Finally after that rather angry rant post, I forced my way through the end of the PlayStation One game, Revelations: Persona! So I thought it'd be best to start from the very first installation of the series just so you can see how certain things can relate and how the series evolved, which is cool to me. However, this one was a rather challenging one.
Story - 4/5
I personally liked the story even though it's actually not all that unique. So Persona is actually a poltergeist game (is that what they call it?) where you call upon the spirits of the dead kinda thing. So the kiddies who played the game become able to call upon different personalities within themselves, which they call Persona (different personas, get it?). These personas are actually spiritual beings that can fight/protect their owners and whatnot. And so for some reason after playing the game, the city becomes infested with monsters (aka. spirits/ghosts/etc that are similar to personas). So after researching around, they find out that this big company's behind all of it by researching and practicing forbidden ghost calling stuff all for the sake of taking over the world (haha). But he was a minor problem cuz in reality there was a BIGGER entity controlling what was going on. Spoiler: It was actually a close classmates dreaming up her own world, and the ideal her jumps from her world into yours to tell you to save their world cuz it's all messed up and you wonder why. At the end it's that girl's evil side of her personality wanting to destroy the world cuz she's unhappy with it.
Characters - 4.5/5
Haha the characters were actually all really fun. The translation's kinda funny in places which makes it that much more amusing. Mark danced crazy! And it made the whole game kind of a serious... joke. Cuz you'd be trying to amuse your enemy by dancing, singing, lying, everything just to get them on your side. I liked all the playable characters (in my party anyways - I ended up choosing Chris as my final optional). The character voices were not bad and it was interesting to hear that all the enemy voices were kept in Japanese and some of them spoke Japanese when you made contact with them (if not, they'd be grunting/screaming). I also realized that some of the monsters were based off of horror stories (like toilet monsters, scary geisha women, ...) and others were just spirit-related (angels, devils).
Gameplay - 2/5
It must be because of its age. First Suikoden 1, now Persona 1 - two turn-based battle games in a row is way too much for me. How AGI works drives me crazy - it's never consistent! It was cool to have multiple ways of attack: sword/archery, gun, persona. Each enemy has its own strengths and weaknesses, making that aspect the most challenging part. The last boss was a cheapass (read my previous post on this). The second most challenging aspect was PATIENCE. Each turn took about 30 seconds (the time before my PSP light goes into dim mode) and on average each battle was about 4 turns. Then you add in the action selection time, and then transition in and out of battle. The last dungeon that didn't have a save point at the end took my over 3 hours to get to the last boss (I started around 11pm and finished the game at 3). I also took a few extra hours in the afternoon to level up the guys. I the last 10 or less hours of the game was just dedicated to GRINDING, leveling up my personas and beefing up my guys. I seriously need a change of pace.
There was a steep learning curve with the controls as well. I had trouble figuring out how to change personas, then other troubles would be buying new equipment. The game's actually rather deep (especially with persona creation) but it becomes -so- complicated, you'd rather skip it... unless you're super dedicated to the game.
Dungeon crawling was annoying as it was an effing MAZE. Encounters were frequent (and I heard the NA version had encounters lessened too - unbelievable!) and dead ends suck big. But I loved the "sidestepping" with the R1 and L1, which makes no sense irl but saved time with the body having to face the "right" direction when walking like a normal person. At least the first person view was kinda interesting.
Music - 3/5
I like a handful of tracks. Though it felt like there weren't too many to begin with (but apparently there's a 4 CD OST... that I can't get my hands on). Most of them were whimsical and fun, and I particularly like the boss themes. I was also amused how they made the battle song end at any point by applying the same style ending no matter what part of the song you finished your battle at. The Yin-Yang store's BGM they kept in Japanese and was amusing to listen to.
Overall - 3/5
1996. Damn old games are hard. This game was challenging and frustrating. It was a great ride though (minus the effing grinding) and the story was fun. The last boss was easy when I got the proper spell to send all the damage back at her. Man, back-to-back B-Storm spell was cheap. The game's unbeatable without a proper reflect spell. This game required some pretty smart strategy and it was fun in that sense.
Alright, I'm ready for a new pace now. Bring on Tales of Destiny 2.
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