: Welcome to Shin Megami Tensei: Persona. The game has its own background art on the PSP’s home screen and everything.
: The PSP version has a new intro movie that plays at the title screen, and oh look I actually got it into the first update the first time for once.
: They also added a “movie mode” to view the new cutscenes once you unlock them.
: There are technically two game modes in Persona 1: the main game and a side game called the Snow Queen Quest that is only questionably canon. As we’re doing the main game first (which I haven’t done before so I have that much more motivation to do it) we’ll be playing on Normal. I highly, highly recommend doing the Snow Queen Quest on Beginner and also not doing what I did and doing it first.
: My dreams are still haunted by memories of YIIK, so at this point being a butterfly would be an improvement.
: If you know anything about Persona 2, you’d know that the butterfly is an important symbol in both Persona 1 and the Persona 2 duology. Zhuangzi is a book about Daoism from ancient China.
: Welcome to an empty classroom. While the blue-haired figure in the center may look a bit like the protagonist from Persona 3, that’s actually who we’re playing as.
: Pretty much everyone who is going to be in our party at any point in this game is in this room right now.
: Every character in this game has a nickname, which I think is something that was in the original Japanese release. The game will refer to them by their nicknames from here on out. Mark is one of the only characters not to have his name changed for Revelations: Persona.
: Brown here was nicknamed “Brad” in Revelations: Persona, and really the only Brad in any RPG should be Brad from LISA.
: “Alright… you’re on. I’ll bet you an all-you-can-eat dinner at the Peace Diner on Joy Street.”
: Ayase is the sole reason I’m playing an undub version of this game rather than the standard US release. Her voice is godawful, though the only real voiceacting in this game is in battle.
: Elly is the Mitsuru or Yukiko of Persona 1, though definitely not capturing the “best girl” status that Yukiko enjoys.
: “Are you guys serious? Yo Kei, Yukino! Who’re you guys going to side with?”
: Yukino is the only character in this room we won’t be seeing for a long time. She’s a central part of the Snow Queen quest, but barely shows up in the main game.
: “Ugh! You guys are so cold, y’know? Hey, who’re you with? It’s gotta be me, right?”
: And here we have our protagonist. Unlike the other Persona games, the protagonist in Persona 1 does not have a single canon name. In the game manual for the PS1, he’s referred to simply as “Boy with an Earring”. The manga used “Naoya Toudou / Naorin” and the official novelization refers to him as “Jihei Suzakin / Jay”. The most common fan nickname I’ve seen for him is Donnie Darko.
: It doesn’t really matter what we pick here. A lot of the later dialogue options do make a difference, up to and including who winds up coming with us later on. For reference, I just hit “Bet on Mark”.
: “Aww! Just wait.. you’ll be sorry!”
: “Heeheehee.. this’ll be fun! Awright, let’s get started!”
: Who do you think you are, Jack Frost? Get the hee-hell out, ho.
: It’s hard to tell without seeing it in motion, but they’re basically doing the equivalent of the “stand in front of the mirror and say Bloody Mary” thing. Ayase, Mark, Brown and Elly are in the corners, and walk counterclockwise to the corner opposite them.
: “Umm.. Persona, Persona! Please come here!”
: “Hurry it up! All-you-can-eat! All-you-can-eat!”
: “Okay, okay.. Persona, Persona, c’mere.. I guess.”
: “Hidehiko! You jerk! Now I look like a total idiot!”
: “See? A fat load o’ nothin’. Hehe… looks like I win.”
: “W-wait! Hold up! One more time! Please!? Mark screwed it up! C’mon, you gotta take it seriously when you do it!”
: “Oh, you little…! What a sore loser.”
: All of a sudden, there’s.. what looks like a little girl standing in the front of the room. Nanjo is the only one who notices.
: You can’t see it, but there’s lightning arcing out of the lights on the ceiling.
: Well, shit. We got hit by lightning before we could even name our protagonist, and now we’re seeing.. yellow butterflies. Surely, that’s not a symbol or anything.
: I’m going to do an entire update on who Philemon is immediately after this one. Persona 4 Golden has an excellent primer on him, but I can’t capture video off my Vita and that primer takes like an hour to watch.
: So, what’s our name? We need a last name, a first name, and a nickname. You can use any of the canon ones, or make up your own.
Naoya Toudou / Naoyin
Jihei Suzakin / Jay
Yuuya Narumi / ???
I’ll take votes until tomorrow, and if I don’t get any I’m absolutely naming him Donnie Darko.