Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth - Nintendo 3DS Standard Edition

This game is not a regular Persona game for the 3DS. That has to be put out there before continuing. There is no social gaming, no year-long adventure, no exploring outside the dungeons (labyrinth), no nothing. It's a very bare bones experience. Instead, what you do have is a whole lot of dungeon crawling and fan service (err, not that kind). This isn't lethal to the whole experience and if you go in with your expectations tempered in advance then you'll find yourself having a fun time re-entering the world of Persona 3 & Persona 4 and enjoying the character interactions that were the best thing about those games. The gameplay in this game owes little to Persona and everything to Etrian Odyssey. Those games feature a similar dungeon system, the same basic controls, and the same lack of options. They're also by Atlus, so it's not that surprising that they would copy their own system for this game. The way the dungeons work is this: you walk around in first person mode moving one square at a time using the directional button. The analog stick only allows you to look from side to side. After a certain amount of moving you will be attacked (you generally have warning when this is about to happen) and the game switches to a combat system not that dissimilar to the regular Persona one except that you have to manage which players are in the back row and which are in the front. There are also big monsters (F.O.E.s, short for the atrociously ungrammatical fusis oikein eidolon, or creature to live in ghost. Yikes) who you should really avoid wandering around. These show up on your screen. They only move when you do and they follow set patterns that you can figure out pretty easily, so avoiding them is usually not that tough. The really unique feature of this system is that you are not provided with a map but have to create your own as you go along. This does increase the difficulty of your exploration but it also provides you with a certain satisfaction from actually completing it. Outside of combat there's little to do. The main screen in Yasogami High only has a text menu of options for things like buying new items, healing, or saving the game. The majority of your time will be spent in the labyrinth. Is this system a perfect fit for Persona? No. I don't think they'd have lost anything by giving you the option to run around your school outside of combat and interact with the various zombies outside. It would have given the world a slightly less limited feeling while not requiring a large amount of storage room or effort. But in general I think the gameplay works well for what it's trying to do. At the least it isn't jarringly distracting. The big thrill here of course is playing with these characters again, and that's where the real fun in Persona Q comes in. The characters are back and they're as well done as ever. All the voice actors have returned and bring their customary liveliness to the roles. Sure, you can't talk to them in private like you could in the main games, but they do have frequent conversations throughout your adventure. They have also been given a design overhaul to better match Etrian Odyssey, which doesn't take long to get used to but can feel a little weird. They look a bit chibi. Plot and characterization has not been the strength of the Etrian Odyssey series. Until the last one ( Millennium Girl ) they didn't even bother with them. That's why I never had much time for them. But the addition works really well here and makes the game feel more like Persona. The really impressive thing here is how they've managed to incorporate two separate stories in the same game. At the beginning of the game you chose whether to follow the Persona 3 story or the Persona 4 one. Whichever one you chose, the cast from that game are the ones you'll be travelling with. Sure, you'll meet up with the other crew eventually, but for the most part (especially in the beginning) you are on independent quests. It's a lot of fun to play the game from both sides since, while they cover the same ground, the way they get there is often completely different. For example, since the game takes place in pseudo-Yasugami High from Persona 4 the arrival of the Persona 3 crowd is rather disorienting and you're thrust into the adventure rapidly and against your will. With the Persona 4 crowd the transition is more subtle and mysterious and involves a mysterious clock tower appearing in the courtyard. Neither storyline suffers from a feeling of being an afterthought, so you can essentially enjoy two games for the price of one! So should you buy this game? If you're a fan of Persona strictly for the social gaming then no. There's nothing like that here. And it's not as in-depth a game as Persona 3 & 4. But if you really loved those characters and just want to see them in an adventure again (and together this time!) then this game will probably be perfect for you. The difficulty curve can be a little steep, but aside from that the game is a lot of fun. I'm getting a little sick of the spin-offs from the main series. Sooner or later it will run out of steam and make both those games feel tired and stale. But that moment hasn't come yet. It may be waiting for Persona 4: Dancing All Night , but Q isn't the disaster people might have expected. If they're still bringing this level of quality to their spin-offs I say bring on Persona 5!

Context: I don't have much experience with SMT or Persona series. My older brother played the PSX Persona 1, and I have only vague memories of it. Never played any SMT games until this year with SMT4, but have always loved RPGs like Chrono trigger, FFVI, FFIX, etc. Bought with zero expectations of understanding story and fan service jokes. The good: Gameplay is sleek and streamlined. Music is extremely catchy. The game makes great use of both screens, and its generally just a great time mapping out floors. Eager to see how much more depth the gameplay has, but no complaints after 3 hours. The bad: Story seems barebones. Earlier I referenced some classics with great stories. I understand this game is a spinoff from the main persona series, which is a sub series of SMT, but the story has not yet gripped me. It feels there has been a heavy amount of hand waving, but with all this said, it's not egregious. I would just consider it lethargic. Overall, great game. Its better than I expected. I would consider this an 8/10. If there was more focus on story, or maybe a little more explanation about who the characters are, I could see this being a light 9.

