In a few words, I'd say "high attention to detail" and "labor of love" could describe this game. To describe my own experience, though, this title was formative for me and stood proudly up to the test of time when I came back to it this year. This review will be long as mine always are, so be warned, and don't forget to think positive.

See, I'm almost 25. Not quite there yet, but I felt that now was the time to come back to these games after leaving them untouched since I was a teenager. I first played this game about a decade ago - I must have been 15 or 16 - and what it gave me was my first ever role model of sorts after a life of not really feeling like I could live up to or look up to any heroes. The hero with whom I trusted much of my inspiration toward was Maya Amano, the deuteragonist of this game and protagonist of its sequel.

Her positivity fueled by a healthy dose of understanding boundaries and being her best self for those she loves were all things that I felt I really wanted to embody, too. I didn't really realize it at the time, but I think I saw a lot of myself in her; at least now that I played the game as a grown-up, I noticed that a lot of her mannerisms, behavior, and demeanor matched mine adorably well. I wax poetic about things that strike me on a whim, I think of things poetically, I make almost childish jokes and play along with such things for fun. In the past I've doubted a lot of my core thoughts and traits and worked hard to build them up and understand them more, all of which she's thrown through the wringer to do in this game. I've felt echoes of hatred or malice, thoughts and feelings I've known are real somewhere somehow yet don't feel like my own, and despite my best efforts to be there for people I sometimes hold myself away from them as a burden, even if only quietly. I've had to learn to rely on people just a little bit more, and it's not always been easy. I won't go into any more depth, but playing this game again felt... not like looking into a mirror, but like I could reflect on the past decade with more direction.

Maya, after all, is the reason why I'm playing these games now. I believed her to be in the range of 23-24 across both games, and for a while as I grew up I told myself and others time and time again that I'd 'measure up' one day when I was her age and just see where I'd gotten to -- to see if maybe I'd be someone she might be proud of, even! And well, now's that time. I felt her growth like I'd felt my own over the years, and I found myself touched more by the ending of this game than I originally had been -- the shock back then was far different of a feeling than the mix of swirling emotions I had this time.

To get to the game proper, though, I'll just pick out that which stood out to me as I'm sure plenty of people have said plenty of things about this one in the past decade, let alone in the past quarter century.

One thing I found incredibly curious about this which flew over my head when I was younger was the sheer impact of rumors upon reality even in the silent protagonist's backstory. Tatsuya fills some archetype of a 'cool senior' just as himself and Lisa's feelings for him are real, yet it's made evident over the course of the game that all the things he was 'known' to have done - beat up biker gangs, be a whiz at repairing mechanics and driving - weren't real at all. If anything, he was an outcast for reasons not necessarily known to the player. Perhaps having a similar name to the arsonist who destroyed a beloved shrine and killed a child, or perhaps for having an older brother who was a known stick in the mud. Perhaps he even distanced himself from the sheer trauma of what happened at the shrine a decade earlier. Regardless, I was impressed by the use of Tatsuya as a silent protagonist; it adds to the mystery, not to the self-insert factor, and I find that incredibly cool. For all we know, he may have remembered a fair few pieces of the past, hiding them behind the pained expression Ms. Saeko notes in the beginning of the game. His dreams, not yet fully figured out, fit both the understated protagonist he is here and the separate character with whom I'll be reacquainted when I replay Eternal Punishment. One could say the whole of this game teach him plenty about finding a dream to fight for, whether his own or those of the ones he loves.

Lisa resonated with me significantly more than I had remembered, but that could very well be that I was in a very different set of spaces back in the day. I've seen... so much more of the world since then, and family politics have gotten so much more complicated as well. I already felt for her when I first played this game, but this time around I really wished I could have given her a hug after all the hardships she endured. To touch on full-on cultural issues with the tact yet pointedness they did here was laudable, but I think the actual execution through Lisa as a character is a lot more than just that. She's complicated, she's strong, she's cool, and she's got lots and lots of love to give. Seeing the growth of her character to the point where even a potential rejection from Tatsuya wouldn't hinder her dreams was inspiring. That moment in the Taurus Shrine reflected a sense of personal promise that does not rely on others for self-worth or validation or even success. She's a true friend and yet doesn't lose herself to a worrying degree into her fantasies; she's a deep thinker and keeps herself grounded. No matter what the answer would be to her question in the shrine, she kept the innocent, carefree childhood dream that gave her the will to keep going -- importantly without putting much emphasis on the parts she cannot control. It's a dream worth dreaming, and it suggests an uncertain future in a most happy way.

