SAVE $19.06 - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona $20.93

Fantastic! One of the best console games ever made now released in an ultimate version for the U.S.! Rating: 5 (Michael Mulloy, 2010-02-01) Product reviewed: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona

Close to a 'must have' if you play RPGs on the PSP BRIEFLY The Shin Megami Tensei: Persona is a fair game. To account for the rather steep price and make the deal a little sweeter, my Persona came with a 2 disk sound track with some pretty Okay songs that really set you in the mood for play. I would recommend Persona to anyone into playing RPGs on the PSP. THE GAME AND THE STORY I understand that this is re-make of an older PSOne game but I've never played that one. In fact, I never heard of Persona until it materialized as a Christmas present and I couldn't put it down since. To give you some context, the story takes place in the town of Millage where you are a student at St. Hermelin High School. I'm not totally sure what the story is about yet but I know that a company called SEBEC opened a portal to some kind of alternate dimension, and you and your friends need to get to the bottom of it to stop the demons in your world. Your party is made of 9 characters, including yourself and you fight as a team, giving you the ability to use their skills and talents. You and your friends can summon demons called 'persona' and make them follow your commands. The game play is very similar to old Final Fantasy games, but the most interesting thing about the game is the ability to convince the demons you fight to give you their card. When I say card, I mean a part of their sprit. You can fuse different cards to make Personas. Personas are equipped to players and are the source of the spells players can use. When a player levels up, their stats go up. You also level up your own persona level and your persona's level. Your persona level decides what Personas you can use and your persona's level is what spells your persona can use. If it sounds too complicated it's not so if you actually play it - remember, it's a Japanese game. There are also casinos where you can play games for money. You can play games like blackjack, poker, dice, and a game called code breaker where you have a number of tries to guess the code to a safe. The one thing I hated about the game is when you get lost in a dungeon; you have to fight an endless gauntlet of demons and traps to find the way out. Even though I didn't finish the game, I think it's enjoyable and I keep playing it because I really want to see where this leads in the end.. MY RATING I liked being able to play a pretty serious RPG on my PSP. It's sheer size is fantastic - I've been playing for dozens of hours and I'm not near the end, it seems. I liked the music that comes with the game and I liked the fact that the game is always 'saved' - don't have to struggle to find save points or else lose your progress. I also liked the many ways you can do battle and the fact that you can actually TALK with the demons and sometimes make some your friends or allies. On the 'not so good' section, I believe that the graphics could be a little better. They are good but not as good as Dissidia, for example. Overall, I like the game but, since there is some room for improvement, I will grant Presona 4 stars, meaning that 'I like it'. ________________________________________________ Note: A good part of this review should be credited to my son, BD. I did the editing but he's the one totally immersed at this time and most of the words are his. Rating: 4 (A. Dent, 2010-01-22) Product reviewed: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona

A good port of a decent game that hasn't stood the test of time well This game isn't a bad game, it's actually a really good port to a newer platform. The issue is that original game is pretty old and hasn't stood the test of time very well. This game originally came out in the early days of the PS1 and it shows. Don't be fooled by the cover artwork that puts new life into the game, this is an old game with old graphics. If you are a fan of the Persona series and want to see how it all started, give it a go if you can find it on the cheap. If you are not a fan of the series and you're looking for a good RPG on the PSP, look elsewhere. There's newer games for the same price that will give you a lot more value. So, in a nutshell, fans only. Rating: 3 (Scott Posey, 2010-01-11) Product reviewed: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona

