"Being the most important can't be seen in the eyes."
Tatsuya Suou and Maya Amano with their ultimate Personas, Apollo and Artemis.
Persona 2 is a duology of games released in 1999-2000 as an
Urban Fantasy spinoff of the popular JRPG franchise
Shin Megami Tensei. It is the second title in the
Persona spinoff series developed by Atlus, which continued in 2006 with
Persona 3.
Innocent Sin (Tsumi) casts
silent tough-guy Tatsuya Suou in the role of the main character. He and his friends at Seven Sisters High School are discussing the recent rumour that if you call your own number on your cellphone, a mysterious man called Joker-sama will appear and grant you a wish. They decide to give it a shot and the mask-wielding Joker-sama appears before them, only to accuse Tatsuya and his friends of committing a grave sin against him that they can't remember. Joker-sama then summons a bunch of demons to kill the party... but this is just the trigger needed to awaken their own powers, their Personas. What follows is a tale about a city where
rumours are becoming reality, forgotten childhood memories and
Hitler being resurrected and resuming his conquest of the world. That last part is probably the reason
Innocent Sin was never released in the West. That, and
one particular prominent relationship.
Eternal Punishment (Batsu) is the second game of Persona 2, taking place in an
Alternate Universe from the first and giving the
Heroic Mime role to Maya Amano, a
happy-go-lucky journalist for teen magazine "Coolest". She is assigned by her editor to investigate a series of grisly murders that have occurred across the city, reportedly carried out by a mysterious man called JOKER. A popular rumour states that if you call your own number on your cellphone, JOKER will appear in front of you and kill whoever you wish. While Maya is investigating Seven Sisters High School, the principal is murdered by JOKER, who taunts Maya with rants about "The Other Side". As he sets his demons on her, she and her friends awaken the power of Persona to defend themselves. As more and more people fall victim to JOKER and rumours become reality, Maya must unravel the meaning behind "The Other Side" and the mystery of the "Deja Vu Boy" who she swears she has met before somewhere.
While
Innocent Sin remained in Japan,
Eternal Punishment was localised and released in America in 2000. Though it isn't necessary to play the first to understand the second, much of the fun of the second comes in spotting the differences between the two continuities: for example, in one game a character's father is alive while in the other he is dead. While Atlus have announced no plans in releasing
Innocent Sin, a
fan translation
is complete (and pretty good).
Battles are turn-based and rely on an auto-battle system; the strategy comes in setting the correct tactics before switching the auto-battle on. Advancement comes by means of experience points and levelling up your equipped Persona to gain new abilities. However, you can only gain new Persona by trading in Tarot cards of the appropriate type at the Velvet Room, and the only way to get Tarot cards is to Contact demons. Each character has an action that can evoke Happiness, Interest, Fear or Anger in a demon while Contacting them; by evoking the same emotion three times, you get various effects: a Happy demon will offer to make a Contract with you (which gives you additional bonuses when you Contact them again), an Interested demon will give you Tarots, a Fearful demon will run away and an Angry demon will attack you. The hard part is finding out which actions will evoke the emotion you want, as every demon has a different personality and reacts differently.
The titles of the two games refer to
Tatsuya Suou. His Innocent Sin in the first game is refusing to forget Maya, even though he needs to in order to save her and the world. His Eternal Punishment in the second game is to live in a world where his closest friends have forgotten each other and him, and only he remembers the friendship that they once shared.
These games provide examples of:
- All Myths Are True - This is even a gameplay mechanic: by spreading new rumours you can suddenly have bars selling weapons under the table or clothes shops selling battle armour.
- Aloof Big Brother - Subverted: in Innocent Sin, Tatsuya's big brother Katsuya appears to be a cold-hearted jerk preoccupied with his job. However, Eternal Punishment shows us that from Katsuya's point of view he's trying his best to be a good brother, and Tatsuya is the one causing the problems.
- Amnesiac Dissonance - Thanks to your efforts during the EX Dungeon, Tatsuya Sudou, who's been pretty damn respectable without his memory, gets it back and promptly goes back to his old self. Not that you actually had a choice.
- Arbitrary Skepticism - Despite the fact that he regularly fights demons with the help of an aspect of his psyche that manifests as a mythological figure, and despite all the crazy things that happen as the game goes on, Katsuya's reaction to any new strange thing still tends to be "that's impossible!"
- Attractive Bent Gender - Jun. His official profile states that crossdressing is one of his talents, to the point where he looks better in a dress then most girls, and his group demon negotiation contract with Lisa involves her jumping him and putting makeup on him...and then getting depressed over how much prettier he is then her.
