One caveat: Usually in LttP threads, I would leave spoilers untagged and mark the thread as "Spoiler". I'm not going to do that here. I will tag what I deem "major" spoilers to the game. The original is over 20 years old, however it's plot threads are not near as well known as something like Final Fantasy VII. Since so few people have played this game compared to the rest of the Persona series, I would rather leave spoilers tagged and try to convince people that haven't played it to give it a shot.
A bit of a foreword: Most of this will be based off the SEBEC route. I started Snow Queen and am past halfway through it, but not finished yet, and am taking a break from it for reasons I'll discuss.
Introduction
Persona 1 is actually a game that's a lot better than people give it credit for, but recommending it to people still does come with some caveats. Usually this game does not get brought up in the same breath as Persona 3, 4, and 5. Part of this is on Atlus, and I can't find the interview, but if I recall correctly, they soft-"retired" Persona 1 and the 2 duology because most of the creators weren't at the company anymore. They still make occasional references to the games, like putting costumes in the music in Persona 5, but other than that very little. Persona Q2 or the dancing games don't even include the actual characters from these games.
A bit of a history lesson, Persona 1 is actually a sort-of sequel to Shin Megami Tensei if... SMT if... was a game in the mainline SMT series that took place in an alternate reality of SMT1 where the apocalypse part didn't happen. The game takes place at a school, you're a student and can even choose male or female options. Another student throws the school into another dimension, demons invade, and you're tasked with bringing things back to normal. This game established a lot of the concepts that are known in Persona games nowadays. It had a "guardian" system where the humans could have a demon as their "guardian", and behaved much like Personas do. You could of course also have demons in your party like any other SMT game. I have not played the game myself, but definitely plan to check it out, as the English fan translation was even finished for it somewhat recently!
Persona 1 makes some minor references to SMT1, particularly in one side character that only appears in the Snow Queen quest:
Tamaki Uchida is the female protagonist from SMT if... and is considered the "canon" protagonist. She makes some references to her times in SMT if... and it's a neat callback.
Persona 1 is a game with one particularly neat idea right off the bat: It has two different stories that you decide very early in the game on. The "main" quest is the SEBEC quest, and is the one that most players will end up on if they aren't following a guide or looking for anything, and the other one is considered the "extra" one called the Snow Queen quest. The dungeons and storylines of both quests are completely different, but start out the same. To get to Snow Queen, there's a particular set of tasks you have to perform early on in the game to make it happen.
This game is also known for it's infamous PS1 English localization. At the time, Atlus seemingly deemed it necessary to make the game take place in the United States, changing designs of the characters, names, and removing references to Japanese culture. Likely due to time constraints, the Snow Queen quest was also cut from the English version! This was restored in the PSP version, which was the version I played. Some gameplay changes were also made to the PS1 version, such as the encounter rate being lowered, experience increased, however they did not increase money which led to issues with shortages of money. I know there was a poster from the old forum, and I don't know if they made it over here to ResetERA, that had a very long post defending the localization and preferring it. While I disagree with that person, I still think their post on the subject was very interesting to read, and if you can find it I highly recommend it. I'm not going to link it here due to it being at the old place. If that person still posts here though, please feel free to post it again!
Gameplay
Persona 1 established many concepts that carried throughout the series and are still well known today, but there's quite a lot done differently than what is more commonly known today. Since the game was a lot more rooted in SMT at the time, gameplay elements are more like that than what we know as modern Persona. There's no calendar or social links, but the entire playable cast is students in a high school, wielding Personas, manifestations of their selves. The out-of-battle gameplay takes place in three perspectives: first person dungeon crawling, the third person "dialogue/event" rooms, and the overworld map.
The overworld map is just a simple pointer indicating where you're going, you just use it to move from A to B. I have one major issue with it, but I'll be covering it on a different topic.
The third person "dialogue/event" rooms look more like what you would see in modern Persona today. You can see all the characters in the room, can walk around, talk to them, etc. Chests are also only in these types of rooms. This is different from many other dungeon crawlers, where the chests are just usually there at the ends of hallways. One thing in particular that bugged me though was the overuse of "trap" chests. These would be chests you open and either damage you a little, a lot, or poison you. Sometimes there would be rooms that have nothing but trap chests! There's no real telegraphing of when this is coming, it's just there. Most of the time you have what you need to heal the loss you take from these chests, but it's definitely an annoyance and feels like the game going "haha, got you with this thing you couldn't see coming!" I also would have preferred the chests be in the hallways of the dungeons, as it basically made exploring off of the path forward in the dungeons pointless for the most part.
The first person dungeon crawling parts are mostly pretty straightforward, but you have standard traps you see in other games like this: damage floors, pitfalls, etc. Like I mentioned above, exploring off the "progress" path is pretty much pointless unless you see a green room on the map. Battles are random. Most of the dungeons are just trying to advance floor to floor, but there are some that do things a little different.
Let me go ahead and address my biggest beef with this entire game up front though: The encounter rate. I don't hate random battles, in fact most of the time I don't mind them. They never bugged me in Pokemon. They never bugged me in most RPGs. In some later SMT games, they had an indicator that told you about how far you were from a random battle. I liked that, and unfortunately Persona 1 doesn't have that. However I don't think it would count for much, because I think Persona 1's battles are just completely random. I know I have walked two literal spaces after one battle and got into another. The encounter rate is absurd in this game! Oddly enough, I like the regular PSP battle theme, "Lone Prayer", but I got absolutely sick of it because of this game. My wife, who isn't into RPGs at all, noticed just how absurd the encounter rate is by how many times she heard that stupid song. Below is an actual gameplay snippet of this game:
On that subject, I'd like to talk about the soundtrack. I played the PSP version, which has a different soundtrack from the PS1 version. Listening to the PS1 version, it's soundtrack is definitely better. The PSP version tried really hard to cater toward the Persona 4 crowd, and really shouldn't have attempted that. It failed to appeal to that crowd still, and I think Atlus should have stuck to what this game was good at here. The PSP version's music is filled with J-pop much like P3 and P4, but it really does not fit the context of the game at all. When the school is being used as a shelter from demons, it really doesn't fit to hear "IF YOU WANT IT BAYBEHHHHH" as you walk down the halls. The music in the PSP version is actually good in a vacuum, but does not fit the context of the game at all, which is why I think the PS1 version's music is better. I really wish they had an option to use the PSP or PS1 soundtrack. Fortunately the Persona 2 Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment PSP versions DO have this option.
You can see upwards of six enemies at a time sometimes, which can make combat take very long! The game can get very draining due to this, which is why I have zero desire to jump back into a new playthrough of this game for quite a while. You can get Estoma on a Persona, but that only wards off weaker enemies, and most of the time it felt like it didn't do much other than the overworld map. The overworld map though, was the absolute WORST about this. There were plenty of times I walked literally TWO PIXELS after one battle and got into another! There's a subway tunnel on the map that in the early game, will not have any demons in it. I actually found myself using it to just cut through part of the map to avoid the absurd encounters. Eventually it does have demons in it, but it was nice while it lasted.
The infamous English localization lowered this encounter rate, which was a good decision, and doubled XP, however they forgot to double money earned! This means unless you grinded, most of the time you would be short money to buy equipment. I'm slightly surprised they didn't address this at all in this PSP version. Most of the time when people try to play Persona 1, and put it down shortly after starting it, the encounter rate is almost ALWAYS the reason for it. So many people I know that had a PSP and started Persona with Persona 4, they gave this game a try, didn't get far, and never played it again.
I think for the most part though, if you can have some patience, you'll find quite a fun game under all these layers of BS. Every character can change Personas, not just the protagonist. They can hold up to three. You gain new Personas by negotiating with demons for their spell cards, and fuse spell cards to make new Personas. There's systems for which characters can wield which Personas, and how well. Managing all the characters' Personas makes things really interesting, as you often have to change them out to fit the situation you need. For instance if the enemies are using a lot of Death instant kill spells, you need to get a Persona with Tetraja to prevent the instant deaths. Some enemies use a spell called Desanga, which makes you unable to change Personas! Alsanga restores that ability, so that's a hazard you have to watch out for.
