This is the most of two minds I feel like I've ever been about a game. I absolutely adore some parts and absolutely loathe others.
Pros: Dear God this story, man. I love this game's story and characters sooo much. I love how crazy and off the wall it gets while still feeling grounded and centered around such a loveable cast of characters. Some parts of the story don't work as well, and it takes a bit to really get going, but once I got about halfway into it I was COMPLETELY hooked. It's excellent. It's pretty consistently engaging and you will fall in love with every single character by the end. The game's rumor system is also very cool, although I was a little let down by how basic the options tended to be.
Cons: Yeah, this gameplay is pretty bad. Battle animations are slow, the menus are slow, getting tarot cards to summon new personas is tedious, the game is pitifully easy so you never feel the need to engage super deeply with anything, the encounter rate is too high, yes, yes. These are all true. You always hear these things about Innocent Sin, but I can't help but wonder how much of these stem more from the PSP version and not the PSX version, since the PSP version is more popular. The game is slow and easy, yes, but it's even slower and easier in the PSP version. I played both versions, starting with this one, and I did actually find some parts a little challenging. It took a bit to get there, yeah, but I did actually die a few times in the PSX version. In comparison, I don't think I even thought anything at all in the PSP version. Maybe I only found it so hard because I had been told it was so easy and didn't think I'd need to try super hard and wasn't properly prepared, but either way the PSX version of this game isn't as easy as people will have you believe. The final boss in particular was amazing and brutally challenging. Either way, the game can be so slow at times that I just started using the emulator's fast forward on basically everything. Battle animations, menuing, cutscenes, even just walking in a straight line across dungeons began to feel slow and tedious after a while. I think I'd find this game 10x more frustrating if I played it on console and couldnt fast forward anything.
Overall: Experiencing the story and characters of this game is a must. To me the cast in this game is on par with Persona 4's cast as some of the most likeable and fleshed out characters in the whole series. The gameplay is pretty mindless and tedious and repetitive though, and I wouldn't blame you if you just watched a playthrough on youtube or something. However, if you played the PSP version and found the gameplay incredibly tedious and dull, I'd encourage you to try this version instead, because while it's still bad, it's nowhere near as bad.
Pros: Dear God this story, man. I love this game's story and characters sooo much. I love how crazy and off the wall it gets while still feeling grounded and centered around such a loveable cast of characters. Some parts of the story don't work as well, and it takes a bit to really get going, but once I got about halfway into it I was COMPLETELY hooked. It's excellent. It's pretty consistently engaging and you will fall in love with every single character by the end. The game's rumor system is also very cool, although I was a little let down by how basic the options tended to be.
Cons: Yeah, this gameplay is pretty bad. Battle animations are slow, the menus are slow, getting tarot cards to summon new personas is tedious, the game is pitifully easy so you never feel the need to engage super deeply with anything, the encounter rate is too high, yes, yes. These are all true. You always hear these things about Innocent Sin, but I can't help but wonder how much of these stem more from the PSP version and not the PSX version, since the PSP version is more popular. The game is slow and easy, yes, but it's even slower and easier in the PSP version. I played both versions, starting with this one, and I did actually find some parts a little challenging. It took a bit to get there, yeah, but I did actually die a few times in the PSX version. In comparison, I don't think I even thought anything at all in the PSP version. Maybe I only found it so hard because I had been told it was so easy and didn't think I'd need to try super hard and wasn't properly prepared, but either way the PSX version of this game isn't as easy as people will have you believe. The final boss in particular was amazing and brutally challenging. Either way, the game can be so slow at times that I just started using the emulator's fast forward on basically everything. Battle animations, menuing, cutscenes, even just walking in a straight line across dungeons began to feel slow and tedious after a while. I think I'd find this game 10x more frustrating if I played it on console and couldnt fast forward anything.
Overall: Experiencing the story and characters of this game is a must. To me the cast in this game is on par with Persona 4's cast as some of the most likeable and fleshed out characters in the whole series. The gameplay is pretty mindless and tedious and repetitive though, and I wouldn't blame you if you just watched a playthrough on youtube or something. However, if you played the PSP version and found the gameplay incredibly tedious and dull, I'd encourage you to try this version instead, because while it's still bad, it's nowhere near as bad.