![]() You know how in most games, you can rely on rumors with 100% certainty? No matter how stupid they seem. Hell, the Persona 2 duology even manages to make the first game better, retroactively. While the game’s still a bit dated, even in the PSP remake, the experience as a whole is a definite step up from the original game. The characters are deeper and explored more fully, dungeon design is a lot more sensible and they rarely overstay their welcome, the over-complex system of strengths and weaknesses has been pared down a bit, the combat engine is a lot more convenient and swift to work through, stuff like that. Largely, Persona 2 stands out by taking what worked about the first Persona and making it better, while reworking what didn’t work into something new entirely. ![]() Persona 2: Innocent Sin was one of the harbingers for drastic line-wide innovations in the Megaten franchise. Now, granted, a lot of those changes were just bringing the series more in line with the standard JRPG form, but still, totally counts. You may argue that the changes made here led the development of the franchise as a whole. It’s not the first game in the series to do so, but it’s one of the most successful. New engine for dungeon diving, new way of building your characters, new combat system, deeply explored characters, the game goes a long way towards moving things past the franchise’s well-dug trench. Then came Persona 2, which mixes everything up completely. ![]() Even the first Persona, which kicked off one of SMT’s more experimental series, still cleaved pretty close to the standard formula. There were variations here and there, but the Megami Tensei team knew their groove and were entirely comfortable there. First person dungeon crawling reminiscent of the old western CRPGs, demon negotiation and contracting, characters using both swords and firearms. Megaten games, up until the late Nineties and early Aughts, had been largely formulaic. Innocent Sin does form an interesting step in both the Persona series as well as the Megami Tensei series as a whole. Just seemed like the best way to do things. Eternal Punishment will get its own, probably shorter post. So this installment of our retrospective series covers the first release in the Persona 2 duology, Innocent Sin. It’s still the game I’m least experienced in. Still, I powered through it, and while I know that game well, Innocent Sin was always a gap in my Persona knowledge, only experienced vicariously, until finally, the game got re-released on the PSP a few years ago. Eternal Punishment came out, and trust me, it was a bit of a challenge making sense of that alone. Nobody knows! But the fact of the matter is that we missed out on the first installment of Persona 2. Maybe it was because of the gay options in a time before America was ready for it. Maybe it was because they couldn’t get it ready in time for the rush. Maybe it was because Atlus USA was a small department with too much on its plate at the time. There’s quite a few theories as to why that might be. Flipping to the middle of the book and just starting from there. And way back when these games were new, Atlus, far from the bold and expansive localizer they’re known as today, decided to only release the latter game in the states. There’s Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, each telling half of the story. Atlus has experimented with the one game for the price of two deal a few times, and one of those experiments turned up here. See, the second installment in this series has a really weird presence here in the western world. Even dreck like Persona 1 has some valueĮach game, that is, except for Persona 2. I’ve carved out a good bit of prime brain real estate for each game in the series. ![]() ![]() I’ve spent a good long while immersing myself in the series, and it’s one of the few franchises I actually consider myself passionate about. I’ve got a lot of history with the Persona series, and it’s grown some deep, deep roots in me. Persona 2! I’ve been looking forward to doing this one. If you’d rather have the section by section breakout, you can start here. We’ve got some more editing and better clarification on the points I was making, but if you’ve been following the piece by piece portions, none of the actual content here is new to you, just some minor differences in the way it’s presented. All the bit by bit portions of our Retrospective all stuck together in one big massive document, for those of you who prefer it that way. Here’s the director’s cut of the Persona 2: Innocent Sin Retrospective we’ve been running. ![]()
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