Eikichi had always hit hard with the issues he deals with in his past and present, but on this replay I appreciated him far more for the strength of heart he has both with and without his 'boss' facade. Like the other characters, he is not just defined by his issues -- he's himself through and through, and those issues only cloud his actual beauty from showing through until he's healed. Yes, he's narcissistic and not the best at picking up clues in any situation at all, but him being the way he is gives everyone else a whole lot of room to be themselves. He's no bully and he's no asshole once he solidifies his idea of being a 'boss', and his truly sweet heart is shown further and further when in practically every non-comedic scene he does his damned best to make sure everyone is feeling okay and accounted for. It's subtle at times, but it's there. His actual arc is plenty interesting as I remembered, and what's evidently compensation turning into strength is both novel and genuinely cool as he'd want to be. With how Michel acts as the game progresses, it seems that no, it doesn't matter how exactly he got to where he is or why he looks and acts as he does; what matters is that all of those are things that he can be proud of and sincere about, which he is in spades. His dreams are always so flexible and endearing -- that he would include Jun in his band immediately off the cuff was so sweet to see. I get the impression that Eikichi really just wants to have his friends and loved ones in his life partying right along with him and enjoying him like he enjoys them, and that is, again, sweet as can be.

Yukino is awesome, I almost want to leave it at that. I felt inspired by her in a different way that I originally had been by Maya, and it was less as a goal or role model so much as just a reminder. Yukino's story, having a more subtle yet present arc, puts forward that getting up and not giving up on the things that truly matter won't just elevate you, but your loved ones as well. Even after tragedy you can help others, and if you make mistakes or you suffer or you fall down, it only gives you that many more opportunities to shine in the lives of those who have felt the way you do. It gives you both a friend. I think it's honestly cool that after she gives her Persona over to Jun she isn't seen again, just having ridden off into the sunset with a companion to mentor as Saeko once had for her. She passes not just her old dreams along, but her ideals, too, and feelings which the game suggests time and time again are able to snap Jun out of things right in the nick of time.

Jun himself was really great, especially considering how little screen time he ultimately gets due to the urgency of the main quest upon his addition to the party. It's largely through the lenses of everyone else that the player learns about Jun, and once he actually appears he fills out the impression with more 'truth' than just the pretty face he'd been described as. He's got his troubles and his ideals are so strong that they shine throughout the game for better and for worse; yet, like everyone else, he's more than just those dreams. He's much more than just Joker, even. He's a bit gullible and yet warmhearted and truly devoted to helping people, speaking in long poems and getting along with no issues around anyone else. He can act down on himself, though, and his guilt is understandable. A lot of this game is one extended heartbreak for him, and so it makes it all the easier to appreciate his short story of taking power into his own hands and retaining responsibility without bogging himself down in it. When the greatest devastation hits him, his own worst nightmares having come to pass ten years later than the lies he'd been fed, he does not break. He holds his big sis along with the others and comforts her through tears. The Jun who speaks to Tatsuya in the final cutscene is not the same Jun who was indoctrinated into doing Nyarlathotep's bidding after being dragged back and forth by his parents and existing purely in others' shadows. He's determined; his dream has changed, but to what exactly we're never told. The important part, though, is that he's taken to heart that the only one who has the power to make one's dreams come true is oneself. Not one's father, not one's mother, not one's friend and lover, not one's big sis, and certainly not one's god -- oneself.

I think the main cast speaks a lot to Nyarlathotep's insistence on contradictions and truth being a load of shit. I don't think I have to spell out every single character's contradictory acts, words, feelings, and personas. The key point is that, in spite of dreams and masks and even ideals changing with time, these characters are still the selves they'd been a decade earlier (or in Yukino's case, three or more years earlier!). That they aren't fully internally consistent at all times is not a sin, nor is it an imperfection. It's simply a part of being alive. When Philemon claims that the Crawling Chaos drags the weak into the abyss, he is not proclaiming that those who fall victim to his cunning ways are lesser -- he is saying that they are internally inflexible and unsupported in a way that Nyarlathotep dreams of spreading. They are the prey he desires, found alone and vulnerable, not somehow worse by being themselves. The game hammers home that relying on others to fulfill your dreams for you or determine your dreams for you is not the way to go, yet it also emphasizes that support is needed for dreams to come true at all. It is no contradiction: it's differences and understanding that bring people together. The different affinities for arcana and personas, the different stats the party has, and their many goofy interactions are not just there for show: they're a set of people brought together with similarities and differences that are both respected by and overridden by their love for each other. To that end, despite just about every party member being weak in their own ways as Nyarlathotep may claim, it is their support for each other that raises them up toward their dreams.

But enough about dreams and major characters! Let's talk for a sec about the rest of the game.

