Too Innocent?

So, with work being busy at the moment which means that basically I’m either working or don’t feel like doing much of anything, I obviously haven’t been writing posts much. However, I did manage to break my “no games” run and started playing Persona 2: Innocent Sin on the PSP, as I’m a huge fan of the Persona games and had never played it.

So far, though, it’s been disappointing.

I think I could get past the 8-bit nature of it; it was a bit jarring at first, but not a real problem. However, that 8-bit nature leads to some … odd motions and animations, which contributes to my main issue with the game: for having such serious content, it really doesn’t take itself seriously. There are a lot of jokes and things that are just odd or ridiculous in the game. The initial rumour — that wearing the school badge deforms the face of the students, but that the badge of their rival cures it — is something that’s deeply serious … except that it’s treated for laughs a lot of the time if you talk to people about it, including the case where the party member from the rival school gets mugged for his badge in a rather ridiculous animated scene. The negotiations with demons is interesting, but the actions and results are often, again, ridiculous. The way to try to break the curse — run around the school and break the clocks — is also ridiculous. And jokes are slipped in, such as banter between Lisa and Boss(?) and Maya hitting on Tatsuya. It just seems discordant; the game is making far too light of a serious situation.

And then there’s the dungeon. So far, the game has done a really good thing in integrating the dungeons into the story and letting you save anywhere. This is great. Unfortunately, it uses the standard “We’ll pop up random encounters at various times so that you can level up” mechanic, removed in Personas 3 and 4. Which means that as I’m wandering around and looking for where I’m supposed to go, I get stopped by a fight, and then have to remember where I’ve already been and where I was going. It’s not as annoying as Suikoden V was, but it’s still a bit annoying. Add in the negotiation with demons and I don’t know if I’m fighting enough to be a high enough level for the game, which was my big problem with Record of Agarest War.

But the real issue is the discordance of tone. I’ll have to decide if it’s worth pushing on with this game to see if it gets better … once I get some free time [grin].