Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2 - Innocent Sin (2011)

Persona 2: Innocent Sin revolves around rumors becoming reality. This concept would later reappear in Persona 4 with the Midnight Channel. The story begins with a rumor: "If you dial your own number, the Joker will appear." The heroes of the game try this, but when the Joker appears, instead of granting wishes, he confronts protagonist Tatsuya for revenge. However, he is frustrated when Tatsuya doesn’t recall what he’s being blamed for, setting the stage for the game's narrative.

As an RPG from the PlayStation era, Innocent Sin demands careful attention to dialogue and clues, especially if you’re playing without a guide, as there are no quest markers to assist you. This old-school design adds to the challenge but may frustrate modern players.

The game's battle dialogue system, while creative, can feel cumbersome. Each character has unique lines that influence interactions with Personas, but the logic behind these interactions is opaque. For example, Yukki’s “reason” line appeals to “wise” Personas, while Tatsuya’s “dead stare” works on “foolish” ones. Personas sometimes ask cryptic questions, like “Is school fun?” where the "correct" answer depends on the Persona’s type. This system can feel arbitrary and overly complex, and traditional grinding often offers a more straightforward path to progress.

The combat system has some ideas that later games in the series would discard to simplify. For instance, some attacks in Persona 2 combine physical and elemental attributes. Additionally, there are both Water and Earth elements, which were removed in subsequent entries. Some spells also target only specific enemy groups instead of all enemies on screen.

However, the game’s design can lead to frustrating moments. While switching Personas is allowed for all characters, poor planning can leave your party ill-equipped. For example, you might find yourself without healing Personas at a critical moment.

The story builds momentum with dramatic reveals. Tatsuya, Lisa, and Eikichi share a childhood connection through their "Masked Circle" game, unaware that this innocent past would tie into the terrorist organization of the same name. They learn that their childhood friend Maia, who introduced them to the Persona concept, met a tragic fate due to their actions—a revelation that explains the titular "Innocent Sin." Except that Maia is alive and well.

Some of the more annoying moments include navigating a museum with a real-time timer and solving Leo’s bomb "puzzle" (basically checking everywhere for a bomb), where failure results in buildings exploding—though the story adapts regardless of your success.

The plot takes a darker turn with the appearance of Nazis, who bring a difficulty spike. The upgrade to “Prime” Personas provides much-needed firepower, especially Tatsuya’s Vulcanus Prime with its versatile Fiery Fury skill, which combines fire and physical damage. At this point, Yukki leaves the party after her boyfriend’s death, replaced by Jun. It would be tragic, except we haven’t seen this guy once throughout the game.

Dungeon design is where Innocent Sin fails miserably. The mazes are visually dull and mechanically frustrating, filled with invisible traps and convoluted layouts. The final dungeon, Xibalba, epitomizes these flaws with its tedious eight-floor design.

Despite its challenges, Persona 2: Innocent Sin is generally easier than later entries in the series. Generous SP recovery mechanics and affordable items allow players to overcome most obstacles with proper preparation. The final boss is manageable even with default Personas at moderate levels. I expected an additional dungeon after the battle.

Unfortunately, the ending feels abrupt and unsatisfying. After defeating Nyarlathotep, a final twist sees Maia fatally wounded by the Crazy Teacher wielding the Longinus spear, reinforcing the cyclical theme of suffering. The game ends with Philemon offering the characters a choice to forget their pain or continue their struggle. This ties into the series’ recurring themes but makes the game feel incomplete without the sequel, Eternal Punishment.

The Persona series' sophomore effort is a noticeable step up in every way. The story is wilder and more interesting, the characters more clearly drawn, the battle system is streamlined in ways that lessen frustration while still requiring strategy, and the overall presentation is more cinematic and involving. As a result, it is easy to sink hours into Innocent Sin once it gets going, especially with new features like “auto-battle” that can make grinding and exploration mindless enough that you can watch something in the background. In the overworld, features like the new “Spread Rumor” are fun ways to give the player greater power to shape the world and start side quests; once you hear a rumor (such as a special demon or legendary weapon exists at a certain location) from a demon or player, you can pay a detective agency to spread it and make it reality. Even if the rumor mechanic becomes rote by the end, it’s a creative idea that plays directly in the game’s themes. Most importantly, dungeons have shifted away from the drab first-person approach of Persona 1 to a more standard isometric view that makes navigation easier and provides each stage with unique personality.

