There’s good news and bad news about that. The bad news is that unusual circumstances have prevented us from localizing Eternal Punishment PSP the way we’d have liked to, but the good news is that you can still find out how the story of Tatsuya Suou, Maya Amano, and the Joker curse ends! Unlike Innocent Sin, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment was localized once before on PlayStation in 2000, and it’s that version of the game that we’re bringing to PSN as a PSOne classic now.

Since Persona 2: Eternal Punishment on PSP was a port of the original, the general graphics and gameplay in this PSOne Classics release are the same as you would have gotten. You’ll still control a party of oddballs brought together by disturbing goings-on in Sumaru City: teen-focused magazine reporter Maya Amano, her unlucky-in-love boxer friend Ulala Serizawa, the upright police detective Katsuya Suou, and a shady Taiwanese fixer known as “Baofu.” Together, the four of them must hunt down the cause of the Joker Curse and unravel the mystery of a strange boy whom Maya could swear she’s seen somewhere before.

Fortunately for them, they have the power of Persona on their side. As in Innocent Sin, you have the option to fight the demons you meet or negotiate with them to earn items, assistance, or their Arcana cards in order to fuse new Personas. Spreading specific rumors through the city can also cause them to come true, which has all sorts of effects on the game.

The one thing that might throw players who got their start on the PSP or Vita is that a few of the names might seem unfamiliar. The original Eternal Punishment was sort of a halfway point in that era’s approach to localization: by that time, we were making a move toward the more faithful translations we’re known for today, but we were also mindful of the established naming conventions American players would be familiar with from “Revelations: Persona.” To help smooth things over for you, here’s a list of mental replacements to make as you go through the PSOne Classics release of Eternal Punishment:

Saeko Smith: You’d know her better as Ms. Saeko, formerly a homeroom teacher at St. Hermelin High and later on a warm, caring educator at Seven Sisters High.

Principal Harding: Principal Hannya, another veteran of St. Hermelin. In Innocent Sin, he was the hated principal of Seven Sisters who used the Joker’s power to make the students love him, even if none of them understood why.
Tammy: Tamaki, who’s actually a nod to the original Shin Megami Tensei series: she was the heroine of SMT If…, and became a devil summoner to rid Karukozaka High of evil. Now, she works for fellow devil summoner Chief Todoroki at the Kuzunoha Detective Agency.

Tad: Tadashi, son of the owner of the Satomi Tadashi drugstore chain.

Mary: Maki Sonomura, the troubled heroine of Persona PSP, is now grown up and running Hiiragi Psychotherapy to help ease the minds of others who are psychologically tormented.

Sky Museum: Known as the Aerospace Museum in Innocent Sin PSP.

Ellen: Elly Kirishima in Persona PSP. She’s one of two guest stars from the original game who can briefly join your party in Eternal Punishment. The unnamed “Boy with Earring” who shows up in her route was the protagonist of that game.

Nate: Kei Nanjo, the other possible guest party member from Persona PSP. He’s the heir to the Nanjo Group megacorporation, which Persona fans with a sharp memory might know as having ties to Mitsuru Kirijo’s own business empire in Persona 3.

Yuki: Yukino Mayuzumi, another character you might know from Persona and Innocent Sin PSP. Once the leader of a girl gang at St. Hermelin, she grew up to be a professional photographer who works alongside Maya at Coolest.

Chris: Reiji Kido, sort of a hidden character in Persona PSP, will make a brief appearance in Elly’s path in Eternal Punishment.

Brad: Hidehiko “Brown” Uesugi’s routine is just as obnoxious as it was in Persona PSP, but now he’s famous for doing it on TV.

Guido: More properly known as Takahisa Kandori in Persona PSP, where he was the mastermind behind the dimensional warp that drew in the city of Mikage-cho. Though he died in the events of Persona PSP, Kandori casts a long shadow, and his influence will be felt in Sumaru City during the course of Eternal Punishment’s story.

Masquerade: Localized in Innocent Sin PSP as the “Masked Circle,” this was an innocuous child’s game that was twisted into something more sinister many years later.

Araya Shrine: Corrected to the Alaya Shrine in both earlier PSP games. “Alaya” is a Buddhist term for the uninfluenced stream of thought before it is transformed by self-knowledge and reflection.

But even if that seems like a lot to keep in your head, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment is still an accessible capstone to the story, which provides enough explanation of the callbacks and references that even newcomers can appreciate its twisting, spiraling plot that leads up to a confrontation with the grand shadow of humanity. And hey, if there’s one silver lining to this “consolation prize” version, it’s that now it’ll only run you $9.99 to get the rest of the story!