One thing I found really neat was the fact that you were allowed to choose some of your party members to keep for the rest of the game! On the SEBEC route, you can pick your fifth member, the other four are set for you. On the Snow Queen route, you can pick your fourth and fifth members. On my SEBEC run, I went with Elly as my fifth. On Snow Queen, I chose Elly and Brown. SEBEC has a character that's a bit of a secret to unlock, and you have to do some specific tasks to get him, but he's generally better than the others. However none of the choices are bad and you're in good hands regardless. Just remember that if you get asked if you want someone to join you, you are NOT obligated to say yes. If you say no, you can recruit a different character.
One particular annoyance is Persona 1's damage types. There's a stupidly high amount of them, and many of the weakness/resistance info on enemies is not clear on what some of it means, some isn't explained clearly. I didn't know what Element and Force referred to until very late into my SEBEC run. Not all guns deal "gun" damage, so if it says an enemy is weak to gun, not every character's gun will exploit that weakness. I had one in particular that aggravated me. This enemy said "Null: All magic except Expel, Death", and "Weak: Physical". This enemy was on the back line, and I didn't have anything to reach it for physical damage, so I used Mudo on it...and it blocked it??? As far as I understand it, my guess is that what it meant was "All Magic besides Expel" and "Death" as two things is nullifies. Why Death is listed separately, I have no idea. I didn't have anything with Expel at the time so I did not get to try it.
Just to list it out though, here's all of Persona 1's damage types. Note that the underlined words are the category those fall under. Some enemies will say "Force" and that will refer to four damage types under it.:
Physical
Sword
Rush
Tech
Fist
Gun
SMG
Rifle
Shotgun
Handgun
Force
Electric
Nuclear
Gravity
Blast
Element
Fire
Ice
Earth
Wind
Death
Expel
Bless
Miracle
Occult
Curse
Prayer
Those are only the ones I could think of off the top of my head. Compared with most other SMT games and Persona games, it's WAAAAAY too many and just superfluous. Why are there four different light damage and three different dark? Why do both "Blast" (Zan) and "Wind" (Garu) exist in the same game? It gets even more confusing when Almighty damage just isn't a thing in this game, but the Megido- line of spells are actually NUCLEAR damage. Both Mafrei and Megido exist, as well as Mafreila and Mafreidyne! Why is this a thing? In all the other games, Megido is Almighty damage and goes through everything. I hope if they ever do a remake/reimagining of Persona 1 one day, they cut down the number of damage types. It's absurd and can get really confusing.
There's also the grid system. To it's credit, there are some neat ideas involving it. For instance after one point of getting constantly charmed, and more charm stacked on my characters, I didn't realize the way to address this was to actually just spread my characters out so the AoE charm spell didn't hit multiple at once, and they could run out their charm ticks. However many attacks have really strange ranges, and based on where you position your characters some of your skills or weapons are impossible to use, while trying to be in range to use others. You can enter the battle with your own formation, but moving party members mid-battle costs their turn. For instance, Maki's weapon is a bow, but her gun is a handgun. Handguns can only reach close range, but if she's on the front line, her bow can only reach the back line. If you move Maki to the furthest back line, her bow can hit any enemy, however she can't hit anything with her gun. Maki is kind of frail, so it is generally best to put her on the back line anyway, so I did that and never looked back. There are weird ranges on some of the skills though, usually physical ones. Yukino's weapon is thrown, and can hit any enemies ahead of her in a 3-space wide line, but that's all she can hit. I would have rather had them just use the front-back system like most other SMT games use. You can have up to 3 characters in the front, up to 3 in the back, if the frontline dies, the backline moves forward. This is much simpler and still allows for some tactical depth. The way it is in Persona 1, it's just cumbersome.
Negotiation isn't really explained, and seems weird at first, but makes sense once you get the hang of it. Every character has a set of actions they can take in negotiations, such as "Persuade", "Dance", "Joke", etc. This is where the "Mark danced crazy!" line comes from. Different demons have different personality types, so they respond to different characters with different actions. These will add to the meter of four emotions for the demon: Happy, Scared, Angry, Eager. Eager is what makes them likely to give you what you want, be it a spell card, item, or money. Happy can do a few things, but usually puts them in a state of "happiness" where they barely act in battle and become easier to fight. Scared can induce fear or make them run away. Angry usually makes them end negotiations or just attack you. Unlike SMT games, demons do not join you, instead you negotiate for their spell cards. You can fuse the spell cards at the Velvet Room to create new Personas, however you can't fuse those Personas. You have to go negotiate with the demon again to get the spell card if you wish to use it in fusion. Persona 1's fusion system is weird, and I miss that you can't fuse the Personas themselves, and this is something I always felt P3, P4, and P5 did better. I think it's still a better system than the Persona 2 duology though, which has no fusion at all, but that's a topic for my eventual Persona 2 LttP thread.
The common rule with most SMT and Persona games is often "If you're grinding, you're probably doing it wrong", and this holds true in Persona 1….kind of. In my case, I was able to progress through the game, beating enemies no problem, however I would still end up with my level too low to recruit anything. This happened to me in the SEBEC route at some points, and happened even moreso in Snow Queen. In SEBEC, I think it really started happening around Kama Palace, and this was probably because I used a walkthrough to get through it. This kind of sucks that they want you to fumble around in the dungeon for hours to keep your level up and be able get new spell cards. Being able to get spell cards works where you can only get them if the demon is less than or equal to your party members' average level rounded down. Characters level up only if they actually take action, so sometimes you have to have some characters guard to let others catch up. In SEBEC I didn't really have to grind, but in Snow Queen I had to as I could not get more spell cards. I found it really odd I could progress through the game with not much issue, but then I couldn't get much stronger Personas.
Speaking of leveling up characters, this is another aspect that's way too complicated in this game. Characters have a level and a Persona level. These are two different things. Level refers to the characters' stat increases. You can choose the distribution of the protagonists' stats, but the others are attributed automatically. Persona level refers to what level Persona they can use, which is not the same thing as the level of their Persona. Personas themselves do not level up, much like demons in the SMT series up to this point, but they do come out at a certain level for fusion.
Personas all belong to an "Order" (later known in the series as Arcana), and each character has a specific Order. These are all based on Tarot cards, so each character has compatibility with certain Orders of Personas. If their compatibility is too low, you will not be able to invoke the Persona in combat. Each character can take on up to 3 Personas at a time, and can switch between the three outside of combat, and take up a turn to change Persona in battle. I actually kind of liked that changing Persona in battle was a significant tactical decision. Later games in the series would end up dropping this, letting you change Persona and act in the same turn. I did find it kind of annoying that you couldn't assign different Personas to different characters outside of the Velvet Room though. Coming off of P3, P4, and P5, I really wish they kept the ability to change the non-protagonist characters' Personas. The compatibility system was neat and still made the other characters unique, and more interesting than the protagonist-centric focus of the later games. In addition, Personas also have ranks in addition to levels. There are 8 ranks (8 being "max"). Using the Persona gives you more progression toward the next rank, and ranking up lets that Persona unlock more skills. I felt this system was kind of unnecessary, especially because it really de-emphasizes using physical attacks. If you use your weapon or gun, you get NOTHING toward rank. If you have skills on a Persona you need to unlock, it's better to just spam skills from your Persona, even if you don't need it. One mechanic I did like though was the way SP cost works. In Persona 3, 4, and 5, all skills had their own SP cost. In Persona 1 (and the 2 duology), Personas have ONE SP cost that applies for ALL skills. This means if you have a Persona that says 5 SP and somehow has both Dia and Megidolaon, BOTH skills cost 5 SP. This can be really interesting, as sometimes fusing a Persona with a high SP cost (like 20+) can be something you have to think twice about. I remember fusing Lillim because she nulls Element and Force, which is extremely useful, but she has an absurdly high SP cost.
I miss the first person dungeon crawling from all the later games in the series. The Persona Q games actually gave me a Persona 1 vibe in a good way, and even with a lower encounter rate! One thing I would have at least liked would have been to have what later SMT and Persona games would have: A random encounter indicator. I'm referring to the meter that starts out green/blue, turns yellow, and then red when you're about to hit an encounter. Overall I think Persona 1's gameplay is underrated, but dragged down by it's encounter rate and other annoyances.
