An enhanced port of what was already the best Persona game, this is definitely the version to play if you haven't played before. Unlike the Innocent Sin PSP port, this version actually made sure to kept atmospheric elements like the UI sounds from the PS1 version of the game. There's numerous other quality of life improvements, including not hiding the nature of the combat being based on repetition. One of the biggest QoL improvements is actually being able to view each characters Persona compatibility without having to either do it by trial and error or looking it up on the internet.

Most of all, the game includes the new Tatsuya scenario. I personally think the scenario was quite good. The only issue I really had with it was the third part being a new dungeon, but that dungeon was really just a reskin of a dungeon already in the game, and a lot of the explanation for navigating it wasn't really necessary. However I liked that the bosses were cool, and many of them even involved a philosophical question that didn't have "OBVIOUS RIGHT ANSWER" and "OBVIOUS WRONG ANSWER", you were supposed to think about it and think about what mythological figure you were talking to. If you could answer correctly, you could potentially skip the boss entirely.

Eternal Punishment was already the best Persona, and this version served only to make it better. If you're going to play it, I recommend this version for sure. I will say some minor atmospheric things from the PSX version are missing from this version, but that pales in comparison to what it gained.

The game has a fan translated English patch out there on the internet, so be sure to use that if you can't read Japanese.

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.

I've played Dota 2 for over 11 years and the game still never ceases to entertain me. The games can be some of the most tense competitive games. Learning the deeper mechanics makes the game more interesting, and while many people will follow strategies the pros do, you will still always have to make decisions and calls in your own games with your own judgment. I play the game almost every day and do not plan on stopping. Dota has given me some of the best experiences of my life, including even traveling to the International tournament in person and meeting up with friends made through the game in real life.

The game is still in Early Access and already it's proven itself. It combines horror, multiplayer, a rougelite, and comedy all at the same time in a way that makes all those elements work well in tandem. Ideally you should play this game as four people, but three also works pretty well. Also, do yourself a favor and do NOT use Discord or any external voice program like that. Use the in-game voice chat as it's proximity-based and makes things more interesting. You won't necessarily know if your friends are dead. Sometimes you might have to search for them. You can buy things like walkie-talkies to keep up communication, but this of course has limitations like batteries.

The developer has been pretty consistent about adding content and improvements to the game, and it's pretty clear that this game is certainly going to be completed. At only $9.99 at the time of this writing, it's an easy recommendation.

This is a spinoff SMT game that came out the same year as the much superior Shin Megami Tensei II. SMT if... was the spinoff game that spawned a little series called Persona, as it's in the same continuity as Persona.

It is a somewhat solid MegaTen game at the end of the day, however it could also just be downright frustrating sometimes. One dungeon is particularly notorious for requiring many moon cycles while students finish digging out tunnels for you to get the item you need to move on. This basically means you are walking up and down a hallway for literal hours! This is the absolute worst dungeon I have ever seen in an RPG.

There's plenty to love in this game. The atmosphere of the students and teachers scrambling to survive in the school and Expanse was something that felt really cool. I liked things that contributed to that such as raiding sports club rooms at the start of the game to use sports equipment as weapons and armor. The story isn't as thick as it is in the other Super Famicom SMT games, but I do like the minimalist storytelling here. In every dungeon, you generally get a speech from Hazama, the villain, explaining what it's about and usually taunting you. I particularly liked this aspect for worldbuilding.

I did not finish the game. I made it to the second to the 4th floor of the school, the last dungeon on Reiko's route (last dungeon on Charlie's and Yumi's routes) and I was very underleveled. All encounters took forever to beat, I couldn't recruit anything, and I couldn't fuse anything worth a damn either. It ended up being a long grind that even after all that, I was still only high enough level to recruit the lowest common denominator demon. I still couldn't actually recruit them as I never got past negotiation.

I recommend this game for the atmosphere, but I also totally get why so many people were really turned off by it.

This is absolutely the best Super Famicom MegaTen game. I'm someone that gave up on finishing SMTI due to it's encounter rate in a dungeon, and gave up SMT if... near the end because of being unable to fuse anything good and encounters taking forever. SMTII might have had some of the same issues, but at the same time it was interesting enough that something compelled me to keep going. While some aspects of the story have been discussed and memed to death, there were some hits that genuinely shocked me.

The dungeons were sometimes frustrating, and I would say that if you're feeling frustrated, look up a guide. However not many were too frustrating. Another thing to beware of is bugs. The original 1994 release had a paper insert warning of game bugs, and I highly suggest using save states or the like. One example of a bug was when using the map marking feature, the screen just goes black and it basically shows you a powerpoint presentation of every single boss in the game.

Overall I think SMTII has a great setting and premise and it's absolutely worth your time.