It is quite funny that Persona 2: Innocent Sin features so much to do with rumors, because there are so many rumors about the game itself. Going into this game I was given a completely wrong impression of the game that I was to be playing, and in a sense that both led me open to be disappointed numerous times, while also being pleasantly surprised by many factors.

To begin, the gameplay of Persona 2 is drastically improved from Persona 1. While Persona 2 clearly is still experimental just like its predecessor, many gameplay elements took away from the tedium of playing that Persona 1 had. The isometric exploration has been completely fixed with the inclusion of diagonal movement and the ability to spin the camera. Dungeon exploration was changed to these isometric maps as well, making navigation much easier than the first person perspective. Dungeon maps were designed by a human being this time, and while some can be a bit grating, especially in timed parts of the game with a real clock, there was nothing here I would say was as offensive as Persona 1's maps, especially with the inclusion of chests on the overworld meaning checking dead ends could be rewarding. The persona rank mechanic was made slightly less tedious by having some personas have naturally faster growth rates compared to others, while still including the rule about that growth rate being even faster if you are ten levels higher than the persona. However, persona levels and party experience not being evenly shared were completely removed and for the better. Obtaining cards is easier since you collect arcana cards that can then be used to summon the demon of your choice, but admittedly removes all fusion mechanics beyond adding cards into a summon to make a persona fundamentally different. This removes the fun of fusion, but with the level of tedium from Persona 1, I understand the change as it is here until future Persona games bring back fusion into a more enjoyable experience like other SMT games.
The actual combat becomes a lot closer to what fans are familiar with in future SMT titles as well as future Persona titles, though rather than have a press turn function, the combat is focused mostly on fusion. The character's bonds in this game are the focus and this comes in through fusion attacks which combine different persona moves to get sometimes good results, and also group negotiation with demons to allow your party to cooperate to convince demons to lend you their cards. There is no longer any grid system which I found disappointing as I had enjoyed it, and instead it follows a more typical way of battling according to attacks always being able to target all enemies regardless of location. Elements were balanced much better and weaknesses, repels, and nullifications were much less common for enemies as well as personas making the game of finding enemy weaknesses to still be enjoyable. There wasn't enough justification for aiming for weaknesses instead of just attacking with your best attack that did neutral damage however, and as such the combat often just ended up being spamming your favorite persona's attack. With an auto-battle function, the game can very often play itself. This would be less of a problem, but this game is quite easy, and requires little strategy with few bosses offering much challenge. Furthermore, the experience gain, and the amount of encounters is still very high. This makes exploration take very long periods of time and I can say that this game plays much better with a fast forward function nowadays to fast forward through the otherwise slower combat. I overall did enjoy it, but mostly as a mindless grinding game where I was strategically planning my next persona summons, who would they be assigned to, and so forth. The economy also gets completely shattered later on with money being so easily available that you would be a fool not to buy 99 beads and 99 chewing souls which feels necessary in the last dungeon.