Characters
Protagonist (also known as "Boy with Earring")
There's not too much to say about him. He's a fairly standard protagonist, and a blank slate defined by you.
Maki "Maki" Sonomura
Most of this one is going to be in spoilers, for reasons you probably already know if you have played this game. If you haven't played it though, I highly recommend not looking at the spoilers here. For the non-spoiler part, Maki has had a disabling illness most of her life, and is bedridden in the hospital. You go to visit her early on the game after the school nurse finds the cast unconscious. She talks about how much she hates her mother, and hates that Kandori had experimented on her. Once an event happens early on, the bedridden Maki disappears into an operating room, which itself disappears, but then you later meet a perfectly able-bodied Maki, that acts like nothing is different and she was always that way. This Maki has a Persona and joins you on the SEBEC route.
Yukino "Yukino" Mayuzumi
Yukino is a tomboy-ish down-to-earth character. She generally follows the rules in school and has good intentions at heart, but is also more serious than most of the cast. She is briefly playable at the start of the game, and then only playable full time in the Snow Queen quest. Throughout that quest, you learn more about her past.
Masao "Mark" Inaba
Mark is a bit headstrong, with a very clear crush on Maki. He often is a jokester and comic relief among the group. Mark is probably one of the most popular characters in the game, for a number of reasons. In the original English localization, when choosing the "Dance" option in negotiation, one of the things you might see is "Mark danced crazy!" This became a meme in particular, and Atlus USA actually kept the line in the PSP version because of it's popularity. He also had the most interesting redesign for the original English localization. They changed his race to be black, and had him wearing a baseball cap rather than the hat he originally wore. One interesting thing I learned about this redesign from the Kazuma Kaneko Works VIII art book, is that Kazuma Kaneko himself actually drew the redesigned characters for the English localization! I had previously assumed Atlus USA edited the originals, but that was not the case. In the book, there's a page for each character and a page for the "US version" of each character, and Mark is no different.
Kei "Nanjo" Nanjo
Nanjo comes from a very rich family, having a butler you see at the start of the game, and wants to take care of Nanjo, despite how much it annoys him. Very early on, Yamaoka (the butler) sacrifices his life as he tries to protect Nanjo in the hospital, when he was secretly following him. We see Nanjo have a moment of sorrow for Yamaoka. This is also around when he gains his Persona ability. He remains fairly serious throughout the whole game, even moreso than Yukino, not tolerating any nonsense.
Nanjo's family is involved in the Nanjo Group, which may be something people that played Persona 3 heard in a brief mention: The Kirijo Group (Mitsuru's family) actually split from the Nanjo Group.
Eriko "Elly" Kirishima
Elly was one of the party members you're allowed to choose on both routes, and I ended up using her on both. She has traditionally feminine interests, but is also interested in the supernatural and the occult. Early on she thinks she is the only one that got the power of Persona, trying to act like a superhero when she meets up with the rest of the group at the hospital. She then realizes that everyone else has it too, once Mark points it out.
On the subject of Elly, there was a particularly cool moment that I didn't even realize was possible until it happened, but I used Elly to talk to an Angel enemy and was shocked at what happened. Nike, her Persona, is an Angel, and basically said something like "From one Angel to another..." and the demon was a lot easier to convince to give a spell card! I'm curious if there's more interactions like that in this game, but I haven't found them. I still thought that was really cool and I kind of wish it's something more modern SMT games would do (or Persona if they have negotiation like Persona 5 does).
I felt I made the right call picking Elly. On both Snow Queen and SEBEC I got her Phaleg, which she had "best" compatibility with and had access to Mediarama pretty quickly. I was also able to get her Personas with buff/debuff skills I needed. In Snow Queen, having Tetraja on her was particularly lifesaving.
Yuka "Ayase" Ayase
Ayase is very much the "valley girl" of the group. Incredibly popular, but also kind of an airhead, inserting words such as "like", and "totally" unnecessarily into her sentences. In Snow Queen, she's one of the party members you start with and don't get a choice. She's the only character that uses whips for her weapon. When I got her, my wife was sitting in the room and then heard her say "Here Personie!" in battle and was like "Ohhhh no, I do not like that at all." Her voice in battle was quite grating and it felt more like it was a man trying desperately to do a high-pitched girl voice. I looked up her Japanese voice and it's even worse. I feel like they could have gone with something closer to Elly's voice, but with a more "valley girl" flair.
Given that she's the popular girl, she often has a lot of boys after her affection. In Snow Queen, you see this pretty early on. Kenta "Toro" Yokouchi makes an advance on her in a classroom, but she rejects him. She also insults him frequently. This causes him later to lose control when he gains a Persona, and he attacks the group. Ayase feels remorseful later on for insulting him.
Ayase's actually kind of interesting though just because in Persona 3, 4, and 5, we haven't really had any character quite like her. The closest is maybe Chie from Persona 4, but I think she's still very different.
Hidehiko "Brown" Uesugi
Brown is a "class clown" type, almost like Mark, and is often overconfident, but not as headstrong as Mark. He's one of the choices for your fifth party member in SEBEC as well as the fourth or fifth party member in Snow Queen. I chose him in Snow Queen.
Story - opening
Persona 1's story is pretty simple from the start. Students are playing a game called "Persona" that's much like "Bloody Mary" in real life, a little ghost girl appears, everyone gets struck by lightning and winds up in the nurse's office. While you were unconscious you're visited by Philemon, who gives you the power of Persona. Philemon is represented by a butterfly, and this butterfly has appeared in every game in the series, including P3, P4, and P5. Unfortunately he only shows his human form in Persona 1 and the Persona 2 duology. You're told you should visit the hospital to get yourselves checked out as well as visit Maki Sonomura, your classmate that's been hospitalized most of her life. The cast goes to visit Maki and you learn about her condition, how she hates her mother, Mark's crush on her, then something happens and Maki has to go to the operation room. An earthquake strikes, and suddenly the OR has disappeared, and now demons have showed up everywhere in Mikage-Cho. When speaking with Maki, you learn about how Takahisa Kandori from the SEBEC corporation was the one that caused Maki to wind up in this state.
At this point you either proceed along as instructed to do the SEBEC (main) quest, or investigate rumors behind a mask used in a school play to do the Snow Queen quest.
SEBEC Route
The SEBEC route centers around what happened to Maki, as well as addressing the SEBEC corporation and it's CEO, Takahisa Kandori. Pretty much right off the bat, you're pointed toward Kandori as the mastermind behind everything, but in your quest to go after him, he activates the DEVA system, which throws you in an alternate world. You learn the origins of this alternate world as well as how to get back home.
Persona 1's dungeons are alright, but all of them are made tedious by the encounter rate. There's one dungeon in particular I want to rant about though: Kama Palace. This is when you're in the Black Market in the alternate world, and have to go after the Harem Queen. This dungeon's gimmick is a long series of pits spanning many floors, and you have to fall down the right pits to be able to get to the end. Without a guide, this is trial and error. With the stupidly high encounter rate, this is VERY LONG trial and error. I spent an hour or two aimlessly fumbling through this dungeon and decided to just look up a guide because I was quite frustrated with it. Oddly enough the ONLY guide I found for this part in particular were some images of the map made by a Japanese fan (complete with Japanese text) and a GameFAQs post translating it. I was so glad to be done with this dungeon, and I honestly have no idea how I would have managed to just trial and error it until I got it right. The thing is, if the encounter rate wasn't so high, I probably would have just trial and errored it as I think it would be bearable.
You'll often find shops, save points, and the Velvet Room in the dungeons, but you can find them in the shopping malls too. There's also the healing springs, run by Trish, a fairy that's known to be quite greedy. Trish was a staple character of the series that was dropped in Persona 3 and onward, only having a mere mention in Persona 3. The Velvet Room is still run by Igor, but the game does not center much of the story around him, since that role is filled by Philemon. It was kind of cool seeing the singer and pianist of the Velvet Room theme though.
