Revelations: Persona released for the PS1 in 1996. From there, it got a sequel, which was actually split up into two games, both categorized as Persona 2. Western fans wouldn’t be able to play the second half until it was ported to the PSP.
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So, altogether that means there are six core titles in the franchise over the course of twenty plus years. Suffice it to say that the series has changed a lot since its early iterations. Persona 3 was a big stepping stone, but there are a lot of other secrets and evolutions some may not know about, so let’s take a look.
10 Social Links
The very first game starred high school students. However, it did not have the Social Links infrastructure that began in Persona 3. Every sequel after that built more and more on the concept of creating friends outside of the battle system, and Persona 5 and its re-release made keeping track and finding friends much easier.
9 The AI
Every game in the series allowed players to manually input commands to their teammates. This is the standard for RPGs, except for guest characters, who often act on their own accord, so it makes sense. The only except was Persona 3, for whatever reason, although the re-release on the PSP fixed that. Players could only control the hero and give generic squad commands for party members to follow like to focus on healing.
8 Random Encounters
The first three Persona games, which include the duology, all had random battles. This was changed in Persona 3 wherein players would see enemies on the field. They could also hit them on the map, giving players an advantage in battle. In-turn, enemies that caught players by surprise would get the advantage instead.
7 Randomized Dungeons
The idea of randomized dungeons went back and forth between the games. Everything was constructed by the developers for the first few entries before it changed to randomized dungeons in both Persona 3 and Persona 4.
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Persona 5 went back to implementing more intricately designed dungeons. However, fans of the random dungeon design could get their fill with Mementos, giving Persona 5 a best-of-both-worlds situation.
6 Critical Hits
Elemental advantages were a staple in not just Persona games, but Shin Megami Tensei, as well. Striking a demon weak to fire with fire will give players an extra turn. However, one thing that did change starting in Persona 3 were critical hits. If a player inflicted critical damage, this too would open up a monster’s defense in order to attack again.
5 Battle Movement
The first three games all had various styles of movement in battle. They weren’t tactical RPGs, but movement did come into play. Starting in Persona 3, this was dropped in favor of a more static, turn-based style. That is to say, all characters would line up in a row as is standard for most games in this genre.
4 Summoning Personas
The ways in which characters summoned Personas greatly changed over the years. The original games were similar to how they were summoned in the main series. This evolved with Persona 3 wherein players needed an Evoker to seemingly shoot themself in the head in order to summon their Persona. In Persona 4, they used Tarot Cards, and, in Persona 5, they used masks.
3 Platforming And Stealth
Even though many things were different between the first five titles, they were more or less RPGs with typical movement outside of battle.
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Persona 5 was the biggest leap forward as it added platforming to the mix. Not only that, but stealth played a big part as well. It fit with the motif of playing as a thief. The only thing that could truly change the franchise for the better would be to add actual action combat on the map, although there is a spinoff that is attempting this: Persona 5 Scramble. It’s actually a spinoff to the Dynasty Warriors series, and, so far, it has only come out in Japan.
2 The Weather
Starting in Persona 4, the weather started to play a bigger role. This could affect where allies would be for Social Links, as well as specials around town. For example, studying or just reading in the rain would boost stats in this department more. Different weather patterns would affect the game even greater in Persona 5. Not only that, but there was a pollen season, as well. This mostly affected the Mementos dungeon.
1 The Spinoff Generation
Persona 4 is also responsible for starting the spinoff revolution. It was here, mostly thanks to the PS Vita port, that the series became more popular in the West. That seemingly pushed Atlus to test out new genres to help spread brand awareness. This included Persona 4 Arena, a fighting game, and Persona 4: Dancing All Night, a dancing game.
There were also two 3DS dungeon crawler games that combined the universes into one, Persona Q. Then there is the aforementioned Persona 5 Scramble. Thanks to the continued success of the franchise worldwide, the spinoffs will surely continue.
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