When a game debuts in the number-one slot on the Japanese best-selling charts, it’s considered a good omen for things to come. Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei: Persona for the Sony PSP did just that when it was released there in April of this year. Now that it’s been released in North America, gamers on this side of the Pacific have an opportunity to get their hands on the popular JRPG.
Originally released on Sony’s original PlayStation console, SMT: Persona (then called Revelations Persona) already had good reviews, but this PSP port isn’t quite the same as the 1996 original. For starters, the game’s been re-formatted to fit the PSP’s wide screen and the quality of the pixels have been boosted to match. The character art has been reverted back to the original Japanese artwork (the 1996 North American version had modified character portraits) and SMT: Persona features all-new full-motion videos, voiceovers, and an all-original soundtrack featuring vocalist Yumi Kawamura.
True to Atlus’ Shin Mebami Tensei brand, SMT: Persona thrives on an eeire, other-worldly theme. The contemporarily-set game opens with a group of teenagers fooling around as they playingly try to summon a demon or spirit. It doesn’t work, though….or does it? Quickly thereafter, things start going a little strange until BANG — the world as they know it goes topsy-turvy. A haze covers the city, things aren’t quite as they remember them, and the party encounters demons all over the place. The interesting thing about the demons is that some of them will talk to you. Depending on how the conversation goes, the demon will either lend its power to your party, grow angry, or simply get confused and not quite know what to do.
Visually, the game uses a mix of two different third- and first-person views to move things along. Most of the time you play in the first-person view, which is used when moving along the many labyrinths that make up the different gameplay areas. During battles and in single-room “conversation” areas, a third-person view is used and when traversing the city map, an extra-zoomed-out third-person view is used. Unlike in the conversation areas where you can clearly see all members of your party, the city view uses a marker to track your movement.
The three different view modes means three different modes for moving about. The first-person view is very straight-forward, but it’s quick. The swiftness in which your party moves down hallways and corridors means that it’s easy to overshoot where you want to go by a step or two. Luckily, the walls aren’t that interesting so it’s not like you’re going to miss anything by cruising past at fifty miles per hour. Gamers who remember the screensavers that came with Windows95 should feel right at home as memories of Microsoft’s “3D Maze” screensaver should come back to them. No flying toasters, though.
Controls on the slightly-dated looking third-person view aren’t quite as intuitive as the first-person views’. This is mostly due to the angled-view of the rooms and the skewed up-down-left-right directional choices. It’s something that takes some getting used to as the D-pad seems just a little off. For example, when you press “up” don’t expect to go to the upper-right as in most games with this view-type. Instead your character moves to the upper-left. I’m not sure why the break from the norm on this unless it’s due to the fact that Japanese is read right-to-left whereas English is left-to-right, meaning that their trained eye movement is opposite of ours here in America. Then again, that’s just a guess.
Battles in SMT: Persona are turn-based and have a good sense of flow to them. All of the standard options are there (fight, item, etc.) as is the “Persona” option, which allows your characters to summon their personas into the battle to assist the party. Personas also allow your characters to cast spells and perform special abilities.
Unlike most JRPGs where all characters can battle any and all of the opposition, each character in your party in SMT: Persona can only attack the enemies they can reach. What they can and cannot attack is shown on the battle screen when the fight option is chosen. Luckily, character positioning can be changed mid-battle as you can have up to four different presets to hot-swap between.
Probably the most appealing thing about SMT: Persona, much like with 2008′s PlayStation 2 release of SMT: Persona4, is the original soundtrack. Game director Shoji Meguro arraiged all of the background music and none of it disappoints. Every track is absolutely appropriate for each location, situation, and atmosphere. The all-new opening theme song and fully animated open video are terrific also as Yumi Kawamura has done a terrific job as vocalist for a number of the game’s songs. And, as a bonus to those who purchase the retail-box version of the game, the entire soundtrack is included in the package.
Overall, Atlus’ SMT: Persona is one of the better RPG options on the PSP. The eerie storyline, interesting characters locations, excellent writing, terrific soundtrack, and wonderful full-motion videos really thrust the game towards the top of the rankings for 2009. Unfortunately, the awkward movement controls are a big enough problem that it’s distracting when in the conversation areas and the high-speed of the hallway movement just doesn’t feel quite right.
Final Grade: B+
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