Persona 1: Worth Playing In 2024? (Better Than I Thought!)

Persona 1, the game where it all began for this Shin Megami Tensei spin-off, is often times overlooked and underplayed due to it's availability, which is understandable, but at its very core, is it still worth going back and playing in 2024? In this video I delve into the story, gameplay, dungeons, and music to try and come to my own conclusion for this question.

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#persona

Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction
0:59 - Story
6:01 - Gameplay
12:57 - Dungeon Design
14:32 - Music
15:32 - Is It Worth Playing?
16:28 - Conclusion

TAGS (Feel Free to Ignore)

"The rumor going around St. Hermelin High School holds that if you play the "Persona" game, you can see what the future holds for you. When a group of students-some eager, some skeptical-tries the game out, they experience something quite different. Before long, the city is turned upside-down and demons are roaming the streets, and only the students' newfound power of Persona can set things right again. Whether you pursue Takahisa Kandori and his abuses of the power he wields as SEBEC's president, or whether you delve into the curse of the Snow Queen that has plagued St. Hermelin for decades, a deep, modern, psychological tale awaits. Remember your true self, and free the tortured psyches of others... More than the same old JRPG -- Dark, philosophical, and complex, Persona sets you up in a modern day Japan that has gone into chaos. Demons run free, and you and your team must navigate corruption, mental frailty, and an alternate version of your world to bring your reality back into order. A second chance on PSP -- Offering a second opportunity to experience the beginnings of the acclaimed Persona series, this remake boasts a fully relocalized script, revamped user interface, faster battles, expanded soundtrack, and new in-game movies with voice work added just for the North American release. Unique tactical opportunities -- The inner selves known Personas are your key to progressing through the adventure, adding skills and incredible depth to your battle tactics. Expand and improve your collection through the Demon Negotiation system that offers spell cards that you can later fuse into new Personas."
-Via ATLUS USA

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[DragonKingX]

I love the fact you get both old school weapons and (real)guns. I like the fact you can find useful stuff in lockers and other places you don't get search in modern Persona games.

[BardockSkywalker]

In terms of gameplay, i think people who played Persona Q 1 & 2 won't have too much issue with this game since they're basically the same outside of the negotiation system since the Q games don't have that

[BurningxDaylight]

Persona 1 negoiation system also takes the moon into consideration. If it's a full moon for example negoiations might not work so that's what happened to you.

[IRitzxI]

I finished persona 1 this month and i had so much fun. The story was amazing, the characters were great. Maki is my second female character in the persona series, behind Aigis. The music is jam packed, added so many of them to my persona Playlist. The gameplay was hard to learn, but i still had a ton of fun.

[matiasfrancogracia]

Using your personas to fight demons (not shadows), students using real guns, many moral choices that affect the story, high random encounters, frustrating negotiations (demons are demons, so they're never easy to negotiate with), some random encounters that may body you, and no social links... welcome to Shin Megami Tensei buddy! Don't be surprised, P1, P2:IS, and P2:EP are basically SMT games, in fact, they come from SMT If.

[BerryHuttz]

I recently bought a PSP as well as P1 because I wanted to experience it. This game kicks my butt. I'm struggling to grasp the combat and I feel like I'm missing something for equipment and such. I'm about 9 hours in I think and still only have starting equipment. The random encounters seem never ending, which isn't awful but it sure is tedious. And the negotiation is so hard that I don't even really try to talk to the demons and just aim to demolish them. I feel like weak spells aren't going to carry me through the game

[Megalodon.]

both Persona 1 and 2 seriously needs a remake.

[anxhelovucinaj]

The Maki love is much appreciated!
Easily my favorite girl in all of persona and one of the most reletable ones to me.
As someone who was born with a weak constitution as a kid and had to be hospitalized many times back then, her feelings of loneliness and self-loathing really hit hard for me.
This was a pretty good video on P1, keep it up man!
Out of curiosity do you plan on making a video about the manga adaptation?If not, that's fine.

[a.kzockt]

As Someone who has been playing SMT and Persona games for years now, I find it quite sad that Revelations Persona a game which is quite forgotten nowadays. More and more people that start their Persona road, as I would call it, start with the modern 3, 4 and 5. Which is why I would love for more players to actually experience the good old times
Also, Maki and I share a birthday which I find quite funny ^^ June 4th

[Xenosaga]

I’m on the last dungeon of the SEBEC route and I’ve had a lot of fun with the game so far.

[seannolan]

P1 was my first fully played through Persona game about a year and a half ago. Random encounters got old pretty fast, but other than that I quite liked it.

[KoopersKuzunoha]

persona 1 is goated, glad you knew the megido tech. gotta remember the casino tech for the replay (also maki is one of the best characters in the series)

[destructor]

I remember getting charm locked for 30 minutes because of a group of succubi.

[bagon_the_bacon]

You only have the p2 duology left now 🎉

[DragonKingX]

Persona 1 was the first Megaten game I have ever played, I do think the game is underrated. If I had any real complaints I don't like how it does experience and Persona level being different from character level.

[nightwish]

I played this game before halfway and then reload came and held it off for that instead, once I beaten reload and then went back to finish sebec and I ended up loving p1 more and I think it came down to liking the theme, cast and story more. P3 cast is good but for me there wasn’t one I was overly attached to while p1 had the likes of Elly, maki, nanjo and yukino to think about.

For the gameplay I played sebec with Elly and currently playing SQQ with nanjo and Elly again compared to the modern games where even though there were some characters better then others at least all seemed complete and useable to an extent with p1 brown, ayase and Reiji while not un-usable they feel unfinished party members either because they have a crap weaponry set, bad arcana affinity list or bad affinity or just straight up both. This game isn’t the hardest in the series so if any of those 3 catch your eye it’s not impossible to use them you just have to make do with a bit more grinding and going beyond their arcana. it’s kind of slapped in the middle cause the hardest persona will tend to be ep or older versions of persona 3 not counting reload.

I played with the ps1 music and I think it is an underrated gem, psp is most likely rushed as meguro was busy with fes and p4 vanilla at the same time hence its track list and length really damn short to like 30 seconds a piece(you tend to hear the same tracks over and over a little too much to my liking) so even though there maybe some decent tracks the ps1 has so much going for it including the extra detail of having the boss theme change when you select the fight command which does hype it up and there are some psp tracks that do sound questionable on sounding like modern persona when somehow it’s original sounds more like that then what psp came up with which is especially true for Kama palace and nemesis tower. This may sound like “original is better” talking point which maybe but i don’t think this can be compared to reload’s ost to older p3 as reload despite minor changes has the same effort put in as the original and there are some done better in one or the other which is something p1 psp doesn’t really achieve a lot in practice and it’s less of the tracks themselves but the terrible implementation for it that hurts and it does show with it’s repetitiveness and rough patchwork to cover the entire game with the smaller ost which leads to some scenes sounding not appropriate like the beginning when maki is having an emotional shutdown.

The psp version did bomb pretty hard despite the original game being the best selling game prior to p5 and meguro has made comments of him regretting the psp OST, this lead to p2 psp having more faithful tracks as a response though it really did take until eternal punishment to get an improved version of the older games which we never got sadly

[felipefelix]

As someone who like P1 and P2, more than moderna trilogy, both games have their problemas, high random encounter, in p1 the demons negotiation is broken, Hope this rumor about both are getting a remake in the future become truth.

great cottent, buddy

[christopherbowen]

I played persona 1 back when it was released (yes I’m old, I was 15…) so I can only speak on my love of it in a nostalgiac sense. Persona became my favorite series over time so I’ll always have a fond love for it.

[edwardbickle]

I’m playing Persona 1 now and having a blast!

[guyj]

I love persona 1 but i really struggled with the negotiations. It felt so random at times.