All of those improvements mean there are relatively few low points during a playthrough, but Innocent Sin still struggles to produce very high highs. If Persona 1 was a weak 3*, Persona 2: Innocent Sin is a strong 3* held back by a few major issues. For starters, the game is quite long, with a story that only kicks into high gear about 1/3 of the way through. Those first few hours crawl by and were a big reason I put the game aside for several years. Even once the main plot finally becomes apparent, its story is simple despite being gussied up with truly insane ideas (this is a game where robo-Nazis invade Japan due to the spreading of a rumor). It won’t get your blood pumping, but its focus on the power of rumors and the lies we tell about ourselves is surprisingly touching and occasionally profound, especially when it homes in on the ways our parents play into our insecurities. These ideas are both universal and profoundly personal, making Innocent Sin a much more successful incorporation of psychology into a moving high school story than Persona 1’s clunky attempts at doing the same. All of this is more interesting on an intellectual level than a dramatic one, but it still distinguishes the game from other JRPGs of that era.

I also continued to struggle with the basic structure of the game, although my complaints may be more about the traits of JRPGs in the 90s than Innocent Sin in particular. There is less required grinding here than in Persona 1, but its presence often stalls whatever momentum the too-drawn-out story gets going. The real problem is the game's combination of requiring grinding, providing very frequent enemy encounters, and doling out experience at such a slow pace that you’ll find yourself auto-battling through hours of enemies at a time just to gain one or two levels. Such detours are exhausting and will drive all but the most masochistic gamer to disable the attack animations just to get things over with quickly. Forcing that kind of disengagement is a detriment to the experience and I still struggle to see what appeal it could have.

Even with those negatives, I was addicted to the game loop. Demon contacts ultimately become a game of just looking up the correct response on my phone to get a demon to provide me with tarot cards, but exploring this world, coordinating strategies for turn order and personas to use fusion spells, and progressing along this strange story kept me coming back for more even if I was never wowed. If you’re a fan of the series and looking for an earlier entry to check out, Innocent Sin is the one to prioritize. With solid strategic gameplay and a strange story, it’s an experience you won’t soon forget.

Persona 2 has a lot of potential, but I ultimately found it VERY sluggish and boring.

This is a very different Persona than what I'm used to. I knew it was different from 3, 4 and 5, but I didn't know that it would be such a completely distinct experience.

The atmosphere is here at least and the game excels in it! Innocent Sin still gives off that chill Persona energy, with a high school story that starts off silly and ends up getting darker and darker, while not losing its cozy vibes. And that's actually the best thing of the entire game.

The story starts off very slow, introducing the setting and characters. It all develops very well, turning into a very mature tale filled with twists and mysteries up until the very final scene. All characters and villains are great, with simple but interesting backstories and fun/engaging personalities. I loved how it all progressed and that's what keeps me curious to play Eternal Punishment.

Demons/Characters designs and soundtrack also diserve to be mentioned on the positive side. Design is not as good as future games would be, but they're still charming enough. Especially main Personas and their evolutions. As for the soundtrack, it's good, a few tracks stand out, but it's not as special as Persona 4's, for example.

But I can't lie to you, I did not like this game very much. I didn't hate it, of course, but if it wasn't for story and characters, few things would get me to play Eternal Punishment or even Persona 1.

The dungeon crawling aspects from Innocent Sin are awful. Dungeons are exceedingly long, battles are slow, side quests are very unrewarding, dungeon designs are bad, negotiations are unintuitive and the RNG is insanely off. I just hated this part of the game. It feels so different from games like Persona 3 or SMT Nocturne. And being different isn't the bad thing, the bad thing is that it's not engaging at all!

There is no press turn battle system and while that would be ok if they had some other solution, it's not. Instead, you get the cards system, which is absolutely tedious. Collecting cards and having to manage them on the Velvet Room (which you'll hardly ever be in one) feels like a chore. Weaknesses are meaningless, negotiations make even less sense and it's all just helplessly slow. Even the fusion system is absent.

