Revelations: Persona

"A highly original RPG that should deserve your attention"

This game is the first installment in the Persona series, and this game captured me as the fan of the series

Story: 9/10
Unlike most RPGs out there, this RPG takes place in modern times. The story seems very corny at first, a bunch of teenagers are playing a video game called Persona where one summons spirits to fight for you. All the sudden through a course of events they acquire this ability in real life, as they see their home town transform into a nightmare town. This story however comes full circle, so it is not that corny after all, but it makes perfect sense.

Graphics: 6/10
Nothing to really get excited about. As compared to other RPGs of that time and other games on PSX these graphics feel cheap, and characters when speaking carry the same expressions - no emotions. Developers were cutting corners wherever they could in graphics department, the world map on which you will find yourself many times looks like NES graphics, and dungeon crawling is basically same blocks over and over in a 3D tunnel like mode. Even the cut scenes are so so looking.

Sound: 8/10
Sound is ok, with some minor issues. Looks like under area where developers fell asleep a little. For example when you summon a Cure spell character yells I will kill you. But but but, there are some good sounds as every enemy makes a distinguishing noise, or they have their own music when they cast spells. Who can forget, Sexy dance, sexy dance, sexy sexy sexy dance:). Also as you communicate with monsters their emotions are highlighted with sounds. There is also a limited speech during cut scenes.

Game-play: 8/10
I will break it down to several sections. BATTLE SYSTEM: It is a turn based RPG with an option to replay your last attack, or issue an all melee attack. You fight in formations so depending on the way your characters are positioned on an invisible grid you will be able to reach and attack a certain enemy, or the enemy you. Of course certain spells and area attacks bypass those rules. During a fight you can use items, call a persona, move around the grid, or communicate with a monster. The last part if very interesting because you can actually talk with the monster and based on your questions, you can trigger different responses from the monster. If you catch their interest you get their spell card, an item, or tell them to get a hell out, OR you can piss them off:) Fights sometimes begin with a monster asking you a question. This system is fun because some of the responses you get, are really outstanding and funny. You can also fire a gun. THE PERSONA SYSTEM: The spell cards, items that you obtain from monsters are used during a process called fusion to create a persona. It is a unique system of summons that you call during a battle or off battle to for example heal yourself. A persona is created in special places in the game when two cards the complement each other are selected plus an item. There is a finite number of cards you can hold, and a pool of personas that you can have. If you run out of space, a card can be replaced and a persona can be thrown out. Each persona gives you a stats boost, and as you call upon a persona a number of times during a fight new spells can be learned. Each character can equip up to 3 personas and only call upon the active persona in the battle, or switch it to the other two. Different characters can use different personas, and only one instance of the same persona can be created at any given time. LEVELING: There are 3 ways leveling takes place in this game. One is exp based, so when you gain a level your party members get level up and their stats automatically get distributed. When the main character levels, you get to choose how you distribute 3 point stats. There is also persona leveling, which is allows you to equip a persona of that level. Another leveling is what I mentioned before, is when you use a specific persona over and over you unlock new spells for that persona. EVERYTHING ELSE: When you walk you replenish magic points, health is only replenished by absorbing a spell from enemy, getting cured by persona or healing item. The game has basically three views: the main map - where you move around the city using a very cheesy map, inside rooms where characters look and interact like in any other RPG, and lastly dungeons - where you move in 3D squares hallways rotating camera and looking at the map so you won't get lost, and believe me it is really easy to get lost as everything looks the same. The game is hard because the dungeons are complicated especially towards the end and save points are on the beginning of a dungeon. So you can crawl through 100's of tunnels and then face and enemy or a boss and die so you have to re-due the whole thing over. And the enemies are hard, if equip or use the wrong persona on an enemy, your whole party cane be wiped out in an instance. That is why some people cannot stand this game. This game also features a good and bad ending, and like its Japanese version an optional dungeon and extra characters. However these features are unlocked using GameShark.

Final Impression
It is a very original RPG, and the monster contact system makes this title even more appealing. 50+ hours of gameplay and challenge make it a worthy game, but at this time it is going to cost you. In excess of $40 for used copy and $100 for a new copy, if you can find it.
I'll give it 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/27/07