.gif)
Persona (video game)
Encyclopedia
Revelations: Persona, released in Japan as , is the first game in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona
series of role-playing video games for PlayStation consoles—one of several spin-off series within the Megami Tensei
franchise, developed by Atlus
. The game was originally released on the PlayStation in Japan and North America; the Japanese version was later ported to Microsoft Windows
. Set in contemporary Japan, Revelations: Persona stars a group of high-schoolers who, armed with weapons and imbued with magical beings known as Personas, band together to combat demon
s that are invading their city.
A remake of the game, titled Shin Megami Tensei: Persona and known in Japan as simply , was released for the PlayStation Portable
in 2009. It was released in Japan on 29 April 2009, in North America on September 22, 2009 on UMD
, and October 1, 2009 on the PlayStation Store
as a downloadable title. The remake includes a redesigned user interface
, new cutscene
s, multiple difficulty level
s, and an arranged
soundtrack.
Unlike the Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei games, the plot of Persona does not involve devil summoners. Instead, the main party consists of a group of teenagers equipped with firearms and melee weaponry. Each can summon a Persona—a facet of their personality—used in battle to fight demons, functioning as a source of magic spells
, a traditional element of role-playing games.
In Revelations: Persona, the player navigates and interacts with the world via multiple means. While traversing the main city (which serves as the game's overworld
), the world is seen from an overhead perspective. Unlike future entries in Persona series, buildings and maze-like outdoor areas are navigated in a first-person perspective. However, whenever the player enters a room, the camera shifts to an isometric perspective, allowing the player to interact with party members and other non-playable characters
. Although Persona was among the first of the Megami Tensei games to feature angled third-person viewpoints
, dungeons are still navigated in first-person
. Both these vestiges of its parent series would be dropped in later Persona games. Another series trademark, an icon displaying the lunar phase
, also appears in Persona. Besides showing the passage of in-game time, the status of the moon determines the activity patterns of enemy demons, and their mood if the player attempts negotiation with one.
s; the game's turn-based battles are also carried out in a third-person view. Each party member occupies a space on a grid, which dictates which enemies they are within range to attack. Ranged weapons can travel far to hit an enemy, while melee attacks are only able to strike enemies close to the attacker. Like the player's characters, the enemies are also positioned in a grid; when the front-most enemies are defeated, the ones in the rear advance to take their place. Each character is able to attack with an equipped melee weapon or firearm, use an item, summon a Persona to cast a magic spell
, or attempt to talk with the enemy.
which determine the proficiency in battle of the character it's assigned to. More powerful Personas can be acquired by fusing spell cards gained from enemy demons in the Velvet Room. These spell cards cannot be obtained by fighting demons, but instead require the player to communicate with them, a feature the game shares with games in the Megami Tensei series. In addition to letting the player request spell cards, contacting demons may bring about other positive results, such as avoiding combat or receiving items; communication may also bring about negative results, such as the demons performing a pre-emptive attack or stunning a character. Boss enemies or hostile humans cannot be communicated with during combat.
by the spirit
of the Snow Queen, and the school is transformed into a frozen maze with four towers erupting at the corners of the grounds. Feeling indebted to her teacher, Yuki resolves to save Ms. Smith, and remainder of the game will be different than if the player had continued with the main path. There are fragments of English
text (mostly nonsensical English, such as "TIME UP! GAME OVER! LET'S TRY AGAIN!" in the middle of unreadable symbols) which suggest that Atlus
made early attempts to translate the quest, ultimately deciding to cut it from the final release. The quest is still available via cheat devices such as the Gameshark
. The PSP remake includes the Snow Queen quest in both the Japanese and North American versions.
