Megami Ibunroku Persona

	This Persona series video game page is a stub. You can help Megami Tensei Wiki by expanding it.
	No reason provided.

This article is about the first game in the Persona franchise, also known as Revelations: Persona. For other things named Persona, see Persona.

Megami Ibunroku Persona
Developer(s)	Atlus
Publisher(s)	Atlus
Genre	RPG
Platform(s)	PlayStation
Release	PlayStation Japan September 20, 1996 United States of America December 14, 1996} PC Japan March 25, 1999 PlayStation Classic WWWorldwide December 3, 2018

Megami Ibunroku Persona is a 1996 role-playing game for the PlayStation, and the first entry in the Persona series. It was developed and published by Atlus and released on September 20th, 1996 in Japan. The game was subsequently released in North America as Revelations: Persona on December 14th of the same year, including significant localization changes. A PC port was released in Japan on March 25th 1999. It was included as one of the games on the PlayStation Classic released on December 3rd 2018, marking its first release in Europe.

A remaster of the game, simply titled Persona, was released for the PlayStation Portable in 2009, featuring a more faithful localization outside of Japan and completely replacing the soundtrack.

Blurb

English

In the near future, mankind has conquered dimensional travel but the door we have opened swings both ways. The peaceful city you have grown up in has become a haven for dark creatures from another world— Demons! Now it's up to you and your friends to harness the hidden power within you by entering the fantasy game known as Persona. You awaken with incredible abilities that you will need to defeat the scores of Demon invaders and cleanse the land of their forces. Converse with them before doing battle to determine your best course of action. Fight them or enlist their aid in your mission. Either way, you are set for the fantasy adventure of a lifetime!

Synopsis

	This section is a stub. You can help Megami Tensei Wiki by expanding it.
	No reason provided.

See full plot...

Gameplay

	This section is a stub. You can help Megami Tensei Wiki by expanding it.
	No reason provided.

Version Differences

	This section is a stub. You can help Megami Tensei Wiki by expanding it.
	No reason provided.

Revelations: Persona

In contrast to the Japanese release, the North American release of Revelations: Persona made numerous changes to the characters and their designs, as well as receiving several omissions to the story.

Most of the members of the main cast received major alterations to their designs, most notably being the protagonist and the character Mark. Each member of the main cast received names that were heavily westernized, with Mark, Elly and Yuki being the only characters to receive little to no alterations.

The setting has also been entirely americanized: for example, the city is renamed "Lunarvale", and the game is now set in the United States. Thus, Yen are now changed to dollars. The sole exceptions being the shoe lockers at the entrance of the high school and the Shinto Shrines. This was done in an effort to make the game more palpable to western audiences, as Atlus USA felt american gamers would not be able to connect with the game due to the heavy Japanese influence present in Megami Ibunroku Persona.

A large number of demons are completely renamed, in order to avoid controversy.

Notoriously, the Snow Queen Quest was almost entirely discarded, with only remnants of translated information being accessible through the usage of cheats. The majority of the quest still exists within the game's files, but the data is largely untranslated. The engine cannot support Japanese characters, so upon accessing this data, the game cannot process this information properly, and the text is left almost entirely unintelligible.

PSP

Main article: Persona (PSP)

Development

	This section is a stub. You can help Megami Tensei Wiki by expanding it.
	No reason provided.

Localization

While the Megami Tensei franchise had been going strong since 1987 in Japan, the United States didn't see any title due to their heavy use of religious imagery and taboo topics which could potentially prove controversial. As such, Atlus lacked a flagship RPG title in the west, akin to Konami's Suikoden or Capcom's Breath of Fire. While Jack Bros had been localized in 1995, the lack of any controversial content in Megami Ibunroku Persona meant it could be released in the west, which Atlus USA was interested in doing.

The team responsible for the localization of Megami Ibunroku Persona into Revelations: Persona was pretty small, consisting of only 6 full time employees at Atlus USA. In order to make Revelations: Persona more accessible to western audience, the localization team choose to remove or change almost every reference to Japan and Japanese culture. They set the game in the United States and decided to change character design so they would look more american. Plus, due to the american version releasing only 3 months after the japanese release, there was pressure to finish it quickly for the christmas 1996 deadline. The official website for Atlus planned for a November 1996 date but the game finally launched on December 14th of that year. Due to needing to heavily modify the script and sprites, the Snow Queen Quest had to be cut to finish the game on time. However, the data is still accessible on the disk via cheats, though untranslated, and unreadable as the text engine cannot render japanese characters. Philemon's cutscene at the entrance of the dream world in Hypnos' Tower has been fully translated and dubbed.

Reception

Megami Ibunroku Persona sold 201 147 copies during its first week, making it the best first week for a Persona game until Persona 5. The game sold 391 556 copies by December 29th 1996, and 409 491 copies by July 6th 1997. Meanwhile, Revelations Persona had sold 37 947 copies by January 2003.

Famitsu awarded Megami Ibunroku Persona a score of 32/40. Revelations: Persona scored a 78 on Metacritic based on 6 reviews, as well as an 80% on gamerankings based on 8 reviews, indicating a "Generally Favorable" opinion.

Nomenclature

Names in Other Languages

Language	Name	Meaning
English	Revelations: Persona
Japanese	女神異聞録ペルソナ	Alternate Goddess Tale: Persona

Gallery

• Revelations: Persona cover

  Revelations: Persona cover

• 

  Artwork by Kazuma Kaneko titled "PERSONA"

• 

  Title screen of Megami Ibunroku Persona.

• 

  Title screen of Revelations: Persona.