The Persona 2 Innocent Sin intro is a major topic in this week's Famitsu.

This week's issue of Weekly Famitsu confirms a final release date of March 3, 2011 for Persona 2 Innocent Sin. The PSP title will carry a ¥6,279 price point, with a downloadable version going for ¥4,980.

Outside of the release date, the magazine has a couple of pages with the latest details on the game. Most of the coverage is about the improved Fusion Spell system.

Fusion Spells are powerful spells that are performed by combining spells from your party members in a particular order. The PSP version facilitates the use of Fusion Spells by redoing the battle screen. The screen permanently displays a party member movement timeline, making it easier to work Fusion Spells into your strategy.

The magazine has screens showing familiar Fusion Spells like King Frost and Summon Shikigami. The spells use anywhere from two to five characters.

As the name "King Frost" might indicate, the Fusion Spells have elemental properties. You may want to unleash a Tower Inferno Fusion Spell on an enemy who's weak against fire, for instance.

Readying Tower Inferno.

Also this week, the magazine has a brief interview with Satellite's Hidekazu Sato and Hirotaka Marufuji, two key members of the game's opening animation staff. Joined by director Shouji Meguro, they spoke about the work they've put into the opening.

Meguro explained the decision to ask Satellite to work on the intro. It seems like the decision came down to the staff simply having an attachment to Satellite productions like Macross F and Basquash!.

Marufuji said that the animation staff challenged themselves to see how they could convey the essence of character Kazuma Kaneko in their animation. The goal of the animation staff is not to convey the story, explained Sato, but to convey the game's essence.

Marufuji also praised Kaneko's work from 11 years prior, saying that even today it still looks fresh.

Closing the brief interview, Meguro joked that in the event of Persona 2 Eternal Punishment being being remade as well, he'd definitely like to work with Satellite again.

If you've been keeping up with the game's development blog, you'll recall a recent post showing a magazine interview session with Satellite. It's possible that this is the very interview mentioned in that post.

That same post said to expect a release date announcement some time this week, so we'll likely hear official word over the coming days.