Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment spoilers ahead. Don't read if you have not completed both games

Although the relationship between this game and Innocent Sin is very well crafted and deeply interesting, I would be lying if it's poor execution wasn't to the games detriment. What I assume to be about 80% of the assets from the previous game, including music, dungeons and more carried over to this sequel. It's as uninspiring as it is boring, and it's extremely shocking to me that the game is praised for doing such. That being said, it is a very good story overall, even though it drags on at times.

Most of my gripes about IS were exorcised, primarily the tedious contact system being improved to not be as confusing and the game's characters being much more fleshed out throughout the story. I'll save myself the mental strain from reexplaining therefore thinking about the boring and half-assed auto combat system that didn't change at all in this game for some reason. I will say it's nice that they embraced it's boring design to the point where they added a turn list in the PSP version. Even in this game, I still found myself auto battling through pretty much every enemy and boss save for the final one and one other, a shocking reality considering that this is supposed to be the hardest Persona game according to fans, a game where the combat is revolved around auto battling is supposedly the hardest in the series. I even played on hard mode which I later learned does nothing but decrease SP gain when walking around in dungeons. The encounter rate is just as abhorrent as it was in IS, slightly mitigated by the fact that the game is a lot faster in this version.

Something I noticed in this game is that characters don't repeat themselves a lot. At first I was questioning why there wasn't as much dialogue in this game as a normal JRPG or better comparison Persona game and found it boring for a short while near the start, but ended up liking it a lot more with this realization. I'm happy the trope isn't present and it made the newer characters all the more realistic and likable by the end. On the topic of characters, it's a shame that the ones from IS were relegated to the status of "story piece" rather than actual developing character, because they were genuinely interesting near the end of their game. There was a lot more they could have done with them, but they chose not to because of the story? Strange decision, but as long as it continues the story I guess. As far as new characters go, the standouts are clearly Baofu and Katsuya. The dynamic between Katsuya being a police officer and abiding by the law and only the law while Baofu, a prosecutor turned criminal who and is much more vulgar in his methods, charred due to his past blames himself for his wife's death. When they first meet, they both despise each other and their methods but throughout the course of the game start to accept one another. Alongside being well written, it was very rewarding because after a story sequence, they were able to contact together in battle. It's a subtle but nice touch.

Continuing on the topic of characters, I found Ulala to be depthless and bland especially throughout the latter half of the game, though realistically she was hardly a problem. I just didn't resonate with her struggles I guess since I'm just so awesome and i have a lot of friends or whatever her back story was #CouldntBeMe. What is a problem is Maya because she is boring as fuck. Story implications aside, in IS I didn't really like her much and felt nothing when she died at the end of it, and her being a silent protagonist for some reason in this game didn't help that fact at all. Tatsuya also faces the same problems, but I ended up liking his character a lot more near the end because his problems, rather punishment, actually made sense in the end.

Loved that persona 1 shit though ill eat that up any day honestly that entire section with Nanjo was fucking awesome. Fucking love persona 1

Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment spoilers ahead. Don't read if you have not completed both games

Although the relationship between this game and Innocent Sin is very well crafted and deeply interesting, I would be lying if it's poor execution wasn't to the games detriment. What I assume to be about 80% of the assets from the previous game, including music, dungeons and more carried over to this sequel. It's as uninspiring as it is boring, and it's extremely shocking to me that the game is praised for doing such. That being said, it is a very good story overall, even though it drags on at times.

Most of my gripes about IS were exorcised, primarily the tedious contact system being improved to not be as confusing and the game's characters being much more fleshed out throughout the story. I'll save myself the mental strain from reexplaining therefore thinking about the boring and half-assed auto combat system that didn't change at all in this game for some reason. I will say it's nice that they embraced it's boring design to the point where they added a turn list in the PSP version. Even in this game, I still found myself auto battling through pretty much every enemy and boss save for the final one and one other, a shocking reality considering that this is supposed to be the hardest Persona game according to fans, a game where the combat is revolved around auto battling is supposedly the hardest in the series. I even played on hard mode which I later learned does nothing but decrease SP gain when walking around in dungeons. The encounter rate is just as abhorrent as it was in IS, slightly mitigated by the fact that the game is a lot faster in this version.

Something I noticed in this game is that characters don't repeat themselves a lot. At first I was questioning why there wasn't as much dialogue in this game as a normal JRPG or better comparison Persona game and found it boring for a short while near the start, but ended up liking it a lot more with this realization. I'm happy the trope isn't present and it made the newer characters all the more realistic and likable by the end. On the topic of characters, it's a shame that the ones from IS were relegated to the status of "story piece" rather than actual developing character, because they were genuinely interesting near the end of their game. There was a lot more they could have done with them, but they chose not to because of the story? Strange decision, but as long as it continues the story I guess. As far as new characters go, the standouts are clearly Baofu and Katsuya. The dynamic between Katsuya being a police officer and abiding by the law and only the law while Baofu, a prosecutor turned criminal who and is much more vulgar in his methods, charred due to his past blames himself for his wife's death. When they first meet, they both despise each other and their methods but throughout the course of the game start to accept one another. Alongside being well written, it was very rewarding because after a story sequence, they were able to contact together in battle. It's a subtle but nice touch.

Continuing on the topic of characters, I found Ulala to be depthless and bland especially throughout the latter half of the game, though realistically she was hardly a problem. I just didn't resonate with her struggles I guess since I'm just so awesome and i have a lot of friends or whatever her back story was #CouldntBeMe. What is a problem is Maya because she is boring as fuck. Story implications aside, in IS I didn't really like her much and felt nothing when she died at the end of it, and her being a silent protagonist for some reason in this game didn't help that fact at all. Tatsuya also faces the same problems, but I ended up liking his character a lot more near the end because his problems, rather punishment, actually made sense in the end.

Loved that persona 1 shit though ill eat that up any day honestly that entire section with Nanjo was fucking awesome. Fucking love persona 1