History VideoGame / Persona1

** Demons manage to capture Mark because he ran out of SP (explained as Personas draining one's energy). Also, Chewing Souls heal quite a significant amount of SP outside of battle, but a miniscule amount during it. Why? Because it's chewing gum. Characters can take it easy and savor the gum outside of battle, but they don't have that luxury during combat. The manga also manages to translate quite a few gameplay mechanics into the story:
** Characters without a Persona (as seen in the beginning of the game and in Thanatos Tower) have just 1 Magical Defense. When Takeda hits Brown, Maki and Elly using magic, the latter two are merely scratched while the Persona-less Brown is gravely injured.
** In the game, awakening battles have all party members level up and the game also features LevelUpFillUp. When Brown awakens to his Persona after the above incident, he's completely healed.
** As Thanatos Tower also shows, characters without a Persona cannot be affected by healing magic. When the party tries to use healing magic on Yosuke, they remark that healing doesn't work on regular humans though it feels like being massaged.

* CoolGuns: You get to use all kinds of them, from pistols to rifles.

* NowWhereWasIGoingAgain: Averted. Since Peace Diner serves no other purpose, it's hinted early on that it acts as a place where you can get hints from your party members, and in that sense is like the hint stand from ''VideoGame/EarthBound''. More generally, this is averted in dungeons and exploration outside of the map screens. Talking to the party will invariably have them remind you what they're doing currently.

* FiveManBand: Your party size is, of course, five. But aside from that...
** SEBEC:
*** TheHero: Naoya
*** TheLancer: Mark
*** TheSmartGuy: Nanjo, Elly
*** TheBigGuy: Brown
*** TheChick: Maki
*** SixthRanger: Reiji
** Snow Queen Quest:
*** TheHero: Naoya
*** TheLancer: Yukino
*** TheSmartGuy: Elly, Nanjo
*** TheBigGuy: Brown
*** TheChick: Ayase

** It would later be retconned that Kandori was being controlled to some degree by Nyarlathotep, but this is the only game where the BigBad is a human.

* DitchingTheDubNames: When the game was first localized in the West, many of the characters' names were Westernized. Some were rather simple, like Maki (Mary) and Yuka (Alana), while some are drastic, like Kei Nanjo (Nate Trinity) and Takehisa Kandori (Guido Sardenia). In the sequel, ''VideoGame/Persona2'' (specifically, ''Eternal Punishment''), while the Persona 1 cast's first name remained Westernized, they were given their Japanese surname, with Kandori himself claiming that his Westernized name was an alias. When the PSP remake was localized, the names were reverted back to their original Japanese name.

%%* EarWorm: The Drugstrore song is this for Kei.

* CallingYourAttacks: In the Playstation version, some demons say the names of skills they use, or, at the very least, make sounds that vaguely resemble their names.

* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Not actually to ''death,'' but you have numerous options to escape without having to fight.
* TakenForGranite: The Harem Queen casts a spell that causes every party member expect for yourself and Maki to turn into this. You are given the option to turn them back, but it's not preferred, AND the queen will actually be weaker for the boss fight if you refuse.

* ContinuityNod: The Snow Queen Quest is rather similar to the plot of x''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf'', given the fact that both games have a vengeful student draw demons into said school, forcing you to clean house. There's also the fact that both ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf'' and ''Persona'' have two secret characters: one of whom in each requires jumping through some extra hoops and going for a portion of the game without a full party [[spoiler:and turn out to have ties to the BigBad]] (the two even have similar names in kana and romaji, though not kanji: Reiko and Reiji), and another who's tied to an alternate storyline (Yukino -- who does briefly join the party in the normal game -- and Akira).

* ContinueYourMissionDamnIt: TakeYourTime and feel free to chat up the characters between dungeons, just expect members of the party to comment on how they should really get going. The beginning of the game has [[RunningGag Yukino's conversations eventually devolve into yelling at the party to go visit Maki already.]]

* ContinuityNod: The Snow Queen Quest is rather similar to the plot of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf'', given the fact that both games have a vengeful student draw demons into said school, forcing you to clean house. There's also the fact that both ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf'' and ''Persona'' have two secret characters: one of whom in each requires jumping through some extra hoops and going for a portion of the game without a full party [[spoiler:and turn out to have ties to the BigBad]] (the two even have similar names in kana and romaji, though not kanji: Reiko and Reiji), and another who's tied to an alternate storyline (Yukino -- who does briefly join the party in the normal game -- and Akira).

** The game also establishes that the protagonist of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf'' was a girl, though which route she chose in her game is unknown.

