• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin |OT| "As if your dreams would ever be fulfilled...

Akselziys

Aksys Games Dev.
Beat the game and did everything possible last night @_@

Clocked in at 100 hrs+ and loved every minute :D

Really hope we see Eternal Punishment soon :)!
 
Jun's cut in animation reminds me of a certain actor on Parks and Rec... I wonder why they went with such a soft voice direction in comparison to his uber manly voice in the original game.
 

creid

Member
If I may make a belated, spoilery suggestion about the OP:
Take Jun out of the list of characters. When you're a couple hours into the game and have met every character except for him, it's pretty easy to figure out that he's Joker. Especially since Joker is throwing flowers around, and Jun is described as having "a penchant for flowers."
 
It's interesting to think about the characters now. The majority of the cast from P2:IS would just now enter their 30s. Maya would be 35 years old now...

And more food for thought, any one of the characters from both P2 games could teach others the Persona ritual and create more uber powerful Persona users. Sorry Yu/Souji and Minato... you are not that awesome.
 

faridmon

Member
3 hours in. Not liking it so far. the Loadsing screen kills it and the structure is just chaotic. Will play it more, but so far, meh.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
creid said:
If I may make a belated, spoilery suggestion about the OP:
Take Jun out of the list of characters. When you're a couple hours into the game and have met every character except for him, it's pretty easy to figure out that he's Joker. Especially since Joker is throwing flowers around, and Jun is described as having "a penchant for flowers."

Updating it at this point would basically be admitting it. :p


Ah Xibalba, I hate you so.


Also, Jun's voice was pretty soft in Eternal Punishment US too.

Almost too soft. I liked Eikichi's dub in EP, though.

KibblesBits said:
It's interesting to think about the characters now. The majority of the cast from P2:IS would just now enter their 30s. Maya would be 35 years old now...

And more food for thought, any one of the characters from both P2 games could teach others the Persona ritual and create more uber powerful Persona users. Sorry Yu/Souji and Minato... you are not that awesome.

They're in the P3 universe, too, so that's entirely possible.

I'm of the opinion that Minato is entirely too powerful for them to deal with though.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
And finished.

Great Father was still hell. Not as bad as the PS1 version since I never saw that spike coming, but yeesh, that Seagal Smash still hurts. Jun survived, was charmed two turns, then revived everyone via Ditch Tea.

At least it isn't glitched in this version!


The overall arc is incredible, so I respect why this is the more fondly remembered of the two, but factor in Eternal Punishment and it gets even better. I hope they're already working on the PSP version.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Also, uh... didn't EP PS1 have an IS import data bonus thing that was taken out of the US version? Is that possible on the PSP?
 

Akselziys

Aksys Games Dev.
cj_iwakura said:
Also, uh... didn't EP PS1 have an IS import data bonus thing that was taken out of the US version? Is that possible on the PSP?

Yeah, it
gave you [Tatsuya] the Karma ring, which you can find near the end of the game in Innocent Sin, if you imported your Innocent Sin data :)

Also, I agree with everything you said in the post above this :D
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
I still haven't gotten past Giga Macho because I haven't played in a month. I need to sit down and play this again.
 
Woohoo, I finally hit the big Jackpot at Mu Continent! I'm going to pump some more luck into Tatsuya's base stats so I have an even better chance.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
So does anyone have any theories on(ENDING SPOILERS)

Why Okamura kills Maya? Was she just deluded by Nyarlathotep since he was using Jun's father as an avatar?

Or was she just crazy?
 

Akselziys

Aksys Games Dev.
cj_iwakura said:
So does anyone have any theories on(ENDING SPOILERS)

Why Okamura kills Maya? Was she just deluded by Nyarlathotep since he was using Jun's father as an avatar?

Or was she just crazy?

I believe due to Xibalba, her delusions and jealousy took over her (she seemed to be in love with Kashihara) and so she stabbed Maya in order to fulfill the Oracle of Maia.

Then at the end she flew off with Fake Kashihara/Nyarlathotep, as Philemon and co. dealt with the after math >.<

Luckily, EP helps with that XD So hopefully ATLUS re-makes it too :)

One of my favorite series ever <3 (P1, P2IS, P2EP)
 

Vally

Member
cj_iwakura said:
So does anyone have any theories on(ENDING SPOILERS)

Why Okamura kills Maya? Was she just deluded by Nyarlathotep since he was using Jun's father as an avatar?

