Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth Review (3DS)
Persona is the gift that keeps on giving and now Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth joins its amazing older sibling, Ultimax, as they dominate the month of November.
We’ve been covering Persona Q like it’s going out of fashion on Rice Digital (which it isn’t because Persona is a God-tier series), but now I want to share with you my thoughts on the finished product which is filled to the brim with fan-service, nostalgia and hardcore difficulty.
Both the casts of Persona 3 and 4 are thrown together as they navigate Shadow-infested dungeons to escape the faux Yasogami High, along with newcomers Rei and Zen who’re suffering from amnesia. They’ve been summoned for reasons unknown and not even the Velvet Room residents understand why, but it is all explained in time so worry not about how the P3 cast are still in school – and more so how some are still alive!
The characters are as you remember them, although there’s a lot more humour based on each characters unique traits such as Chie’s love for steak, Marie’s angsty poems, Akihiko’s love for fighting and protein and Teddie hitting on all the ladies – or maybe nothing has changed at all! I didn’t have a problem with this as it provided much laughter, and they all mesh together as one loveable and coherent team despite how colourful and varied the characters are.
Chances are if you’re interested in Persona Q, it’s because you enjoyed Persona 3 and 4 and want to spend more time with those characters; or at least that’s how it is for me and my Persona-loving self. I’m happy with how both teams are represented and how everybody contributes greatly to the events in the story, especially since Persona Q is nearing 20 playable characters with their own rich backstories; this also applies to the P3 protagonist, who I refer to as Yuki Makoto, who has been given a personality in the same way that Yu Narukami had for the Persona 4 sequels/anime.
Along with their established pasts, they all still carry their unique Personas and their own issues from their respective games. It’s clear that Atlus has given great love and care in ensuring that everybody meeting makes sense and is a celebration of the two games, rather than being thrown in strictly for fan-service.
We can’t forget about Rei and Zen though, as they play important roles in the story, and they fit in perfectly with the already existing casts. Rei is bubbly, constantly eating and misinterpreting what others say (but even she has the sense to turn Teddie away!), whereas Zen is quite silent, powerful and very protective of Rei. They play as one character in battle with Zen on the offence and Rei providing support skills, and you’ll want them in your team as they’re capable of using every element – however, they cannot wield Personas. For those curious, my team of five consisted of Yu, Yosuke, Mitsuru, Aigis and Zen and Rei.
The gameplay will make or break Persona Q for Persona fans, as the Etrian Odyssey-inspired mechanics require you to make notes of your journey on the map, which you can choose to draw or have auto-filled, alongside tough-as-nails difficulty levels; I played it on Normal and struggled with plenty of enemies, although it was nothing that a fair bit of grinding and finding out enemy weaknesses wasn’t able to fix; that didn’t stop some enemies immediately wiping out my team though! Each dungeon ups the ante sharply but as long as you grind and undertake many optional requests, then your stats should consistently grow.
FOEs, FOEs, FOEs. Persona Q will ingrain FOEs into your mind considering the threat they pose. Your navigators will be warning you about nearby FOEs, to run away from FOEs, that there’s a FOE hiding and that you should just avoid and not even look at a FOE. They’re incredibly strong and chances are if you want to somewhat comfortably take one down, you’ll probably find yourself grinding at a later dungeon to get the experience necessary; the second labyrinths FOEs were cake after a couple hours in the third labyrinth. Third labyrinths FOEs are absolutely terrifying, but you’ll find out for yourself if you’re brave enough.
When you’re not battling, you’re not battling! There are no Social Links in Persona Q but there is the Stroll option which allows you to, well, stroll around the school to talk with various members of the team and see what they’re up to. There’s nothing to be gained from this other than laughter but I made sure to check them out as they became available and always looked forward to a new Stroll event. The school also has facilities for buying, selling, healing and Persona fusing in the Velvet Room. This is the same as it’s always been with the ability to fuse together two or more Personas to create a stronger one, but now you can sacrifice two Personas to give your chosen Persona extra experience, as well as take skills from them to give to others.
Persona Q has a chibi-inspired art style which is gorgeous and colourful, perfectly capturing the traits of each character in a completely fresh and unexpected way; and they’re so cute! The characters are adorable versions of what you remember, but it’s not only the characters that stand out art-wise, there’s also the labyrinth design. I won’t spoil what the four labyrinth are based on, although at this point it seems everybody knows that the first labyrinth is based on Alice in Wonderland and it does an amazing job; the FOEs even paint the roses red! The third labyrinth is both my favourite and most hated as I love the design and atmosphere, but you’ll understand why I hate it once you get there.
Shoji Meguro didn’t compose the OST for Persona Q but you wouldn’t realise it as the music is just as amazing. Many of the tracks are inspired and are variations of tracks we already know and love, such as A Corner of Memories and When the Moon Reaches Out Stars, and they’re as catchy as they’ve always been. The games theme, Maze of Life, and battle themes, Light the Fire Up in the Night, and the credits them, changing me, are all brilliant and I always find myself singing along to them; I’ve been lucky enough to own the CD for several months now. Of course the vocal-less songs are just as impressive, particularly FOE, Laser Beam, FRIENDS (not the TV show) and the labyrinth music.
There’s an immense amount of lasting appeal to the game as you can complete it from the viewpoint of both the Persona 4 and Persona 3 casts, of which I started with Persona 4, and there’s easily 50-60 hours worth of gameplay just going through one story alone – and I loved every minute of it. Persona Q is a beautiful celebration of the two games and their first outing together in a JRPG, and the Etrian Odyssey elements only compliments it although I’d love to see a more Persona-focused gameplay system that features both the casts.
I only played on Normal because I’m not a glutton for punishment, but I found normal to be challenging enough as it was! I was half-tempted to lower the difficulty but I refuse to not be able to finish a Persona game on at least normal, like I have with the others, and so a few hours grinding did the trick instead – it is challenging though so do lower it if you feel the need too rather than getting frustrating and leaving the game entirely, as it needs to be experienced if you’re a big Persona fan.
You can easily jump into the series if you haven’t played Persona before although it helps to have prior knowledge of the characters, but the story is self-contained and can be enjoyed by anybody regardless. I hope that we’ll see the cast cross paths again one day, but at least we have plenty of games and anime to love them in and we can’t forget about the upcoming Persona 4: Dancing All Night. Atlus has firmly settled themselves at the top of my favourite developers list since Persona 4, and I hope that Persona 5 reaches the lofty heights that Persona 4 set.
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is an amazing Persona game and a must-have for the Nintendo 3DS. If you’re still on the fence about buying this excellent game, then hop off of it and into your local store and pick it up right away. You won’t regret it, and I cannot recommend it enough.
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