Reviews from

in the past


Maldigo al discapacitado mental de Atlus que dijo: vAmOs A hAcEr a mAyA mUdA. Loco, se cargaron al mejor personaje del juego anterior por la estupidez de que el jugador le pone personalidad al protagonista o no sé que vaina.
De ahí en fuera buen juego, Baofu me pone un poco hot ngl.

pratiquement Innocent Sin en mieux, j'adore le regard adulte que le jeu nous donne sur le monde de Persona 2 en switchant le cast principal par Maya et son gang.
Un jeu qui t'apprend ce que grandir veut réellement dire et comment deal avec les erreurs du passé, quel poulet sérieux.


It's a good direct continuation from the first game. Giving Tatsuya a personality was a great idea, and the cast in this game is much better than the first. Even though Maya doesn't speak much, she still maintains her charisma. However, in my opinion, Tatsuya remains the best character in this game. The ending isn't a happy one, but that's what makes it feel more "realistic." If it were just Persona 2: Innocent Sin on its own, it wouldn't be as good as people say. But combining both games makes for an incredible experience, especially in terms of the story.

In this game, for some reason, Atlus decided to destroy the UI and create the worst battle UI I've ever seen in my life. To change your attack, you have to go through 5 different screens, which is unbearable. It's almost preferable to almost die and leave it on auto than to go through these 5 screens for each character every turn. It's definitely the worst battle UI I've ever seen. They could have kept the same UI from the first Persona 2, but aside from that, Persona 2 as a whole is a great game and it truly lives up to the hype that people talk about without a doubt, if you like Persona, it's definitely worth playing.

loved the battle system that pushes you to embrace the auto-battle and the story/cast is so good

"We are connected by this ocean... We can meet again.."


one of the most interesting stories in the persona franchise. It ends up connecting the persona 2 dualogy extremely well, and is worth a play through (even if it is quite old).

also baofu is cool smile

I like to tell people that Persona 1 is a Shin Megami Tensei game, Persona 2 is a Final Fantasy Game, and Persona 3 is a Persona game. Eternal Punishment complicates this little mantra significantly, because it is WAY more of a Shin Megami Tensei game in its design than Innocent Sin is.

When I say that, I mean it has more Matadors. A "Matador", for the record, is when Atlus stops the player with a mandatory boss who is clearly meant to be defeated in one particular way which will almost certainly require grinding. The bosses can be defeated without employing the one, clear solution, yes, but doing so is a miserable experience, and often one that leans heavily on RNG.

I hate Matadors. They are probably my least favorite thing about the entire wider SMT franchise. This, I realize, is far from universal. Many lovers of SMT are drawn to it specifically because of these puzzle bosses challenge them to rifle through their drawer until they find a suitable key. I however despise being sent away to spend potentially several hours sourcing new party members, and several more in trial and error if I don't open up the wikis and charts. I hate being told to "go get the thing." I want to be able to figure out a solution with what I have, but in Eternal Punishment and often elsewhere in SMT, "what I have" is barely capable of inflicting any damage at all.

Over the course of Eternal Punishment, on the PSP's Normal mode, despite dutifully playing out all of my prescribed random encounters on my way through every dungeon, I had to grind intensely at four separate points in the story. When I say "had to" I do not mean that I had to do this to match up to the hilariously inflated level ranges that online guides always provide. I remained ten or more levels under every boss's level and every guide's recommendation for the entire run. I had to grind like that just to keep up with being UNDERLEVELED. In order to fuse the personas that could give me the puzzle boss gimmick keys I needed and actually be useful with them, I often needed to slam out a full ten levels. I can and do hold this EXP curve against Eternal Punishment. This is a Persona 1 level of keep-up grinding that is on display by the end of the game. I'm sure that for the veterans who knew about the double experience fortune... thing that you can do from the start and who spent time hunting down every rare encounter and who tracked down all the sidequests experienced a lot less of this, but even if that remedies the situation, having such things be necessary to finish a playthrough isn't great either.

To rub more salt in the grinding wound, players need EXP, yes, but they also need cards, and they cannot get those two things at the same time. The negotiation card grind is a completely parallel activity that cannot be done simultaneously with actually killing things for EXP. This means that pretty much every time there's a grind to be done, there are actually two grinds to be done... and that's if you don't have to fish for material cards from rare encounters.