In fact, Innocent Sin felt a little too laid-back. The only battles I liked were boss fights, because they actually felt a bit more tactical and challenging. For the rest, I just couldn't care less. I'm REALLY glad it's not grindy and sort of chill, but they couldn't find a good balance, it seems. Takes a long time to level up and it simply does not compel you to battle much. Besides, the way dungeons are built just fuck up the story's nicely paced moments.

I do not recommend Persona 2, unless you have played the other games. I know there's a lot of people out there praising it, but I just found it tedious.

The story is great and I will play Eternal Punishment to find out what will happen with the cast, but other than that, it all feels like an unnecessary time-consuming adventure.

Okay, I talked about how much I liked the first Persona game. It was grindy, but charming. It had all the elements of old-school jrpg with the massive dungeon crawling and backtracking. However, my feelings started to fade during the first Persona 2 (on PSP), despite having a better story.

Story

This is my fault, really, because I took long breaks playing this game fully because of graduate school. I did not quite grasp what the whole story was about and pretty sure I forgot a lot of important details by the end.

A group of reluctant acquaintances end up together after some weird things start happening in the town and they have the abilities to summon Personas. You are the silent protagonist, who is a cool, chill guy. Your group includes a blonde fellow student who is wildly obsessed with you, a wannabe-rocker from a rival school who has quite the high fashion, a twenty-something reporter and her photographer friend (who you will recognize from game 1), and in the second half of the game, an effeminate boy also rather obsessed with you.

The story first begins with finding and confronting the villainous Joker, who is spreading reality-changing rumors across Sumaru City. It all starts when Tatsuya (you), Lisa (blonde girl), and Eikichi (rocker) get into an argument, then into summoning Personas with Philemon, and being attacked by the Joker. With his crystal skull, the Joker sucks out "ideal energy" out of the characters for an unspecified purpose. This hunt eventually leads to the Masked Circle, who the Joker is assigning crystal skulls for energy sucking around the city. At this point, it is hard to tell the rest of the story without spoilers - basically, everything gets flipped around and the real bad guys are revealed later on.

What I loved

• The improvement of dungeon crawling and traveling the city is way better. Here, you get to select the neighborhood you want to be in and travel in short bursts that way. Additionally, the demons are not crawling all over the city - they are contained in specified areas and the Abandoned Factory.
• The inclusion of characters from Persona 1: Because I did not play with Yukino during the first game, I felt like I was able to make amends with her during this game. Encountering other characters was a pleasant surprise and made the cross-over interactions more interesting.
• Rumors: This was interesting and definitely allowed you to get better weapons, armors, and items. The concept was really cool, which included a demon component (but I did not really make much use of this).
• Story: The first half - the Joker was really creepy and cool! I was a little sad when the Joker story was over.

What I hated

• Characters: I really did not like Lisa and Jun. I just found them irritating and incredibly annoying. While the romance factor is not profoundly obvious, you can select who you like based on your conversation selections. In my case, I focused on Maya because she just seemed like the obvious choice.
• Persona fusion: It is obvious that the developers decided to make it easier to create Personas by allowing characters to talk to the same type of demon multiple times to collect X number of cards and create one Persona. While that certainly saves time and avoids mistakes, it felt rather dull. I was growing quickly tired of talking to one demon repeatedly just to get 200+ cards.
• Story: The second half - Really, it's my fault for having long breaks, but I got so confused in the second half. I could not figure who was really the ultimate bad guy for quite some time.

Despite my feelings, I am still interested in playing Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.

This game has a really amazing story that's probably better than all the other Persona games. It's clever, well-written, and shows off some highly entertaining characters.

However...

It's very much a product of its time. The game lacks the social links system of Persona 3 and instead plays like a standard linear RPG. Which is a real problem for me, even though I can't really blame the creators for not having come up with a completely novel idea yet. More vexingly, the game has all the complexity and non-intuitive directions of '90s RPGs. The system of fusion was something I was never truly able to figure out and the battles are filled with needless options that overwhelm rather than expand the experience. Plot advancement is linear, but occasionally difficult to locate. The game relies a lot on wandering around to classrooms and buildings you've already visited in order to find some new information.

So five stars for the plot, somewhat less for the confusing mechanics and not always clear direction.