Onto the characters and story. Persona 2's introduction is fantastic. There is a great introduction to the characters of Lisa, Eikichi, Maya and Yukino through the rather quick paced plot. The idea of rumors being utilized and coming true along with people's wishes being granted at the cost of others is an intriguing and interesting plot. At many points, this is played in really clever and fun ways that play with expectations. The rumor mechanic also plays into gameplay though it is a rather minor part of the game in my opinion and could have been realized in a much more full way.
The story is willing to take dark turns with serial arsonists burning a man to death in front of you, as well as seeing characters be forgotten by their friends and family beyond persona users who can still perceive them. It brings up a twisted mentality for the villain Joker who sees dreams as something that can be a burden on those unready to realize them. The masked circle is a compelling group of antagonists and led by Joker leads to some very diverse and unique objectives and settings to defeat them.
Up until this point, the character bonds also are quite well handled, I particularly really enjoyed Eikichi and Maya who always had fun banter with each other and Lisa. Along with Yukino feeling a bit like an outsider beyond her bond with Maya, but still having deep connections to the Persona 1 cast. I could definitely see how this party dynamic would be used to influence Persona 4's, and I can see how this cast can be people's favorites just like future games as some people will resonate with this cast more.
This is until the halfway point of the game. At this point of the game, Innocent Sin takes a nosedive. Once you discover the secret of the main characters' amnesia and the motivations for Joker/Jun as an antagonist, I lost a great deal of suspension of disbelief. There is so much wrong with Jun's motivations. For one, he is trying to torture and kill the main party because of the perceived murder of Maya, yet Jun unlike Lisa, didn't look into the situation at the shrine a single time to find out that Maya was still alive basing this all on assumptions. Despite knowing who Tatsuya Sudou is, and how he is different from Tatsuya Suou, he immeidately believes that it is Suou's fault, even though he also knows that Sudou is a serial arsonist and even has him in the Masked Circle as one of his allies who is burning people alive and laying bombs around the city... On top of this, he also starts up the nazi rumors at this point, which were conspiracy theories written by his nazi sympathizer father (Who is not chastized at all for having written nazi propoganda). This all leading into an end of the world plot where Jun raises the city into the sky in order to bring about Xibalba to wipe out humanity to bring about an 'evolution'. This is mostly handwaved away with all the characters (Except maybe Tatsuya if you choose to play him as not forgiving Jun) forgiving Jun in an instant and mostly blaming it all on Nyarlothotep. Though, through numerous dialogue spots in the game, we find out that Jun was fully aware of what he was doing this entire time even without Nyarlathotep's influence. To me, this jumps the shark dramatically.
To expound on this, this is where we start dealing with character's shadows and I found most of them to be out of character or out of no where reveals that felt like shock value just like the nazis. Yukino reveals that she sleeps around despite there being no evidence that she would even think of doing this in Persona 1, and all the events of P2 where she seems faithful to her new lover, and in the 'bad' scene where you have Yukino not present to confront her shadow, she kisses Anna in a predatory way only pushing negative stereotypes about bi women sleeping around. With Lisa, there was absolutely no hint or clue that she had done drugs or swindled old men, which is baffling considering how much random dialogue we get in other scenes and locations. Yet not a single clue toward this. I would have been satisfied if we had an old man NPC comment about recognizing Lisa in one of the many store stops, but this isn't the case. It could be argued Lisa was doing a relatively harmless drug like marijuana, but the dialogue suggests something of a more extreme nature which again wasn't shown in any way through the story. Having known people who were negatively effected by drugs and drug addiction through my life this type of hamfisted shoving into a story I dislike greatly. Eikichi's isn't too offensive, but again conflicts with lines he had in stores where he admits the narcissism is an act and he regularly talks poorly about himself, only for his shadow to push this idea that he is entirely narcissistic. Though, this mostly was for Miyabi who was the more tragic character in this with her plotline being toward her being overweight and the almost shame she has for her self for it (Which I find offensive when her weight loss wasn't undone in the ending, undermining Eikichi's unconditional love for her). Tatsuya's is nice as it finally gives some dialogue to him when he's otherwise almost mute for the entire story, but wasn't something I'd comment much on.
Also pushing to a plot contrivance where Yukino loses her Persona to Jun, when Jun just could have gotten a new persona from numerous other ways. It seems like a weird way to force her out of the story when she could have just gone to fight with the rest of the Persona 1 cast seen at Tony's to help out the P2 cast in the background.
All of these plot points end up being very shallow for the most part and feel like a low point for the entire game.
Leading to the ending which starts to actually pick up again. Despite how far the shark was jumped and how my suspension of disbelief was blown, the sincere friendship I felt between the main cast had a lot of emotional beats that I enjoyed. Even leading to the ending having a rather beautiful and melancholic end, where Maya dies in a tragic way which distracts the party long enough for Nyarlathotep to destroy the world. There, given the choice by Philemon a god that was all but having a contest with Nyarlathotep with you as pawns to reverse Maya's death by forgetting all the events of the game. It is a tragic end that brings toward the memory plotline in a really sweet way, especially upon seeing the epilogue where the characters still end up being brought together despite their lack of shared memories. Giving the option to punch Philemon for using you as pawns is also satisfying.