If I did not have access to a great auto-battle system, the ability to turn off battle animations, and an emulator's fast-forward function, I imagine that I would not have finished Eternal Punishment, and that would have been a massive shame, because its story is at least as good as Innocent Sin's and it's better paced. It walks a wonderfully fine line between reusing old environments and inventing new ones, and I'm so glad that I played it. I just can't see myself wanting to do it again.

I actually lowered the entry bar on my silly little "five-star club" in order to let Innocent Sin into it. It got away with it because while some of its systems were definitely rough, they could mostly be ignored, and the PS1 version kept things engaging enough when those questionable systems WERE being ignored that the ultimate experience was still fantastic. I certainly enjoyed my time with Eternal Punishment, but not without some very significant things repeatedly getting in the way. Even still, I recognize that a lot of my grievances are tied to my preference for difficulty being delivered IN battles, rather than scavenger hunting outside them. There exists a legion of players who love the latter, and I'm not about to argue with them.

I admire Eternal Punishment's commitment to the systems that Innocent Sin so overlooked, but I have to admit, I had a better time when they were largely being ignored.

nunca pensei que essa prr ia ser boa, mas me supreendeu

El mejor Persona pero ahora con adultos

maya best persona character :>

Why am I supposed to feel bad for an entitled millennial whining about how it’s hard to be an adult? Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, dumbass

Persona 2 Eternal Punishment is by far the most derivative mainline Persona game. It's simultaneously a sequel to Innocent Sin AND Persona 1, and reuses a lot of elements from the former. Despite that, It manages to surpass it's predecessor, and refines and improves a lot of the problems that game had.
Pros: The gameplay in this game, while still not amazing, is significantly better than Innocent Sin's. It expects you to have played Innocent Sin and expects you to take advantage of all the vast myriad of obscure gameplay mechanics and shops available for use. The game stops pulling its punches and gets significantly harder, and the difficulty is much needed. The strategies I was using in Innocent Sin stopped working, and I had to adapt to new strategies, and build team compositions around being able to form proper Fusion Spells. The game still has the tedium and the slowness of Innocent Sin, but it's more entertaining because it expects a lot more of you. Some people call this the hardest Persona game, but I don't know if I would agree. I didn't struggle with it that much more than I did Innocent Sin. I basically steamrolled the entire final dungeon. The difference is, I would say, is that with Innocent Sin I was barely trying and struggled, and with Eternal Punishment I was aware of it's reputation and was trying as hard as possible and still struggled. Either way, if you can go through the game taking the most possible advantage of Fusion Spells and Mutations and Skill Cards, you shouldn't have the hardest time. The story in the game is also great. I love how different it is from every other game in the series, aided by the fact that it has a fully adult cast. I still think I like Innocent Sin's story just a bit more, but Eternal Punishment still has everything great that game had. The characters are still super entertaining, and I especially love how Tatsuya was characterized in this game. Turning a silent protagonist into an actual character isn't something that can be done easily, but it was pulled off flawlessly here and feels so natural. The game's contact system is much improved. It's streamlined from Innocent Sin to be less complicated and I think it works very well to remove some of the tedium of demon contact. The rumor system also returns and is also improved. Rumors are much more varied and control much more. There's a lot to love here.
Cons: The battle system, while better, still has a lot of the flaws of Innocent Sin. In addition, this game takes a bit too much from Innocent Sin. It's justified incredibly well within the story, but a lot of things are reused. Some dungeons in the game are completely original and those tend to be the best and most interesting. Other dungeons take place in the same place as dungeons from Innocent Sin, and as a result use the same visuals and environments, but still contain different layouts, and those are much less interesting. Other dungeons are literally ripped straight from Innocent Sin, with the exact same layout and everything. Those are the ones I really take issue with. It feels like a slog and a waste of time to have to do everything all over again. Again, it's justified well within the story, and it's not too big of an issue, but it was an annoyance I had. Another thing I don't like about this game is it's characterization of Maya. Maya was turned into this game's silent protagonist and while I like that doing so allowed Tatsuya to become his own character, I don't like how much Maya's character had to be reduced. Maya was the emotional core of the group in Innocent Sin, and her trauma and backstory was a major focus of that game. It just feels awkward that none of that is really focused on much anymore, because all Maya says in this game is "...." and "Maya smiled gently" or something.
Overall: This is another must play game, even more so than Innocent Sin, despite being it's direct sequel. It has a lot of the same strengths as Innocent Sin and improves upon its biggest flaws.

