Should I play Persona 1 on PS1 or PSP?

[Yggdrasil]

A lot of people will diss P1 because it doesn't have social links and doesn't hold your hand like P3 & 4 do.

I wouldn't blame anyone that does that. Of all the games in the Persona series are a product of its time and really there's not much to get out of it by today's standards.

Hell, I would recommend Digital Devil Saga over Persona if you want a rather obtuse but fulfilling JRPG from the same series.

[Synctor]

Well, one of the main reasons I wanted to play Persona 1 is because I want to get to Persona 2. I heard the story was kinda connected and they had recurring characters. Looking at the screenshots though the dungeon crawling doesn't look that fun. Maybe I should skip to P2 but I don't want to miss anything story wise.

[ZeronHitaro]

I wanna go back and play P1 PSP again one of these days. Probably should give P2's twin games a go too. P1 particularly though because back when I owned the UMD the Snow Queen quest kicked my rear. Badly enough that I lost interest in the game as a whole. Very much want to defeat that challenge.

[Mickeymac92]

Well, one of the main reasons I wanted to play Persona 1 is because I want to get to Persona 2. I heard the story was kinda connected and they had recurring characters. Looking at the screenshots though the dungeon crawling doesn't look that fun. Maybe I should skip to P2 but I don't want to miss anything story wise.

I played P2 before P1. In fact, Innocent Sin was my first SMT game. I don't recall the connection being so strong that I felt like I was missing something by playing one before the other. I can't find anything even talking about the connections between the two games...

[kkhohoho]

Well, one of the main reasons I wanted to play Persona 1 is because I want to get to Persona 2. I heard the story was kinda connected and they had recurring characters. Looking at the screenshots though the dungeon crawling doesn't look that fun. Maybe I should skip to P2 but I don't want to miss anything story wise.

I can't find anything even talking about the connections between the two games...

Here's a big one for ya';

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If you remember, Kandori's Persona was none other then Nyarlothotep himself. And as it turned out, this was not just a Persona called Nyarlothotep, since the Persona looks a lot like Nyarly when tentacled up. Let that sink in for a moment...

[MeshGearFox]

Well, one of the main reasons I wanted to play Persona 1 is because I want to get to Persona 2. I heard the story was kinda connected and they had recurring characters. Looking at the screenshots though the dungeon crawling doesn't look that fun. Maybe I should skip to P2 but I don't want to miss anything story wise.

I played P2 before P1. In fact, Innocent Sin was my first SMT game. I don't recall the connection being so strong that I felt like I was missing something by playing one before the other. I can't find anything even talking about the connections between the two games...

EP has a lot of story ties to P1. Innocent Sin doesn't.

I don't think I ever got far in Innocent Sin. I imported the PSX version back when I was in highschool and it never really grabbed me.

I might be completely misremembering this, but... The fusion system was a big problem for me -- in P1 you fuse two cards together to get a Persona. In P3 you fuse 2 or 3 personas to get a new one. In IS and EP you're essentially using cards as currency to buy personae which gets annoying because you tend to need a lot of cards and you have to converse a lot, except I don't believe you get /experience/ if you talk your way out of a fight, so you need to go out of your way to fight more or you end up with a deficit of something.

But, uh, in any case, if you do want to play P1, go for the PSX version. Despite being Americanized, the translation isn't really bad by any means -- it's about on par with FFVII, and it never dips into FFT levels of jesus what -- the Snow Queen quest isn't worth playing anyway, and the US encounter/money/exp rates were hugely better balanced than the original JP version's. My huge complaint with the game was that he save points were really far apart, and afaik, the PSP version doesn't address that.

[Dincrest]

IS does have a solid connection to P1. 

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Yukino Mayuzumi plays a big role in the Snow Queen Quest and an adult version of her is a main character through 2/3s of IS.  Also, Eriko Kirishima plays an informative role in IS.  And Takami sensei transferred from St. Hermelin in P1 to Seven Sisters in IS.

As for which version of P1 to play, easily the PSP version, since it doesn't have the butchered text and includes the Snow Queen Quest

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penis monster and all.

.  And though I have fonder memories of the original Playstation version's soundtrack, the new remixed one grew on me; in fact I prefer the PSP version's battle theme.  The only issue I have is that the PSP version's opening movie is just a montage, whereas the Playstation original's opening movie was highly plot relevant. 

So I would play the PSP version, but YouTube the Playstation's opening movie

[unsmashable_pumpkin]

I wanna go back and play P1 PSP again one of these days. Probably should give P2's twin games a go too. P1 particularly though because back when I owned the UMD the Snow Queen quest kicked my rear. Badly enough that I lost interest in the game as a whole. Very much want to defeat that challenge.