I want to point out one thing in this section: I only finished the "bad" ending of the game, where I did not get to save Maki and the game ended after Deva Yuga. I screwed up answering a question earlier and did not make an extra save to easily go back. This would mean to see the true ending, I would have had to play the ENTIRE GAME again, and I really wasn't about that life. I like Persona 1, but I had zero desire to jump back into a new playthrough of the SEBEC route immediately. I ended up watching the true ending on YouTube.
Snow Queen Route
I have not finished the Snow Queen route, however I did start it and am on my third tower. I found it to be particularly draining, so I took a break from it and will come back to it later.
The Snow Queen route is the "extra" route in the game. Basically instead of following the directions you're given, you investigate the rumor of a mask in the school's drama club that supposedly killed every student that wore it except for one. That student ends up being a present day teacher: Ms. Saeko. You're able to go retrieve the mask, and bring it to Ms. Saeko, and she wears it again. This time she's possessed by the Snow Queen, and freezes the school. No one can leave, and Ms. Saeko is now frozen solid. You now have to save the teacher and the school. This plot actually reminds me a lot of the premise of SMT if…
Here's the big twist about Snow Queen: The ONLY place to save your game is in the nurse's office. You cannot save in the dungeons. You can still suspend save in the PSP version. There's also a way to sort of cheat the system in the PSP version: Using the media backup tool on your PC, you can make a suspend save, back it up, and then keep playing. Restore the suspend save if you die. This gimmick was no problem for me until Thanatos tower, which I'll explain in a bit. I still feel it's an unnecessary gimmick, as it can be particularly brutal if you die at all.
Snow Queen is set up quite differently than SEBEC. You never leave the school, as all the dungeons are accessed from the school. Right off the bat you're told of three towers that classrooms have entrances to: Hypnos, Nemesis, and Thanatos. I completed Hypnos and Nemesis so far, and am on Thanatos now. Each tower has a unique gimmick, and some kind of time limit to complete them. However, time for the time limit is ONLY counted in the first person dungeon traversal, meaning time spent in menus, shops, and combat do not count. Each tower also has a student that's utilizing a Persona and causing trouble.
Hypnos Tower was the one I tackled first, it's also generally considered the easiest one. Kumi Hirose is the villain here, a girl that feels pressured by her parents and the drama club, and traps everyone in a dream world attempting to save them from their real lives. You enter the tower and have to free everyone trapped in the dream world. The only real gimmick on this tower is the time limit. When you visit the dream world, you find other people in their dreams, and can pinch them to wake them up. You have to do this for all of them except for Kumi. Kumi warns you not to pinch her, and you should heed her warning! If you pinch Kumi, it makes the boss more powerful at the end! You eventually reach the top and fight Hypnos, ending Kumi's reign of terror.
Nemesis Tower is the second tower in the line of difficulty, and the one I tackled second. It's run by Michiko Matsudaira with Nemesis, of course. Two students are trapped in a torture chamber, which you can rescue, and are rewarded with more mirror shards if you do it quickly. The gimmick with this tower is that Michiko tells you there is no time limit at first...that's a half-truth. There is no upper time limit in fact, however, the longer you take, the stronger the boss at the end will be, and the more floors you will have to climb. In my playthrough, I actually made it in the first tier (<20 minutes) so I got the easiest version of the boss. Michiko is a bully with a victim complex that would often cheat her way through school. The boss here is of course, Nemesis, and I also didn't find him to be particularly difficult.
The hardest tower is Thanatos Tower, and good god...this one is a doozy. I am still stuck on this one, as I have been wiped in this one MANY times. The gimmick here is that if any character ever dies in battle, they LOSE their Personas and they get sealed away in Tartarus, which is all the way back on the second floor. There's also a time limit. The gimmick alone makes this tower hard as nails, especially when there's instant kills coming from enemies. Tetraja or instakill resist/null is a MUST here. Even then, you may STILL have to make multiple trips down to Tartarus to get Personas back. This tower pretty much cemented it in my mind that the gimmick of being unable to save in the towers is kind of lame, as it can feel unfairly punishing how far you get set back if you die. If the encounter rate wasn't so stupidly high and getting as far as you were before didn't feel like trudging through molasses, it might not be as bad. The master of this tower is Yuriko Yamamoto, a popular student that declares the tower runs on "give and take". At the start of the tower, you're told you have to blow out one candle to go through the door. Depending on which one you choose, the protagonist's or Yukino's Personas get sealed in Tartarus. I definitely plan to go back and finish it one day, but I'm definitely going to savescum this using the Content Manager.
Devil's Peak is an optional dungeon, where floors unlock as you clear each tower. Since you can't revisit the towers, this gives you a place to get spell cards for demons that appeared in previous towers for fusion purposes, and grind if you need to. That's pretty much the entire point of it at least as far as I know.
Conclusion
Persona 1 is a game I think everyone should give a serious try, especially if you have enjoyed later games in the series. It does come with the caveat that you need some patience for it, particularly with the high encounter rate, but I think you'll find a very fun and rewarding game under all the layers of fluff. I like the cast and wish they would be included in later Persona crossovers, and I think the story is interesting, particularly the villain.
As for which version of the game, I have to recommend the PSP version. While the music does not fit the game at all, I think the localization and not missing half of the game are too good to pass up for the original Revelations: Persona version. There's also some other minor changes, such as Traesto (the dungeon exit spell) existing in the PSP version. Honestly I think I used it maybe twice in the entire game, but it can be useful. The game is not near as long as the later games in the series, and this is mainly due to the lack of calendar system like P3, P4, and P5 have.
I'm certainly glad I played Persona 1, and I really hope through all of this, I can convince you to give it a try. I realize it may seem like I'm harshly criticizing the game, but believe it or not, I really enjoyed it. I think it's just particularly important that people check out the origins of this series they only know by the latter three games in it's series. It's always been strange to me that Persona 1 and the 2 duology go ignored, partially due to Atlus.
A bit of a foreword: Most of this will be based off the SEBEC route. I started Snow Queen and am past halfway through it, but not finished yet, and am taking a break from it for reasons I'll discuss.
Introduction
Persona 1 is actually a game that's a lot better than people give it credit for, but recommending it to people still does come with some caveats. Usually this game does not get brought up in the same breath as Persona 3, 4, and 5. Part of this is on Atlus, and I can't find the interview, but if I recall correctly, they soft-"retired" Persona 1 and the 2 duology because most of the creators weren't at the company anymore. They still make occasional references to the games, like putting costumes in the music in Persona 5, but other than that very little. Persona Q2 or the dancing games don't even include the actual characters from these games.
A bit of a history lesson, Persona 1 is actually a sort-of sequel to Shin Megami Tensei if... SMT if... was a game in the mainline SMT series that took place in an alternate reality of SMT1 where the apocalypse part didn't happen. The game takes place at a school, you're a student and can even choose male or female options. Another student throws the school into another dimension, demons invade, and you're tasked with bringing things back to normal. This game established a lot of the concepts that are known in Persona games nowadays. It had a "guardian" system where the humans could have a demon as their "guardian", and behaved much like Personas do. You could of course also have demons in your party like any other SMT game. I have not played the game myself, but definitely plan to check it out, as the English fan translation was even finished for it somewhat recently!
Persona 1 makes some minor references to SMT1, particularly in one side character that only appears in the Snow Queen quest:
Tamaki Uchida is the female protagonist from SMT if... and is considered the "canon" protagonist. She makes some references to her times in SMT if... and it's a neat callback.
Persona 1 is a game with one particularly neat idea right off the bat: It has two different stories that you decide very early in the game on. The "main" quest is the SEBEC quest, and is the one that most players will end up on if they aren't following a guide or looking for anything, and the other one is considered the "extra" one called the Snow Queen quest. The dungeons and storylines of both quests are completely different, but start out the same. To get to Snow Queen, there's a particular set of tasks you have to perform early on in the game to make it happen.
This game is also known for it's infamous PS1 English localization. At the time, Atlus seemingly deemed it necessary to make the game take place in the United States, changing designs of the characters, names, and removing references to Japanese culture. Likely due to time constraints, the Snow Queen quest was also cut from the English version! This was restored in the PSP version, which was the version I played. Some gameplay changes were also made to the PS1 version, such as the encounter rate being lowered, experience increased, however they did not increase money which led to issues with shortages of money. I know there was a poster from the old forum, and I don't know if they made it over here to ResetERA, that had a very long post defending the localization and preferring it. While I disagree with that person, I still think their post on the subject was very interesting to read, and if you can find it I highly recommend it. I'm not going to link it here due to it being at the old place. If that person still posts here though, please feel free to post it again!
