Persona PSP Hands On Preview, Part Two
by Rob LeFebvre
Well, it’s come to my attention that I have all of one week to play as much of this game as I can and give a thorough and well-reasoned review. So, I’d like to focus on a couple of things here in the second and last installment of my preview of this fascinating and unlike-many-other-games-I’ve-played PSP title, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona.
Like I said in part one, the Persona series is one of a larger franchise by publisher Atlus, originally based on a book written in Japan. The storyline follows a group of teens in a private school, St. Hamelin, in a Tokyo overrun by demons.
As in many RPGs I’ve played, I’ve finally hit the sweet spot. About 3 hours in, my characters are leveled up enough to make short work of the demons they encounter, and only rarely do battles take much longer than a minute or two, even with multiple foes. Battle takes place on an isometric playing field with your team and the demons layed out in opposition, facing each other. Some weapons and Skills are only viable within certain areas on the board, and if your character’s Skill or Weapon reach isn’t able to hit an opponent, you’ll need to just have them Guard or use an item to help the rest of the team.
I’m enjoying two things in the battle system, both just right for a non-hardcore player like myself. One, the Skip ability, is accessed by hitting the Select button and not having to watch all the little Persona and Magic effect animations that can eat up a lot of time in battle. The second feature is my favorite, “Auto.” This allows you to choose how your characters will act during battle, and it’s fairly extensive. You can, for example, have all your characters use guns, or all use weapons, or all guard. You can have it Replay the last actions each character took – a valuable time saver when you’ve figured out the right balance of gun/weapon/Skill usage for a particular set of demons.
Another fine feature is the Analyze option, in which you can check to see what each Demon you are facing is weak against, or what their personality is. Different Demon personalities will react differently to your Contact moves, so choosing the right conversational gambit will depend on your close analysis of each Demon type. One time, I made a certain Demon so happy, that it gave me a special card that I’ll be able to use later to create a new Persona. w00t!
That’s all I want to say now, as my review will be coming out sometime in the next week or so, and I want to spend as much time playing the game, rather than writing about it. While you wait for your pre-order to show up, or the retail version to arrive in stores, make sure you visit the official site. There are videos, musci previews, forums, and game info that you won’t find anywhere else. Well, except for here.
So what do you DO exactly? Skip and fight demons?
Battle, watch the story unfold, find items, traverse dungeons, battle, chat with demons, create new personas, strategize weapons, items, team formation, and battle some more. I’m more and more into the story now, which is keeping me hooked.