Meanwhile, Takahisa Kandori, head of the SEBEC corporation, has invented a machine to create and allow passage to an alternate dimension
. This machine is somehow linked to the mind of Mary Sonomura, a frail, bedridden girl and close friend of the main character, who visits her often. During one such visit, the party members realize that the city is slowly changing; while it looks the same, it is cut off from the outside world and is being invaded by demon
s.
in Persona. It is not possible to recruit all of them in one play-through; meeting the requirements necessary to acquire one party member may make others inaccessible. The character Yuki joins the party only briefly in the North American release of the game, but plays a larger role in the Snow Queen Quest, which is not available only in the original North American release.
Each of the playable characters in Persona is a student who attends the fictional St. Hermelin high school
, and is granted through a ritual-like game the ability to summon Personas, manifestations of one's psyche which take on the form of various monsters, heroes and gods of mythology
. The main character is a nameless boy and the silent protagonist
of the game. Other party members include Hidehiko Uesugi (nicknamed Brown), a narcissist who convinces the others characters to play "Persona" in the first place; Kei Nanjō (nicknamed Nanjō), pompous rich boy who is heir to the Nanjō Group; Masao Inaba (nicknamed Mark), class clown and aspiring artist; Yuka Ayase (nicknamed Ayase), popular girl and a heartbreaker with many admirers; Eriko Kirishima (nicknamed Elly), daring adventurer and expert fencer
; Yukino Mayuzumi, a reformed gang member who mentors her fellow students.
Maki Sonomura, a sick girl who mysteriously regains her health around the same time that demons invade the town; and Reiji Kido, enigmatic fighter with a prominent scar on his forehead.
The North America
n release and subsequent remake of Revelations: Persona saw many cosmetic and technical changes. In order to suggest that the story takes place in a western nation, the names and profile pictures of several characters have been recolored and (at times) redrawn completely; for example, the character Maki Sonomura was renamed "Mary", and Hidehiko Uesugi was renamed "Brad". The most dramatic changes are to the character Masao Inaba, who was renamed "Mark", and, in addition to having his signature hat and makeup removed and replaced with a baseball cap, he is also changed from being a Japanese boy to being an African American
boy with Ebonics
added into his dialog. Another notable change is to the main protagonist: his face and hairstyle are completely redesigned. Both Nate and Ellen switch their hair colors from a dark shade of black to blonde.
Several measures were taken to erase references to Japan
in this release. The names of each party member and of the town have been replaced with western-sounding names, while several Persona names were also changed, rather than translated, to be more generic rather than referencing local folklore.
There are also minor changes to the gameplay that are intended to reduce the overall difficulty of the game – there are, for example, fewer enemy encounters, and the amount of experience points gained from battles increases. In-game currency has been converted from yen to dollar
s, with the prices of items and equipment adjusted accordingly.
However for the PSP
remake many of the changes which had been made for the North American
release are absent to be more in common with its original Japanese version such as the player portraits and Japanese names.
, and Misaki Okibe. The official soundtrack was released on June 17, 1999, and an arrangement
album was released on April 18, 1999. Meguro, who composed the background music of Revelations: Persona, has said that the technical limitations of the PlayStation hardware limited his ability to create music. Because the music had to be contained in samples of 100 to 200 kilobytes in size, "the end results sounded pretty cheap" according to Meguro. Later, the PlayStation 2
hardware would allow for the streaming of music in real-time.
Meguro, in addition to serving as the director of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, composed a new soundtrack for the game. In Japan, the official soundtrack was released on April 29, 2009. In the United States, the Persona soundtrack was packaged with the game's retail release.
announced that Atlus would be making an enhanced remake of Persona for the PlayStation Portable
. The remake features a redesigned user interface
, new cel-shaded cutscenes, new difficulty level choices, and a new soundtrack composed by Shōji Meguro
, who also served as the game's director. The game's user interface
was redesigned to accommodate the PlayStation Portable's widescreen
display. The original story of Revelations: Persona, as well as the Snow Queen scenario, contain additional dungeon floors not found in the original game, as well as new puzzles.
