Shin Megami Tensei: Persona

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona is an enriched and improved version of the first part of the popular Japanese RPG series, which was originally released in 1996 on the PlayStaion console as Revelations: Persona. With a dedicated group of fans all over the world, Persona's games are side titles of the Shin Megami Tensei series, which dates back to 1987. Both production and conversion of Persona to PSP was done by Atlus studio. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona appeared already once in the West in 1997, but in a censorised and modified version, which was further affected by a poor and inaccurate translation into English. However, in this new version of the game, all location bugs have been fixed and modifications to the character's appearance and scenario have been fixed.

The story of the game begins when the main character, together with his friends, who are like him, students of St. Hermelin High School, decides to try out a strange children's ritual called Persona. During this process everyone loses consciousness and moves to an unknown place, on the verge of dreams and reality, where they meet a mysterious man introducing himself as a Philemon. He gives them the ability to summon a person, powerful caring spirits, personification of the character and personality of a given person. With the development of the story, players will have to face the SEBEC corporation, which has created a device that enables travel between dimensions. But as a result of his failure, the entire city in which they live is cut off from the outside world and controlled by demons.

Unlike the next installments of the series, the game is a traditional dungeon crawler, in which we explore labyrinth-like locations and fight against the demons encountered in them. "We observe "Underground" from the perspective of the first person, and our movements are limited to the paths indicated by the creators. In the remaining places we will visit, where we will be able to diversify with npc or do shopping, the action is presented in isometric projection.

The fight takes place in turn-based mode and its course is shown in isometric view. Meetings with opponents are random, in addition they are tedious and require a lot of patience because of the high frequency of their occurrence. The game can therefore lead to a white fever of less resistant players who are not fond of so-called "grindings". Our team can have up to 5 of the 9 available characters. Each of them has both traditional attacks (firearms, white weapons, fists, etc.) and powers, the use of which is conditioned by the summoning of one of the three persons assigned to a given hero. It is important that we do not necessarily have to fight demons. Using the appropriate skills, the heroes can also negotiate with them. Trying to intimidate them, sprinkling compliments or answering their tricky questions, we gain favor, which results in items and special cards used to create new people.

In the PSP version, the producer has introduced a number of improvements to the title to make it easier for modern players to get in touch with the title. Among other things, the interface has been improved to resemble the one known from the third and fourth parts of the series with its layout and functionality. In addition, the original film interludes and intros were added, and the soundtrack was remastered. As far as the graphics are concerned, no major changes have been made except to match the resolution to the widescreen PSP screen.

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Last updated on August 14, 2015