I adore this game. It's a strong contender for best in the series. Characters, combat, narrative. All great. Only issue is availability and the fact that the first half didn't get a release until years later. I sure do love that Atlus opted to make this duology as hard to get as humanly possible by separating them on two different systems over a decade apart. Bravo.

épico dms, merecia mais amor da atlus

Upon completing Innocent Sin, I was left feeling a bit unsatisfied for a few reasons – the contact system, the ending, etc.; there were of course a lot of things I liked (and even loved) in Innocent Sin, but I wasn’t left as wowed by the experience as I would’ve hoped for. Instead of immediately playing Eternal Punishment next though, the next game I went into was Persona 4 Golden (a game that turned out to be significantly less interesting than P5R or P2 IS), and that gave me about a month to really chew on my experience with Innocent Sin.

When I finished P4G and felt ready to return to Sumaru City, I started Eternal Punishment. And by jove, this game just... delights in being a sequel to Innocent Sin so much.

On the gameplay front, so many of my hangups with Innocent Sin were improved upon – the contact system was greatly simplified, the shop rumors were pared down to the essentials, Salam Ladeen’s maps gave a great incentive for fully exploring dungeons in the latter half of the game, some of the sillier fusion spells were “nerfed” to be less over-centralizing, etc. Playing the Playstation version of the game, there were still some QoL things that nagged me here and there, but I can forgive that in a 24-year-old game (especially when using an emulator with speed-up), and overall, I can only see its gamefeel as a direct improvement over Innocent Sin.

On the writing front, the setup for Eternal Punishment naturally leads to revisiting a lot of the same ground covered in Innocent Sin. However, each time the thought “This is cool, but it’s not too different from what happened in the previous game” started creeping out of the back of my mind, Eternal Punishment would yank the rug out from under me, telling me “No, this is different, and you better buckle in.” Between that and in general a stronger cast, at this point I’m left believing that Eternal Punishment is simply the most well-written Persona game of the lot, let alone being “just” an improvement over Innocent Sin.

In the end, I found Eternal Punishment to be one of my favorite videogame experiences of the last decade, and I think my time with it (however brief in the grand scheme of things) will continue to inform my perception of story-driven games for a long time to come.

After hearing how popular the duology was for old-school SMT fans, this was on the top of my hitlist after completing Persona 5. Going in, I was hearing everyone describe this as a dark and mature game and I was left a bit disappointed, unfortunately. This game has its moments here and there, but I was expecting something way darker than what we got.
That's not to say the game is bad by any means. It's a huge step up from Innocent Sin in terms of characterization and story. I liked the cast a lot more in this one because they felt real and fleshed out. I'm a particular fan of Baofu he's a fun character who gets some great moments with the rest of the party. Also happy we got to see Katsuya as a playable character and his antics with Tatsuya in particular are adorable. Overall, the game's cast is the strongest aspect of the story for me and I think that is due in part to them being actual adults. There's a very cute touch where Tatsuya is unable to purchase alcoholic drinks because he's underage which I thought was delightful.
I think the plot doesn't go nearly as crazy as Innocent Sin does, though, which was my favorite part of that game. Innocent Sin really leaned into the idea of rumor becoming reality using commonly held conspiracy theories and turning them into pivotal story points which I thought was more interesting than Eternal Punishment.
The gameplay's more the same. A bit archaic but I eventually found myself enjoying it. There's a catharsis to blasting an any group with Giga Cyclone and raking in some experience. In particular, I wish they'd bring back Fusion Spells in future Persona games because they make party building more important and interesting. I also love the mutation mechanic that further incentivizes using fusion spells and can often result in some unexpected developments.
While I still prefer Persona 5 Royal I did greatly enjoy myself with Eternal Punishment and I hope Atlus eventually remakes the duology one day because these games deserve to get some modernization for modern players to experience.