Gameplay
Persona 1 established many concepts that carried throughout the series and are still well known today, but there's quite a lot done differently than what is more commonly known today. Since the game was a lot more rooted in SMT at the time, gameplay elements are more like that than what we know as modern Persona. There's no calendar or social links, but the entire playable cast is students in a high school, wielding Personas, manifestations of their selves. The out-of-battle gameplay takes place in three perspectives: first person dungeon crawling, the third person "dialogue/event" rooms, and the overworld map.
The overworld map is just a simple pointer indicating where you're going, you just use it to move from A to B. I have one major issue with it, but I'll be covering it on a different topic.
The third person "dialogue/event" rooms look more like what you would see in modern Persona today. You can see all the characters in the room, can walk around, talk to them, etc. Chests are also only in these types of rooms. This is different from many other dungeon crawlers, where the chests are just usually there at the ends of hallways. One thing in particular that bugged me though was the overuse of "trap" chests. These would be chests you open and either damage you a little, a lot, or poison you. Sometimes there would be rooms that have nothing but trap chests! There's no real telegraphing of when this is coming, it's just there. Most of the time you have what you need to heal the loss you take from these chests, but it's definitely an annoyance and feels like the game going "haha, got you with this thing you couldn't see coming!" I also would have preferred the chests be in the hallways of the dungeons, as it basically made exploring off of the path forward in the dungeons pointless for the most part.
The first person dungeon crawling parts are mostly pretty straightforward, but you have standard traps you see in other games like this: damage floors, pitfalls, etc. Like I mentioned above, exploring off the "progress" path is pretty much pointless unless you see a green room on the map. Battles are random. Most of the dungeons are just trying to advance floor to floor, but there are some that do things a little different.
Let me go ahead and address my biggest beef with this entire game up front though: The encounter rate. I don't hate random battles, in fact most of the time I don't mind them. They never bugged me in Pokemon. They never bugged me in most RPGs. In some later SMT games, they had an indicator that told you about how far you were from a random battle. I liked that, and unfortunately Persona 1 doesn't have that. However I don't think it would count for much, because I think Persona 1's battles are just completely random. I know I have walked two literal spaces after one battle and got into another. The encounter rate is absurd in this game! Oddly enough, I like the regular PSP battle theme, "Lone Prayer", but I got absolutely sick of it because of this game. My wife, who isn't into RPGs at all, noticed just how absurd the encounter rate is by how many times she heard that stupid song. Below is an actual gameplay snippet of this game:
On that subject, I'd like to talk about the soundtrack. I played the PSP version, which has a different soundtrack from the PS1 version. Listening to the PS1 version, it's soundtrack is definitely better. The PSP version tried really hard to cater toward the Persona 4 crowd, and really shouldn't have attempted that. It failed to appeal to that crowd still, and I think Atlus should have stuck to what this game was good at here. The PSP version's music is filled with J-pop much like P3 and P4, but it really does not fit the context of the game at all. When the school is being used as a shelter from demons, it really doesn't fit to hear "IF YOU WANT IT BAYBEHHHHH" as you walk down the halls. The music in the PSP version is actually good in a vacuum, but does not fit the context of the game at all, which is why I think the PS1 version's music is better. I really wish they had an option to use the PSP or PS1 soundtrack. Fortunately the Persona 2 Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment PSP versions DO have this option.
You can see upwards of six enemies at a time sometimes, which can make combat take very long! The game can get very draining due to this, which is why I have zero desire to jump back into a new playthrough of this game for quite a while. You can get Estoma on a Persona, but that only wards off weaker enemies, and most of the time it felt like it didn't do much other than the overworld map. The overworld map though, was the absolute WORST about this. There were plenty of times I walked literally TWO PIXELS after one battle and got into another! There's a subway tunnel on the map that in the early game, will not have any demons in it. I actually found myself using it to just cut through part of the map to avoid the absurd encounters. Eventually it does have demons in it, but it was nice while it lasted.
The infamous English localization lowered this encounter rate, which was a good decision, and doubled XP, however they forgot to double money earned! This means unless you grinded, most of the time you would be short money to buy equipment. I'm slightly surprised they didn't address this at all in this PSP version. Most of the time when people try to play Persona 1, and put it down shortly after starting it, the encounter rate is almost ALWAYS the reason for it. So many people I know that had a PSP and started Persona with Persona 4, they gave this game a try, didn't get far, and never played it again.
I think for the most part though, if you can have some patience, you'll find quite a fun game under all these layers of BS. Every character can change Personas, not just the protagonist. They can hold up to three. You gain new Personas by negotiating with demons for their spell cards, and fuse spell cards to make new Personas. There's systems for which characters can wield which Personas, and how well. Managing all the characters' Personas makes things really interesting, as you often have to change them out to fit the situation you need. For instance if the enemies are using a lot of Death instant kill spells, you need to get a Persona with Tetraja to prevent the instant deaths. Some enemies use a spell called Desanga, which makes you unable to change Personas! Alsanga restores that ability, so that's a hazard you have to watch out for.
One thing I found really neat was the fact that you were allowed to choose some of your party members to keep for the rest of the game! On the SEBEC route, you can pick your fifth member, the other four are set for you. On the Snow Queen route, you can pick your fourth and fifth members. On my SEBEC run, I went with Elly as my fifth. On Snow Queen, I chose Elly and Brown. SEBEC has a character that's a bit of a secret to unlock, and you have to do some specific tasks to get him, but he's generally better than the others. However none of the choices are bad and you're in good hands regardless. Just remember that if you get asked if you want someone to join you, you are NOT obligated to say yes. If you say no, you can recruit a different character.
One particular annoyance is Persona 1's damage types. There's a stupidly high amount of them, and many of the weakness/resistance info on enemies is not clear on what some of it means, some isn't explained clearly. I didn't know what Element and Force referred to until very late into my SEBEC run. Not all guns deal "gun" damage, so if it says an enemy is weak to gun, not every character's gun will exploit that weakness. I had one in particular that aggravated me. This enemy said "Null: All magic except Expel, Death", and "Weak: Physical". This enemy was on the back line, and I didn't have anything to reach it for physical damage, so I used Mudo on it...and it blocked it??? As far as I understand it, my guess is that what it meant was "All Magic besides Expel" and "Death" as two things is nullifies. Why Death is listed separately, I have no idea. I didn't have anything with Expel at the time so I did not get to try it.
Just to list it out though, here's all of Persona 1's damage types. Note that the underlined words are the category those fall under. Some enemies will say "Force" and that will refer to four damage types under it.:
Physical
Sword
Rush
Tech
Fist
Gun
SMG
Rifle
Shotgun
Handgun
Force
Electric
Nuclear
Gravity
Blast
Element
Fire
Ice
Earth
Wind
Death
Expel
Bless
Miracle
Occult
Curse
Prayer
Those are only the ones I could think of off the top of my head. Compared with most other SMT games and Persona games, it's WAAAAAY too many and just superfluous. Why are there four different light damage and three different dark? Why do both "Blast" (Zan) and "Wind" (Garu) exist in the same game? It gets even more confusing when Almighty damage just isn't a thing in this game, but the Megido- line of spells are actually NUCLEAR damage. Both Mafrei and Megido exist, as well as Mafreila and Mafreidyne! Why is this a thing? In all the other games, Megido is Almighty damage and goes through everything. I hope if they ever do a remake/reimagining of Persona 1 one day, they cut down the number of damage types. It's absurd and can get really confusing.
