Being a Shin Megami Tensei enthusiast myself, when this month came in I've always looked forward to playing this game. Not only that it's directly connected to the first game but this is also it's first time to be released in English.
Yes, It's the new
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2 - Innocent Sin. It's a remake of Persona 2: Innocent Sin, originally released for the PlayStation in 1999 and the first part of the sequel to
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona.
The story begins with
Tatsuya Suou and
Lisa Silverman from the Seven Sisters High along with
Eikichi Mishina from the Kasugayama High, the three of them getting involved in summoning the Joker. It is rumored that if you perform the "Joker Charm" by dialing your own cell phone number, Joker will appear and grant any wish. Lisa and three of Eikichi’s subordinates call themselves, but the Joker wasn’t as friendly as they hoped. He wipes the ideals from Eikichi’s henchmen leaving only shadows behind. The Joker also has a strange connection to Lisa, Tatsuya, and Eikichi. He happened to know and hate them. Philemon gives out the power to summon Personas to Tatsuya and Lisa (yep, the masked guy from Persona 1, remember him?). The group, then, ran off to Seven Sisters High where the school’s emblem is rumored to be cursed...
Innocent Sin received major changes, such as new character portraits and cutscenes added, an updated user interface and a new set of BGM's. The battle system is overhauled and based on the one used by the game's sequel, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. In other aspects game's original gameplay system was retained. Lastly, the Sumaru Climax Theatre quests were also added, it features sidestories written by various other authors from Atlus. The stories are quests worth hours of gameplay. Additionally, players can make their own quests.
First thing about the gameplay, it's great that they eliminated the first-person dungeon crawls, like that one in this game's predecessor. The aspect of prowling dungeons or buildings in Persona 2 is presented in a 3D map with an overhead perspective which is cool but the controls, when using the joypad, it's over-responsive! I mean, you move your joypad to the right by just a little bit and your character moves too fast you'll end up missing your destination. You can use the D-pad as an alternative but it's a bit uncomfortable.
Now moving on to the battle system, I think it's also one of this game's weak points. Once you know what spell or weapon to use, you'll keep using that when you face the same monster. This is where the "Auto-Battle" option comes in handy, it hastens up the pace but you'll be stuck seeing the same animations again and again. The battle animations and the Persona summons does get boring over time (
based on experience, ugh!) To speed up further battles, the "Skip" option comes in. The skip feature replaces battle animations with flashing enemies and number of damages done.
The gameplay complaints aside, Innocent Sin still has it's strong point and that is it's story. It takes place three years where Persona 1 took off. If you have played the previous game, you will immediately see the connections unlike the latter sequels. The unique line-up of characters is just great, it makes the game a different take on 90's Japan and just like any Megami Tensei game, as you progress on the story, you could get, somewhat, pulled in the game's universe. Reaching the end of it really takes a lot of effort.
So there you have it. Innocent Sin will show you the missing link of evolution between Persona 1 and 3. It's strongest point is it's story. Most people may find it boring but it's up to you to decide if you want to check out what the "Lost Persona game" is about.
I'm still checking the game out myself, just curious on how the story goes...
