Tokyo Mirage Sessions

Original Release: Wii U, 2015. Version Reviewed: Wii U, 2015.


THE PLOT:

When Tokyo high school student Itsuki Aoi attends an audition for the next Japanese idol , he is shocked to find his childhood friend, Tusabasa Oribe, participating in!

Tsubasa's older sister had been a successful idol... until five years ago, when she vanished while performing in an opera - along with all the other performers and the entire audience! Tsubasa hopes that following in her sister's footsteps will help her to discover the truth about what happened.

This actually works, though not in the way she expected. Midway through her audition, a mysterious portal appears. Strange beings emerge, kidnapping Tsubasa. Most of the audience is paralyzed, drained of all energy, but Itsuki remains unaffected. He chases his friend's captors through the portal, into a mysterious labyrinth populated by monsters. There, he discovers a new power - one that first helps him to free Tsubasa, then sees him enlisted by Fortuna Entertainment into a quest to not only to save the world, but - even more terrifying - to become a part of Tokyo's entertainment industry!

The heroes unite against a threat to the entire world.

CHARACTERS:

This isn't technically a Persona game, but it hews pretty close to that formula. The main characters are a mix of teens, each driven by things that are revealed during optional "side stories." Reckless Touma participates in live "hero shows," and recalls to Itsuki how such cheesy entertainment helped to give him hope during a difficult childhood. Half-Caucasian actress Ellie seems brash and annoyingly obsessed with all things Hollywood, but we gradually realize just how much of her behavior stems from insecurity, with her light skin and European features making her an outsider in an insular society. Child star Mamori is so eager to please those around her that she has difficulty standing up for what she wants. Even the characters who initially seem one-note or irritating are revealed to have a degree of depth, and by the end even the most standoffish of them has emerged as entirely likable.

There are two unfortunate exceptions, however. Tsubasa could pretty much be described as "anime girl," with none of her side stories building any particular personality beyond that. This is a major problem, because the first third of the game revolves almost entirely around her. Even when she becomes less prominent later on, it's clear that she's the female lead - and I'm sorry, but as a character she is incredibly boring.

Then there is the gaping hole at the game's center: Itsuki himself. His character art is drawn to be blandly pleasant, and that description applies pretty well to him as a whole. I can almost see what the developers were going for in a few scenes, ones that actually turn his lack of direction into text... but since he never progresses from that point, it can't really qualify as an arc. The other, more driven (and interesting) characters push him into every situation. His circumstances change a lot, but he remains very much the same person at the end that he was at the beginning.

In short, the two most prominent characters are a bust, leaving it to the supporting cast to carry the story.

A combat session: a series of chained attacks. 
These can get really long by the end of the game.

GAMEPLAY:

If you've played any Persona game that postdates the PS1 era, then the gameplay is going to be entirely familiar. Roughly half of the game is spent exploring dungeons, each of which is designed around a theme. You will fight enemies - known here as "mirages" instead of demons - and level up your weapons and abilities. Hitting enemy weaknesses will allow your characters to engage in "Sessions," chained attacks that can do devastating damage.

The other half of the game is spent exploring various real world locations, interacting with characters and completing requests that range from minor fetch quests (find a random person's watch or briefcase) to more elaborate stories that will take you back into the dungeons trying to rescue people or recover specific items. This is also where you will complete the side stories that are this game's equivalent to Persona's Social Links, helping out your teammates and revealing their personalities (and usually unlocking new and more powerful attacks in the process).


THE SORT-OF CROSSOVER...:

Tokyo Mirage Sessions: #FE is officially a crossover between the Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem franchises. It would be more accurate to describe it as Persona Lite: The Musical, with a Fire Emblem skin. The gameplay is a direct lift from the Persona series. The tone is lighter than any of the mainline Persona games (never mind Shin Megami Tensei), but it's unmistakably part of that range in all but name.

The Fire Emblem elements are considerably more minor. The "personas" gained from the Velvet Room in the Persona series are replaced by mirages who reside in the "Bloom Palace." Each mirage is a Fire Emblem character selected to match the personality of the individual they're teamed with. Bosses are also drawn from Fire Emblem games, and the story - when it's fully revealed - effectively acts as a sequel to Shadow Dragon... which likely explains why all the mirages are drawn from either Shadow Dragon or Awakening.

Musical number as combat move:
Tsubasa and Ellie perform a mid-battle duet.

NOT FOR ALL TASTES:

Tokyo Mirage Sessions is probably the definition of "not for all tastes."