Atlus U.S.A. announced on February 24, 2009 that the remake would be released in North America as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona. For its North American release, the localization of the original Persona game was redone from the ground up. The changes made to the North American version, Revelations: Persona, intended to mask the game's Japanese setting, were all reverted for the PSP remake. Some poorly-translated lines from the original localization were retained for humorous purposes. One such line is "Mark danced crazy", seen in the Contact system if the player has Mark dance for an enemy demon. Certain parts of the script steeped in Japanese culture were reworked or removed so as to make more sense to English-speaking players. An example given by Yu Namba, a translator for Atlus, is that of a character who speaks like a 1980s-era Japanese pop star. Namba worked to retain "the 'outdated celebrity' speech style" in translating the character's dialogue, but found it "impossible to do a straight translation."
In addition to rewriting the script, the game's difficulty was rebalanced to enhance the playing experience from the original version. The original North American release of Revelations: Persona was made easier than the Japanese version, by reducing the rate at which the player encounters enemies, but increasing the experience points gained from each encounter. These changes were reverted so as to make the game more difficult and appeal to fans of the series. The North American release of the game includes voice acting in the new cutscenes. The Snow Queen quest, a sidestory removed from Revelations: Persona, has been added to the North American release of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona.
The game was made available on the European PlayStation Store on August 11, 2010.
score of 78 based on six reviews; in its time, it was called a sleeper hit
. Jeff Gerstmann
, then of GameSpot
, praised the game for its modern setting and teenage cast, as opposed to the medieval settings of traditional role-playing games. The IGN
review stated that Revelations: Persona "is the perfect title for any RPG fan who craves something different." GameInformer considered the game to have broken the mold of role-playing games at the time, adding that "there has never been an RPG as vast as Persona."
The game's PSP remake debuted at #1 in Japanese game charts, selling over 79,000 copies in its first week. At the end of May 2009, Famitsu
reported that 122,962 copies had been sold in Japan, making the game the sixth best-selling title on the PSP. The remake of Revelations: Persona has a Metacritic score of 83. Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com
wrote that Shin Megami Tensei: Persona "is a perfect example of how to remake a great game -- graphics notwithstanding -- and this release makes a brilliant game feel fresh and relevant again." Eric Patterson of Play Magazine
found that, thirteen years after its original release, Persona stood the test of time, calling the remake "the true and definitive version of the game." IGN
staff writer Sam Bishop called the story of Persona "timeless in its ability to draw you in", and found that the game offered players "a fantastic story, likeable and well-defined characters, [and] some fairly deep introspection on their part."
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, known in Japan as is a series of role-playing video games developed and published by Atlus. The series is a spin-off of the Megami Tensei series which focuses on demon summoners. However, the Persona series centers around groups of teenagers who have the ability to...
series of role-playing video games for PlayStation consoles—one of several spin-off series within the Megami Tensei
Megami Tensei
, commonly abbreviated as , is a Japanese console role-playing game metaseries which was originally based on the novel series Digital Devil Story by Aya Nishitani and has gone to become one of the major franchises of the genre in its native country...
franchise, developed by Atlus
Atlus
is a Japanese computer and video game developer, publisher, and distributor based in Tokyo, Japan, best known for developing the console role-playing game franchise Megami Tensei. The first Megami Tensei was a Nintendo Entertainment System video game published by Namco based on a trilogy of...
. The game was originally released on the PlayStation in Japan and North America; the Japanese version was later ported to Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. Set in contemporary Japan, Revelations: Persona stars a group of high-schoolers who, armed with weapons and imbued with magical beings known as Personas, band together to combat demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
s that are invading their city.
A remake of the game, titled Shin Megami Tensei: Persona and known in Japan as simply , was released for the PlayStation Portable
PlayStation Portable
The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
in 2009. It was released in Japan on 29 April 2009, in North America on September 22, 2009 on UMD
Universal Media Disc
The Universal Media Disc is an optical disc medium developed by Sony for use on their PlayStation Portable handheld gaming and multimedia platform...
