Persona PSP
 

A remake of the original Persona is coming out for the PSP on the 22nd. Pre-order and you get music CDs! From what I hear they tweaked the balance of the original, added animu cutscenes, a new dungeon, and some other technical tweaks (Which I hope includes not having random encounters).

Who's picking this up? Any info about it I missed?

Personally, I'm expecting/hoping for this to be my GotY 2009.

Opening Cinematic

I've beaten the original NA release on the PSX, and I have a buddy of mine who was a linguist in the USAF and can speak Japanese (Although, I am not sure if he learned that in the Air Force.) who got a Japanese copy back in May. These are my impressions.

The game does have random encounters since its more of an enhanced port of the original Japanese version. The NA release of the PSX version is more of a remake than the PSP one. The game uses the same battle system as the original, but they really cleaned up the interface.

Also, you can skip the animations in the battles which make them go way faster, plus the battle load time is much faster. We did a side by side comparison with my PS2 and the PSP version blows it out of the water on the loading issue. It has to be two or three times faster. This plus the skippable battle animations make the random battle rate not as annoying.

I can't comment on the encounter rate, because my buddy was playing on the hardest setting he could but it was much higher on that setting. The faster load times and battle animation skip made it to where he finished battles faster than me on average. They added more difficulty settings than just hard though.

Another thing I noticed was the large number of new save points.

There is an aerial view town map now instead of the old one, it looks more like what you get in the newer games, and isn't real-time with the cars and such anymore.

The FMVs didn't look hand drawn to me, they looked computer generated and cel shaded, but I could be wrong. I was looking over someone's shoulder.

My buddy told me that they changed around the dungeons and added more floors so he's happy about that, I am most looking forward to playing the Snow Queen quest that was cut in the NA release.

Short Version: I look forward to it and want to do the Snow Queen quest ASAP.

I think my only worry is that Personas 3 & 4 have spoiled me and I won't be able to enjoy it as much as a result. There was some definite improvement from 3 to 4, and I would say the same from 2 to 3 as well, though my experience with 2 is limited so far.

In terms of gameplay Persona 1 is closer to the main branch of the Megami Tensei series.

The dungeon exploration is first person, the battles are random and plentiful, and the demons must be talked to for you to get maximum effect from your random battles.

Please tell me there is a map. That's my biggest problem with some first-person dungeon crawlers. No map. As for talking to the demons, I already expected as much, since it was in Innocent Sin.

In the original it was one of the 2nd Shoulder buttons that brought up the auto-map.

I did notice the music was very different also, just throwing that out there. The original had a darker soundtrack, and the new one has a lighter soundtrack with a lot of J-Pop. The battle theme has a lot of engrish in it.

It wouldn't be Persona without it!

For those who are curious, Giantbomb did a not so quick "Quick Look" on the game a little while ago.

And by "not so quick" I mean "the video is 45 minutes long".

As you might imagine given the length of the video, it shows quiet a bit of the early game, so you might want to beware early spoilers, but it does show combat, dungeon exploration, and over world travel.

So, I got it yesterday, and I have mixed feelings on it. Overall, I am enjoying it a lot, but two things I wish they'd changed is 1. In the rooms don't restrict my movement to tiles and 2. Draw new character portraits. The current ones don't look that great, and that's even putting aside the one character design I don't like.

Other than that, though, I'm having a hell of a time.

Quick question: So you can't summon demons from the spell cards they give you, they are only fusion fodder? Or am I missing something here?

EDIT: Spoilers on the back of the game case... Motherfuckers.

The character models, battle animations, and portraits are not something that aged very well, but graphics are a very distant thing for me when considering a game.

The spell cards serve 2 basic purposes, first is Persona Fusion and the second is when you have a spell card you get an automatic success when you contact that demon in the future!

Be aware when you fuse personas though, you can make them at any level but you can use them until you are at least their level.

Also, fuck Mark and his slow leveling ass.

Question though, what spoiler are you talking about on the back of the box? I don't really see anything spoilerish on the back.