Persona 2: Innocent Sin

The 2011 PSP remake of Innocent Sin is the same story about Sumaru City and the power of rumors, but in a much more accessible form. It's not just a graphical facelift - this version brought the game outside Japan for the first time and in English for the first time, so Western players could finally play it more than ten years after the original without needing a fan translation. The story of a group of friends whose forgotten childhood promises threaten the entire city thus reached a global audience that previously only had access to the sequel, Eternal Punishment, while the first half of the story remained locked behind the language barrier and was known only through unofficial fan translations.

The PSP version also adds full voice acting, a reworked user interface adapted to the smaller display, and a number of pacing adjustments that speed up some of the more drawn-out passages of the original, such as the slower opening tutorial or the less clear Contact system menu. The Persona and Contact system remains conceptually unchanged, but the controls and menus were adapted for the handheld, so the game plays more smoothly than the clunkier PlayStation original with its period interface limitations and longer loading times between screens. For many players, this version is thus their actual first encounter with Innocent Sin at all, even though it's an older story from the late nineties that still works thanks to its fresh premise and dark tone.

Why play it: This version makes sense as a separate entry precisely because it's the only localized variant of the game in English with voice acting and controls adapted for a handheld - a fundamentally different entry point than the Japanese PlayStation original. It's an ideal choice for players who want to get to know the beginnings of the Persona series but don't want to rely on a fan translation or fight with the controls and pacing of a thirteen-year-old title.