We managed to visit a hidden Velvet Room last week at E3 and craft a press relations persona that we named Nich Maragos. He came with the spells Bufu, Dia, and Explain. We cast Explain on Persona PSP during battle, and through this we learned a bit more about the upcoming remake of the classic PlayStation role-playing game.

Okay, that was really stupid. Sorry. We had a chance to chat with Atlus to get a peek and some hands-on time with Persona PSP, the Shin Megami Tensei game that kicked it all off for this fan. We talked about what was remade and changed from the original game, including the new art, content, and music. Check out our chat in the video as well as some of my hands-on impressions after the jump. 

As for our hands-on time, we started the game from the beginning to check out the changes. Fans will remember the original game's opening sequence, which was really cool for that time. Have you popped that game in lately? The video did not hold up well. Thankfully, the new version has lovely new widescreen video that compares in quality to the videos in the latest Persona games. 

In the beginning of the game, characters are now introduced with their Japanese names. They are no longer white (or black) like in the first localization -- now everyone is Japanese, and the game is back to being set in Japan. We were told that the goal is to be true to the original Japanese release.

The battle system has been cleaned up, too, though they're not much different in presentation from the original game. You know what's really different, though? The walk speed in the dungeons and corridors. I couldn't believe how fast you could move through the first-person corridor exploration parts. The overhead city map is also a bit different in presentation, too. Everything has been adapted for the PSP widescreen, and some of the new videos have voice work in them.

We didn't get to see much more past the earliest part of the game, but Persona PSP has been polished up nicely for fans as well as newcomers, and we can't wait to jump back into it again.