* RedOniBlueOni: Masao and Kei.

* ReReleaseSoundtrack: The PSP version had most of the soundtrack of the PSX version replaced with newer tracks, only those composed by Creator/ShojiMeguro were left intact.

The sudden popularity of the franchise after the successful revival with ''Persona 3'' led to a PSP UpdatedRerelease with brand new cel-shaded cutscenes (replaced the now-dated 90s era CG), a new interface, and numerous improvements to the game's balance, including a better mini-map and many more save points. This release came to America with much fanfare, [[OldShame especially from Atlus themselves]], who were quick to point out the newer, more faithful script, restoration of original character designs, and inclusion of ''all'' content left out of the [=PS1=] release.

The really awful localization tends to be the most well-remembered element of this game outside of Japan. One of the earliest titles released by Atlus USA, it has gone down in gaming history as a textbook case of how ''not'' to localize a title. You see, Atlus had got it into its head that they were going to localize the Megaten series as the "''Revelations''" series [[note]]although this actually makes some sense -- every Megaten game features Revelations, but only the very first featured a true goddess reincarnating, and it didn't even have the word ''shin'' in the title[[/note]], and turn all the spells and demons into generic RPG-sounding names and make the characters Americans. The problem was, most of the translation didn't make sense, the city was still clearly Japanese, and what the localizers turned Masao Inaba into created racial dynamics that were... awkward at best. The only reason ''Eternal Punishment'', which features several characters from this game, and ''3'', which has a weapon called "Maki's/Mary's Resolve", retained the {{Dub Name Change}}s was for consistency; beyond that, Atlus USA wisely never localized a ''Persona'' game in such a fashion again. Yet despite all of this, it still has a die-hard cult following to this day, and copies of the [=PS1=] English version are still incredibly rare and sell for more than ''twice'' the original retail price.

At the time, the ''Shin Megami Tensei'' series was known for its incredibly deep, yet NintendoHard gameplay. ''Persona'' was an attempt by Atlus to create a ''Shin Megami Tensei'' game that would appeal to the masses: a character-driven RPG that turned down the difficulty a few notches in order to be more accessible. And by and large it worked, creating a very successful series which (starting with ''{{VideoGame/Persona 3}}'') [[MorePopularSpinoff has eclipsed the main series in popularity]]. Many of the main characters from ''Persona'' would later go on to make cameo appearances in the ''VideoGame/Persona2'' duology (Three even being ''playable characters'' in ''Persona 2'').

The really awful localization tends to be the most well-remembered element of this game outside of Japan. One of the earliest titles released by Atlus USA, it has gone down in gaming history as a textbook case of how ''not'' to localize a title. You see, Atlus had got it into its head that they were going to localize the Megaten series as the "''Revelations''" series [[note]]although this actually makes some sense -- every Megaten game features Revelations, but only the very first featured a true goddess reincarnating, and it didn't even have the word ''shin'' in the title[[/note]], and turn all the spells and demons into generic RPG-sounding names and make the characters Americans. The problem was, most of the translation didn't make sense, the city was still clearly Japanese, and what the localizers turned Masao Inaba into created racial dynamics that were... awkward at best. The only reason ''Persona 2: Eternal Punishment'' and ''VideoGame/Persona3'' retained the {{Dub Name Change}}s was for consistency; beyond that, Atlus USA wisely never localized a ''Persona'' game in such a fashion again. Yet despite all of this, it still has a die-hard cult following to this day, and copies of the [=PS1=] English version are still incredibly rare and sell for more than ''twice'' the original retail price.

The really awful localization tends to be the most well-remembered element of this game outside of Japan. One of the earliest titles released by Atlus USA, it has gone down in gaming history as a textbook case of how ''not'' to localize a title. You see, Atlus had got it into its head that they were going to localize the Megaten series as the "''Revelations''" series [[note]]although this actually makes some sense -- every Megaten game features Revelations, but only the very first featured a true goddess reincarnating, and it didn't even have the word ''shin'' in the title[[/note]], and turn all the spells and demons into generic RPG-sounding names and make the characters Americans. The problem was, most of the translation didn't make sense, the city was still clearly Japanese, and what the localizers turned Masao Inaba into created racial dynamics that were... awkward at best. The only reason ''Persona 2: Eternal Punishment'' and ''VideoGame/Persona3'' retained these names was for consistency; beyond that, Atlus USA wisely never localized a ''Persona'' game in such a fashion again. Yet despite all of this, it still has a die-hard cult following to this day, and copies of the [=PS1=] English version are still incredibly rare and sell for more than ''twice'' the original retail price.