The writing is pretty awesome here in how dense yet not at all forced it is. After just about any major event, going back to most of the places on the map will yield new dialogue both for the party and for NPCs. There are tons of small subplots the NPCs go through over the course of the game, and most of those were lost on me in my original playthrough. I was damn impressed to see all that had been put together here. Tatsuya even having a bonus love interest in one of the shops was a surprise! There's a great mix of humor and more serious and more straightforward dialogue and exposition sprinkled throughout the game and it was all a joy to read, though intentionally going everywhere over and over again was a bit of a hassle -- not that the game was made with that in mind.

Many have ragged on the gameplay and I do get it. If the encounter rates were lower and the EXP were buffed so that the game truly was VN-esque, I'd appreciate it a lot more for it. Still, the game is never grindy and Estoma is not hard to come by, so it's honestly not really a problem that this game plays uninterestingly. Of course, it really should have played in a way that felt designed at all, but it's frankly inoffensive. I'd definitely not play the game without speedups, though. Still, treating the game as a VN with JRPG gameplay sprinkled in works surprisingly well, and with how strong the Prime and Ultimate personas are it feels almost intentional. Maybe it was -- after all, the game's sorta like a vague set of (possibly inadequate) training wheels for Eternal Punishment...

I think before I cap things off I want to bring up how happy I was that the queer representation in this game was honestly better than I remembered it. It's not at all a focus of the game, but even the one or two binary trans folks in the game are treated more as initial surprises by a couple party members, after which they're simply treated as standard NPCs and even referred to by their preferred pronouns by all the party members whenever mentioned! Neat! And of course, you have a bi protagonist and a gay main party member in Tatsuya and Jun respectively, as well as what one could describe as a gender-nonconforming appearance for Eikichi. It's cool stuff! There's also bits and pieces of nonspecific queer coding for Yukino and arguably even ace coding for Maya that I could easily see someone reading them with. All in all the game feels relatively queer inclusive, not just for its time but even for a quarter century later.

Alright, I think that's about it for describing my thoughts on major pieces of the game. I'll throw in some general cliffnotes and then I'll call it a review.

The P1 characters returning was awesome and I want to replay the game now. I really hope a fan translation of Megami Ibunroku Persona comes eventually. I neeeed it.

The music in this game's better than I remembered! I played it with PSP music originally and PS1 music this time, so it felt just the right bit of different yet familiar.

The negotiation system in this game is limited but great for what it is, and the additional bits of characterization sprinkled in were all a treat. Props to the devs for even having the degrees of comfort in the group contacts changing over the course of the game.

The nonsensical main plot being intentional is fucking cool of a twist, and while I remembered that it didn't quite register as hard until this replay. EP also goes to weird places but nowhere near as much as here.

When I first played this game about a decade ago I was a very different person from who I am now, but at the same time I feel so very much of a kernel of myself having stayed true through the years. I've met so many people because of this game and I've done so much about myself because of this game that I couldn't possibly speak to it all here. I think waiting so long to replay this was a great idea. My dreams and my ideals are so different from back then, but there are bits of them that have been with me for my whole life. I want to keep pursuing them.

This game is the essence of a 'Perfect Seven' which is an ideal I still hold after a cherished friend and I developed it together. I did in fact take a whole star off the rating purely because of the gameplay bits, while the entire rest is for eeeeeeeeeeverything else. Not just 'it's a good story' and 'the characters are great', but all of the little secrets and bits of detail thrown in that only a video game could really show off. There's so much to love about this game, and while it's not the most fun to play, I think its imperfection - almost a 'contradiction' of a game not being just something to play for fun - is something to celebrate and cherish. I'd love if it played super duper well, but I wouldn't have it any other way than as the game that influenced nearly a decade of my life.

To answer what I had wondered of myself for all these years while preparing for this replay, I do think I'm someone who Maya would be proud of, if not see as a friend. It's felt really humbling to look back on ten years the way the characters of this game have. I feel like I still have so much left to go before I'm my very best self, but I'm trying harder than ever and will continue to do so. It's not just for my sake, but for my loved ones as well -- I don't want them worrying about me, after all. And I don't have a Mr. Bunbun to laugh at them for crying too much, either, so I have that much more to take into my own hands as needed.

I even have my own persona of sorts now, a mix of what I consider my shadow and yet my mask and armor, too. They're my own, they're nobody else's -- the same goes for my inner self. I feel very much distinct from Maya, yet at the same time the influence on my overall life is plain to see and I'm happy about that. At one point I think I would have been embarrassed to tell people about who my one role model was, but now that I've moved toward simply being myself I don't think I'd be afraid to say it at all. Maybe that's the real difference. Above all, though, I'm still thinking positive.

Happy quarter century, Innocent Sin! I'll be joining you shortly, on my own 25th anniversary -- that of day your world ended and your new world began, and the day this one said hello to me for the first time.