Revelations: Persona

Revelations: Persona
Revelations: Persona
Revelations Persona cover.jpg
North American cover art of Revelations: Persona.
Developer(s) Atlus
Publisher(s) Atlus
Composer(s) Hidehito Aoki, Kenichi Tsuchiya, Shōji Meguro, Misaki Okibe
Series Megami Tensei (Main)
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona (Sub-series)
Platform(s) Original
PlayStation
Windows 95/98
Remake
PlayStation Portable
Release date(s) PlayStation[1][2]
  • JP September 20, 1996
  • NA October 25, 1997

Windows

  • JP March 22, 1999

PlayStation Portable[3]

  • JP April 29, 2009
  • NA September 22, 2009
  • EU August 11, 2010
Genre(s) Role-playing game
Mode(s) Single-player
Rating(s) Original
Remake
Media/distribution Original
CD-ROM
Remake
Universal Media Disc
digital download

Revelations: Persona, released in Japan as Megami Ibunroku Persona (女神異聞録ペルソナ Megami Ibunroku Perusona?, lit. "Alternate Tale of the Goddess: Persona"), is the first game in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series of role-playing video games for PlayStation consoles—one of several spin-off series within the Megami Tensei franchise, developed by Atlus. The game was originally released on the PlayStation in Japan and North America; the Japanese version was later ported to Microsoft Windows. Set in contemporary Japan, Revelations: Persona stars a group of high-schoolers who, armed with weapons and imbued with magical beings known as Personas, band together to combat demons that are invading their city.

A remake of the game, titled Shin Megami Tensei: Persona and known in Japan as simply Persona (ペルソナ Perusona?), was released for the PlayStation Portable in 2009. It was released in Japan on 29 April 2009, in North America on September 22, 2009 on UMD, and October 1, 2009 on the PlayStation Store as a downloadable title. The remake includes a redesigned user interface, new cutscenes, multiple difficulty levels, and an arranged soundtrack.

Contents

Gameplay

Party members battle a group of enemies. (Original Above, Remake Below)
A typical 3D maze, seen from a first-person perspective. (Original Above, Remake Below)

Unlike the Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei games, the plot of Persona does not involve devil summoners. Instead, the main party consists of a group of teenagers equipped with firearms and melee weaponry.[4] Each can summon a Persona—a facet of their personality—used in battle to fight demons, functioning as a source of magic spells, a traditional element of role-playing games.

In Revelations: Persona, the player navigates and interacts with the world via multiple means. While traversing the main city (which serves as the game's overworld), the world is seen from an overhead perspective. Unlike future entries in Persona series, buildings and maze-like outdoor areas are navigated in a first-person perspective. However, whenever the player enters a room, the camera shifts to an isometric perspective, allowing the player to interact with party members and other non-playable characters.[4] Although Persona was among the first of the Megami Tensei games to feature angled third-person viewpoints, dungeons are still navigated in first-person. Both these vestiges of its parent series would be dropped in later Persona games. Another series trademark, an icon displaying the lunar phase, also appears in Persona. Besides showing the passage of in-game time, the status of the moon determines the activity patterns of enemy demons, and their mood if the player attempts negotiation with one.[5]

Combat

Battles with enemy demons are triggered via random encounters; the game's turn-based battles are also carried out in a third-person view. Each party member occupies a space on a grid, which dictates which enemies they are within range to attack. Ranged weapons can travel far to hit an enemy, while melee attacks are only able to strike enemies close to the attacker. Like the player's characters, the enemies are also positioned in a grid; when the front-most enemies are defeated, the ones in the rear advance to take their place.[6] Each character is able to attack with an equipped melee weapon or firearm, use an item, summon a Persona to cast a magic spell, or attempt to talk with the enemy.[7]

Negotiation

In the spirit of past Megami Tensei games, in which players are able to recruit demons to fight with them, Revelations: Persona allows the player's party to negotiate with enemies to gain special items. During a battle, the player is able to Contact demons in an attempt to converse with them. Each character has their own set of four methods of communicating with a demon, such as insulting them, praising them, or singing to them.[6] Based on the demon's personality, it would respond a specific way to certain actions. There are four emotional responses that the player can illicit from a demon: anger, fear, joy, and interest. Triggering one of these emotions three times will cause the demon to do something. An angry demon will attack the party; a frightened demon will flee the battle; a joyful demon will give the player an item; and an interested demon will either leave the battle, give the player an item, or give the player a special spell card, which can be used to create new Personas for the player's use.[8]