As good as the original, but with some small flaws Persona / B001V7UX1W Persona was the first game I ever played on the Playstation 1, and I had never seen anything quite like it - before or since. I had played, and loved, many "save the princess" medieval-flavored RPGs, but I had never seen an RPG like Persona - so dark and yet so steeped in the "real" world. The high school in Persona felt more real and immediate to me than any dozen or so fantasy worlds; little touches like the variant personalities of your friends (loner, snob, air-head) which superficially hid deeper, more human traits simply blew me away. Really, there's nothing about Persona that I didn't love. The plot is masterfully dark and human, and I emphasized strongly with Mary, an ill girl who struggles with feelings of anger and hopelessness as the world passes her by. The soundtrack is absolutely gorgeous, and again takes a more modern, dark twist over the light-hearted tracks of this RPG's fantasy counterpart. Even little touches like the varied battle-shouts, actual guns (!) used in battle against the demons, and the hilarious contact system which allowed you to bully, bribe, and barter with your enemies blew me away. When they announced the re-release of Persona on the PSP, I couldn't pre-order fast enough. Partly for the joy of taking my favorite game of all time on the plane with me, but *mostly* for the newly restored "Snow Queen Quest" which, as a child, I was always distraught that Atlas hadn't released with the original game. And, in many - perhaps, MOST - ways, this is a textbook example of exactly how to re-release a game... for the most part. First, I was pleased to note that the story has not been altered or changed. The original translation has been replaced, which is usually a pet peeve of mine, but the new translation matches up pretty well to the story I'm familiar with. New hints are dropped at the beginning regarding the Snow Queen Quest, which I do appreciate as it makes the new quest more immersive and less of an "add-on". The world map has been upgraded to more closely resemble the world map in Persona 2, and as the world map in Persona 1 was the *only* thing I didn't like about the game, this change is for the best. Everything else is largely unchanged - the graphics are largely the same, and seem subtly 'brighter' and more vibrant. The game cut-scenes are absolutely gorgeous, although it does seem a bit surprising that captions aren't offered as a choice in this day and age - I guess deaf people don't play video games or they get to have a friend translate the spoken-words in the cut scenes. Really, though, in most ways that matter, this is the game I knew and loved. The Snow Queen Quest is a welcome addition (although the difficultly level is nothing to sneer at, and you pretty much *have* to power level your way through the game, which can take some of the fun out of it). Annoyingly, you do have to perform a Guide Dang It series of conversations before the SQQ will open up - it's not something that anyone will stumble into, I'm afraid, much like the original Guide Dang It actions for getting Chris (which were largely *possible* to stumble into... as long as you spoke to everyone _once_, but didn't speak to certain people _twice_, and of course, you had to deliberately seek out party members in order to turn them down when they asked to join!). And the mention of Chris segues me neatly into my translation complaints. I know I'm going to get dinged for this, but I preferred the American names of the characters to the Japanese names and I'm sorry to have those names lost. I can remember which character is 'Mark' and which character is 'Mary', but trying to assign gender in my brain between two equally unfamiliar names like 'Maki' and 'Masao' is difficult to perform on the fly. And expecting me to remember the differences between 'Yuki', 'Yuka', and 'Yuko' is just unreasonable, and I say this as someone who watches more anime than most, I would wager. Also, am I the only one who doesn't understand why game companies will translate, say, the description of spells, but not the actual NAME of said spells? It's all well and good to tell me that a spell is cure spell, but why change the name from "Cure" (the English name in the original) to "Dia"? Having to learn all these arbitrary changes makes battle slow and cumbersome ("Dia" - was that the spell that cures people or the spell that raises 'diamond' defense walls?) and for what purpose? Don't even get me *started* on the new Persona names. I was equally disappointed to see that the Americanization of the characters has been discarded - the African-American character has reverted back to Japanese, and all the blondes, brunettes, and redheads have black hair again, making it tricky to tell them apart in battle, given that everyone has an identical school uniform on. I also have to register a complaint with the soundtrack changes - the original Persona 1 had the most intensely awesome soundtrack ever, but what's with this new stuff? Most of it is good and fine, but the battle music is bloody TERRIBLE and it never seems to change up. It sounds like a pop-song from the Britney Spears era and if you think that hearing "Hit Me Baby One More Time" or the Japanese equivalent Every. Single. Battle. won't get old after the first dozen battles, then bully on you, but I wasn't born with that kind of patience. Especially considering that the Persona games are kind of notorious for frequent battles. Having now whined myself inside-out, this is still an awesome game. If you're new to the series, buy it and check it out - you won't be disappointed. If you're a long-time fan, buy it for the Snow Queen Quest...just remember to grind yourself silly before you enter the school. Oh, and I'll post the trigger events in the comments section here. ~ Ana Mardoll Rating: 5 (Ana Mardoll, 2009-11-09) Product reviewed: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona

Back to the Classics This is a very good game under certain conditions. You have to like JRPGs first of all because if you already don't, this game wont convert you. Secondly, you have to appreciate old-school games in general, this is a first-person dungeon crawler with parts being in an isometric view, ISOMETRIC(does it get any more oldschool?). The last point was you have to appreciate old video game music, but they update the soundtrack, and it rocks. If you can get past the first two points, this is a gem of a game. The game play is simple, but not overly so. There are aspects of the game that are very addictive you may forget what you were doing in the first place and find yourself power leveling just to get better abilities. I wont really go into the technical aspects of the game since there are dozens of gameplay videos out there they you can view instead. The story is a little weak, even for the year it was created, but the tone and ambiance do compensate, and you wont get bored with it, it's just that they could have vastly improved the story and didn't. That is laterally the only complaint I have though, and this game is a must have in my book. Rating: 5 (Trevor A. Levine, 2009-10-19) Product reviewed: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona