Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2 - Innocent Sin [Review]

It is fitting how much mystery surrounds the Persona franchise before its third entry. With rumors becoming reality as its central idea, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2 - Innocent Sin is surprisingly relevant while being interesting to unveil. Some aspects of the game were not that well thought out, including some narrative and battle decisions on the third act, still, it is a story worth visiting with characters that are worth remembering.

I think that it is fair to say that the Persona series started for most people with P3, 4 or 5. Like a mythical being, no one seems to talk about the earlier games as much. Originally for the PS1, all of the classic titles were remastered between 2009 and 2012 to the PSP. It is relevant to say that Persona 4 is from 2009 – so the Persona series wasn't that unpopular when the remakes were released.

I completely ignored this games until now, 2026. It is not that they don't look appealing, as these titles are arguably better looking than the Persona 3 Portable for the PSP that I'd indeed played. There's just... Something about this old titles that made me say someday, but not today. Well, it finally happened.

If I started at the third game all these years ago, I guess it makes sense for me to continue not making sense. Yes, I could've started on Persona 1. The allure of the second game, though... So many people saying that it is, in fact, the one that I can finally be in a relationship with someone from the same gender and the best, most serious story in the series with the nicest cast.

Some of the praises were true, some were not. Actually, the game starts in a very calm and silent way, with silly moments here and there. Rumors are roaming about the main character school's emblem and a fight between rival schools is about to happen – you know, growing up. Demons and the occult are way less... Occult in this city, as they roam even the school: it seems that these said rumors are becoming real, and things are prone to escalate quickly.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin's setting actually impressed me for how current it is, with characters using cellphones, taking pictures and acting a bit more like their ages than in the more recent titles. Also, the Personas, demons used by the party characters, aren't a story device as strong as I expected, because everyone can become a Persona User: one just have to play the "Persona Game", a child-like playtime activity that summons these demonic but protective guardians and gift their users a life of super powers.

The beginning of the game is very story heavy, introducing the main characters of the game. I really enjoyed how they are diverse not only in appearance but also on their background. Eikichi "Michel" is the gang leader with the heart of gold, sure, but he is also flamboyant and actually very caring. Lisa is a person that is constantly pressured because of expectations Japanese society have for people of mixed heritage, while Maya is more of the mature person of the group, still, she insists on keeping things to herself.

Innocent Sin went out if its way to make everyone more believable, with positive and negative traits that were convincing to me. After all of these introductions are made, the game gets way less chatty, and the exploration and battle systems are finally introduced. The PSP version can speed up some conflicts, but there's a lot of random encounters and dungeon crawling in this game. Using a map, remembering places and rushing to get the "Estoma" ability as soon as possible are paramount to be able to enjoy this game. It is like a "repel" that makes random encounters less frequent.

Still, the problems with the battles are their frequency, because Persona 2 is a remarkably easy game for most of its duration, while it tested my endurance and my ability to do repetitive stuff all the time. Because the "Personas" don't level up, having to interact with the confusing and not much rewarding Summon system creates some challenge, but more because of trial and error than actual game design. I say that because in the third act, most enemies – and bosses – use insta-kill abilities in every. damn. turn. It is more about creating builds to protect against these annoying encounters than actually role playing or choosing what I wanted. There are several usable demons that are actually terrible, regardless of level.

Outside the dungeons, the world is divided between several different neighborhoods in this Japanese fictional city, and exploration on it is very straightforward with a birds-eye view and an abstraction of traversing through the city. There are lots of places that I could enter, though, to talk to people and eat delicious meals. The biggest incentive for exploration outside the dungeons is with the Rumormongers – we can gather rumors from them to spread everywhere later. This is the way to start side quests and make stores sell real weapons for underage people. It is sadly not a very well realized system, and it stays without new content for it throughout the third act.

Every dungeon has a specific music, and almost all of them are great. The character themes are as good as both the battle themes. The songs are way lass catchy, though, with less sung tracks when compared to most recent Persona games – but this wasn't a problem for me in the slightest, I liked almost everything I heard. The visuals can be pretty sometimes, with expressive character sprites for everyone, including the demons. The explorable sections are strikingly simple, with unused spaces and a black boxes for the sky. It wasn't pretty for the PSX, nor the PSP nor today, in my opinion – but it isn't a disaster or super ugly like some other PSX titles.

While the battles are on to the simpler side, there are some spells that can be mixed and discovering them was nice. It is a very basic battle system, not that hard, and too repetitive. The unfair battles are like that because they were designed to be that way, and I'm actually pretty happy to live in a world where the Persona series moved away from this boring system.

I was surprised to see that the demon negotiation is not only present in this game, but it is more predictable and complete than most of ATLUS's recent games. Each member of the party have 4 different actions and the demons will react accordingly. Discovering the right answers to understand the demons was actually pretty fun for me, and I liked that it can be tense to negotiate with the occult.

There's a very big and... Unexpected twist that happens on the end of the second act of the game and I honestly didn't like it that much. Although I see how in a society where rumors become real that person would be revived, everything alongside made it too over the top to me. And when the main plot became bigger than the character driven adventure, I found myself a bit bored playing it, expecting only the next cutscene with my party members, but not really caring to how the story would end.

Fortunately, the next character cutscene was always rewarding. With the theme of believing in the best judgement of the people we love, I liked how everyone interacted, and while easy to predict, it was nice to see how they grew, bit by bit. It is not a game that focus on romance like Persona 3, 4 and 5 – but there are some "options" and indeed one of them was with someone of the same gender of Tatsuya. It isn't that well thought out, though, and the game really wants him to be with someone specific. Still, I liked to have the choice and the special dialogue with my soon-to-be boyfriend.

As I knew when I started it, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2 - Innocent Sin is the first part of a duology, so while I actually liked the ending, there are some clear points that beg for a sequel, and I'll play it.

I do believe that everyone who liked Persona 3/4/5 should give 2 a chance. It has a great cast of characters that are worth following, even when the story loses its footing or the battles become unbalanced in the third act.

7.5/10

This game was played in the PPSSPP emulator with an HD Texture Pack.