- As Long As There Is Evil - Nyarlathotep
- Asshole Victim - The Seven Sisters High School principal that got killed by JOKER? Why it's Vice Principal Hannya/Dean Harding.
- Badass Biker - Tatsuya Suou
- Bag Of Spilling - Used straight with most of the cast, but subverted with Tatsuya Suou in Eternal Punishment: he starts the game with his ultimate Persona from Innocent Sin.
- Bittersweet Ending - Both Innocent Sin (Tatsuya loses Maya) and Eternal Punishment (Maya loses Tatsuya).
- Boke And Tsukkomi Routine - Maya and Yukino's Contact combination in Innocent Sin, with Maya playing the former and Yukino as the latter.
- Bonus Dungeon - The Abandoned Factory in Innocent Sin, the EX Dungeon in Eternal Punishment.
- Bottle Fairy - Ulala in Eternal Punishment.
- But Thou Must - There are a few notable occasions where your actions and responses affect the plot (e.g. whether or not Anna Yoshizaka dies in Innocent Sin or you can mutate Maia into Maia Custom in Eternal Punishment) but on the whole, Thou Must.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe
- Chick Magnet - Tatsuya, even the guys want him.
- Combination Attack - Fusion Spells, where multiple party members combine spells to form a powerful attack.
- Cool Big Sis - Maya Amano
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu - Twice. Not just Nyarlathotep, but Philemon as well, in the EX Dungeon. Though it's likely just temporary...
- Disc One Nuke - The Low-End Breaker Fusion Spell, which instantly kills whichever enemy has the lowest level. The only thing stopping it from being a full-blown Game Breaker is its inability to kill bosses (though rumour demons are fair game).
- Drives Like Crazy - Maya Amano
- Earn Your Happy Ending - A major theme in both games, to the extent that it's Maya's mantra in Innocent Sin.
- The End Of The World As We Know It
- Even The Guys Want Him - See Chick Magnet. Also, King Leo a.k.a. Tatsuya Sudou refers to the Joker, Jun Kurosu, as having the beauty of a goddess.
- Evil Is Not A Toy - If you use the Joker Charm in Innocent Sin but don't have a wish (or refuse to tell it) then Joker-sama turns you into a mindless zombie. In Eternal Punishment, using the Joker Curse will transform you into a Joker.
- Evil Twin - The Shadow Sides.
- Freudian Excuse - Jun Kurosu
- It's not quite fair to just hit Jun with that, as the entire Innocent Sin cast falls into this trope though Jun takes the cake with his parental issues, with his borderline Electra complex and mommy issues. They all at least have some problem or other with their fathers. In fact, the final boss of the game, Great Father, is made up of a composite of all the main characters' fathers.
- Great Father's main body is only assumed to have Tatsuya's father. All of the other parts say their kid's name when they attack and has the element associated with that kid but main body doesn't do this for Tatsuya.
- By necessity, though, since Tatsuya's name is the only one in the game that can be changed — and thus can't be used in any of the voiced lines.
- Game Breaker - The Armageddon Fusion Spell, which makes a mockery of any enemy in your path (except Philemon, who repels it).
- Gameplay And Story Integration - Numerous examples, such as starting a boss fight with low HP after said boss attacks you during an event, using healing spells on wounded people etc.
- Gas Leak Coverup - the fire in the sanitarium in Eternal Punishment
- The Gods Must Be Lazy - Philemon seems to embody this trope. He was basically trying to prove that humanity could achieve a perfect existence, so giving humans the power of Persona was the most he could do. Yet this doesn't explain why Nyarlathotep gets to make them Moral Event Horizon his bitch.
- Good Old Fisticuffs - Lisa Silverman and Ulala Serizawa.
- Go Mad From The Revelation - Maya Okamura in Innocent Sin.
- Gratuitous English - "Let's Positive Thinking!", Ellen, some of Eikichi's battle quotes. Ellen usually gets it right, though. Eikichi, on the other hand...
- Guest Star Party Member - In Eternal Punishment, other than Ellen above, you can also recruit Nate from the first Persona. Both have considerably grown up.
- Additionally, Yukino in Innocent Sin is one of the initial party members of Persona 1 — although she leaves early on.
- And rejoins in the Snow Queen Quest that was Macekred out of the US version.
- Guns Akimbo - Maya Amano
- History Repeats - Much of Eternal Punishment is a re-imagining of events in Innocent Sin. This is partly because Tatsuya's memories of the Other Side are affecting the current reality.
- Ho Yay - Jun Kurosu, who definitely sees Tatsuya Suou as more than a friend.
- Parts of the game and interviews would imply Suou and Kurosu are the intended Innocent Sin pairing.