Personas

Each character can be assigned up to three Personas, which grant the ability to use special abilities. A Persona has its own statistics which determine the proficiency in battle of the character it's assigned to. More powerful Personas can be acquired by fusing spell cards gained from enemy demons in the Velvet Room. These spell cards cannot be obtained by fighting demons, but instead require the player to communicate with them, a feature the game shares with games in the Megami Tensei series. In addition to letting the player request spell cards, contacting demons may bring about other positive results, such as avoiding combat or receiving items; communication may also bring about negative results, such as the demons performing a pre-emptive attack or stunning a character. Boss enemies or hostile humans cannot be communicated with during combat.[6]

Snow Queen quest

An optional quest called the "Snow Queen Quest" was removed from the North American release, although the data for it is still contained within the disk. In this, the party opts not to pursue SEBEC and Guido, instead discovering a strange mask inside the school. When they present it to Ms. Smith, she tells them the legend of the Snow Queen. Trying on the mask, Ms. Smith is suddenly possessed by the spirit of the Snow Queen, and the school is transformed into a frozen maze with four towers erupting at the corners of the grounds. Feeling indebted to her teacher, Yuki resolves to save Ms. Smith, and remainder of the game will be different than if the player had continued with the main path. There are fragments of English text (mostly nonsensical English, such as "TIME UP! GAME OVER! LET'S TRY AGAIN!" in the middle of unreadable symbols) which suggest that Atlus made early attempts to translate the quest, ultimately deciding to cut it from the final release. The quest is still available via cheat devices such as the Gameshark. The PSP remake includes the Snow Queen quest in both the Japanese and North American versions.

Plot

Story

The story of Persona revolves around the game's silent protagonist, named by the player at the start of the game, and his friends at St. Hermelin High School, located in the city of Lunarvale. While playing a ritual-like children's game called "Persona", each of the students are knocked unconscious. While asleep, they encounter a man named Philemon who bestows several Personae upon them. When they wake up, the youths discover they can summon Personas.

Meanwhile, Takahisa Kandori, head of the SEBEC corporation, has invented a machine to create and allow passage to an alternate dimension.[6] This machine is somehow linked to the mind of Mary Sonomura, a frail, bedridden girl and close friend of the main character, who visits her often. During one such visit, the party members realize that the city is slowly changing; while it looks the same, it is cut off from the outside world and is being invaded by demons.[4]

Characters

Main article: Characters of Revelations: Persona

There are a total of nine playable characters in Persona. It is not possible to recruit all of them in one play-through; meeting the requirements necessary to acquire one party member may make others inaccessible. The character Yuki joins the party only briefly in the North American release of the game, but plays a larger role in the Snow Queen Quest, which is not available only in the original North American release.

Each of the playable characters in Persona is a student who attends the fictional St. Hermelin high school, and is granted through a ritual-like game the ability to summon Personas, manifestations of one's psyche which take on the form of various monsters, heroes and gods of mythology. The main character is a nameless boy and the silent protagonist of the game. Other party members include Hidehiko Uesugi (nicknamed Brown), a narcissist who convinces the others characters to play "Persona" in the first place; Kei Nanjō (nicknamed Nanjō), pompous rich boy who is heir to the Nanjō Group; Masao Inaba (nicknamed Mark), class clown and aspiring artist; Yuka Ayase (nicknamed Ayase), popular girl and a heartbreaker with many admirers; Eriko Kirishima (nicknamed Elly), daring adventurer and expert fencer; Yukino Mayuzumi, a reformed gang member who mentors her fellow students.[6] Maki Sonomura, a sick girl who mysteriously regains her health around the same time that demons invade the town; and Reiji Kido, enigmatic fighter with a prominent scar on his forehead.

Development

Localization Changes

Mark in the original JP and PSP version of the game (left) and in the original NA version (right).
The Protagonist as he appears in the original JP and later PSP release (left) and his makeover in the original NA version (right).

