Revelations: Persona - Gameplay

Gameplay

Unlike the Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei games, the plot of Persona does not involve devil summoners. Instead, the main party consists of a group of teenagers equipped with firearms and melee weaponry. Each can summon a Persona—a facet of their personality—used in battle to fight demons, functioning as a source of magic spells, a traditional element of role-playing games.

In Revelations: Persona, the player navigates and interacts with the world via multiple means. While traversing the main city (which serves as the game's overworld), the world is seen from an overhead perspective. Unlike future entries in Persona series, buildings and maze-like outdoor areas are navigated in a first-person perspective. However, whenever the player enters a room, the camera shifts to an isometric perspective, allowing the player to interact with party members and other non-playable characters. Although Persona was among the first of the Megami Tensei games to feature angled third-person viewpoints, dungeons are still navigated in first-person. Both these vestiges of its parent series would be dropped in later Persona games. Another series trademark, an icon displaying the lunar phase, also appears in Persona. Besides showing the passage of in-game time, the status of the moon determines the activity patterns of enemy demons, and their mood if the player attempts negotiation with one.