The Persona series has become a mainstay in modern RPG circles. One of several spin-offs for the long-running and beloved Shin Megami Tensei series, Persona has taken on a life of its own since the more mainstream popularity of Persona 4 hit the US in 2008. Before that, it was always a critical darling and a cult game series, but it really was the right place, right time for Persona to take its spot in the limelight.
Since then, many of the Persona games have been re-released for North America, though for many, the most celebrated return to the series is the official North American release of Persona 2: Innocent Sin. Released in Japan for its original PlayStation run, it is the only Persona game in the series to get a direct sequel, Eternal Punishment, which was given a limited release outside of Japan in 2000. Rumors abound as to why Innocent Sin was never released, including an urban legend regarding the game's content, notably depicting a queer-coded character. It turns out it was another piece of content that was objectionable, a symbolic appearance of Adolf Hitler and Nazi symbolism as a boss battle.
The truth is more of a business decision, though, with Atlus at the time dealing with staff shortages while working on Persona 2: Eternal Punishment before the release of Innocent Sin. This, combined with some concern over the use of Nazi symbolism and the more Japanese-centric cultural parts, meant the game never saw the light of day in the West. The popularity of the Persona series changed that, with Atlus finally bringing the game to North America in 2011 for the PlayStation Portable, some twelve years after its initial release.
The Persona 2 duology is well-regarded by RPG fans. The concept behind the series was a rarity when it was released: a refreshing RPG that shaped perceptions of what a role-playing game is. A modern setting mixed with the demon-capturing seen in the Shin Megami Tensei series, using a mix of turn-based mechanics and social-link building, was a novel concept that is only becoming more commonplace. Instead of heroic characters, you have immature teenagers as your protagonists. In place of dungeons, you have schools and office buildings to navigate. You need to convince demons to fight for you and give you items, offering options when in combat.
Much of this is familiar to anyone who has played a Persona game before. Innocent Sin is where we really see the roots of the Persona series begin to take shape. If Revelations: Persona introduced the concepts, it was Innocent Sin that perfected most of the basics that players would find recognizable.
The game stars the typical silent protagonist, Tatsuya Suou, a seventeen-year-old student at the Seven Sisters High School in the fictional city of Sumaru. Due to the revelation that rumors spread by people around the city have been coming true, Tatsuya, along with the colorful cast of party members, learns that this suddenly magical force is being manipulated by the enigmatic Joker, a demonic jester that appears to people ala-Candyman to grant them their desires, for a price, of course.
What follows is a fairly long, twisted story that would touch on a lot of twisted themes unusual for an RPG at the time of its release. We have self-image problems, loss and remembrance, and living up to expectations of others- psychological wounds that are commonplace in a game series like Persona. The characters are all grounded and dealing with issues appropriate to their age. Eikichi Mishima, for example, sports a visual-kei goth look and is a self-proclaimed gang boss and band front man, wholly self-absorbed and narcissistic about his appearance, but this is due to his past of being a chubby, schlubby kid folks picked on. Maya Amano is a positive-thinking, happy-go-lucky girl who is aspiring to be a news reporter and won’t let anything bring her mood down, despite inner insecurities and relentless negativity beginning to surround her as the game goes on.
Perhaps the most complex character is Jun Kurosu, a major character in Innocent Sin, and one of the first major sympathetic portrayals of a queer character in a video game. Jun is a character who is actually in love with Tatsuya, based on their old childhood friendships together, and can even be romanced by Tatsuya based on the player's choice. Jun is also a tragic figure in Innocent Sin, so while he can grow to be an indispensable member of the party, it will take some time to get there with him due to how plot-relevant he is. If nothing else, it is a rare positive depiction of a gay character in a video game from the 1990s, which is probably why Jun is (wrongfully) blamed for Innocent Sin never being released until the PSP.
The Persona series is fascinating as a character study, which is why the narrative still holds up well. The entire metaphor about rumors is a perfect example of the ruining of one’s life through lies and deceit, which is where the game's subtitle actually comes from. We also see the cult-like group known as The Masquerade show up, normal people hiding behind a mask; hiding their true personas. The game is steeped in metaphor with a Japanese slice-of-life feel, providing themes to chew on for die-hard Persona fans.
Despite the reputation it has garnered over the years, Persona 2: Innocent Sin suffers from major problems that hold it back from being a true classic. Twelve years is a long time for a release, and Innocent Sin shows its age terribly in this PSP port. It mainly comes from the overall presentation and gameplay mechanics, which may turn away new fans to the series after playing through the smooth progression of Persona 4 or 5. Innocent Sin is functionally a dungeon-crawler with a quasi-isometric aesthetic. Battles are randomized, and instead of trying to win tarot cards after the fight to summon stronger personas, you need to talk to them and convince the demons you are a friend. The conversation system is fairly simple in theory; each demon has a base personality, and each party member has four responses they can use against the demons. Matching personas get along, so using matching personalities will make befriending demons or causing them to leave you tarot cards much easier than contrasting personas.