The game I want to see remade the most out of all the older Personas. The gameplay is improved from Innocent Sin and the plot never ceases to amaze me.

This is easily the best Persona game. It's story is a follow up to Innocent Sin, and while it arguably doesn't hit the highs of storyline that game did, it just feels very good in a way. It has a cast of entirely adults, something I really wish Persona would try again today, but most importantly is that they're ALL likable characters. In Persona 3, 4, and 5, there's always at least one character that makes me think "I hate you, please stop talking" every time they open their mouth. Both games in the Persona 2 duology have none of those.

The gameplay is the thing people cite as an issue in this game, and I couldn't disagree more. It's gameplay is the peak of the franchise, with some small issues I admit are pain points. I think a lot of people misunderstand the combat as being standard fare of turn-based RPGs where you click a single move every turn. In reality, this game is based on actions repeating, until you interrupt the action to change commands on your characters. For example, on the Joker boss battles, when Old Maid is cast, it's best to put your entire party on Defend. Then interrupt the action after each character and see if they were changed to "Attack", and that's how you determine who got hit with the Joker.

Speaking of this game's bosses, they're incredibly strong and really stimulate your brain. Some of them may feel out of your reach the first attempt or two, but 99.9999% of the time, you absolutely have the tools to be able to do it without having to grind at all. For instance, there's a late game boss that restores about 800 HP per turn. You might think this sounds obnoxious, but you can use Fusion attacks to stack up enough damage to out-damage the heal.

There are some pain points in the game for sure. The biggest one to me is the summon system to obtain new Personas. Like Innocent Sin, you have to negotiate cards out of demons to be able to summon Personas. Making a pact with a demon gives you "Free" cards that you can have converted to any Arcana card you want (except Fool). This system can become quite the grind, however Eternal Punishment has a significant way of cutting this down. Innocent Sin's biggest issue with negotiation was the sheer number of options you had. Every character had four actions they could perform individually, and then you also have a unique action for each combination of characters. If you weren't sure what to do based on a demon's personality, this made things VERY hard to trial and error. Eternal Punishment fixes this by streamlining negotiation. Every character individually only has one action, and combinations of course have their unique interaction. Some of these combinations may end up just deferring it to one character and being the same result, and some may change over the course of the game. The trick was often to make a pact or two in the dungeon you're on, and then every time you see that demon, negotiate cards out of it so you get the "Free" cards too. The "Free" cards become your lifeline for getting new Personas.

The ending of the game is beautiful, the result of you playing two entire games to get to this point and the payoff is quite satisfying.

This version of the game is solid and very playable today, however I understand why you might have some issues with the UI and speed of the game. Some of these issues are solved by the PSP version of the game, which has a fan translation patch available on the Internet.

It is a good game that hangs too much on its counterpart to develop something original. Still interesting, but feels like IS all over again

Gosto um pouquinho menos que o Innocent Sin (acho que a história não conseguiu atingir o que queria com o IS e a gameplay ficou mais difícil, mas também mais chata...); agora, não deixa de ser um jogo legal. Se já jogou o IS, pode ir direto pra esse, que é um bom fim pra trilogia do Oldsona!!

the best persona game and best jrpg narrative in my opinion.

did not hit me as hard as innocent sin and maya being a silent protagonist is unforgivable to me, but i respect what it did with tatsuya and i think the tatsuya episode and the ending sequence are very good. it really ties up innocent sin narratively, although of course it leaves me to wonder what they meant by this.


The gameplay is rough, but the characters and story are good, even if they aren’t quite as good as Innocent Sin’s. Tatsuya Suou is one of the characters of all time.

Je suis un grand fan de persona je les aime tous alors ça va être la même review pour tous (sauf le 5 et le 1) : histoire incroyable, ost incroyable, histoire incroyable, bref tout est incroyable la dedans

This game is home to amazing sprite work with beautiful settings, although its combat feels rather dated in the way that the moves happen in a sequence and not as you input them which hasnt left a good impression in me both in this game and its predecessor (innocent sin). What stands out about this game is its phenomenal story, Persona 2 is a masterclass of storytelling in the persona franchise, not only from the perspective of the characters own stories and relationship developments, but in how well paced it all is, in terms of Persona stories, theres this and then theres everything else