I played the PSP version of this game from the 2009 remake, with the original OST patched in. I think both OSTs are great, but the original clearly fits much better and sets an entirely different atmosphere than the cheery, jazz-pop / happy vibes music that Atlus brought into this version after the success of P3 and P4 at the time.
Anyway, if you use the patch, this version clearly is objectively superior to the PS1 "Revelations: Persona", which I can only recommend if you can find enjoyment in horrible localizations. Like, really horrible. So bad that I would love to give it a try, if the gameplay in this wasn't so bad.
Let me get these positives out of the way: The atmosphere set by the music and the urban / industrial art style is fantastic. The game has not one but two pretty different routes. The story up to the point that I played it didn't go far, but was intriguing at least, and Maki's character is very interesting. Having read the synopsis, this game would benefit greatly from a remake, and I for one would love to have the opportunity to go through both routes without having to suffer through this game's battle system.
With that, here is the bad. Dungeon crawling is faster and smoother than in SMT 1 to SMT if I suppose, what with the jump to a 64 bit system and all, but the encounter rate is just as bad, if not worse here. I don't even want to imagine the horrible dungeon gimmicks that were to come had I played this til the end as well. It's just not fun, though the tiles in this version at least have some variety. Success?
Party composition and demon negotiation / fusion is different from the SMT games at the time, and your opinion may vary. Instead of having demons as allies, you have human party members who can carry up to three personas each. To get a new persona, you need to "contact" one mid-battle and use one of the party members to negotiate. Each member has 4 different options, and from what I can tell, which one works on which demon can be pretty random, though I'm guessing there is some personality tie-in at times at least. You can anger or scare a demon, make them happy or eager. Eager means they will "join you" (give you their spell card), Happy means you get an item and Scare means they run off. All of these can also lead to status effects applied on the demon and the battle continues.
If you get a spell card, you go to the Velvet room and fuse two into a usable persona. Meh, didn't find this system particularly great. Personas then give you weaknesses and strengths obviously, based on which fights can go in either direction very quickly. Strategizing with them didn't get very important at the time I stopped the game, but the whole system feels tedious more than anything.
Worst of all is the battle system though. First, because the encounter rate is so damn high. Second, because even with skipping animations on, battles take ages. And third, there is a grid system, meaning you constantly are locked out of specific actions in a given round depending on where your party member and the enemies are positioned.
It's not very inspired, but the slow pace and high encounter rate is just so bad and the battle system is not interesting enough to combat that at all. I generally think the experimentation in regards to the grid system and the Persona system is not a bad thing, but experimentation unfortunately is not always positive.
OVERALL | 58/100 ⭐⭐½
All in all, I can't say I recommend this. There is only so much time you have on your hands, and both the SMT and Persona series have literally a thousand hours worth of content over dozens of other games that I would much rather recommend. Pray for a remake of this, which will probably end up being awesome.
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