Reasons to Play the First Persona

Nobody seems to pay much mind to the original Persona.  For most people the Persona games started with Persona 3.  That’s the game that gets the crossovers with Persona 4, its own dancing game and constant merchandise.  Occasionally someone might mention Persona 2, if only to bring up Trump being in it, but it’s a true rarity that someone brings up the game that started it all and when it is it’s usually to complain or compare it to how much better the other games are.  With a reputation like that it’s perfectly reasonable to assume the first Persona is total shite on a bike, but to my surprise, I very much enjoyed it and am baffled as to how it gets such a bad reputation.  There are a lot of reasons to play the original Persona even with the later, better games available.

To be clear, I am referring to the PSP remake of the game because that is the one you’ll play unless you go out of your way to prove that statement wrong, but you’ll be cutting yourself down a few hundred dollars.  Not only is the original PS1 version rare, but not even Atlus wants people to play that version.  The original game is notorious for its localization trying to change characters and settings to be American, resulting in some pretty ugly aesthetics on top of already very dated FMV sequences and poor voice acting (what little there was).  It also cut out an entirely separate chapter from the original Japanese version so it’s about on the level of Devil Kings with how embarassing it is.  Unlike Devil Kings, however, the translated script is mostly accurate aside from name changes so it wasn’t a total bust, but Atlus is not proud of it and thus has not released the original PS1 version on PSN.

Some dialogue came off a little unnatural, however.

The PSP remake, on the other hand, is on PSN for 20 dollars for your Vita and PSP.  The remake cleans up the graphics a bit, has a new interface, tweaks some of the worse combat faults (like debuff stacking), adds a brand new soundtrack more in line with the later games, adds new FMV scenes that actually look good and, most prominently, completely redoes the sloppy localization and keeps in all the content.  That is the version you will play.  As for why you would want to play it, I can count the ways.

1. Simpler Story

I love a good, complex story with multiple plot threads, individual character stories and a rogue’s gallery of different villains with their own agendas, but sometimes a story just needs one good focus to grow from, which Persona does very well.  The main story of the game has one easy goal it establishes: beat Kandori.  You run into monsters, deal with the mysterious girl in black and meet strange people in another world, but there’s always a sense of purpose when the clear end goal is to get to that mofo and beat him down to save the town.  In other JRPGs, the heroes deal with things as they come or the plot moves around so much the goal is ever-changing.  Like I said, I love those stories, but it can be nice to take it down a peg and have something easier to follow.

Philemon is a good example of an exposition man done right.

2. Characterization Through Gameplay

The main story does a serviceable job establishing characters, but a lot of the fun comes from simpler dialogues.  Whenever you enter a room outside of an exploration area, your teammates are there with you to chat with, often giving the thoughts on the situation or their locations.  The dialogue changes as the story progresses so there’s always something new to say.  Casually talking as we’re on an adventure or shopping feels natural and the characters are so relatable and likeable that the dialogue itself is entertaining.  It being optional also means it’s enjoying the game at your own pace.  Not a lot of games have this kind of detail in idle chitchat anymore.

Hush.  I'm betting my life savings.

The dialogue extends into battle as well.  Every character has sets of unique dialogue for their demon negotiation options, each of which correspond to their character.  Mark is a laid-back braggart so he can dance crazy, brag and stare, while noble rich boy Kei can bribe, pontificate and use sarcasm.  It’s another layer of characterization how everyone uses their personalities in their own special ways to negotiate with demons, which is done much better here than in other SMT games.

3. Decent Demon Negotiation

I loved Shin Megami Tensei 4, but the demon negotiation was one of its weakest points.  Every single one was a complete shot in the dark.  There was little consistency in what worked and no indication of whether you were doing it right or close to recruiting them.

In Persona, there’s a very useful grid in the corner of the screen showing if they’re mad, sad, happy or persuaded to join that lets you see what’s working and what’s not.  What’s more, a lot of demons have dialogue specific to them or their type instead of a pool of generic language to make negotiating feel a bit more personal with them.  Since the demons in Persona have consistent reactions (give or take a moon phase), battles can be made much easier and you can keep talking demons into giving you stuff instead of fighting them.  That combined with the aforementioned characterization makes negotiating with demons a fun gameplay mechanic.

Bad translation meme kept for fun.

4. Good music

I bought the soundtrack.

5. Good Pacing

I don’t like it when a game’s plot developments have too little dialogue like Chrono Trigger, nor do I like it when it has too much like Blazblue Chronophantasma and, at times, Persona 4.  Persona has the right balance.  Dialogue never overstays its welcome and the story is firmly established enough to be fulfilling.  There's not much to say except not that many games get it right.

6. Quick combat

As much as I like the game, it is let down by its random encounters.  A lot of the game is spent fighting enemies.  That really kills the original version, but in the PSP version is the super-duper amazing godsend known only as the skip command.  All you have to do is press start and combat goes on fast forward, skipping the more complex animations like persona summoning and potentially ending battles in seconds.  I like to turn it off for boss battles and the occasional new enemy, but it’s best left on when you’re blowing through a dungeon.

The skip command is the biggest contributing factor, but the game also has enough to work with to make efficient use of your time.  Getting through dungeons as fast as you can is like a puzzle of finding the things in negotiations that make demons go away and finding out ways to kill them quickly when you have to.  Maybe that wasn’t intentional, since that makes the goal to get a particular part of the game out of the way, but it’s another layer of gameplay to me.  If you’ve played Final Fantasy 6 you’re already used to the pace of the random encounters.

7. Two Stories, One Game

The main plot is decent enough on its own, but Persona has an entirely different plot you can get into with almost as much effort put into it that lets you use a new party and learn more about the non-playable high schoolers.  It has new environments, new music, a new challenge in timed dungeon crawling and a new villain, giving a sizable bonus to an already nice game.  In a game today, the second plot would be a DLC story you’d have to pay for.  Not that that’s inherently a bad thing, because that should mean the focus was put on the main story before adding some more content.  Unless of course they put it in the game coding when you already bought it and only let you use it if you pay for it, but when has Atlus ever been that much of an abhorrent fucking asshole.

8. Balanced Difficulty

Persona 3 and 4 had a good balance of challenge.  They weren’t too hard if you knew what you were doing, but one of the satisfying aspects is figuring out what you’re doing.  The Persona remake follows suit.  There’s a fair number of save points, shops have what you need and bosses can be challenging and exciting without being unfair.

Until the final boss!

The final boss of the main story, specifically its final form, is awful!  After spending at least an hour going through a long maze filled with floor traps and powerful monsters you’ll blow some of your items on, you enter a battle of attrition with a boss with high defense and over triple the health of the other bosses with the ability to totally wipe out your party, move twice and change weaknesses before you can call off any attack!  It is unfair, infuriating, tedious and seem to be designed solely to waste your time and test your patience!

As bad as that is, I won’t let a bad ending ruin the entire game for me when everything up to that point was good.  It’s a pleasant surprise for me when I go into an old game reputed to be archaic and then find it to be one of the better examples of the genre.  That’s not to say Persona still doesn’t have some archaic design choices, even in the remake.  The grid-based system for attack range seems unnecessary, a couple of the dungeon designs can go straight to hell, you’ll want a guide for a few points and even though it’s fun to find out how to breeze through them, the random encounters can get on your nerves in extended play periods.  At times it’s definitely one of those games you’ll want to play while you’re watching TV or something.  However, all these issues have been in other higher-regarded JRPGs so Persona deserves a fair shake too.  It won’t take up much space on your Vita memory cards (about half a gigabyte) so I urge my readers to try it if you have the system for it.