Persona 1 PSP: I'm Calling it Beaten, I Don't Even Care

I'm at the true final boss of Persona 1, the SEBEC route, anyway, and I just can't take this game anymore. I did something I've never done before, for any game of any type - I just watched the ending on Youtube.

I'm putting this game in the beat column, and I'm not putting an asterisk next to it. The final boss is bullshit, I grinded a TON on BEGINNER to get to around level 60, and I'm not going to waste countless hours hoping she doesn't use her stupid ice attack twice in one turn which will kill my whole party guaranteed. She switches between two different forms at random - at any time, even in the middle of your turn - which changes her weaknesses. Which wouldn't be so bad if she DIDN'T ABSORB AND HEAL MY MAGIC ATTACKS (that I cast while she's in one form, because she's weak to magic in that form)! So yeah, hit her with physical attacks, you say? Well, it just so happens that my high level Personae that got me through the game are weak to ice, so I switch to lower level Personae that aren't and I plink her for single digit damage. She supposedly has several thousand hit points. Did I mention she can randomly just wipe your whole party if she happens to cast her ultimate attack twice in one turn? Fuck that, I'm not risking being wiped out after an hour, it'd give me a heart attack. And the first Persona is not worth dying over.

This game is quite possibly the most frustrating RPG I've ever played. I'm sure there are worse ones out there, but this game has parts that have merit - I even enjoyed myself a bit! But when the game sucks, it sucks hard. I've tried to get through the game several times since it came out in 2009, and just couldn't get over its problems. I decided to finally force myself to play through it. After roughly thirty hours... I'm glad I did it, but I doubt I will ever play the thing again.

The game is just flawed on a fundamental level. The thing that bugged me right away when I first played it five years ago still sucks - your characters gain experience proportionate to their participation in battle. This is a terrible, terrible idea. If you happen to wipe out the enemies before, say,  your slowest character goes, they don't get any experience (or hardly any so as to not matter at all). So you have to spend time paying close attention to who is at what level and basically have some characters skip turns so the low level ones can get a chance to level up. You have to fight poorly, basically, to level up, which sucks because you're then more vulnerable because you're not killing the enemies as efficiently as you could etc. etc. etc.

Oh, and each of your five characters has an Experience Level and a Persona Level. Experience Level dictates your stats and which Personae you can negotiate with, while Persona Level dictates what level Personae you can equip once fused. Why they separated these levels I have no idea, but it's insane because I believe you get less Persona Level experience if you finish battles without using your Persona - so don't just use physical attacks, because that number will fall behind! Or something. I'm not clear how it works, quite frankly.

Since this game came out in 2009, I've played a few more SMT titles that have demon negotiation in them, and I go back and forth on whether I like it or not. It's still pretty random, but because the enemy mobs are so frickin' dangerous in Persona 1, it's way more risky than usual. Your five party members all have different approaches to negotiation, and figuring out which demon likes which approach can be a pain, especially when the closer you are to a full moon, the more likely you are to just piss the demon off and give it a free turn. The upside to negotiation, though, is that when you've successfully convinced a demon to give you their "Spell Card," you can convince the same demon later on to leave the battle if you haven't used the card in fusion yet. This is pretty handy, especially when you come across some asshole demon way in the back row who absorbs all magic attacks and is weak only to physical attacks (which becomes more common the farther you get in the game). Get that guy's card and tell him to piss off every time you come across him going forward.

Another huge problem I have with the battle system is the stupid grid you fight on. You and your enemies are all arranged on two sides of a grid, and depending on where each character or demon is on that grid determines which attacks or spells can reach the other side. So it is possible to be unable to attack without wasting a turn shuffling your people around because for some reason, Maki's bow can't target people right in front of her so you have to move Mark over to hit somebody with an axe, but moving those two costs them both a turn. My most hated thing, though - like I sometimes would reset the game when I came across it while grinding - was when some shithead would be in the back row, reflecting magic attacks and being weak to only physical attacks. I can't reach him until I've wiped all the other demons out at which point the game moves him forward so I can finally reach him. The problem is, the other demons in the front row absorb physical attacks, so I have to spam my multi-target magic attacks to kill them, while the assholes in the back reflect some damage back to me! So freaking annoying. I have no regrets choosing "Beginner," either, at the beginning of the game, because it reduces enemy damage by 20% - nothing else. The story doesn't change or anything, just that. I barely got to the end of the game as it is on Beginner, I can't imagine playing this stupid game on Normal.

All of that said, though, I do quite like the story in Persona. Until you get near the end, it doesn't seem very "Persona-like," at least to me, as someone who played Persona 3 and 4 first. The story seems more like Final Fantasy or something, where some dude figures out a way to summon demons or something and tries to take over the world. The way in which he does it, though, which you don't find out until three quarters of the way through the game, is very definitely a Persona story. Persona 4, specifically, takes several of its main story cues from the first Persona (it's not a repeat, or anything, it just reinforces the very nature of what a Persona even is, something Persona 3 doesn't spend as much time on). Having not seen most of the story of the first Persona until this playthrough, I didn't see why Persona 3 and 4 should even be in the same series as the first game, but it is very clear now they should be.

Luckily, to enjoy Persona 3 and 4, you don't have to play Persona 1. That's the weird thing about the game - I respect it, it lays the narrative structure foundation for future games in the series, and you can certainly see the seeds of where Persona 3 and 4 would go (especially near the end). Playing it is an exercise in frustration, and I can't say I'd recommend it to anyone but the hardest of hardcore Persona/SMT fans. Like I said, I'd be very surprised if I ever came back to it, even to play through the Snow Queen alternate quest. I just can't stand actually playing it.

So yeah, I'm calling it beat. I'm not going to throw myself at grinding for another ten plus hours to beat a boss that is just stupid and cheap to begin with. Persona 3's final boss could be cheap, but not unfair like this game.  I've heard Persona 2 is better. I'm going to give it a try next, though if it's basically Persona 1 all over again, I'm not sure if I'll be able to stomach it now. I've heard Hitler is in it, though... I want to see that!