Parallel Worlds: Let's Play Persona 2 and Persona 2!

Let's Play Innocent Sin
Let's Play Eternal Punishment

In the months since its release, I know many members of this forum have come around to try this "Persona" thing at one point or another, thanks to the amazing word-of-mouth it got here. I'm sure you've all noticed, thanks to the title, that Persona 3 is not the first game to bear the name.

It's not the third, either!

Just as the release of Fes is a good reason to take another look at Persona 3, it's also a good reason to take a look at prior games in the series. Specifically those under the banner of Persona 2. While not as flashy or polished as P3, Persona 2 has a lot going for it, and I hope to draw those who enjoyed the new game into this brave old world.


Persona 2: Innocent Sin (or "Tsumi" if you're the sort who likes using Japanese for whatever reason*), like Persona 3, follows a group of high-schoolers who are out to save a modern-day world. Well, modern when it was released anyway-Tatsuya doesn't carry an mp3 player everywhere!

Despite the lack of an official translation, a promising translation patch approaches and a translated script has been available online for years now. I used the script on my first playthrough, and will again, to point out and explain, well, lots of stuff.

So before we really get started though, we have a couple decisions.

First off, about a minute into the game, this screen appears. I think the gist is somewhat obvious.

Alas, this game being all Japanese or something, there's only space for three characters in each of Tatsuya Suou's names. If somebody comes up with something really clever then I'll happily write over them, but the real option here comes from his nickname. "Tacchan" by default, but we get a whole FIVE spaces on this one! That's as many as Chrono Trigger, so I know we can come up with something great! There's Hiragana, Katakana, some Kanji, and English letters. Come up with a name, and if its excellence is not self-evident, briefly explain, please.

And then there's Eternal Punishment. P.S. this is really the best box art ever

P2:EP takes place in a sort of...parallel dimension with Innocent Sin, where by and large the events of the two games have different outcomes. The main character this time is Maya Amano (though, like Sera in Digital Devil Saga, she's arguably the most important character the whole time), magazine reporter and editor, and she's generally surrounded this time by other non-teenaged professionals.

There are a lot of overlapping and similar events between the two games, and while I intend to point out as much of that sort of thing as possible, I've spent a long time trying to figure out the best way to do it. I still don't quite know, so I think some input is called for. I've thought of two main sequences, but there are a couple of other possibilities.

The first is to play through the entirety of Innocent Sin. Then all of Eternal Punishment. It's simple, it's straightforward, and it's how they're meant to be played.

The other option is to play through the two literally in parallel. There are a lot of places where the two games will line up really well, and some where they won't so much. I think this has a lot of interesting possibilities, as well as some possibilities of being overly complicated, more difficult to follow, and even more difficult to work on. But hey, it's up to you! Persona, Persona, come to us!

In the meantime, you can also whet your appetite by hitting Youtube for the FMV intros for Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. Trust my completely unbiased opinion that like the games themselves, they're totally awesome!

*reasons may include: it's shorter to type, it can confuse people, or you are a Japanophile

play em one at a time. it would be too confusing, otherwise.
looking forward to this!

I'd prefer if you did one game at a time. It would be easier to digest, and you can trust people who have been reading to remember relevant events from the first game when you need to refer to them in the second.

I would also vote one at a time. I played through both Persona 1 and Persona 2 EP, but I never played IS which make me really interested in this LP. Add the fact that I am about 20 hours into my replay of Nocturne, which means I am in the SMT mood.

I think you're going to do one at a time becuase that's what everyone seems to like, but I just want to throw ou that parallel sounds a lot more interesting to me. If you've already played through them before and know when they line up, you could create a really cool structure for this thread.

Basically, I think it comes down to this: If you do them separately, your maximum awesomeness potential is not as high, but your chance of achieving that awesomeness is really good.

If you do them side by side, it will take more work and forethought, but the maximum potential greatness is much higher. On the other hand, it's also more likely it could turn into a confusing mess if you don't do it perfectly.

If you really want to plan it out in advance, I think the parallel plan would be much more interesting. If you want to just go with the flow and see what happens, one at a time will be simpler.

Maybe once you've finished both go back and go over some parallel things that are easy to miss?

I played Eternal Punishment before, but I don't really remember anything about it, nor did I play it very long. Well, I remember a lot of non-descript hallways for dungeons.

Oh, and a guy with a bloody paper bag on his head was the bad guy.

Not anymore confusing than Home and Another from Chrono Cross.

I'm all for playing them at the same time.

That doesn't really help your case.

I don't understand why they'd port one and not the other.

Americans relate more to journalists than highschoolers?

Considering how early the Innocent Sin spoilers start popping up in Eternal Punishment, I'd argue against playing them at the same time. Also, you know how other people get burned out playing halfway through one game? It'd be better if you gave up halfway through one game than two.