, and October 1, 2009 on the PlayStation Store
PlayStation Store
The PlayStation Store is an online virtual market available to users of Sony's PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable game consoles via the PlayStation Network. The Store offers a range of downloadable content both for purchase and available free of charge. Available content includes full games,...
as a downloadable title. The remake includes a redesigned user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
, new cutscene
Cutscene
A cutscene is a sequence in a video game over which the player has no or only limited control, breaking up the gameplay and used to advance the plot, strengthen the main character's development, introduces enemy characters, and provide background information, atmosphere, dialogue, and clues...
s, multiple difficulty level
Difficulty level
In general usage, difficulty level refers to the relative difficulty of completing a task or objective.In computer and video games, the term specifically delineates the ease or difficulty with which an average user may complete a game or a part of a game. Arcade games as well as many early console...
s, and an arranged
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
soundtrack.
Gameplay
Magic (gaming)
Some role-playing games or game systems can include a set of rules that are used to portray magic in the paranormal sense. These rules simulate the effects that magic would have within the game context, according to how the game designer intended the magic to be portrayed...
, a traditional element of role-playing games.
In Revelations: Persona, the player navigates and interacts with the world via multiple means. While traversing the main city (which serves as the game's overworld
Overworld
An overworld is, in a broad sense, an area within a video game that interconnects all its levels or locations. They are mostly common in role-playing games, though this does not exclude other video game genres....
), the world is seen from an overhead perspective. Unlike future entries in Persona series, buildings and maze-like outdoor areas are navigated in a first-person perspective. However, whenever the player enters a room, the camera shifts to an isometric perspective, allowing the player to interact with party members and other non-playable characters
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
. Although Persona was among the first of the Megami Tensei games to feature angled third-person viewpoints
Isometric projection
Isometric projection is a method for visually representing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions in technical and engineering drawings...
, dungeons are still navigated in first-person
Perspective (visual)
Perspective, in context of vision and visual perception, is the way in which objects appear to the eye based on their spatial attributes; or their dimensions and the position of the eye relative to the objects...
. Both these vestiges of its parent series would be dropped in later Persona games. Another series trademark, an icon displaying the lunar phase
Lunar phase
A lunar phase or phase of the moon is the appearance of the illuminated portion of the Moon as seen by an observer, usually on Earth. The lunar phases change cyclically as the Moon orbits the Earth, according to the changing relative positions of the Earth, Moon, and Sun...
, also appears in Persona. Besides showing the passage of in-game time, the status of the moon determines the activity patterns of enemy demons, and their mood if the player attempts negotiation with one.
Combat
Battles with enemy demons are triggered via random encounterRandom encounter
A random encounter is a feature commonly used in various role-playing games whereby encounters with non-player character enemies or other dangers occur sporadically and at random...
s; the game's turn-based battles are also carried out in a third-person view. Each party member occupies a space on a grid, which dictates which enemies they are within range to attack. Ranged weapons can travel far to hit an enemy, while melee attacks are only able to strike enemies close to the attacker. Like the player's characters, the enemies are also positioned in a grid; when the front-most enemies are defeated, the ones in the rear advance to take their place. Each character is able to attack with an equipped melee weapon or firearm, use an item, summon a Persona to cast a magic spell
Magic (gaming)
Some role-playing games or game systems can include a set of rules that are used to portray magic in the paranormal sense. These rules simulate the effects that magic would have within the game context, according to how the game designer intended the magic to be portrayed...
, or attempt to talk with the enemy.
Negotiation
In the spirit of past Megami Tensei games, in which players are able to recruit demons to fight with them, Revelations: Persona allows the player's party to negotiate with enemies to gain special items. During a battle, the player is able to Contact demons in an attempt to converse with them. Each character has their own set of four methods of communicating with a demon, such as insulting them, praising them, or singing to them. Based on the demon's personality, it would respond a specific way to certain actions. There are four emotional responses that the player can illicit from a demon: anger, fear, joy, and interest. Triggering one of these emotions three times will cause the demon to do something. An angry demon will attack the party; a frightened demon will flee the battle; a joyful demon will give the player an item; and an interested demon will either leave the battle, give the player an item, or give the player a special spell card, which can be used to create new Personas for the player's use.Personas
Each character can be assigned up to three Personas, which grant the ability to use special abilities. A Persona has its own statisticsStatistic (role-playing games)
A statistic in role-playing games is a piece of data which represents a particular aspect of a fictional character. That piece of data is usually a integer or, in some cases, a set of dice....
