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.