There's also the grid system. To it's credit, there are some neat ideas involving it. For instance after one point of getting constantly charmed, and more charm stacked on my characters, I didn't realize the way to address this was to actually just spread my characters out so the AoE charm spell didn't hit multiple at once, and they could run out their charm ticks. However many attacks have really strange ranges, and based on where you position your characters some of your skills or weapons are impossible to use, while trying to be in range to use others. You can enter the battle with your own formation, but moving party members mid-battle costs their turn. For instance, Maki's weapon is a bow, but her gun is a handgun. Handguns can only reach close range, but if she's on the front line, her bow can only reach the back line. If you move Maki to the furthest back line, her bow can hit any enemy, however she can't hit anything with her gun. Maki is kind of frail, so it is generally best to put her on the back line anyway, so I did that and never looked back. There are weird ranges on some of the skills though, usually physical ones. Yukino's weapon is thrown, and can hit any enemies ahead of her in a 3-space wide line, but that's all she can hit. I would have rather had them just use the front-back system like most other SMT games use. You can have up to 3 characters in the front, up to 3 in the back, if the frontline dies, the backline moves forward. This is much simpler and still allows for some tactical depth. The way it is in Persona 1, it's just cumbersome.
Negotiation isn't really explained, and seems weird at first, but makes sense once you get the hang of it. Every character has a set of actions they can take in negotiations, such as "Persuade", "Dance", "Joke", etc. This is where the "Mark danced crazy!" line comes from. Different demons have different personality types, so they respond to different characters with different actions. These will add to the meter of four emotions for the demon: Happy, Scared, Angry, Eager. Eager is what makes them likely to give you what you want, be it a spell card, item, or money. Happy can do a few things, but usually puts them in a state of "happiness" where they barely act in battle and become easier to fight. Scared can induce fear or make them run away. Angry usually makes them end negotiations or just attack you. Unlike SMT games, demons do not join you, instead you negotiate for their spell cards. You can fuse the spell cards at the Velvet Room to create new Personas, however you can't fuse those Personas. You have to go negotiate with the demon again to get the spell card if you wish to use it in fusion. Persona 1's fusion system is weird, and I miss that you can't fuse the Personas themselves, and this is something I always felt P3, P4, and P5 did better. I think it's still a better system than the Persona 2 duology though, which has no fusion at all, but that's a topic for my eventual Persona 2 LttP thread.
The common rule with most SMT and Persona games is often "If you're grinding, you're probably doing it wrong", and this holds true in Persona 1….kind of. In my case, I was able to progress through the game, beating enemies no problem, however I would still end up with my level too low to recruit anything. This happened to me in the SEBEC route at some points, and happened even moreso in Snow Queen. In SEBEC, I think it really started happening around Kama Palace, and this was probably because I used a walkthrough to get through it. This kind of sucks that they want you to fumble around in the dungeon for hours to keep your level up and be able get new spell cards. Being able to get spell cards works where you can only get them if the demon is less than or equal to your party members' average level rounded down. Characters level up only if they actually take action, so sometimes you have to have some characters guard to let others catch up. In SEBEC I didn't really have to grind, but in Snow Queen I had to as I could not get more spell cards. I found it really odd I could progress through the game with not much issue, but then I couldn't get much stronger Personas.
Speaking of leveling up characters, this is another aspect that's way too complicated in this game. Characters have a level and a Persona level. These are two different things. Level refers to the characters' stat increases. You can choose the distribution of the protagonists' stats, but the others are attributed automatically. Persona level refers to what level Persona they can use, which is not the same thing as the level of their Persona. Personas themselves do not level up, much like demons in the SMT series up to this point, but they do come out at a certain level for fusion.
Personas all belong to an "Order" (later known in the series as Arcana), and each character has a specific Order. These are all based on Tarot cards, so each character has compatibility with certain Orders of Personas. If their compatibility is too low, you will not be able to invoke the Persona in combat. Each character can take on up to 3 Personas at a time, and can switch between the three outside of combat, and take up a turn to change Persona in battle. I actually kind of liked that changing Persona in battle was a significant tactical decision. Later games in the series would end up dropping this, letting you change Persona and act in the same turn. I did find it kind of annoying that you couldn't assign different Personas to different characters outside of the Velvet Room though. Coming off of P3, P4, and P5, I really wish they kept the ability to change the non-protagonist characters' Personas. The compatibility system was neat and still made the other characters unique, and more interesting than the protagonist-centric focus of the later games. In addition, Personas also have ranks in addition to levels. There are 8 ranks (8 being "max"). Using the Persona gives you more progression toward the next rank, and ranking up lets that Persona unlock more skills. I felt this system was kind of unnecessary, especially because it really de-emphasizes using physical attacks. If you use your weapon or gun, you get NOTHING toward rank. If you have skills on a Persona you need to unlock, it's better to just spam skills from your Persona, even if you don't need it. One mechanic I did like though was the way SP cost works. In Persona 3, 4, and 5, all skills had their own SP cost. In Persona 1 (and the 2 duology), Personas have ONE SP cost that applies for ALL skills. This means if you have a Persona that says 5 SP and somehow has both Dia and Megidolaon, BOTH skills cost 5 SP. This can be really interesting, as sometimes fusing a Persona with a high SP cost (like 20+) can be something you have to think twice about. I remember fusing Lillim because she nulls Element and Force, which is extremely useful, but she has an absurdly high SP cost.
I miss the first person dungeon crawling from all the later games in the series. The Persona Q games actually gave me a Persona 1 vibe in a good way, and even with a lower encounter rate! One thing I would have at least liked would have been to have what later SMT and Persona games would have: A random encounter indicator. I'm referring to the meter that starts out green/blue, turns yellow, and then red when you're about to hit an encounter. Overall I think Persona 1's gameplay is underrated, but dragged down by it's encounter rate and other annoyances.
Characters
Protagonist (also known as "Boy with Earring")
There's not too much to say about him. He's a fairly standard protagonist, and a blank slate defined by you.
Maki "Maki" Sonomura
Most of this one is going to be in spoilers, for reasons you probably already know if you have played this game. If you haven't played it though, I highly recommend not looking at the spoilers here. For the non-spoiler part, Maki has had a disabling illness most of her life, and is bedridden in the hospital. You go to visit her early on the game after the school nurse finds the cast unconscious. She talks about how much she hates her mother, and hates that Kandori had experimented on her. Once an event happens early on, the bedridden Maki disappears into an operating room, which itself disappears, but then you later meet a perfectly able-bodied Maki, that acts like nothing is different and she was always that way. This Maki has a Persona and joins you on the SEBEC route.
Probably one of the most interesting things about Maki is that you can actually debate whether she's the real villain (at least as far as humans go) of this game. Kandori experimented on her and put her in the state she was, but due to this, she had a lot of power. She was able to split herself into multiple selves, and even created an alternate world ideal to her. The Maki that's able-bodied and joins you, is the "ideal" Maki. Meanwhile there's two little girls that are constantly popping up throughout the game, Mai and Aki. Mai seems rather innocent and tends to run away, while Aki outright causes trouble.
Maki creates the alternate "ideal" world, that has no hospital and police station, because both of those were associated with negative aspects of her real life. The alternate world also has a "dark" side to it, connected by the subway tunnels. The dark side has a black market, which is a very run-down version of the mall on the normal side. The things she does are what causes the demons to show up in the world, and causes trouble for everyone else. Mai and Aki are parts of her. I did find it kind of annoying how obvious it was that Mai and Aki were clearly younger versions of Maki, so much that all of the cast, including "ideal" Maki herself, seemed to just not notice. Just the fact that they have the same hairstyle and bow and their names were "Mai" and "Aki" were dead giveaways.
Mai is the girl you have to convince to stop running away. I screwed this up on my SEBEC run and didn't have a save far back enough, and didn't want to play the entire game again, which is why I watched the true ending on YouTube. Once you catch up to Mai in the forest though, you have to convince her to stop hiding and help you fix all the things going on.
Aki meanwhile, causes nothing but trouble. She corrupts people from the real world and causes demons to show up. One particular example was in the Black Market, she causes Chisato Kasai from the real world to wind up there and become the Harem Queen. She was envious of Maki, especially for her crush on Yosuke. The magic mirror Aki gave her causes her to have all this power, and gives her face more moles as a result.
After defeating Kandori, you find the real Maki in a classroom-like environment in the hospital bed you saw her in at the hospital. If you did everything right up to this point, you'll be able to have the option to go after her and try to save her.