Or was she just crazy?

I just beat the game a few days ago and was wondering the same thing...

Seeing how Okamura seems to be obsessed with Jun's father, I think the easier explanation would be that she just wanted to prove at any cost that he was right about his theories. She said she was willing to die to prove him right, so I assume she thought she was the one who had to be sacrificed in order to fulfill the prophecy, and then Nyarlathotep persuaded her at some point to kill the other Maya instead, since it would serve the same purpose.

That's how I understood it, at least. She was still crazy, regardless.

Edit: yep, basically what Akselziys said
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Dawwww... Jack Frost wants to be one of my "Per-ho-nah"s. Even though Ginko/Lisa has him. How often do these type of events happen? Free cards for having that demon as a persona is pretty nice.
 
TheSeks said:
Dawwww... Jack Frost wants to be one of my "Per-ho-nah"s. Even though Ginko/Lisa has him. How often do these type of events happen? Free cards for having that demon as a persona is pretty nice.

There's a number of "persona talks" in the game.
Some are between persona of the same family and type.
Some are between enemies, or friends.
They usually make sense from a mythological standpoint.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Interesting. I guess I lucked out on that. :lol

Also made it up to the end of Giga Macho (AFAIR), but I gotta let my PSP recharge before I do the events there.

I've got like 200-300 cards of the Cockatrice, Minotar, and few other demons in this dungeon that aren't the Ogre Jelly family since I have about 300 cards there from farming them in previous dungeons since they seem to like Maya Interviewing them. I'm still level 14-15.
 

Vally

Member
KibblesBits said:
There's a number of "persona talks" in the game.
Some are between persona of the same family and type.
Some are between enemies, or friends.
They usually make sense from a mythological standpoint.

Something like that happened to me when I was fighting a Demeter in the abandoned factory; Demeter wanted Eikichi's persona (Hades) to return her daughter Persephone to her, and Hades was like 'lol no'

Also speaking of Giga Macho, I love the arranged version of the CD Shop music, so ridiculous it's awesome... dogs barking and hallelujah choruses because why not?
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
You can't save in the Outdoor Concert Hall area? I thought you could in the PSX version!?
 
Yeah, I beat this and I want EP now more than ever. I played it way back in the day but never got around to finishing it - also, I was sort of lost in the story at the time so at least I have a clear idea of the context.

As for the ending -
I punched Phil in the face and he ended up being a doppleganger of Tatsuya. Does anything change if you do not punch him in the face? Why does he look like Tatsuya? Thanks!
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Pretty sure you couldn't. It's not that hard, anyway.

Well, I saved before that. I was just going to save since I got there. No big deal.

>>Spoilers<<

Philemon is the personification of everyone. IIRC, he could be Maya or anyone else with the mask unrevealed. But he's Tatsuya due to the events at the end and EP happening
 
Spoilers!
Philemon is the personification of everyone. IIRC, he could be Maya or anyone else with the mask unrevealed. But he's Tatsuya due to the events at the end and EP happening

I must have
missed this - was it explained in Persona 1 as well? Philoman looks the same as he did then too. Also, what is the significance of the butterfly? Shiiiit, is Philomon also the butterfly save points in Persona 4? Thanks :)
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Philemon is the butterflies, yes. He watches over everyone, I think.
It's been a while since I've done IS's ending and why I'm replaying it on PSP.
He's a part of the "unconsciousness" that some of the demon's talk about. The non-"real" world. Order and Chaos. Hitler/the big-bad ending boss that I'm forgetting the name of being the opposite of Philemon being Chaos, IIRC.

Edit: And no, it isn't really explained in P1. But that's why P2 fleshes it out a bit.
 
Philemon is the butterflies, yes. He watches over everyone, I think.
It's been a while since I've done IS's ending and why I'm replaying it on PSP.
He's a part of the "unconsciousness" that some of the demon's talk about. The non-"real" world. Order and Chaos. Hitler/the big-bad ending boss that I'm forgetting the name of being the opposite of Philemon being Chaos, IIRC.