which determine the proficiency in battle of the character it's assigned to. More powerful Personas can be acquired by fusing spell cards gained from enemy demons in the Velvet Room. These spell cards cannot be obtained by fighting demons, but instead require the player to communicate with them, a feature the game shares with games in the Megami Tensei series. In addition to letting the player request spell cards, contacting demons may bring about other positive results, such as avoiding combat or receiving items; communication may also bring about negative results, such as the demons performing a pre-emptive attack or stunning a character. Boss enemies or hostile humans cannot be communicated with during combat.
Snow Queen quest
An optional quest called the "Snow Queen Quest" was removed from the North American release, although the data for it is still contained within the disk. In this, the party opts not to pursue SEBEC and Guido, instead discovering a strange mask inside the school. When they present it to Ms. Smith, she tells them the legend of the Snow Queen. Trying on the mask, Ms. Smith is suddenly possessedSpiritual possession
Spirit possession is a paranormal or supernatural event in which it is said that spirits, gods, demons, animas, extraterrestrials, or other disincarnate or extraterrestrial entities take control of a human body, resulting in noticeable changes in health and behaviour...
by the spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
of the Snow Queen, and the school is transformed into a frozen maze with four towers erupting at the corners of the grounds. Feeling indebted to her teacher, Yuki resolves to save Ms. Smith, and remainder of the game will be different than if the player had continued with the main path. There are fragments of English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
text (mostly nonsensical English, such as "TIME UP! GAME OVER! LET'S TRY AGAIN!" in the middle of unreadable symbols) which suggest that Atlus
Atlus
is a Japanese computer and video game developer, publisher, and distributor based in Tokyo, Japan, best known for developing the console role-playing game franchise Megami Tensei. The first Megami Tensei was a Nintendo Entertainment System video game published by Namco based on a trilogy of...
made early attempts to translate the quest, ultimately deciding to cut it from the final release. The quest is still available via cheat devices such as the Gameshark
GameShark
GameShark is the brand name of a line of video game cheat cartridges and other products for a variety of console video game systems and Windows based computers. Currently, the brand name is owned by Mad Catz, who actively markets GameShark products for the PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, and Sega game...
. The PSP remake includes the Snow Queen quest in both the Japanese and North American versions.
Story
The story of Persona revolves around the game's silent protagonist, named by the player at the start of the game, and his friends at St. Hermelin High School, located in the city of Lunarvale. While playing a ritual-like children's game called "Persona", each of the students are knocked unconscious. While asleep, they encounter a man named Philemon who bestows several Personae upon them. When they wake up, the youths discover they can summon Personas.Meanwhile, Takahisa Kandori, head of the SEBEC corporation, has invented a machine to create and allow passage to an alternate dimension
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
. This machine is somehow linked to the mind of Mary Sonomura, a frail, bedridden girl and close friend of the main character, who visits her often. During one such visit, the party members realize that the city is slowly changing; while it looks the same, it is cut off from the outside world and is being invaded by demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
s.
Characters
There are a total of nine playable charactersPlayer character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
in Persona. It is not possible to recruit all of them in one play-through; meeting the requirements necessary to acquire one party member may make others inaccessible. The character Yuki joins the party only briefly in the North American release of the game, but plays a larger role in the Snow Queen Quest, which is not available only in the original North American release.