Some advice for anyone who does decide to tackle the snow queen quest:
There is this bullshit mechanic that if you want to get everyone's ultimate persona you need to do the dungeons in the reverse difficulty order (i.e. you must do Thanatos, the most grueling dungeon first.  In this dungeon, if a character dies in battle, their persona get sealed away, and you need to backtrack quite bit to reclaim it, wasting potentially precious time.). Unless you have absurdly completionist tendencies, I would not advice attempting that. It means you need to hours of grinding and messing with the casino as preparation at the beginning of the game, and it completely breaks the balance of the rest of the game. If you do the dungeons in the "normal" order, the Snow Queen quest is not that hard, though the fact that you cannot save for long stretches at a time and you are under a time-limit can make it rather frustrating and unenjoyable.
The Lilim persona that can be fused early in the game is completely broken, and makes the final boss a total joke.


Over-all the game really hasn't aged well, and if people are looking for something like persona 3/4, they really ought to look elsewhere. Not just because of the lack of social links, but the gameplay really doesn't have that much in common.
The battle system is slow and at times clunky, there is one dungeon that you need to run through 3 times in a row to beat and there is a really annoying and poorly balanced dungeon where you only have 2 party members, which doesn't work well with the way battles play out. The story and characters are also pretty unmemorable and I hated the ending.
However, the dungeon crawling is well-done, battle system does have some enjoyable and interesting quirks, and code breaker (a sudoku-like mini-game) is REALLY addictive.

So  in conclusion:
The links to persona 2 aren't really substantial enough to make playing persona 1 necessary for its enjoyment. If you are itching for a somewhat old-fashioned dungeon crawler, you may still be satisfied with the game, but otherwise skipping it shouldn't be a problem. Though if you are looking for that sort of thing, I personally think strange journey is a better game.

[Eusis]

I suspect playing just a few hours of P1's enough to appreciate the connection to it in P2 anyway.

Anyways P2's absolutely worth checking out even if you end up feeling like you gotta use a guide, but P1... I kinda feel that only for nostalgic value is it worth checking out.

[Dincrest]

Also, to the OP, note that with Persona 1, there is a good ending and a bad ending in the canon/"Sebec" path.  The bad ending occurs something like 10 hours earlier than the good ending does.  And, yeah, Persona 1 is more of an "old school" Megami Tensei game, but with better "demon dialogue" mechanics than, say, Soul Hackers.  

I obviously loved Persona 1 (I gave the PSP version an Editor's Choice), but it's not a game for everyone. 

[MeshGearFox]

The battle system is slow and at times clunky, there is one dungeon that you need to run through 3 times in a row to beat and there is a really annoying and poorly balanced dungeon where you only have 2 party members

Wait I don't remember these. I mean I think there's some part where you just have the main character and Mary but I thought that was really short..?

I think my big issue with Persona 3 was that the SLinks were the central game mechanic, but I don't think they were ever interesting or well developed enough to carry the game.

Also I kept hitting parts where I'd finish a given block of tartarus well before the month's end, and I'd have nothing to do except... grind, or pass time raising SLinks.

[unsmashable_pumpkin]

The battle system is slow and at times clunky, there is one dungeon that you need to run through 3 times in a row to beat and there is a really annoying and poorly balanced dungeon where you only have 2 party members

Wait I don't remember these. I mean I think there's some part where you just have the main character and Mary but I thought that was really short..?

I think my big issue with Persona 3 was that the SLinks were the central game mechanic, but I don't think they were ever interesting or well developed enough to carry the game.

Also I kept hitting parts where I'd finish a given block of tartarus well before the month's end, and I'd have nothing to do except... grind, or pass time raising SLinks.

Heh. That's because I was remembering it wrong and apparently you only have to go through it twice. ;)
I was refering to the Kama palace/

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Harem

dungeon in the mall. I didn't really enjoy the design of that dungeon so the backtracking stood out in my mind as annoying.  Story-wise, it was the most interesting dungeon in the game, though.
I can't say with certainty that the Mary and MC was super-long (it's been some years since I played it), but I remember it being longer than I would have liked it to be. Only having 2 people meant way less options for personas with the kinds of elemental attacks/strengths you want.

I did like the social links in Persona 3/4, but I can see why you might prefer persona 1 if you didn't. The dungeon crawling aspects of those games are really bare-bones; the dungeon(s) do not have interesting mechanics or design. Also no demon recruiting (though persona 1 doesn't have my favourite conversation system).