Persona (PSP) Review

This is it! THIS is EXACTLY what I got a PSP for. If you read my stuff back when I posted on Live Journal, you would remember a story from reviewing Final Fantasy 7 on this very system. If not, read it now and understand why a PSP was completely unavoidable in my world. Clocking in at under 50 hours, so far it is the shortest Persona game… but who could resist playing the start of what has become THE choice RPG series… from the beginning?

The game starts innocently enough. You and your friends decide to play a game… well they call it a game, and I suppose if you call “Candyman” a game this is too. The idea is that if you complete this “Persona” game correctly, you and your friends playing will see your futures. What happened instead, was a little girl appeared, and electricity arched over everyone playing, making them pass out and dream….

When they all came too the party found that the world had become decidedly more dangerous. Deamons have invaded, but for some reason cant get into the school. It doesn’t take long before the only absolute truth becomes apparent: Your choices are your own, and you must live with the consequences.

While the story draws you in, it is also very complex due to the game living up to this. What you choose to do will indeed change what happens, and the ending of the game you reach. For me, the game was fairly direct, and ended rather hum-drum, but I must give it alot of respect despite that, simply because I do not know what I did to get the ending I got! This is the best example of a game you play right now and again later on with a guide so you can see how things could have ended if you had done things differently.

Gameplay-wise, this game lives up to it’s age as an old school RPG. You will move around in an overworld, several dungeons, and except in specific safe places, will always run the risk of any movement hitting a random encounter and a menu-driven battle. Alright, so the dungeons are actually 3D and shown in first person, but the novelty of this view wears off fasr. Story will direct you to specific places where key encounters and boss battles will occur as well to drive things along, but this is also standard faire of an old RPG. Where this game differentiates itself gameplay-wise, is combat and the things that give this game it’s name, your personas.

Personas in this game in essence the inner elements of your character’s personalities, brought forward and used in active combat. As such, they offer “skills” which are effectively the magic spells of this game, as well as enhancements to the character’s stats and their strengths/weaknesses. For example, you could have a character with a persona that nullifies fire attacks, but is weak to ice.  Personas slowly gain these abilities as they gain rank (different from level) up to 8, and you can put a maximum of 3 personas on each character (to be swapped during combat for a turn or at will outside of combat).

To get new personas, you must negotiate with the deamons you are fighting through a system in which you will either make them happy, scared, angry or eager to join you via the communication methods each of your characters can do RATHER then fight on any given turn. Each character has completely different methods of negotiation and the monsters will react to different tactics, both by time of combat (moon phase) and by their personality traits. If you can achieve an eager reaction and are high enough level you can take their card. With this in hand, communicating with this kind of deamon will result in them retreating, and taking it to Egor will allow you to merge it with a second card to create a persona and equip any you have made to a character of your choice. (Egor is in the velvet room, and you will discover him when he is ready to show, as well as the specific of this rather in-depth system on it’s own.)

Combat itself differs from most RPGs in that it has an element of Final Fantasy Tactics style stratagy. On top of all the strengths and weaknesses of both your characters and the deamons, you will also have only certain ranges weapons and skills you use will hit on the enemy side of the board, and you can adjust your formation to fit your needs (both at will out of combat and for the turn of everyone moving mid-combat), adding to the control you have over how the battle will play out!

While I cant complain graphically about this game, I can not really praise it either. The combat is in a birds-eye-view field with characters that while they fit the field, are too small to really add a lot of detail to, leading to a very generic RPG look in combat. The dungeons are indeed in first person 3d, but VERY basically so. In fact the engine is about as blocky as Wolfenstien 3D from the days of DOS. Don’t get me wrong, this game is ALOT prettier then that, but the maps will be very reminiscent in their layout. And the overworld map looks like someone photographed a portion of a city and used it (maybe with a little editing) as the map. You are pointed out by a green arrow pointed down at the roads where you are. Looks nice, and is effective at it’s job, but it’s nothing particularly special.

FINAL VERDICT: If you are a fan of Shin Megumi Tensai or of Persona in peticular, you owe it to yourself to pick this up. It’s retranslated, eliminating alot of complaints about the hack-job it recieved when it hit PSX, and the extra power in the PSP definately eliminates all the issues with graphic problems the PSX version had. By far a worthy re-mastering job. HOWEVER, if you dislike older RPG games, stear the hell away. In it’s core workings, that is exactly what this is. Anyone else, it’s worth having, but seeing as you can download it as well as buy the UMD, don’t feel rushed.

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Persona (PSP) Review

This is it! THIS is EXACTLY what I got a PSP for. If you read my stuff back when I posted on Live Journal, you would remember a story from reviewing Final Fantasy 7 on this very system. If not, read it now and understand why a PSP was completely…

Posted 02 Nov 2009 | News, PSP, PSP Reviews, Reviews | 3 Comments