The North American release and subsequent remake of Revelations: Persona saw many cosmetic and technical changes.[6] In order to suggest that the story takes place in a western nation, the names and profile pictures of several characters have been recolored and (at times) redrawn completely; for example, the character Maki Sonomura was renamed "Mary", and Hidehiko Uesugi was renamed "Brad". The most dramatic changes are to the character Masao Inaba, who was renamed "Mark", and, in addition to having his signature hat and makeup removed and replaced with a baseball cap, is changed from an Asian boy to an African American character with Ebonics added into his dialog. Another notable change is to the main protagonist: his face and hairstyle are completely redesigned. Both Nate and Ellen switch their hair colors from a dark shade of black to blonde.[6]

Several measures were taken to erase references to Japan in this release. The names of each party member and of the town have been replaced with western-sounding names, while several Persona names were also changed, rather than translated, to be more generic rather than referencing local folklore.

There are also minor changes to the gameplay that are intended to reduce the overall difficulty of the game – there are, for example, fewer enemy encounters, and the amount of experience points gained from battles increases.[6] In-game currency has been converted from yen to dollars, with the prices of items and equipment adjusted accordingly.

However for the PSP remake many of the changes which had been made for the North American release are absent to be more in common with its original Japanese version such as the player portraits and Asian names.

Audio

The composition of the music of Revelations: Persona is credited to Hidehito Aoki, Kenichi Tsuchiya, Shoji Meguro, and Misaki Okibe.[9] The official soundtrack was released on June 17, 1999,[9] and an arrangement album was released on April 18, 1999.[10] Meguro, who composed the background music of Revelations: Persona, has said that the technical limitations of the PlayStation hardware limited his ability to create music. Because the music had to be contained in samples of 100 to 200 kilobytes in size, "the end results sounded pretty cheap" according to Meguro. Later, the PlayStation 2 hardware would allow for the streaming of music in real-time.[11]

Meguro, in addition to serving as the director of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, composed a new soundtrack for the game. In Japan, the official soundtrack was released on April 29, 2009.[12] In the United States, the Persona soundtrack was packaged with the game's retail release.[13]

The cover for Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, featuring some of the main characters of the game. From left to right: Yukino, Masao, the Protagonist, Maki, Kei and Eriko

PlayStation Portable remake

The February 20, 2009 issue of Weekly Famitsu announced that Atlus would be making an enhanced remake of Persona for the PlayStation Portable. The remake features a redesigned user interface, new cel-shaded cutscenes, new difficulty level choices, and a new soundtrack composed by Shōji Meguro, who also served as the game's director. The game's user interface was redesigned to accommodate the PlayStation Portable's widescreen display. The original story of Revelations: Persona, as well as the Snow Queen scenario, contain additional dungeon floors not found in the original game, as well as new puzzles.[14]

Atlus U.S.A. announced on February 24, 2009 that the remake would be released in North America as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona.[15] For its North American release, the localization of the original Persona game was redone from the ground up. The changes made to the North American version, Revelations: Persona, intended to mask the game's Japanese setting, were all reverted for the PSP remake. Some poorly-translated lines from the original localization were retained for humorous purposes. One such line is "Mark danced crazy", seen in the Contact system if the player has Mark dance for an enemy demon. Certain parts of the script steeped in Japanese culture were reworked or removed so as to make more sense to English-speaking players. An example given by Yu Namba, a translator for Atlus, is that of a character who speaks like a 1980s-era Japanese pop star. Namba worked to retain "the 'outdated celebrity' speech style" in translating the character's dialogue, but found it "impossible to do a straight translation."[16]

In addition to rewriting the script, the game's difficulty was rebalanced to enhance the playing experience from the original version. The original North American release of Revelations: Persona was made easier than the Japanese version, by reducing the rate at which the player encounters enemies, but increasing the experience points gained from each encounter. These changes were reverted so as to make the game more difficult and appeal to fans of the series.[17] The North American release of the game includes voice acting in the new cutscenes.[18] The Snow Queen quest, a sidestory removed from Revelations: Persona, has been added to the North American release of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona.[19]

The game was made available on the European PlayStation Store on August 11, 2010.