This leads into my overall feelings for the story. I overall think that all the shock value moments were completely unnecessary and detracted from this game. All of the shadows and nazis could be removed, and replaced with more screen time for the Masked Circle and I think this game would be much more effective as a story. Furthermore, from all the rumors I had heard going into this story about Persona 2 having the best LGBT+ representation, I was greatly disappointed. Yukino shows really negative stereotypes toward bi women, and as do the two trans NPCs in the game with a trans woman being seen as disgusting by Eikichi before becoming vain and joining the villains, and the other is a trans man flashing their genitals to Tatsuya and Maya in a public store. Leading us finally to Jun and Tatsuya. For its time, Jun being gay was a standout, but ultimately I was very unsatisfied with its implementation. I think that Jun and Tatsuya's relationship has a good set up with their past and is cute, however Jun's design is based off of stereotypes towards gay men being effeminate and particularly uses a lot of Freud's outdated and negative theories toward gay men being narcissistic which is evident by the game talks about Jun being Tatsuya's shadow and resembling him greatly using direct wording that Freud would. Ultimately this only adds to a single line of dialogue where Lisa hardly believes Tatsuya is serious and still plans to steal Tatsuya away anyway, a line of dialogue where Jun asks Tatsuya out to visit a restaurant with him, and finally their ability to hold hands in demon negotiations. I understand that this was a big deal for its time, and can understand why so many people who find interest in this considering the lack of content in 1999, however the game seems to treat it very poorly with the end game having Lisa kiss Tatsuya no matter who he chose, and also having a star-crossed lovers ending sequence with Maya even if you chose to pick Jun as your romantic partner. Jun gets nothing like this in the ending, which is incredibly disappointing and shows that he wasn't seen in the same light as Lisa and Maya at the time of the game's release. I am happy that there is at least this much, but I hope that I expressed why by no means I think that this game should be recommended for its LGBT+ content since its overall negative. The game has other merits to recommend it that I hope I have outlined in my review, but LGBT+ content, as well as the mishandled controversial topics before I mentioned are not.

The art of this game is very good, and I can see easily how this art direction carried forward to all future mainline titles. The increased number of character portraits allows for more expression in the game than in P1, and their expressiveness is honestly very impressive. Many faces either had me laugh out loud, or understand completely the pain the characters were going through. The spritework was also improved with the pixel art in the game, allowing models to move more fluidly, more animations, and also more detailed demons and personas despite each one being modeled in the four diagonal directions for combat. The music was stellar from what I could tell, and I loved the style of this game.

This all leading to my final conclusion of this game. Persona 2: Innocent Sin is plagued with rumors. People who have played very little of this game will make grandiose statements that will never live up to expectations, while some of its long term fans cannot possibly hope to express its strengths in a meaningful way without dulling the listener. Do not buy into the hype or negativity surrounding this game, you have to experience it yourself to understand what this game accomplishes and what it fails in since the rumors surrounding it will not give you a good idea of what you are in for (Though please play it with a speedup option to fast forward combat). This game both heavily inspired future Persona games, while also being its wholly own thing. It has high highs, and at times offensive low lows. It is a very experimental JRPG that both took confident steps forward, while also stumbling terribly at some portions. Persona 2: Innocent Sin gets a 3.5/5.

So I just beat this game after waiting 8 years to finally see where they'd take the franchise after Bayo 2 and this game did not disappoint, I had an absolute blast playing this and seeing my favourite video game lady ever back in action!

Seeing this game run on Switch had me like "DAMN, OK" (though it still saddens me that the ip is Nintendo exclusive, would love to play on PC with a proper controller instead of the joy con lol) and the range of weapons and transformations, alt costumes and demons in this game Bayo can use is incredible and leaves so much room for replay value!

Viola's gameplay is fine too, though I definitely prefer playing as Cereza, especially since her Witch Time is much easier to pull of by just dodging instead of having to parry and not having any more demons other than Chesire kinda sucked to be honest; I will also admit I'm not a fan of Jeanne's gameplay either and found parts of it a bit frustrating but at least her levels are only like 5 mins tops, so not a huge deal.

Storywise this game is pretty fine, I still think the firsat game had a better story and pacing but hey, I thought it was better than 2 (not that 2 is a bad game, far from it) and I thought it was a really nice conclusion/passing of the torch story, makes me very curious to see how they could make a possible Bayonetta 4 since they tease it after the credits.

I would definitely recommend this game to any fan of action games, and if you already like DMC, you probably already like this!

Now if you don't mind, I'm gonna go make out with my Bayonetta dakimakura 😏 lmao