Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (Perusona Tsu: Batsu) is the third installment in the Persona series, a subseries of the Megami Tensei brand. Atlus created it. It was first released on the PlayStation in Japan and North America by Atlus in 2000. Atlus later rebuilt the game for the PlayStation Portable. This version, launched in Japan in 2012, did not receive an international distribution. In response, the PlayStation version was established in 2013 on the PlayStation Network. Persona 2: Innocent Sin’s direct sequel, Eternal Punishment, takes place in the fictional Japanese city of Sumaru. The game takes place a few months after Innocent Sin. It follows reporter Maya Amamo as she investigates the Joker Curse, a sinister phenomenon in which people’s wishes and rumors come true, causing devastation. During her investigations, she and the others she recruits gain the capacity to summon Personas, personified elements of their personalities. The gameplay includes turn-based fighting action in which people utilize their Personas to fight demons and a different Rumor system in which whispers circulated the city can affect events in the protagonists’ favor. Halfway through the creation of Innocent Sin, writer Tadashi Satomi believed that a new perspective, besides Tatsuya, was required, establishing the framework for Eternal Punishment.
Along with Satomi, the original producer (Kouji Okada), character designer (Kazuma Kaneko), and composers (Toshiko Tasaki, Kenichi Tsuchiya, and Masaki Kurokawa) returned. The second game began development after the first, and while it replicated most of the assets from the first, the gameplay and Rumor system were enhanced. “Change Your Way,” the game’s theme song, was composed by English singer-songwriter Elisha La’Verne based on the game’s premise. The game’s reception in Japan and the West has been generally positive, with critics praising the improvements over Innocent Sin, the plot, the gameplay systems, and the improved localization compared to the first Persona.