Reception

 Review Scores
Aggregate scores
Aggregator Score
GameRankings 80% (Org.)[20]
78% (PSP)[21]
Metacritic 78/100 (Org.)[22]
83/100 (PSP)[23]
Review scores
Publication Score
1UP.com A (PSP)[24]
Allgame 2/5 stars (Org.)[25]
Game Informer 8.0/10 (PSP)[26]
GameSpot 7.3/10 (Org.)[4]
5.0/10 (PSP)[27]
IGN 7.5/10 (Org.)[28]
7.5/10 (PSP)[29]
Play Magazine 85/100 (PSP)[30]
RPGamer 3.5/5 (PSP)[31]

The original Persona game currently has a Metacritic score of 78 based on six reviews;[22] in its time, it was called a sleeper hit.[4] Jeff Gerstmann, then of GameSpot, praised the game for its modern setting and teenage cast, as opposed to the medieval settings of traditional role-playing games.[4] The IGN review stated that Revelations: Persona "is the perfect title for any RPG fan who craves something different."[28] GameInformer considered the game to have broken the mold of role-playing games at the time, adding that "there has never been an RPG as vast as Persona."[32]

The game's PSP remake debuted at #1 in Japanese game charts, selling over 79,000 copies in its first week.[33] At the end of May 2009, Famitsu reported that 122,962 copies had been sold in Japan, making the game the sixth best-selling title on the PSP.[34] The remake of Revelations: Persona has a Metacritic score of 83. Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com wrote that Shin Megami Tensei: Persona "is a perfect example of how to remake a great game -- graphics notwithstanding -- and this release makes a brilliant game feel fresh and relevant again."[24] Eric Patterson of Play Magazine found that, thirteen years after its original release, Persona stood the test of time, calling the remake "the true and definitive version of the game." IGN staff writer Sam Bishop called the story of Persona "timeless in its ability to draw you in", and found that the game offered players "a fantastic story, likeable and well-defined characters, [and] some fairly deep introspection on their part."[29]