Each of the playable characters in Persona is a student who attends the fictional St. Hermelin high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
, and is granted through a ritual-like game the ability to summon Personas, manifestations of one's psyche which take on the form of various monsters, heroes and gods of mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
. The main character is a nameless boy and the silent protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
of the game. Other party members include Hidehiko Uesugi (nicknamed Brown), a narcissist who convinces the others characters to play "Persona" in the first place; Kei Nanjō (nicknamed Nanjō), pompous rich boy who is heir to the Nanjō Group; Masao Inaba (nicknamed Mark), class clown and aspiring artist; Yuka Ayase (nicknamed Ayase), popular girl and a heartbreaker with many admirers; Eriko Kirishima (nicknamed Elly), daring adventurer and expert fencer
Fencing
Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.Fencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games...
; Yukino Mayuzumi, a reformed gang member who mentors her fellow students.
Maki Sonomura, a sick girl who mysteriously regains her health around the same time that demons invade the town; and Reiji Kido, enigmatic fighter with a prominent scar on his forehead.
Localization Changes
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
n release and subsequent remake of Revelations: Persona saw many cosmetic and technical changes. In order to suggest that the story takes place in a western nation, the names and profile pictures of several characters have been recolored and (at times) redrawn completely; for example, the character Maki Sonomura was renamed "Mary", and Hidehiko Uesugi was renamed "Brad". The most dramatic changes are to the character Masao Inaba, who was renamed "Mark", and, in addition to having his signature hat and makeup removed and replaced with a baseball cap, he is also changed from being a Japanese boy to being an African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
boy with Ebonics
African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...
added into his dialog. Another notable change is to the main protagonist: his face and hairstyle are completely redesigned. Both Nate and Ellen switch their hair colors from a dark shade of black to blonde.
Several measures were taken to erase references to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
in this release. The names of each party member and of the town have been replaced with western-sounding names, while several Persona names were also changed, rather than translated, to be more generic rather than referencing local folklore.
There are also minor changes to the gameplay that are intended to reduce the overall difficulty of the game – there are, for example, fewer enemy encounters, and the amount of experience points gained from battles increases. In-game currency has been converted from yen to dollar
Dollar
The dollar is the name of the official currency of many countries, including Australia, Belize, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States.-Etymology:...
s, with the prices of items and equipment adjusted accordingly.
However for the PSP
PlayStation Portable
The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
remake many of the changes which had been made for the North American
North American
North American generally refers to an entity, people, group, or attribute of North America, especially of the United States and Canada together.-Culture:*North American English, a collective term used to describe American English and Canadian English...
release are absent to be more in common with its original Japanese version such as the player portraits and Japanese names.
Audio
The composition of the music of Revelations: Persona is credited to Hidehito Aoki, Kenichi Tsuchiya, Shoji MeguroShoji Meguro
is a Japanese video game composer and director who joined Atlus in 1996 and has composed music for many of their games, mainly those in the Megami Tensei series.-Biography:...
, and Misaki Okibe. The official soundtrack was released on June 17, 1999, and an arrangement
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
album was released on April 18, 1999. Meguro, who composed the background music of Revelations: Persona, has said that the technical limitations of the PlayStation hardware limited his ability to create music. Because the music had to be contained in samples of 100 to 200 kilobytes in size, "the end results sounded pretty cheap" according to Meguro. Later, the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
hardware would allow for the streaming of music in real-time.
Meguro, in addition to serving as the director of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, composed a new soundtrack for the game. In Japan, the official soundtrack was released on April 29, 2009. In the United States, the Persona soundtrack was packaged with the game's retail release.
PlayStation Portable remake
The February 20, 2009 issue of Weekly FamitsuFamitsu
is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Enterbrain, Inc. and Tokuma. Currently, there are five Famitsū magazines: Shūkan Famitsū, Famitsū PS3 + PSP, Famitsū Xbox 360, Famitsū Wii+DS, and Famitsū Wave DVD...
announced that Atlus would be making an enhanced remake of Persona for the PlayStation Portable
PlayStation Portable
The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
. The remake features a redesigned user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
, new cel-shaded cutscenes, new difficulty level choices, and a new soundtrack composed by Shōji Meguro
Shoji Meguro
is a Japanese video game composer and director who joined Atlus in 1996 and has composed music for many of their games, mainly those in the Megami Tensei series.-Biography:...
