Persona 2: Eternal Punishment

"Great game with too much housekeeping slowing the gameplay down"

This game is the third installment in the Persona series, and yes it is a direct continuation of Persona: Innocent Sin and funny enough the original Persona

Story: 9/10
This RPG takes place in modern times. The story involves a young woman named Maya (an adult), a reporter that has been assigned to cover a string of mysterious Joker murders.

Graphics: 9/10
Very well done. One of the best looking RPGs for PSX. Unlike the original Persona characters when speaking carry different expressions reflecting their emotions. Developers really took time to nail everything down to a minor detail, unlike the original where short cuts were visible. It is basically on overhead view and you can spin the camera in any way you want. The world map is basically a 3D blue print of the city that is easy to navigate. The cut scenes are also top notch and will wow you on many occasions.

Sound: 8/10
Sound is good, with great composed pieces heard throughout the gameplay. The Valvet room music is an instant classic. Characters shout on the beginning of the battle, when summoning their personas and at the end of a fight you hear their monologue. Also if a main character is involved in a contact of the monster, she will speak so you can hear. During some game events towards the end of that event, you can hear the characters talk. The voice acting is not that great, with no emotions.

Game-play: 7/10
I will break it down to several sections. BATTLE SYSTEM: It is a turn based RPG. You basically set commands for each of your party members such as persona use, attack and when battle is selected characters do those actions over and over till you stop it. Item use does not get repeated, character defaults to attack mode after item use. Unlike in original there is no grid, so any party member can attack any monster. The way personas can rank up is through their use, and the way they can mutate is based on ending a battle with a fusion spell. Fusion spell is basically a certain order of persona based attack, if the combo matches fusion is learned. For example if you use Heat spell, followed by Heat spell you will learn Heat Blast. Then once you learn it, you can use it by selecting it from the Fusion Spell menu. THE PERSONA SYSTEM: These are basically summons that you can equip and call in the battle. Once in the battle you can cast a verity of spells that they have. Every character starts off the game with their own persona, to acquire a new persona there are several ways: 1) you collect Torrent Cards and in Valvet room (place that does persona management) you exchange them for personas 2) when you end a battle with a fusion your persona can acquire modification ability and it can be called in the Valvet room 3) you find Material cards which in Valvet room can be turned into a personas. There is no such thing like in the original Persona where you get contacts from each monster and combine it into a persona in the Valvet room. Besides just summoning a persona you can add additional spell to it, and raise its attribute. During a mutation a persona can learn another spell, rank up by 2, learn unknown ability, or be eligible for modification, resulting in another persona. Unlike in original Persona you do not have finite storage space for personas, Valvet room can keep them all but some should be returned upon reaching rank 8 for useful items. Persona use is based on user levels, you can call upon a Persona 5 levels higher than you. There is no such thing as a Persona leveling as in the original game. LEVELING: There are two leveling schemes that take place, one is the persona ranking system, which maxes out at 8 and you can see the progress bar, generally it takes two persona uses to raise the bar by one. Second is the user leveling which is the standard RPG leveling. When main character levels you can spread 3 attributes among her stats or depending on accessory equipped or a persona another stats will go up by 1. CONTACT SYSTEM: yes it is back, revamped for better or worst. During a battle you have the ability to contact a demon, or it might contact you. Also if certain personas are equipped this can trigger a persona to persona talk. Contacting a demon is based on the combination of maximum the three people in the conversation, their ordering and mix and based on the question or action raised demon responds accordingly. You can cause interest, joy, anger, fear. Interest demon gives you cards, joy you get a contract which gives you other options for the demon, anger fight and fear demon takes off. Demon can also question you. The problem with this contact system is that you have to take your time and learn what combo produces what, and this can really be a chore. 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. You can SAVE ANYWHERE except in timed dungeons. There is no encounters on world map, and there are spells to limit encounters on monsters weaker than you. There is a unique rumor system that makes the game not linear. Basically you spread rumors and what you spread takes place, since you have choices you can make the game easier or harder for yourself and unlock new spells/personas. There is a also a fair share of mini games, such as man search, casino, complete a map, etc. Also this game prompts a replay since you choose your paths down the line, and completing both paths unlocks extra mode which equals many gameplay hours.

Final Impression
It is a great RPG and it would have been a perfect one if it wasn't for the excessive house keeping. Learning what contact choices you have, keeping track of them, making guess which spells to use for a first time fusion, and the countless card gathering and persona ranking causes corks in the game. You have to stop the beautifully flowing story and level, level, level in meaningless side dungeons or pursuit rare monsters to be able to use their persona. This is fine but if you do this over and over and over, it becomes a chore. Putting this annoyance aside the game could have gotten easily 9 or even 10 from me. The game could become very hard based on the rumors you spread also on the personas you have. Just to give you an example my last boss fight took me almost 2 hours because I wasn't prepared. Since there is a replay value, can make you invest 100+ hours I recommend a purchase new sells for $80 and used for $20.
I'll give it 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/23/07