ahaha i don't know man! don't get me wrong, i liked persona 1 and remember playing and SCHOOKIDS and TALKING DEMONS and it was all such a huge departure from what i was used to in the genre, but i just couldn't quite get over the wizardry-like dungeons you had to wander aimlessly through, or the ridiculous map, or really any of the other absurd design decisions the developers made. in spite of all that, though, i like it a lot just from the fact that it did something really weird and interesting alone. i'm curious, though, why you think it's better than persona 2.
i want to stress that i did not say better!!!! i just preferred persona 1.
i mean shit, yeah persona 2 is obviously a better made game. it's infinitely cleaner and more coherent. the story was told a lot better, and made quite a bit more sense(although i didn't like how we were basically playing persona 2.5). but after all these definite improvements i felt like quite a bit of STYLE was lost, and nothing else was really GAINED to offset the loss of the thing that I found to be the game's selling point. and it's not like the sequel was that much more substantial than the first one in terms of sheer ideas(if at all). it just executed itself in a much more professional manner. but i think the sloppiness of the first one ultimately created this odd sense of disorientation and contemporary chaos that i've never seen before in a game.
also, i STRONGLY preferred the music and the monster dialogue in persona 1. particularly the monster dialogue. you can't even tell if it's ENGRISH or SUPPOSED TO BE THAT DISORIENTING, but regardless, it's definitely some of the most remarkable game writing i've ever seen.
i mean, i'm not really ARGUING THIS POINT here because digging a style(primarily for its sloppiness) is remarkably subjective, but this is really just my take on it. it's pretty infrequent that i see a game that manages to really nail some sort of unique style.
Well Atlus' bread and butter is selling ridiculous jpop RPGs to America so you sort of get what you get!
eh, i don't know if i'd summarize the history of atlus as JPOP. sure, it's always been there to an extent, but it's hit something of a breaking point with persona 3 where the jpop finally overlapped the distinctly atlus feel. i don't think it's all in my head when i say that they've changed direction a bit.
plus, i've grown pretty weary of the smt/dds games. they always start off REALLY COOL but i always grow genuinely sick of them by the half-way point.
also i always see it as being a
TERRIBLE SIGN when a game company turns their flagship title into a
mmorpg. i can only IMAGINE how badly this will turn out for the company(see: squaresoft)