I would say that at the end of the day, Maki is technically the villain, but she's not irredeemable. She did end up in a bad situation and it was Kandori's fault she ended up with the powers she had and the state she was in most of her life, but she did take it out on the rest of the population. On the true ending, you're able to turn Maki back to normal.
Maki creates the alternate "ideal" world, that has no hospital and police station, because both of those were associated with negative aspects of her real life. The alternate world also has a "dark" side to it, connected by the subway tunnels. The dark side has a black market, which is a very run-down version of the mall on the normal side. The things she does are what causes the demons to show up in the world, and causes trouble for everyone else. Mai and Aki are parts of her. I did find it kind of annoying how obvious it was that Mai and Aki were clearly younger versions of Maki, so much that all of the cast, including "ideal" Maki herself, seemed to just not notice. Just the fact that they have the same hairstyle and bow and their names were "Mai" and "Aki" were dead giveaways.
Mai is the girl you have to convince to stop running away. I screwed this up on my SEBEC run and didn't have a save far back enough, and didn't want to play the entire game again, which is why I watched the true ending on YouTube. Once you catch up to Mai in the forest though, you have to convince her to stop hiding and help you fix all the things going on.
Aki meanwhile, causes nothing but trouble. She corrupts people from the real world and causes demons to show up. One particular example was in the Black Market, she causes Chisato Kasai from the real world to wind up there and become the Harem Queen. She was envious of Maki, especially for her crush on Yosuke. The magic mirror Aki gave her causes her to have all this power, and gives her face more moles as a result.
After defeating Kandori, you find the real Maki in a classroom-like environment in the hospital bed you saw her in at the hospital. If you did everything right up to this point, you'll be able to have the option to go after her and try to save her.
I would say that at the end of the day, Maki is technically the villain, but she's not irredeemable. She did end up in a bad situation and it was Kandori's fault she ended up with the powers she had and the state she was in most of her life, but she did take it out on the rest of the population. On the true ending, you're able to turn Maki back to normal.
Yukino "Yukino" Mayuzumi
Yukino is a tomboy-ish down-to-earth character. She generally follows the rules in school and has good intentions at heart, but is also more serious than most of the cast. She is briefly playable at the start of the game, and then only playable full time in the Snow Queen quest. Throughout that quest, you learn more about her past.
Yukino used to be a delinquent on the streets, but has stopped thanks to Ms. Saeko, a teacher she harbors a lot of respect for.
Masao "Mark" Inaba
Mark is a bit headstrong, with a very clear crush on Maki. He often is a jokester and comic relief among the group. Mark is probably one of the most popular characters in the game, for a number of reasons. In the original English localization, when choosing the "Dance" option in negotiation, one of the things you might see is "Mark danced crazy!" This became a meme in particular, and Atlus USA actually kept the line in the PSP version because of it's popularity. He also had the most interesting redesign for the original English localization. They changed his race to be black, and had him wearing a baseball cap rather than the hat he originally wore. One interesting thing I learned about this redesign from the Kazuma Kaneko Works VIII art book, is that Kazuma Kaneko himself actually drew the redesigned characters for the English localization! I had previously assumed Atlus USA edited the originals, but that was not the case. In the book, there's a page for each character and a page for the "US version" of each character, and Mark is no different.
Kei "Nanjo" Nanjo
Nanjo comes from a very rich family, having a butler you see at the start of the game, and wants to take care of Nanjo, despite how much it annoys him. Very early on, Yamaoka (the butler) sacrifices his life as he tries to protect Nanjo in the hospital, when he was secretly following him. We see Nanjo have a moment of sorrow for Yamaoka. This is also around when he gains his Persona ability. He remains fairly serious throughout the whole game, even moreso than Yukino, not tolerating any nonsense.
Yamaoka later comes back as his ultimate Persona, which I thought was particularly neat. I don't know of any other situation in the series where someone that died comes back as a Persona.
Nanjo even proposes not saving the professor, and leaving Maki to die. The rest of the party is able to convince him otherwise, but it's kind of surreal to see a character in this series advocate for things like that.
Nanjo even proposes not saving the professor, and leaving Maki to die. The rest of the party is able to convince him otherwise, but it's kind of surreal to see a character in this series advocate for things like that.
Nanjo's family is involved in the Nanjo Group, which may be something people that played Persona 3 heard in a brief mention: The Kirijo Group (Mitsuru's family) actually split from the Nanjo Group.
Eriko "Elly" Kirishima
Elly was one of the party members you're allowed to choose on both routes, and I ended up using her on both. She has traditionally feminine interests, but is also interested in the supernatural and the occult. Early on she thinks she is the only one that got the power of Persona, trying to act like a superhero when she meets up with the rest of the group at the hospital. She then realizes that everyone else has it too, once Mark points it out.
On the subject of Elly, there was a particularly cool moment that I didn't even realize was possible until it happened, but I used Elly to talk to an Angel enemy and was shocked at what happened. Nike, her Persona, is an Angel, and basically said something like "From one Angel to another..." and the demon was a lot easier to convince to give a spell card! I'm curious if there's more interactions like that in this game, but I haven't found them. I still thought that was really cool and I kind of wish it's something more modern SMT games would do (or Persona if they have negotiation like Persona 5 does).
I felt I made the right call picking Elly. On both Snow Queen and SEBEC I got her Phaleg, which she had "best" compatibility with and had access to Mediarama pretty quickly. I was also able to get her Personas with buff/debuff skills I needed. In Snow Queen, having Tetraja on her was particularly lifesaving.
Yuka "Ayase" Ayase
Ayase is very much the "valley girl" of the group. Incredibly popular, but also kind of an airhead, inserting words such as "like", and "totally" unnecessarily into her sentences. In Snow Queen, she's one of the party members you start with and don't get a choice. She's the only character that uses whips for her weapon. When I got her, my wife was sitting in the room and then heard her say "Here Personie!" in battle and was like "Ohhhh no, I do not like that at all." Her voice in battle was quite grating and it felt more like it was a man trying desperately to do a high-pitched girl voice. I looked up her Japanese voice and it's even worse. I feel like they could have gone with something closer to Elly's voice, but with a more "valley girl" flair.
Given that she's the popular girl, she often has a lot of boys after her affection. In Snow Queen, you see this pretty early on. Kenta "Toro" Yokouchi makes an advance on her in a classroom, but she rejects him. She also insults him frequently. This causes him later to lose control when he gains a Persona, and he attacks the group. Ayase feels remorseful later on for insulting him.
Ayase's actually kind of interesting though just because in Persona 3, 4, and 5, we haven't really had any character quite like her. The closest is maybe Chie from Persona 4, but I think she's still very different.
Hidehiko "Brown" Uesugi
Brown is a "class clown" type, almost like Mark, and is often overconfident, but not as headstrong as Mark. He's one of the choices for your fifth party member in SEBEC as well as the fourth or fifth party member in Snow Queen. I chose him in Snow Queen.
Story - opening
Persona 1's story is pretty simple from the start. Students are playing a game called "Persona" that's much like "Bloody Mary" in real life, a little ghost girl appears, everyone gets struck by lightning and winds up in the nurse's office. While you were unconscious you're visited by Philemon, who gives you the power of Persona. Philemon is represented by a butterfly, and this butterfly has appeared in every game in the series, including P3, P4, and P5. Unfortunately he only shows his human form in Persona 1 and the Persona 2 duology. You're told you should visit the hospital to get yourselves checked out as well as visit Maki Sonomura, your classmate that's been hospitalized most of her life. The cast goes to visit Maki and you learn about her condition, how she hates her mother, Mark's crush on her, then something happens and Maki has to go to the operation room. An earthquake strikes, and suddenly the OR has disappeared, and now demons have showed up everywhere in Mikage-Cho. When speaking with Maki, you learn about how Takahisa Kandori from the SEBEC corporation was the one that caused Maki to wind up in this state.
At this point you either proceed along as instructed to do the SEBEC (main) quest, or investigate rumors behind a mask used in a school play to do the Snow Queen quest.
SEBEC Route
The SEBEC route centers around what happened to Maki, as well as addressing the SEBEC corporation and it's CEO, Takahisa Kandori. Pretty much right off the bat, you're pointed toward Kandori as the mastermind behind everything, but in your quest to go after him, he activates the DEVA system, which throws you in an alternate world. You learn the origins of this alternate world as well as how to get back home.
