Persona 2: Eternal Punishment - Review

Not your generic RPG platter

By: Ahmed Saad

Review Breakdown
Battle System	9
Interface	9
Music/Sound	9
Originality	9
Plot	9
Localization	10
Replay Value	8
Visuals	8
Difficulty	Hard
Time to Complete	40 - 60 hours/quest
Overall
Criteria

   If like the majority of readers out there you may not want to play this game opting instead to play Rpgs like Final Fantasy 9 and Chrono Cross..but by doing so you will be missing out on one of the most pleasing and rewarding Rpg's since Chrono Trigger .....

   Persona 2: Eternal Punishment is part of the Megami tensei series , a series noted for it's mature nature , just be prepared for one of the best rpg's out there...

   Persona 2 : Eternal Punishment's battle system is like a melting pot of battle systems .. it has the magic system of Final Fantasy 6 , The Movement and team ups of Chrono Trigger , the strategy of Suikoden , and the involvement of Chrono Cross .

   You have two choices of battle systems. One is to set a strategy to your characters and let them do their stuff until you decide to change, and the other is to set the strategy once each round of attacks is over . What makes the battles such a joy to play is the fact that your characters are always jumping around the screen attacking , screaming , calling personas to attack with magic, taking blows, screaming at the enemies and attacking in rage you actually feel like your characters are alive. But the two innovate features in the battles are your personas *more on that later* and the contact system : The contact system is a system in where 1-3 of your characters make contact with a demon ,including: talking to the demon , flirting , blackmailing , or even wire tapping the demons phone .. which eventually leads to one of 4 reactions depending on the personality of the demon ( and they have loads of personalities) If the contact ends with the demon scared it will run away and the battle will end without you gaining anything if the contact ends while the demon is mad the battle will commence and the demon will usually get an inital hit if the contact ends with the demon happy you will get the chance to forge a contract if your levels are high enough which on meeting the demon again will give you the chance to either obtain money , items , or information , if the contact ends with the demon interested you will obtain Tarot cards which allow you to summon personas .

   Personas are summoned when your levels are high enough and when you have enough tarot cards from your contacts ,however some personas require special items to summon them which are usually obtained from side quests or Npc's. Most personas are based on legendary figures thus each persona has it's own spell list and it's own strengths and weakness thus altering the strength and weakness of the character with the persona equipped accordingly . There are around 200 personas so it'll take a while for you to get them all . another extra is the ability to unite persona spells to form some truely spectacular attacks on enemies called fussion spells , fussion spells are initiated by spells cast in certain order the first time it happens you have no control over your characters as they just unite their spells but from there on you can choose when to cast the fussion spells from your strategy . Some fussion spells are spell specific some are persona specific but finding them is up to you as fussion spells depend on when and what you cast.

Boogie down!

   Unlike most rpg's Persona 2 has a unique map system you don't have to trek across endless lands to reach a town . Your map consists of a couple of locations to zoom into then a couple of locations or npcs to reach and