3D environments and see the characters interact in a comic way since the 2D character sprites got an upgrade and are now way more emotive so it gives way for more slapstick humor that goes well with the mentioned already ensemble cast.
I often don't point out the soundtrack in games I play but this one deserves it, just like Megami Ibunroku Persona in the PSX this game also has very extensive and very immersive sound for the most part besides some real great tunes in the dungeons or places you can visit in the overworld, it's also got a double OST but thankfully the rerelease version didn't completely changed up the vibe but made it a little bit more techno which is alright.
I'm pretty happy I finally got around to play this considering everyone in the Persona fandom liked it so much, and yeah I agree, it's better than most modern Persona games and I wish they could revisit these characters in some capacity in the future since they're so good. Hell, I'd even take a Dancing game if that's all we can get.