I didn't really know what this game about. I knew it had "Persona" in the title, and I knew that I really liked Persona 3 and 4. Then it came out, and got really good reviews. I decided to try it out. How bad could it be, right? I remember buying Soul Hackers a while ago and not really liking it. I wasn't sure why. It had the super old-school-RPG-style isometric 3D first-person dungeon exploration thing going on. You even had to draw your own maps! That's a thing that's unheard of in 2014 (or even 2012 when it came out). I couldn't get into the battle system either. Well, imagine my disappointment when I opened up Persona Q and, on the surface, the two looked really similar. That isometric exploration and then battle system brought me some immediate buyer's remorse. Well, good thing I was wrong! I'm not sure what was so different about it that made me like it so much more. The gameplay wasn't SO dissimilar. Maybe it was the art - the super-chibi, colorful, charming style that made everything sort of ridiculous looking - but in a good way. Maybe it was the music - English songs that were all sung by people whose first language was clearly not English, but were made even more catchy and unforgettable as a result. Heck, maybe it was just because I loved Persona games and I felt right at home with the characters. Speaking of the characters, though... I get the feeling that if you didn't play either Persona 3 or 4, you will have NO idea what is happening with the game, or with the characters. The game tries to explain some things, but I feel like it would all fly over the head of someone who doesn't have experience with the series. Finally, I want to say that this is NOT a Persona game. Not really, anyway. It has the name of the series, and all the characters, but besides a few minor things that carried over from those games, this is a very different kind of RPG. They melded some of the battle elements of Persona into the game, but it doesn't have any of the time-progression, social-link stuff that those games have. That said... I still love this game. Definitely worth a buy if you love the series.

I will admit, I'm a Persona fanboy. Persona 4 was my favorite game ever (up until P5 happened), while P3 came really close to that spot. So I'm kind of biased towards this one, seeing how it's a cross over between those two. I apologize, I can't help it. I'll start with gameplay, but I won't get too specific so this doesn't go for too long. I've never played an Etrian Odyssey game (the base for this one's gameplay) before, but if this is what they're like, I really gotta track 'em down 'cause this really good. The combat is difficult (even on Normal difficulty) but feels fair (most of the time at least, I'm looking at you Evil Spirit's Club), and the dungeon exploration is made far more interesting as the game requires the player to draw their own maps on the touch screen, whilst also solving various puzzles and avoiding traps. I know the map thing sounds horrible, but believe me when I say that it slowly grows on as time goes by. I will say that while the gameplay is fun, this style of gameplay CAN get a bit tedious over long play sessions for people new to the genre, so keep that in mind. As for the story/characters, it's great, but somewhat flawed. First off, if you haven't played both Persona 3 and Persona 4, don't even bother touching this one. 60% of the dialogue is made up of references or in-jokes from those two games. Plus, the game assumes that the player played those games before and dives into some pretty heavy spoilers quite often. The actually story behind it very odd, as it manages to somehow be both predictable, and shocking at the same time. I'll stop there though. The characters though, that's perhaps where the game is at it's weakest. While the characters are still fun, recognizable, and charming as can be, due to somewhat large roster (with about 24 characters in one small space, and all but 6 of them being playable), some of the characters personalities and quirks were simplified and exaggerated to make them stand out more among the crowd, leaving a few of them (Teddie, Chie, Akihiko, and Theodore in particular) feeling somewhat shallow and poorly written. It can be bothersome to the people who liked those characters in their original games, but the game gives somewhat equal screen time to everyone in the cast, so it isn't too noticeable. I'll stop here. I promise.

3ds games are regan locked so while amazon will ship out of the us the cartrage will not work ok UK 3ds

Es un excelente juego de RPG. Su twist es que se trata del subgenero de dungeon crawling lo que lo hace muy entretenido. Definitivamente no creo que un jugador que no sea apasionado del genero RPG lo disfrute. Es dificil, hasta los enemigos comunes son capaz de destrozarte si no te preparas. No es necesario conocer a los personajes de la saga Persona para disfrutar el juego, aunque el hacerlo le da un plus.

Muy adictivo, la mescla perfecta entre persona y la saga etrian, solo es un festival de fanservice pero bajo esa capa reside un juego muy solido

Really fun game and haven't stopped playing it since I got it. The story is really nice and love the fact that it has characters from both Persona 3 and 4. If you don't know much about the characters then no worries because they tell you about them in the game. I would recommend this game to you if you like turn based and dungeon crawling. Unlike other games where the map is given to you, this game will require you to draw and mark it as you explore the labyrinths (Don't need to but makes your life easier), so it is something to consider but I like it. They did include quests into this game like Persona 3 & 4. The soundtrack is amazing and made me wish I bought the premium edition as it includes the soundtrack in the set. If you really like the Persona series or want to try out a new game, I would really recommend this to you and it was worth my money and time.