, who also served as the game's director. The game's user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
was redesigned to accommodate the PlayStation Portable's widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
display. The original story of Revelations: Persona, as well as the Snow Queen scenario, contain additional dungeon floors not found in the original game, as well as new puzzles.
Atlus U.S.A. announced on February 24, 2009 that the remake would be released in North America as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona. For its North American release, the localization of the original Persona game was redone from the ground up. The changes made to the North American version, Revelations: Persona, intended to mask the game's Japanese setting, were all reverted for the PSP remake. Some poorly-translated lines from the original localization were retained for humorous purposes. One such line is "Mark danced crazy", seen in the Contact system if the player has Mark dance for an enemy demon. Certain parts of the script steeped in Japanese culture were reworked or removed so as to make more sense to English-speaking players. An example given by Yu Namba, a translator for Atlus, is that of a character who speaks like a 1980s-era Japanese pop star. Namba worked to retain "the 'outdated celebrity' speech style" in translating the character's dialogue, but found it "impossible to do a straight translation."
In addition to rewriting the script, the game's difficulty was rebalanced to enhance the playing experience from the original version. The original North American release of Revelations: Persona was made easier than the Japanese version, by reducing the rate at which the player encounters enemies, but increasing the experience points gained from each encounter. These changes were reverted so as to make the game more difficult and appeal to fans of the series. The North American release of the game includes voice acting in the new cutscenes. The Snow Queen quest, a sidestory removed from Revelations: Persona, has been added to the North American release of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona.
The game was made available on the European PlayStation Store on August 11, 2010.
Reception
The original Persona game currently has a MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
score of 78 based on six reviews; in its time, it was called a sleeper hit
Sleeper hit
A sleeper hit, a.k.a. surprise hit , refers to a film, book, single, album, TV show, or video game that gains unexpected success or recognition...
. Jeff Gerstmann
Jeff Gerstmann
Jeff Gerstmann is an American video game journalist and former editorial director of the gaming website GameSpot and the founder of the gaming website Giant Bomb. He began working at GameSpot in the fall of 1996, around the launch of VideoGameSpot when GameSpot separated PC and console games into...
, then of GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
, praised the game for its modern setting and teenage cast, as opposed to the medieval settings of traditional role-playing games. The IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
review stated that Revelations: Persona "is the perfect title for any RPG fan who craves something different." GameInformer considered the game to have broken the mold of role-playing games at the time, adding that "there has never been an RPG as vast as Persona."
The game's PSP remake debuted at #1 in Japanese game charts, selling over 79,000 copies in its first week. At the end of May 2009, Famitsu
Famitsu
is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Enterbrain, Inc. and Tokuma. Currently, there are five Famitsū magazines: Shūkan Famitsū, Famitsū PS3 + PSP, Famitsū Xbox 360, Famitsū Wii+DS, and Famitsū Wave DVD...
reported that 122,962 copies had been sold in Japan, making the game the sixth best-selling title on the PSP. The remake of Revelations: Persona has a Metacritic score of 83. Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....
wrote that Shin Megami Tensei: Persona "is a perfect example of how to remake a great game -- graphics notwithstanding -- and this release makes a brilliant game feel fresh and relevant again." Eric Patterson of Play Magazine
Play (US magazine)
Play was a U.S.-based magazine focused on video games, anime, manga, film, DVD, television, comics, music and media. Published by Fusion Publishing, Inc. since 2001, Play magazine also had a separate Internet presence on its website, Play Online...
found that, thirteen years after its original release, Persona stood the test of time, calling the remake "the true and definitive version of the game." IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
staff writer Sam Bishop called the story of Persona "timeless in its ability to draw you in", and found that the game offered players "a fantastic story, likeable and well-defined characters, [and] some fairly deep introspection on their part."