I made one of these threads after finishing the first Persona, so I may as well make another one of them.
I decided it was time to try the Persona series after ignoring it for years. I liked the first one, it was great, especially the music (played the Japanese PSX version). I just played the PSP versions of Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment.
These two games were really hyped up, pretty much just for the story. The story was definitely interesting, especially in Innocent Sin, I thought the cast really worked well together too. It was really damn easy too. I basically just Fusion Skilled my way through the game.
A lot of people seem to really like Eternal Punishment, though I wasn't as thrilled by it. I think it's because, as far as the story goes, anyone who played IS would pretty much know what was going on, I didn't expect to have to chase after some idiot who was being tricked into repeating the events of IS for most of the game. If I hadn't played IS I think I would have been much more interested in it. The dungeons sucked because the random battle rate was insane.
Which of the two do you prefer? What do you think about the old games compared to Persona 3 and 4? I've heard Persona 3 is where the series changes quite a bit, and it sounds like I'll either love it, like it, or hate it. I'll play Persona 3: FES in a bit. The Persona 2s already felt like they were lacking something the first game had, I'm not sure what. I think part of it is that in the first game shit just got fucked up all of a sudden, In the Persona 2s it was more just strange things going on for awhile until things got really fucked up toward the end. It also didn't help that people just ignored demons in Persona 2. The guy running Giga Macho didn't seem terribly perturbed by me fighting demons 15 feet away from him.
Another thing about EP is the villain. He didn't seem quite the same in EP as he did in IS. You really got the impression that he was a master puppeteer in IS, and even after pounding him, he doesn't even seem out of breath. In EP he just seemed like more of a bastard than anything and lost his shit after getting a beat down.
Also, why was Philemon sort of phasing in and out when you first see him in EP? I thought they'd explain this, but if they did, I missed it.
I'm not really totally sure of my thoughts on EP yet. It was alright, but kinda "meh". There was also some really annoying design aspects, like the pitfalls in the Undersea Ruins that dropped you nearly back to the beginning of the dungeon. Without save scumming or Estoma that'd be hell. Also, IS just felt like it was a good wrap up, EP felt unnecessary, though it was satisfying to slap Nyarlathotep's shit again. Though with other Tatsuya consigned to a doomed world… that's worse than just having his memory wiped.
Speaking of him, how is the new scenario for the PSP version? I just remembered it, I haven't played it. Not sure if I will this time or not, it doesn't sound terribly interesting.
Anyway, TL;DR: Persona thread
Oh yeah, and Maya not talking at all (aside from some stuff in battle) was one of the worst things about Eternal Punishment.