Edit: And no, it isn't really explained in P1. But that's why P2 fleshes it out a bit.

To clarify, he's essentially
humanity's persona (loosely speaking) while Nyarlathotep is humanity's collective shadow.

Philemon is also the butterfly in P3's opening sequence.
The butterfly motif comes from this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi#The_butterfly_dream
And Philemon himself is from psychologist Carl Jung's subconscious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Book_(Jung)
And I'm pretty sure everybody playing this know this but for completion's sake, Nyarlathotep is a being from Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos.
 
Philemon is the butterflies, yes. He watches over everyone, I think.
It's been a while since I've done IS's ending and why I'm replaying it on PSP.
He's a part of the "unconsciousness" that some of the demon's talk about. The non-"real" world. Order and Chaos. Hitler/the big-bad ending boss that I'm forgetting the name of being the opposite of Philemon being Chaos, IIRC.

Edit: And no, it isn't really explained in P1. But that's why P2 fleshes it out a bit.

The plays on mythology/psychology are so damn good in the early games. I understand why they went with the Persona 3 and 4 routes - it was a great reboot of the gameplay mechanics and structure sure, but I really hope that they take Persona 5 back to mythology in a unique way.

I hope they flesh out Igor and the velvet "world". Hmmm, maybe even have parts of it take place in the city that Igor & friends are from? Speaking of which, is there any explanation for
the velvet rooms in Persona 2 and if they exist in the "place between dream and reality" or whatever Igor says? I see that "other side" world as an untapped resource for Atlus and perhaps that new girl in P4 Golden is from there? I'm desperate here!
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
The Velvet Room is "limbo," in terms of being real/Earth versus non-real/Mythical-Demon-World.
I think. It's really hinted to be that way. But in any case, if it isn't that
theory, the Velvet room is part of the demon/non-real world and Igor and the watchers/people that come with him in each SMT game like Dr. Who's "followers"/journeymen watch over the Velvet Room and people that come for their own personal "journey"/adventure/SMT game.

P3 and P4 really underplay this and don't even mention it at all, which is a shame because there is a bunch of over-laying themes they could connect together and have the whole series be time-lined, but they don't. If I recall, P1 is like 1998 and P2 is 1999 while P3 is 2010 and P4 2011/graduating classes so they happen in 1997-1998 1998-1999, 2009-2010, and 2010-2011 respectively.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
The plays on mythology/psychology are so damn good in the early games. I understand why they went with the Persona 3 and 4 routes - it was a great reboot of the gameplay mechanics and structure sure, but I really hope that they take Persona 5 back to mythology in a unique way.

I hope they flesh out Igor and the velvet "world". Hmmm, maybe even have parts of it take place in the city that Igor & friends are from? Speaking of which, is there any explanation for
the velvet rooms in Persona 2 and if they exist in the "place between dream and reality" or whatever Igor says? I see that "other side" world as an untapped resource for Atlus and perhaps that new girl in P4 Golden is from there? I'm desperate here!

Igor and co are servants of Philemon.

And regarding the ending choice,
If you thank him, Philemon encourages you, and assures you that you'll meet again.

That's what I did.
 

Witchfinder General

punched Wheelchair Mike
Question about mutations:

My Pixie can now mutate. Apparantly the options available (according to guides) are Hotei and Robin Goodfellow but I only get the option for Robin?

Is there any way to get Hotei instead? Does it matter?
 

KiteGr

Member
Playing the game right now...

Lets start wit the bad...
  • The small GPS map is completly useless! You can see further by just looking at the screen. I would have preffer if we had a better compass instead.
  • The card grinding is stupid. You need to eager the same demon about 10 times to get a worthy persona out of him, while in P1 all you had to do was to eager him once to get his 1 card that also dubles as a pact. You spend more time talking to demons than traditional fighting and levelin.
  • The animations for the demon conversations and battles are tediously slow, and there is no fastforward option like remake of the first game. And the rest of the animations for the story conversations are lighting fast.
  • I hate all types of censorship in games, and while this one has a fare shere of them, I hate even more the absence of content due to lasyness.

