BATTLE SYSTEM INTERACTION ORIGINALITY STORY MUSIC & SOUND VISUALS CHALLENGE Hard COMPLETION TIME 50-100 Hours OVERALL 2.5/5.0 Rating definitions

   The original Persona, part of Atlus' diverse Megami Tensei series, was one of the first RPGs to appear on the Sony Playstation, coming to America late in 1996, albeit with a halfhearted localization. Around four years later, Atlus followed it up with a sequel, which they released in two flavors, Persona 2: Innocent Sin, and the version that Atlus' American branch localized (much better, thankfully) in 2000, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. While easily improved over its predecessor, the first Persona sequel still falls a bit short in the end.

   Battles in Persona 2, to begin, are turn-based, though not in a completely traditional sense. The battle interface really plays an important role in Eternal Punishment, where you input commands for your characters, and can even adjust the order in which they perform their actions. You can even turn off spell animations to make fights a little faster (though this option only works in normal battles). If you're not up to a battle, you can escape, though this command naturally doesn't work all the time against normal enemies. When you start the battle, your characters and the monsters take their turns depending upon their speed, and unfortunately, there's no way of knowing when the monsters get their turns, although you can cancel out battle mode and readjust your party's commands and turn order as desired.

Nate Nanjo realizes he's late for Spaceballs

   No RPG, of course, would be an RPG without some sort of magic system, with the Persona allowing for its usage. While each character could carry three Personae (yes, that's a proper plural form) in the original installment, Personae, this time around, are shared among your party, and you can adjust them in the battle interface, though certain characters can't equip certain Personae. Your characters can build Personae up to eight levels (gradually unlocking new skills) with repeated skill use, and can occasionally "mutate" them when a battle's over, which either builds up a Persona's stats, gives it a new skill, or allows for mutation to a higher-level Persona. Personae affect your characters' stats as well as their resistances, sometimes making them strong or weak against certain skill types. New to the second Persona, moreover, are fusion skills, which are basically spell combinations that can really help in the toughest battles, yet require a lot of experimentation to discover.

   Your party can also contact enemies to gain various types of Tarot Cards used to summon new Personae, and even make contracts with them to gain money, items, or more Tarot Cards through contact in subsequent battles against that particular enemy type. Your party has a diversity of negotiation options, and finding the right type of contact can be tedious, and sometimes enrage the enemy into breaking their current contracts or outright assaulting your party.

   As with the first installment, moreover, players perform Persona maintenance at Velvet Rooms, where they can mutate or summon new Personae, transform blank Tarot Cards (gained from enemies with whom you have contracts if you negotiate correctly) into specific types needed to summon certain Personae, change the Personae you can use in battle (you can only carry a certain number into combat), dismiss Personae in exchange for items, and so forth.

Hey, kids, it's Ozzy Osbourne!

   Overall, combat can be fairly tedious, with finding the right mixture of Personae for your party, finding the right style of negotiation with monsters, finding new fusions, and the like, being a bit nightmarish, especially without a guide of some sort. All in all, while the battle system of Persona 2 has some nice concepts, the mechanisms are a bit rusty, and combat can quickly lose its appeal, although it's still functional.

   While the interface, moving on, is better than that in the first Persona, it, too, is largely unpolished. The menus, for one, are fairly sluggish, and it's really annoying to have to go into your characters' status menus just to change Personae and equipment. The Velvet Room interface, too, is a bit on the evil side of unfriendly. The timed dungeons and points of no returns throughout the game don't really help, either, though mercifully, you can save your game anywhere (except in the mentioned timed dungeons). The game's script, moreover, is far more mature than its predecessor's, despite being a bit spotty at times. In the end, the developers could've certainly cleaned things up a little in terms of interaction.

   Though it's a sequel, Persona 2's battle mechanisms are far different from those of its predecessor, despite returning the general idea of Personae and Velvet Rooms, not to mention a few familiar faces from the first installment, and in the end, the game isn't your typical RPG offering in spite of its weaknesses.

   Thanks to the mentioned mature script, moreover, not to mention more mature characters, the story of Persona 2 isn't nearly as campy as its predecessor's. It takes place sometime after the events in the original Persona, with characters from the first installment even making appearances, though the attempted Americanization of the first game makes the references and characters seem a bit out of place in a setting that seems to be modern Japan. As with the first game, a bunch of weird supernatural crap happens, this time involving a bag-headed murderer named Joker, yet eventually shifting to other strange occurrences. The plot, in my opinion, is a bit too bizarre and hard to follow, though I'm certain some other players would probably see some good in it.

"Hey, look at me, I'm Bag-Head, I got a paper bag over my head! Now gimme some candy!"

   The soundtrack is also improved over its predecessor's, although a bit forgettable, except maybe for the gorgeous pieces played in the Velvet Room and the normal boss battle theme. There's also a bit of voice acting during most cutscenes that precede boss battles, and within fights, as well, with even a bit of cuss-word bleeping, and which is okay for the most part. In the end, the aurals are passable, though not entirely memorable.

   The visuals are different than those in the first Persona, moreover, but aren't any better. Despite some nice FMVs combining CG and anime, not to mention decent pre-rendered city maps, the visuals in stores and dungeons are a bit on the evil side of ugly, being 3-D, dull, and blocky. The sprites are larger than those in the original Persona, moreover, although their eyes just look like dots, though occasionally covered by sunglasses. The battle graphics aren't any better, with fights still occurring in some kind of strange vortex like in the first Persona (though the floor isn't just floating in space this time around), and constant pixelation via camera zooming of your characters and the monsters, which look okay when the camera doesn't close in on them. In the end, unfortunately, the graphics are a bit below average.

   Finally, Persona 2 can be pretty lengthy, taking anywhere from fifty to a hundred hours to complete, and is more challenging than your average RPG.

   In conclusion, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment was a step in the right direction for the subseries, yet sadly short of perfect. While it's one of the better installments of the Megami Tensei series, Persona 2's battle mechanisms are still a bit unpolished, and the game itself is a bit too long for its own good, so you'd probably be better off starting with Digital Devil Saga if you're new to the franchise.