A lot of unusual things go on here at ATLUS, and as a publisher known for delivering great JRPG content, Demon’s Souls represented something unique even for us: runaway mainstream success. In the years since its release, Demon’s Souls went far above and beyond our usual humble offerings, partly because it’s such a special game. It’s a Japanese-developed RPG, made by From Software, but it has a distinctly Western look and feel in the weight of its movements and the ruthlessness of its enemies and environments. It’s a single-player title, but it has a strong online component unlike anything that came before it, where you can summon other players as friendly ghosts to give you a hand, or be invaded by hostile marauders without warning. Its unsparing difficulty seemed to mark it as destined to be appreciated only by a select few, yet it’s been universally lauded (and awarded Game of the Year by a few, including GameSpot) and remains our highest-selling title ever.

As a thank you to the fans who have supported it this far and kept the servers burning, we’re excited to announce that Demon’s Souls will be available on Tuesday, January 8th, as a digital download on PSN. Now you can buy it from the comfort of your own home; if you haven’t yet tried it for yourself, its price of $19.99 should be a warmer welcome than any bonfire. What’s more, to celebrate the digital launch of Demon’s Souls, we’re holding a Pure White World Tendency event from January 8th to 14th, which slightly reduces the difficulty of the game and opens up a few things that can only be accessed in the Pure White state.

So come on and find out what everyone else who’s played and loved Demon’s Souls already knows: the joys of dying over and over again. And when you do, don’t forget to leave a message for the next unfortunate wretch who’ll come after you. Our favorite? The real Demon’s Souls starts here…

But it wasn’t perfect. The localization standards of the day meant it was compromised in a few respects; some major, some minor. The translators and editors at 1996-era Atlus actually acquitted themselves fairly well when it came to the dialogue: major story beats were properly conveyed, and the personality of the nine playable characters shone through pretty well. As for the changes made to the rest of the game… well, at the time, there was nothing else in the series available in English, so it might not have been the highest priority to make sure it upheld series traditions like the modern-day Japanese setting or the mythological underpinnings of Personas and demons.

When we learned that our parent company was remaking the game for the PlayStation Portable, though, those of us at Atlus U.S.A., Inc. who’d played the game 13 years ago were nearly salivating at the chance to polish the original Persona up the standard we’ve become known for with games like Odin Sphere, Persona 3 and 4, and Knights in the Nightmare. All the dialogue has been touched up to read more smoothly and naturally than it did even in the PlayStation original, but there were three key areas where the re-localization will pay off most for recent converts to the Persona series.

The first is the retention of all the original Japanese names and locations. Whereas the PSX release maintained the polite fiction that the game took place in the American city of Lunarvale, where you and your friends Mary, Nate, and Mark were off on an adventure, for the PSP release we’ve kept everything true to the Japanese roots. Here, the trouble starts in the city of Mikage, and you’ll need help from your friends Maki, Nanjo, and… Mark. Strange to say, but in the Japanese version of Persona, a few characters went by nicknames, and Masao Inaba was called Mark by his friends throughout the game. So whereas he was Mark due to sweeping translation changes on PSX, on PSP he’s Mark out of fidelity to the original. Funny how that works, eh?

The second is the greater attention paid to the proper names for the Personas and demons. The Shin Megami Tensei series has always prided itself on attention to detail in its accurate and careful use of world mythology; for instance, if you know the backstory behind the various demons in Nocturne, that right there is enough to draw a few conclusions about the factions they side with. The original translation kept very few of the true names, though in fairness the character limit was very strict and the vast online resources our current localizations make frequent use of didn’t exist at the time.

For the PSP remake, we used references such as online mythology databases and Japanese series guides like Persona World Guidance to ensure accuracy in the names. We also worked with the developers to implement a font for the names of enemies, Personas, skills, and items was thin enough to display what we needed. As a result, players needn’t worry about scratching their heads over a Pawn or a Lance anymore—they’ll be named Airgetlam and Cu Chulainn as they were intended, which should keep the Celtic mythology buffs in our audience happy.

Finally, the skill names are now consistent both with what fans know from other games in the Shin Megami Tensei series as well as internally within Persona. There’ll be no more confusion as to whether “Ray,” “Wave,” and “Sonic” are all part of the same family of spells—now they’re simply called Zan, Zanma, and Zandyne. (And if you’re totally new to the SMT series and wish you could have Ray, Wave, and Sonic back, don’t worry. The new interface in Persona lets you access spell descriptions in most menu screens.) The skill types are also a little clearer than they were on PSX: if you had to find out the hard way what Physical skills were, perhaps it’ll be easier to understand now that it’s known as Force magic.

As you can see, a fresh coat of localization paint can make a lot of difference, both to the story and atmosphere as well as to the player’s understanding of the game’s mechanics. Hopefully, our retranslation, combined with the improved interface and speed enhancements, will let a whole new generation of RPG fans see in Shin Megami Tensei: Persona the same things I did 13 years ago.