- Also, Yukino and Anna in Innocent Sin. If you pick the wrong choice to leave Yukino behind at the entrance to Caracol, Anna will jump off the bridge in Caracol holding hands with Shadow Yukino, who convinced her to do it so that they would be together forever. If you bring Yukino, she will, after you fight Joker-sama, give her Persona ability to Jun and go off into the city to fight Nazis with Anna, who has promised to look after her now that she doesn't have her Persona anymore
- I Coulda Been A Contender - Anna Yoshizaka. In Innocent Sin, this led to her joining the Quirky Miniboss Squad as Lady Scorpio.
- Improbable Weapon User - Best example: Jun Kurosu fights with flowers.
- The other good example being Baofu, who throws coins at people.
- Infallible Babble - Completely and utterly subverted.
- In Medias Res - To people familiar with other games of the franchise, it can sure seem like we're starting in the middle of things in Innocent Sin; how come there's no super-extended scene of actually being granted Personas and everyone just seems to have 'em already? Turns out this is a very important plot point, and had people not pushed certain events out of their minds this whole mess would never have happened.
- America, so far, has this even worse as we only got Eternal Punishment; we get to see the fruit of self-deception without actually seeing what led to the whole grand mess.
- Jeigan Character - Tatsuya Suou in Eternal Punishment.
- Laser Guided Amnesia - Used in the ending of Innocent Sin to create a timeline where the world isn't screwed.. Hell, Eternal Punishment is a Deconstruction of what happens when you decide you'd rather subvert the trope and risk having the world end again, on top of none of your friends not remembering you or your adventures.
- The Little Shop That Wasnt There Yesterday - The Velvet Room.
- Make A Better World
- The Man Behind The Man - Nyarlathotep
- Mask Power - Joker-sama
- More Than Mind Control - Joker-sama, aka Jun Kurosu in Innocent Sin.
- Odd Friendship - Maya and Ulala. Their Contact option is even described as "Best Friends?" until defeating Ulala as a boss.
- Omnicidal Maniac - Tatsuya Sudou (aka King Leo in Innocent Sin and JOKER in Eternal Punishment.)
- Not Compensating For Anything - Tatsuya Suou
- Party In My Pocket - Mostly. Party members do appear as NP Cs in dungeon "rooms", but everywhere else it's just the main character running around.
- Prophecy Twist
- Prophetic Names - Two characters named "Maya", an important being in Hinduism.
- Psychotic Smirk - Tatsuya Sudou
- Quirky Miniboss Squad - The Masquerade Executives in Innocent Sin.
- Refuge In Audacity - Some of the Contact options: why is Tatsuya making motorcycle noises at that demon?
- Relationship Voice Actor - Takehito Koyasu as Tatsuya, Akiko Yajima as Maya. So, uh, Zechs? Why is Relena now your Cool Big Sis instead of your little sister?
- Replacement Goldfish - The Masquerade Executives, created as an Expy of the group that Jun played with as a child.
- Ripple Effect Proof Memory - Both Tatsuyas only in Eternal Punishment.
- Room Full Of Crazy - Tatsuya Sudou's room at the sanitarium in Eternal Punishment.
- Schoolgirl Lesbians - Featured in Eternal Punishment.
- Sound Effect Bleep - Ulala's rather... spirited speech. The bleeping is a bit inconsistent, though. It seems to pick up a good deal whenever it's a part of a voiced cutscene or a battle quote (main offender being the scene with the crazy stalker with a chainsaw in the television studio), but text-only scenes get away with only some minor Symbol Swearing.
- Star Crossed Lovers - Tatsuya and Maya.
- Stupid Jetpack Hitler - Innocent Sin. He has the Spear of Longinius, for crying out loud!
- Summon Magic - The Personas.
- Surprisingly Good English - Subverted: To her exasperation, everyone expects blonde-haired American Lisa Silverman to speak perfect English, but because she was raised in Japan by Otaku parents wishing for her to be a Yamato Nadeshiko, she hardly knows any.
- Tarot Motifs - Continued from the previous game, tarot symbolism is everywhere.
- Those Wacky Nazis - Who get resurrected alongside Hitler in Innocent Sin.
- Trash Of The Titans - Maya Amano's apartment.
- Turn In Your Badge - Katsuya in Eternal Punishment.
- The Untwist - Ulala using the Joker Curse on Maya: it's foreshadowed until you choke.
- We Could Have Avoided All This - Good freakin' grief. If everybody hadn't blocked out the perfectly innocent (if dangerous and childish) stunt they pulled on Maya Amano when they were little, then Innocent Sin wouldn't have played out as it did; and if Tatsuya could just have forgotten Maya again, Eternal Punishment would never have happened.
- ... they thought that they had killed one of their most beloved childhood friends.