Because Eternal Punishment is three billion times better than Innocent Sin, even if Yukino isn't playable in Eternal Punishment.

Names, people! Unless you don't care, but the only indication I see of that is that nobody is bringing it up at all.

People usually claim two elements of the game's content as the reason Sony blocked it. If you haven't heard about this then you're lucky! However, I think one of the arguments is bogus, which leaves only the super lame explanation. Oh well.

If an update/remake of the game came out in Japan, I'd be confident in saying it would come out here as well. I don't think anything in Innocent Sin is more controversial than some of the stuff in the PS2 titles, except perhaps to a very small group of people? (does that make it too obvious?)
This is exactly what this is, with a lot more psychopaths and random murders.

I think it's easier to keep track of, because of obvious differences like party members and the language of the text, but still definitely more complicated than the one at a time method.
This was very much my line of thought as well, as I have played them both before (with EP first, so even doing things in the sequence should be fresh enough).

I do think the other issue is that there are a lot of things I plan to sweep under the rug, mostly (for example, you won't be subjected to me being lost on the Mifune Trail in EP), since the encounter rate is pretty high which drags out the dungeons pretty well. Parallel updates kind of exacerbates the problem, especially during the parts where I'd be working through the same dungeon twice at the same time.

I'm down with the parallel gaming - seeing the games working out side-by-side should prove interesting if you do it right.

Also, I nominate the name to be Serge, just to be a sass.

Both reasons are bogus. If you've actually watched the Lovers contact, you'd know that was nothing that couldn't have been "translated out" as it were. And Hitler? Come on people, Atlus USA had demonstrated they were capable of editing character portraits in P1, why would this be any different?

The only dungeon that's going to end up side-by-side would be Sevens. Also you'd need to be down with Innocent Sin before you reached Iwato in Eternal Punishment, which shouldn't be a problem because Sin is a good 10-15 hours shorter than Punishment

Regardless of going parallel or sequential, could you...maybe....type references to one game in normal and the other in italics, or figure out a much more clever way of indicating which game is which?

I don't know anything about either of these games, but from the descriptions the parallel project sounds much, much more interesting (if you can pull it off).

Well, I agree. It's not my fault! Both of the arguments are pretty weak, and it's not necessarily the case that either is true. Between the two though, I'd have to say the Last Battalion is completely ridiculous as an explanation, while Jun is only mostly ridiculous.
This would take some time stretching, because the sequence is different and IS is shorter, but it probably would've involved dancing around the revelations at Mt. Iwato in EP for a while and lining up the Xibalba and Ame-no-Torifune, screwing around for a bit while EP goes through Sumaru Castle and then finishing off before the last dungeon. But I didn't want to put a lot of time into wasting planning so that was mostly what I had when starting this thread =o
Surely someone can take a stand against this! (By the way, you can't rename Maya in any way, shape, or form, so this is really the only chance)

I just don't see how you'd be able to pull it off effectively. Having played both games and seen the success rate of longer LPs, I just don't think you'll be able to do both at the same time. By the way, Club Zodiac is the wall in Eternal Punishment Let's Plays, because that's when the game starts getting real. Innocent Sin shouldn't be a problem because you can pretty much tear through the game using only Philemon's handouts.

I sincerely appreciate your input. (It really is nice to not be the *only* one who's played it, heh)

As for difficulty, I definitely agree on IS, and while I got killed a few times by Noriko in EP, I can only think of a few other battles I lost repeatedly: the Metal IS kids, Gozen (I hardly put any points into Maya's VIT so she kept getting smushed at inconvenient times) and the final battle. I can't say I'm too worried, I think the only one that may be difficult to avoid is that last one. But I'm already thinking about it.

The five character limit for the nickname brings to mind the obscenities my friends and I chose for names in Brawl.

HYMEN, COCKS, SPERM, BALLS, SEXXX, VGINA, PENIS, HERPS, etc.

Though I think HERPS might be cool, you should name Tatsuya a simple, out of place Western name like "Steve."

Or give him some Japanese style emoticons, like (T_T) or m(_ _)m

t('.'t)

I've got it: ROIDS.

CRABS?

Or how about CLAP?

guys, we already have the best random gen char name-
PANTS

interesting fact - the number of letters you could use to change "horse" to something else in THPS allowed "Cumbubble." I've never laughed harder then when the screen told me "YOU ARE A CUMBUBBLE!"

As such, I nominate "CmBbl" knowing full well that it will be rejected, and rightfully so.

So "Pants" is now the official Talking Time Let's Play Already Default Name? I can live with that.

I kind of like the idea of a collective forum avatar bravely venturing into various games under the name "Pants". It's got moxy!