It's 2011, however, and things like incredibly high random encounter rates, labyrinthine dungeons with few clues on where to go, and the necessity to grind and not just for experience points are incredibly frustrating. This is a Persona title, however, and Atlus has never been known for making poor games. Much was ahead of its time in Innocent Sin, so there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for those who can stomach its anachronistic elements.
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Innocent Sin's core gameplay also suffers because it adheres to some of the RPG standbys of times gone by. The game's turn-based combat system is fairly straightforward and includes expected features like elemental weaknesses and combo attacks. The encounter rate is incredibly high, and combined with the labyrinthine dungeons and sometimes unclear directives, finding your way around can be lengthy and frustrating. This isn't the level of Phantasy Star II we're talking about, though, especially considering that the game features an auto-battle system that works. Instead of simply defaulting your characters to autoattacks, the auto-battle repeats previous commands, making it so you can grind easily. As well, characters' SP regenerates as you walk around dungeons, so you'll never get caught almost dead with no mana in the middle of the dungeon, but the grinding's still not something that's friendly for today. Some dungeons are particularly frustrating like the shelter under one of the high schools which requires literally walking in circles to complete. All this is exacerbated by the frustrating analog controls and minimap it's very easy to get disoriented due to the quick movement of the characters and environmental hazards like traps.
Ah well, I might find a better character from that collection.