Now that we got these out of the way, lets go to the good parts:
  • The characters are grate! The narcisist, the foreing girl (that happens to be the daughter of Steven Seagal), the jurnalist. I like them more than those of P1.
  • The roumor system is a clever way to unlock stuff in your hub town. You won't learn more rumours unless you have some to tell, thus you have to advace through the game and discover stuff.
  • The story appears to be good thus far...
  • The graphics are a significant update from P1 and thank god the got read of that first person vew in the almost random dungeons!

Long story short.
The game could have been better if the combat wasn't so slow, and the creation of new personas less grindy...
 

cj_iwakura

Member
So my friend was playing through the PS1 version. Went through without a problem, even got some ultimate weapons and most of the endgame Persona.


Final boss mutilated him in three turns. Makes me happy.

Shame the PSP version isn't nearly that brutal. Unless he hates you.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Defeated
King Tarus
now for the little mini-game that happens. But I jumped from level 15 to 18. Wut.
 
So my friend was playing through the PS1 version. Went through without a problem, even got some ultimate weapons and most of the endgame Persona.


Final boss mutilated him in three turns. Makes me happy.

Shame the PSP version isn't nearly that brutal. Unless he hates you.

Damn, I had no idea the original could be that brutal. Check this out, I played the PSP version using only the starting personae (and their upgraded forms via plot points) and never grinded exp, just leveled as I went along and one shotted every boss including the final one.

Generally, I like a challenge, but in this game I was playing for the story and I didn't mind at all. Played it on normal difficulty.
 

totowhoa

Banned
Started playing through this when I got my Vita and I'm really enjoying it now. I'd played Persona 1 on PS1 but I never got terribly far... might give it a go again on PSP, but I remember not liking it. Anyway, I'm about 20 hours in or so. Great game so far, but it seems pretty easy compared to other SMT universe games so far (playing on hard mode).

Is the game's length comparable to P3 or P4? Took me about 85 hours to get true ending on both. I also was wondering what happened if you let the two buildings explode (Gold and whatever the other one was). I guess I picked the right one, Smile Hirasaka or whatever it was called the first time, but the second time I chose wrong and Gold blew up. I had saved before choosing so I'm going to go back and pick the other one, but is there any reward I'm expecting here? Or are these just optional dungeons? I checked GameFAQs to see what would happen and there wasn't any answer. Each FAQ just says to pick the correct one as far as I could tell and moves on with the guide.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Persona 1's aged terrible. Only get it if you can get it cheap.

In any case: I'm up to the
bomb but don't know where
bit. Michelle (er-Michael) says it's one place. Ginko/Lisa says it's another. I forget, there's no penalty of choosing one over the other right?
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Started playing through this when I got my Vita and I'm really enjoying it now. I'd played Persona 1 on PS1 but I never got terribly far... might give it a go again on PSP, but I remember not liking it. Anyway, I'm about 20 hours in or so. Great game so far, but it seems pretty easy compared to other SMT universe games so far (playing on hard mode).

Is the game's length comparable to P3 or P4? Took me about 85 hours to get true ending on both. I also was wondering what happened if you let the two buildings explode (Gold and whatever the other one was). I guess I picked the right one, Smile Hirasaka or whatever it was called the first time, but the second time I chose wrong and Gold blew up. I had saved before choosing so I'm going to go back and pick the other one, but is there any reward I'm expecting here? Or are these just optional dungeons? I checked GameFAQs to see what would happen and there wasn't any answer. Each FAQ just says to pick the correct one as far as I could tell and moves on with the guide.

P3 and P4 are REAL long. P2 is roughly 30-40, 20-30 if you blitz things, but this is a game best savored.

As for the buildings,
they eventually blow up anyway.
 

Psxphile

Member
With the buildings, if you choose wrong you miss out on doing the actual dungeons associated with them. That's literally the only difference I remember about that. Makes you wonder what happens to Ulala and Nesquik Ixquic, especially since
you're supposed to run into Ix again later
.

As for the difficulty, yeah... pretty sure it was confirmed (if not here, elsewhere) that Atlus tweaked some things and made the battles easier (lower enemy HP/stats?) from the original IS.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Should've tweaked the encounter rate instead. Gawwwwd.
 
Top Bottom