Shin Megami Tensei: Persona is an improved and expanded version of the first game in the popular Japanese RPG series, Revelations: Persona, which came out in 1996 for the Playstation console. Persona games are part of the Shin Megami Tensei series, which has been going on since 1987 and has fans worldwide. Atlus studio was in charge of making Persona and putting it on the PSP. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona was released in the West once before, in 1997, but it was censored and changed, and the English translation was not very good. In this new version of the game, however, all location bugs have been fixed, and the characters’ looks and the story have been changed.
The game’s story started when the main character, his friends, and students at St. Hermelin High School decide to try out a strange ritual for kids called “Persona.” During this process, everyone loses consciousness and moves to a place they don’t know, where they meet a mysterious man who says his name is Philemon. He gives them the power to call up a person, a powerful, caring spirit that embodies the person’s character and personality. As the story continues, players will have to deal with the SEBEC company, which has made a device that lets people move between dimensions. But because he failed, the city where they live is now cut off from the rest of the world and run by demons.
Unlike the following games in the series, this one is a classic “dungeon crawler,” in which players explore maze-like areas and fight demons they find there.
We see “Underground” from the first-person point of view, and we can only move along the paths that the creators have set up. In the rest of the places we’ll go, where we can talk to NPCs or go shopping, the action is shown in an isometric view.
The fight happens in “turn-based” mode, and the isometric view shows how it goes. Meetings with opponents happen randomly, and because they happen so often, they are dull and require a lot of patience. So, the game can make less burdensome players who don’t like so-called “grindings” sick with a white fever. Up to 5 of the 9, possible characters can be on our team. Each hero has traditional attacks (guns, white weapons, fists, etc.) and special powers that can only be used when one of the three people assigned to that hero is called. It’s important to remember that we don’t have to fight demons all the time. The heroes can also talk to them if they have the right skills. We gain favor by trying to scare them off, giving them compliments, or answering their tricky questions. This gives us items and unique cards that we can use to make new people.
In the PSP version, the game’s maker has made several changes to make it easier for modern players to get into the game. Among other things, the interface has been changed to look and work like the one in the third and fourth parts of the series. Also, the interludes and intros from the original film were added, and the soundtrack was remastered. As for the graphics, there haven’t been any significant changes other than resolving to fit the widescreen PSP screen.
