Atlus has a well deserved reputation for "giving the fans what they want" when it comes to their titles. Back in the PSOne days, when the JRPG market here in the States was in its nascent form (known as the pre-FF7 days), Atlus introduced us to the Shin Megami Tensei series with Revelations: Persona. Before the internet was in its current form many fans of the genre were blissfully unaware of how much Atlus changed in the game to make it more appealing to American audiences. Aside from the usual localization changes such as character names, the game also had its setting changed from Japan to the US. In addition, anything remotely Japanese was targeted for removal, even going so far as to change one character's race to make the game more diverse. Back in the day, we were ignorant of these changes, but with the rampant niche fandom that came with the internet the facts were uncovered and die-hards wanted to play their beloved, yet now somewhat aged, game in its true form.

Now, 13 years later, it has finally come to pass in portable form on the PlayStation Portable. Not only has everything been restored to its original glory, but an entire side quest that wasn't included in the original 1996 release is back. Not only that, but the soundtrack has been given a complete overhaul to be more in line with later games in the Persona series. Given these amenities, as well as tweaks to the game itself to make it conform better to a portable, you would think that it'd be a JRPG fan's delight, right? Hit the jump to find out if the game still holds up after all these years, or if some of its clunkiness shows through.

Persona puts you in the role of a normal, everyday Japanese high school student. The game starts when you and a group of friends play a childish (or so you think) game called Persona. You then all promptly pass out and have a mass vision, and when you awake you have the ability to call upon the many Personas you hide within yourself. What this equates to in game terms is that you have your own personal monster/demon to summon.

After this little vignette, you and your pals decide to visit a friend in the hospital, and that is when the proverbial "stuff" hits the fan. Along the way you are attacked by various demons who try to impede your progress. Once you learn the source, you and your merry band do what heroes in RPGs always do: set out to stop the madness. The story in Persona is really its best feature. Since the setting is modern day, the characters are more relatable than most fantasy-based fare. As such, you find yourself compelled to fight on, just to see what happens.

The game itself is broken up into three distinct play styles. When you are roaming a building, you travel in a first person view, which would be very off-putting if not for the excellent Metroid-style auto map in the corner. When you're examining a room, the perspective switches to an isometric 3-D style. At first, it was very difficult for me to navigate in this mode, seeing as left actually means up when your perspective is skewed. Luckily, you can change the isometric controls in the menu which made it much more tolerable. Finally, when you travel from place to place in the city, you are an icon on a grid-like map. In all modes of navigation, you are prone to attack by various families of demon.

Speaking of attacking, if you decide to pick the game up, be prepared to do a lot of it. The encounter rate in this game is so high, at times I had to turn the game off for a time just so I wouldn't get overly frustrated. At one point, I needed to go from the high school to the mall, what seems a relatively simple task. It actually took nearly an hour just because of all of the demons I had to deal with.

Battles aren't all bad, which is a relief considering that they are your bread and butter in a JRPG. While in battle, you are placed on an isometric grid, where your placement determines where and whom you can hit. You have various melee weapons common to any fantasy RPG, but one of the things that sets Persona apart is that you also have a sizable collection of firearms if you'd rather fill demonic denizens full of lead instead.

You can also use the aformentioned Personas, and this is where the real battle strategy lies. Your characters start off with fairly basic Personas that can be leveled up along with the characters using them. Along the way, said Personas will learn different abilites that can be used to harm or impair enemies as well as help your party.

If you find your Persona isn't to your liking, or you just are not in the mood to fight, you can actually converse with the demon hordes. Be careful what you say and do though, because your ongoing conversation can affect a demon's mood. Ideally, you want it to be happy enough to give you a spell card. With a spell card in hand, whenever you encounter the type of demon that gave it to you, they'll always leave you alone, sometimes giving you a present as a parting gift.

If that was all there was to it, that would be pretty great, but spell cards also play a role in creating new Personas. Early on in the game, you gain the ability to fuse your spell cards together to make new avatars to fight for you. Each member of the party has a different affinity, and the Personas you make have strengths and weaknesses depending on who you give them to. If you make strong Personas, the game progresses quite nicely, but if the Personas you make aren't up to snuff, be prepared to struggle in the end game. It's up to you whether this level of complexity affects your enjoyment of the game.

Moving away from the gameplay a bit, I'd like to touch on the game's overall presentation. First of all, while the graphics have been updated from the PSOne original, they still have a retro feel. In my opinion, this is a good thing, but if retro isn't your thing you may be a bit disappointed. One marked graphical improvement from the original is the removal of the original city map. On PSOne, you had to navigate an extremely crude and confusing 3-D map that was truly ugly beyond belief. In the PSP version, it's been replaced by a crisp 2-D overhead view.

When it comes to music, it's yet another matter of personal taste. The majority of the new soundtrack consists of a variety of JPOP-like tunes. If you're adverse to it, you won't like it. If you give it a chance, you'll likely find it very catchy, but never obtrusive. Given the setting, it's actually quite appropriate.

When I play portable RPGs, it's always a better experience when you can save whenever you want to, in case something comes up suddenly or your bus reaches its destination. While Persona technically doesn't let you save whenever, you can suspend the game when you need to stop, and when you resume, the temporary save you made will disappear. This is a nice compromise, as you aren't necessarily beholden to the game's save points, but you can't exploit the save system, either.

Another big ballyhooed point about JRPGs in particular: how long does it take to complete? In my estimation, SMT: Persona will give you around 45 hours of play time to complete the main quest of the game -- more time if you want to complete all of the side quests, or pursue the best of the best Personas.

This is one of the few JRPG's I've played that has decent replay value. There are two main paths you can take in the game, and they each lead to one of two different endings. So if you want to see absolutely everything the game has to offer, you'll need to play it through 4 times.

All in all, I liked SMT: Persona. I had my issues with it (insanely high encounter rate), but I generally did enjoy it. It is not the RPG you want to play if you're trying to get into the genre. It's very difficult and requires quite a bit of dedication to get the most out of it. After playing through this title, I am curious to pick up the more recent sequels on the PlayStation 2. If that isn't a compelling argument, I don't know what is.

Final Score: B+

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