References

  1. ^ "Persona for PlayStation". GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/ps/rpg/persona/similar.html?mode=versions. Retrieved 2009-08-30. 
  2. ^ "IGN: Persona". IGN. http://psx.ign.com/objects/002/002193.html. Retrieved 2010-10-10. 
  3. ^ "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona for PSP". GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/psp/rpg/persona/similar.html?mode=versions. Retrieved 2009-09-23. 
  4. ^ a b c d e f Gerstmann, Jeff (1997-02-27). "Persona for PlayStation Review". GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/ps/rpg/persona/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;review. Retrieved 2007-08-21. 
  5. ^ Revelations: Persona North American instruction manual. Atlus U.S.A., Inc.. 1996. p. 15. 
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Hardcore Gaming 101 - Megami Tensei/Shin Megami Tensei: Persona. Retrieved on 2007-07-23.
  7. ^ Revelations: Persona North American instruction manual. Atlus U.S.A., Inc.. 1996. pp. 46–48. 
  8. ^ Revelations: Persona North American instruction manual. Atlus U.S.A., Inc.. 1996. p. 49. 
  9. ^ a b "Persona Be Your True Mind Original Soundtrack :: Album Information". Square Enix Music Online. http://www.squareenixmusic.com/albums/p/persona.shtml. Retrieved 2009-11-21. 
  10. ^ "Megami Ibunroku Persona Original Soundtrack & Arrange Album :: Album Information". Square Enix Music Online. http://www.squareenixmusic.com/albums/p/personaarr.shtml. Retrieved 2009-11-21. 
  11. ^ Patterson, Eric (2009-03-05). "Interview - Shoji Meguro". Play. http://playmagazine.com/index.php?fuseaction=SiteMain.Content&contentid=1415. Retrieved 2009-11-21. [dead link]
  12. ^ "Persona Original Soundtrack (Japan) :: Album Information". Square Enix Music Online. http://www.squareenixmusic.com/albums/p/personaremake.shtml. Retrieved 2009-11-21. 
  13. ^ "Shin Megami Tensei Persona Original Soundtrack (US) :: Album Information". Square Enix Music Online. http://www.squareenixmusic.com/albums/p/personaremakeus.shtml. Retrieved 2009-11-21. 
  14. ^ Gifford, Kevin (2009-02-04). "Persona PSP Remake Confirmed". 1UP.com. http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3172608. Retrieved 2009-11-22. 
  15. ^ Pigna, Kris (2009-02-24). "Persona PSP Remake Coming to North America". 1UP.com. http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3172967. Retrieved 2009-11-22. 
  16. ^ Jeriaska (2009-08-13). "Interview: Atlus Talks Translating Shin Megami Tensei: Persona for PSP". Gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/news/mobile-console/?story=24787. Retrieved 2009-11-22. 
  17. ^ Jabbari, Aram (2009-07-31). Persona PSP Breakdown. Atlus U.S.A., Giant Bomb. Event occurs at 5:40. http://www.giantbomb.com/persona-psp-breakdown/17-1121/. Retrieved 2009-11-22. 
  18. ^ Clements, Ryan (2003-06-04). "E3 2009: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Hands-on". IGN. http://psp.ign.com/articles/991/991461p1.html. Retrieved 2009-06-16. 
  19. ^ "AtlusAram" (2009-09-23). "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona for PSP (PlayStation Portable) system now available in retailers across North America; PlayStation Network version to release on October 1st". Atlus U.S.A.. http://www.atlus.com/forum/showpost.php?p=133907&postcount=1. Retrieved 2009-10-07. 
  20. ^ "Persona for PlayStation Reviews". Game Rankings. http://www.gamerankings.com/ps/198277-revelations-persona/index.html. Retrieved 2007-08-21. 
  21. ^ "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona for PSP". GameRankings. http://www.gamerankings.com/psp/924580-shin-megami-tensei-persona/index.html. Retrieved 2009-11-21. 
  22. ^ a b "Persona (psx) reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/psx/persona?q=persona. Retrieved 2009-11-21. 
  23. ^ "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona (psp) reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/psp/shinmegamitenseipersona. Retrieved 2009-11-21. 
  24. ^ a b Parish, Jeremy (2009-09-22). "Persona Review for the PSP". 1UP.com. http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3176114&p=7. Retrieved 2009-11-24. 
  25. ^ House, Michael. "Revelations Series: Persona - Review". Allgame. http://www.allgame.com/game.php?id=2231&tab=review. Retrieved 2009-11-21. 
  26. ^ Juba, Joe (2009-09-28). "The PSP Gets Personafied - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona - PSP". GameInformer. http://gameinformer.com/games/shin_megami_tensei_persona/b/psp/archive/2009/09/29/review.aspx. Retrieved 2009-11-24. 
  27. ^ Anderson, Lark (2009-09-24). "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Review". GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/psp/rpg/persona/review.html. Retrieved 2009-09-24. 
  28. ^ a b "IGN: Persona". IGN. http://psx.ign.com/objects/002/002193.html. Retrieved 2009-11-21. 
  29. ^ a b Bishop, Sam (2009-11-20). "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Review". IGN. http://psp.ign.com/articles/104/1048621p1.html. Retrieved 2009-11-24. 
  30. ^ Patterson, Eric (2009-09-17). "Review - Persona". Play. http://playmagazine.com/?fuseaction=SiteMain.Content&contentid=1845. Retrieved 2009-11-24. [dead link]
  31. ^ Wilson, Glenn (2009). "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona - Staff Review". RPGamer. http://www.rpgamer.com/games/persona/personapsp/reviews/personapspstrev1.html. Retrieved 2009-11-25. 
  32. ^ "Persona: Revelations: PlayStation". GameInformer. 1997-03-01. Archived from the original on 2001-01-16. http://web.archive.org/web/20010116005800/http://gameinformer.com/reviews/review_detail.cfm?ITEM_ID=3772. Retrieved 2009-11-21. 
  33. ^ "Persona, Portables Do Big Business In Japan". Kotaku. 2009-05-08. http://kotaku.com/5245937/persona-portables-do-big-business-in-japan. Retrieved 2009-08-06. 
  34. ^ "2009年5月期・月間ゲームソフト販売ランキング（集計期間：2009年4月27日～2009年5月31日）" (in Japanese). Famitsu. 2009-06-08. http://www.famitsu.com/game/rank/monthly/1224710_1818.html?ref=rss. Retrieved 2009-08-06. 

External links

v · d · eMegami Tensei by Atlus
Original series
Shin Megami Tensei
Shin Megami Tensei • II • if... • III: Nocturne • Strange Journey
Devil Summoner
Persona
Revelations: Persona • 2 • 3 (Trinity Soul anime) • 4 (The Animation)
Other
List of media  • Last Bible • Majin Tensei • Jack Bros. • Devil Children • NINE • Digital Devil Saga (2) • Imagine • Devil Survivor (2)
Wikipedia book Book:Megami Tensei series • Category Category:Megami Tensei • Portal Portal:Video games

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