Of course, one wrong response just provokes the demon, which happens often. Since the conversations are all set on a standard scale, sometimes choosing the wrong option can cause a complete failure in negotiations, making it impossible to climb out of. This is not necessarily bad; it is, in fact, offers further complexity as you plan your next But the entire process is time-consuming and slow, constantly breaking the game's flow of item-gathering for the next level.
Now it should be noted that the earlier Shin Megami Tensei games, along with some of the newer ones like Nocturne and Strange Journey, had similar mechanics. However, the negotiation system was simplified for both of those games in the fact that the demons would join your party and fight with you as a persona. That is not the case in Innocent Sin at all; as stated before, the goal is to acquire tarot cards through the demons. When you receive enough tarot cards, you can then hand them in at the fabled Velvet Room to summon a new persona of the arcana in question. Think of it as grinding for resources; the process, as stated, is slow but rewarding, allowing you to summon higher-level personas with a high amount of cards, but ultimately tedious to the point of being kind of a chore.
This is the problem that's really unavoidable for Innocent Sin. Mechanically, all the pieces are already there, but tweaked in different ways that the later Persona games would abandon. There is no demon fusion in Innocent Sin; for example, instead, fusions come in the form of fusion spells between the party characters if spells are cast in a specific order, offering bigger damage totals or more effects in the process. While fighting is self-explanatory, using your persona’s abilities in combat has them level up, granting them new abilities. Each party member can also use more than one persona, so there is a degree of strategy in choosing which persona to give a party member since it affects the stats, abilities, and even level gain bonuses you receive.
Again, all of this is good in theory; in-game, it is excruciatingly slow. The game follows a more phase-based system; it is still turn-based, but you input all commands at the start of a turn, and watch a battle play out automatically as each enemy and ally takes their turn based on your inputs. So, each battle goes through the same animations, often taking a few seconds to load on the PSP system to churn out a Jack Frost from my head so it can cast Bufu on a Phantom. The load times are frankly atrocious on the PSP, especially in heavier battles. While you do have the option to skip the animations and attack automatically, the game loses the charm and strategy Innocent Sin brings to the table.
Navigation also compounds the negative experience. The map system, for example, is very obtuse. The orientation is often lost because when you switch your perspective with the side buttons, your character moves with the camera, basically switching to the opposite direction you were facing, following the camera instead of where you should be. The mini-map also switches this way too, so you need to use the compass, the small, red-colored squares located on the top right of the screen, to fix your position. There is also an excessive amount of backtracking in this title, which is normally not an issue, but due to the world size in Innocent Sin, it compounds the slowness of combat encounters, making this incredibly tedious.
It also doesn’t help that the graphics are mostly passable. Innocent Sin is still a brilliantly hand-drawn 2-D game; the sprite animations are diverse and, without the use of extensive voice-overs, portray character emotions à la Chrono Trigger very well. The animation is also, however, very blocky up close, something that happens a lot in this game, and very stiff during walking phases. Most of the game's beauty comes from the menus, showcasing the updated character and persona art; also linking it up with the same visual style we would expect from a modern Persona game.
The tradeoff is that the aesthetics and backgrounds are more anachronistic. The dungeons have very little personality to them; mostly being a mono-colored corridor or two with some rooms, traps, and treasure strewn around for variety's sake. NPC’s are all stock sprites, and we see the old-school palette-swapping persona trick we see in all the games to save memory and time. By 2011 standards, the game just looks dated and worn down, especially considering the capabilities of the system it’s on. You can tell that Atlus did what they could to clean up the look; the character sprites are smoother and have more shading to them, for example, but other parts suffered, or could have used another pass to shore up their visual fidelity.
Composer Shoji Meguro remastered the original game's music, and it is quite good. Meguro brings a kinetic energy to the otherwise muddled sound system that the PSP is capable of, injecting life into Innocent Sin through a mix of catchy and moody background music. Innocent Sin also includes an option for the original music and soundboard for the game; a nice touch, but it pales in comparison to the updated tracks.
It is good that Persona 2: Innocent Sin can be enjoyed in North America; it is a piece of forgotten gaming history that die-hard Persona fans have always wanted to play. However, the major mechanical snags it suffers from hinder the enjoyment that can be had, and it probably needed a stronger system than the PSP to mitigate some of the issues. Make no mistake, Persona 2: Innocent Sin is a great game; one even worth playing for yourself. But the biggest sin of all is that it is ultimately twelve years too late, stuck as a bygone relic of an era long since passed; a classic game that is decidedly unfriendly to newcomers to the franchise.
Author's Note: This review was originally written for Blistered Thumbs back in 2011. It has been edited from its original form and posted here for preservation.