Persona 1's dungeons are alright, but all of them are made tedious by the encounter rate. There's one dungeon in particular I want to rant about though: Kama Palace. This is when you're in the Black Market in the alternate world, and have to go after the Harem Queen. This dungeon's gimmick is a long series of pits spanning many floors, and you have to fall down the right pits to be able to get to the end. Without a guide, this is trial and error. With the stupidly high encounter rate, this is VERY LONG trial and error. I spent an hour or two aimlessly fumbling through this dungeon and decided to just look up a guide because I was quite frustrated with it. Oddly enough the ONLY guide I found for this part in particular were some images of the map made by a Japanese fan (complete with Japanese text) and a GameFAQs post translating it. I was so glad to be done with this dungeon, and I honestly have no idea how I would have managed to just trial and error it until I got it right. The thing is, if the encounter rate wasn't so high, I probably would have just trial and errored it as I think it would be bearable.
You'll often find shops, save points, and the Velvet Room in the dungeons, but you can find them in the shopping malls too. There's also the healing springs, run by Trish, a fairy that's known to be quite greedy. Trish was a staple character of the series that was dropped in Persona 3 and onward, only having a mere mention in Persona 3. The Velvet Room is still run by Igor, but the game does not center much of the story around him, since that role is filled by Philemon. It was kind of cool seeing the singer and pianist of the Velvet Room theme though.
I want to point out one thing in this section: I only finished the "bad" ending of the game, where I did not get to save Maki and the game ended after Deva Yuga. I screwed up answering a question earlier and did not make an extra save to easily go back. This would mean to see the true ending, I would have had to play the ENTIRE GAME again, and I really wasn't about that life. I like Persona 1, but I had zero desire to jump back into a new playthrough of the SEBEC route immediately. I ended up watching the true ending on YouTube.
You learn the truth about Maki, and for a bit you have to venture with just the protagonist and Maki, until reuniting with the rest of the cast. You're given your ultimate Personas. At the end, you have to fight Pandora, which Aki turns into and is still a manifestation of Maki.
I really love the idea of having someone like Maki technically be the villain. Maki is actually redeemable and interesting, and even then you question whether she truly is the villain, just because of the situation she was put in. I personally think she was the villain, but is redeemable and is done so. I also know you see her at one point in the Persona 2 duology, and she redeems herself.
I really love the idea of having someone like Maki technically be the villain. Maki is actually redeemable and interesting, and even then you question whether she truly is the villain, just because of the situation she was put in. I personally think she was the villain, but is redeemable and is done so. I also know you see her at one point in the Persona 2 duology, and she redeems herself.
Snow Queen Route
I have not finished the Snow Queen route, however I did start it and am on my third tower. I found it to be particularly draining, so I took a break from it and will come back to it later.
The Snow Queen route is the "extra" route in the game. Basically instead of following the directions you're given, you investigate the rumor of a mask in the school's drama club that supposedly killed every student that wore it except for one. That student ends up being a present day teacher: Ms. Saeko. You're able to go retrieve the mask, and bring it to Ms. Saeko, and she wears it again. This time she's possessed by the Snow Queen, and freezes the school. No one can leave, and Ms. Saeko is now frozen solid. You now have to save the teacher and the school. This plot actually reminds me a lot of the premise of SMT if…
Here's the big twist about Snow Queen: The ONLY place to save your game is in the nurse's office. You cannot save in the dungeons. You can still suspend save in the PSP version. There's also a way to sort of cheat the system in the PSP version: Using the media backup tool on your PC, you can make a suspend save, back it up, and then keep playing. Restore the suspend save if you die. This gimmick was no problem for me until Thanatos tower, which I'll explain in a bit. I still feel it's an unnecessary gimmick, as it can be particularly brutal if you die at all.
Snow Queen is set up quite differently than SEBEC. You never leave the school, as all the dungeons are accessed from the school. Right off the bat you're told of three towers that classrooms have entrances to: Hypnos, Nemesis, and Thanatos. I completed Hypnos and Nemesis so far, and am on Thanatos now. Each tower has a unique gimmick, and some kind of time limit to complete them. However, time for the time limit is ONLY counted in the first person dungeon traversal, meaning time spent in menus, shops, and combat do not count. Each tower also has a student that's utilizing a Persona and causing trouble.
Hypnos Tower was the one I tackled first, it's also generally considered the easiest one. Kumi Hirose is the villain here, a girl that feels pressured by her parents and the drama club, and traps everyone in a dream world attempting to save them from their real lives. You enter the tower and have to free everyone trapped in the dream world. The only real gimmick on this tower is the time limit. When you visit the dream world, you find other people in their dreams, and can pinch them to wake them up. You have to do this for all of them except for Kumi. Kumi warns you not to pinch her, and you should heed her warning! If you pinch Kumi, it makes the boss more powerful at the end! You eventually reach the top and fight Hypnos, ending Kumi's reign of terror.
Nemesis Tower is the second tower in the line of difficulty, and the one I tackled second. It's run by Michiko Matsudaira with Nemesis, of course. Two students are trapped in a torture chamber, which you can rescue, and are rewarded with more mirror shards if you do it quickly. The gimmick with this tower is that Michiko tells you there is no time limit at first...that's a half-truth. There is no upper time limit in fact, however, the longer you take, the stronger the boss at the end will be, and the more floors you will have to climb. In my playthrough, I actually made it in the first tier (<20 minutes) so I got the easiest version of the boss. Michiko is a bully with a victim complex that would often cheat her way through school. The boss here is of course, Nemesis, and I also didn't find him to be particularly difficult.
The hardest tower is Thanatos Tower, and good god...this one is a doozy. I am still stuck on this one, as I have been wiped in this one MANY times. The gimmick here is that if any character ever dies in battle, they LOSE their Personas and they get sealed away in Tartarus, which is all the way back on the second floor. There's also a time limit. The gimmick alone makes this tower hard as nails, especially when there's instant kills coming from enemies. Tetraja or instakill resist/null is a MUST here. Even then, you may STILL have to make multiple trips down to Tartarus to get Personas back. This tower pretty much cemented it in my mind that the gimmick of being unable to save in the towers is kind of lame, as it can feel unfairly punishing how far you get set back if you die. If the encounter rate wasn't so stupidly high and getting as far as you were before didn't feel like trudging through molasses, it might not be as bad. The master of this tower is Yuriko Yamamoto, a popular student that declares the tower runs on "give and take". At the start of the tower, you're told you have to blow out one candle to go through the door. Depending on which one you choose, the protagonist's or Yukino's Personas get sealed in Tartarus. I definitely plan to go back and finish it one day, but I'm definitely going to savescum this using the Content Manager.
Devil's Peak is an optional dungeon, where floors unlock as you clear each tower. Since you can't revisit the towers, this gives you a place to get spell cards for demons that appeared in previous towers for fusion purposes, and grind if you need to. That's pretty much the entire point of it at least as far as I know.
Conclusion
Persona 1 is a game I think everyone should give a serious try, especially if you have enjoyed later games in the series. It does come with the caveat that you need some patience for it, particularly with the high encounter rate, but I think you'll find a very fun and rewarding game under all the layers of fluff. I like the cast and wish they would be included in later Persona crossovers, and I think the story is interesting, particularly the villain.
As for which version of the game, I have to recommend the PSP version. While the music does not fit the game at all, I think the localization and not missing half of the game are too good to pass up for the original Revelations: Persona version. There's also some other minor changes, such as Traesto (the dungeon exit spell) existing in the PSP version. Honestly I think I used it maybe twice in the entire game, but it can be useful. The game is not near as long as the later games in the series, and this is mainly due to the lack of calendar system like P3, P4, and P5 have.
I'm certainly glad I played Persona 1, and I really hope through all of this, I can convince you to give it a try. I realize it may seem like I'm harshly criticizing the game, but believe it or not, I really enjoyed it. I think it's just particularly important that people check out the origins of this series they only know by the latter three games in it's series. It's always been strange to me that Persona 1 and the 2 duology go ignored, partially due to Atlus.
