“Welcome to the Velvet Room.”
If you’ve played any of the Persona games, that quote put the creepy yet beautiful Velvet Room theme song in your mind.
Atlus’ Persona series ranks among my favorite game series of all time, right next to Pokémon. The games, mainly on Sony platforms, play like visual novels mixed with role-playing games. The game changes depending on the time of day, making a literal night-and-day difference in gameplay.
While the first two games are often disregarded by fans, the latter two on the PlayStation 2, Persona 3 and Persona 4, are adored by fans and were even remade for the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita, respectively.
P3 and P4 have similar gameplay. During the day, you’re a high schooler. You can use this time to build relationships with your companions. This creates a visual novel or dating simulator feel for the characters. In the P3 remake, you can choose between being male or female and can date characters of the opposite gender. (Akihiko Sanada, prepare to be my boyfriend) In the P4 remake, you can only be male, but you can date way more people than in the original series. I honestly started playing the series so I could date cute kids.
You can also spend the day improving your stats, like academics, charm and courage. These help you build relationships with your classmates. After all, you can’t get with brainiac student council president Mitsuru Kirijo without having maxed-out academics.
At night you can roam around and further relationships, but as the story progresses you have to clear dungeons of monsters, which bring in the RPG-style element of the game. In turn-based fighting, you have to fight your way through these dungeons that only occur during the “Dark Hour.”
Weird things are always happening and only you and your friends can get to the bottom of what’s going on. Players use “personas,” which are basically tarot card monsters inside the character, to defeat “shadows.” For some reason, only you and your group of high school friends can use them.
P4 is definitely more lighthearted than P3, especially in storyline and character background. P3 tends to get really dark. I personally like P4 more than P3.
The series has spin-off games galore and anime adaptations, though fans scream in agony as the anime just don’t capture the game well. Do yourself a favor and do not watch it.
Persona 4 Arena, a fighting game spin-off, also features P3 characters. You don’t have to play P3 in order to understand P4 though. The game series is known for having the best funky jams, so they’re even releasing a Persona music game for the Vita. There’s also Persona Q for the Nintendo 3DS, which mashes the two games together.
I have PQ, but I refuse to let myself start it until I beat P3. I even preordered the game because it came with special personas. Hell, I bought a Vita so I could play P4. I own a $200 Persona machine. It’s worth it, though, trust me.
Persona 5 is slated to come out later this year, and judging from the previews, the hype is real.