It has a heavily stylized look. In the "real world," the people you can't interact with are represented by colored outlines, making the faceless crowds appear as ghosts. Only your characters and the NPCs with whom you can actually speak are fully detailed. Characters are extremely tropey, to the point where some of them are initially irritating, though most gain added dimensions as the story goes on. 

It's also a musical. The characters are performers, and many of their side stories culminate in concert performances. This carries over to the in-game combat. Once you've unlocked a character's real world performance, it becomes a special attack that can be triggered in mid-battle... meaning that in the midst of combat, two of your characters will start singing and dancing before unleashing a devastating combo. It's fun (and thankfully, even in the Wii-U version, is skippable so that you don't have to watch the same scene repeated endlessly)... but there's no denying that it's weird.

Oh, and the dialogue is in Japanese with English subtitles. This was certainly a commercial decision, with Nintendo deciding not to throw extra money at a tough-to-advertise title on the already-failed Wii U... but I think it actually works in the game's favor. The only way this could be more Japanese is if Godzilla started stomping around leveling buildings - and you could probably drop such a bit in here without it feeling even a little bit out of place! In my opinion, English language dialogue might actually be a distraction from the overall vibe of the piece.

Itsuki is targeted by a demon... er, shadow... er, mirage!

OTHER MUSINGS:

Tokyo Mirage Sessions was the first Shin Megami Tensei-related game I ever played. As a Fire Emblem fan, I was wary of this title, but my inner completionist refused to let me ignore it. I purchased a used Wii U from ebay (this was years before the Switch re-release), fired up the game... and quickly found myself engaged. It was this game that led me to the Persona series; and revisiting it years later, I still find myself enjoying it.

There are some downsides. The chained sessions, where hitting an enemy weakness allows each of your characters to attack in turn, are very entertaining... for a while. However, a full session chain, with each attack individually animated, can run up to two minutes; if you earn an additional special attack, which will in turn usually earn a new session, you can easily double or even triple that time. That makes for a lot of play time spent just watching your characters attack, over and over again. The Switch re-release fixes this, allowing a "Quick Session" function that fast-forwards the attacks... but if you're playing the Wii-U version, these attack chains are entirely unskippable.

The game allows you to save almost anywhere outside of combat, which is good. However, there is no auto save, which is downright bizarre in a modern game and can easily trip up gamers who have become accustomed to regular checkpoints. Simply put: Save regularly. Save when you enter a dungeon; save before boss battles; save after big cutscenes. Don't be lulled by the generally easy difficulty, because you are never more than one "Savage Enemy Encounter" away from potentially losing an hour or more of progress.

Outside of these annoyances, the game is generally a lot of fun. Sure, the "save the world" plot often gets lost in the shuffle of side quests. "It's the end of the world and we have to stop it!... right after we help Tsubasa with her singing, assist Ellie in landing a big part, and save Mamori's cooking show from a meddling new producer." But it's churlish to complain about that, for two reasons: (1) Many of those side quests are more engaging than the main plot; and (2) There's not a single post-PS1 era Persona game that couldn't be subject to the exact same criticism.


OVERALL:

Tokyo Mirage Sessions is an odd game, even by Shin Megami Tensei standards. That said, I found it highly enjoyable. The characters are likable, the stylized visuals are appealing, the combat is mostly a lot of fun, and - critically for a musical - most of the music is good. I'll admit that it's not for all tastes, and I'd definitely rank it a step or two below Persona 4 or Persona 5. Still, for fans of the franchise, I'd say this is worth checking out.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

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Persona 5 Tactica.

Original Release: Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Ninendo Swittch, 2023. Version Reviewed: Playstation 5, 2023.


THE PLOT:

After bringing down Minister Shido and defeating the dark god Yaldabaoth, the Phantom Thieves have earned a rest... but they aren't going to get one.

They are in Cafe Leblanc, watching a news report about the disappearance of politician Toshiro Kasukabe, who is favored to become Prime Minister. Suddenly, the group finds itself transported into an Alice in Wonderland-like Kingdom, ruled over by Marie, a wedding-obsessed tyrant. Joker and Morgana manage to escape, thanks to the intervention of rebel leader Erina. However, their friends are captured.

While staging a rescue, they stumble across another prisoner: Toshiro. He's been abducted, but he has no memory of it happening. In fact, there are large gaps in all of his memories. Even as the Phantom Thieves are reunited, they come to realize that Toshiro's past holds the key to their presence in this strange world.

Getting back home will mean keeping him alive - which, given Toshiro's general uselessness, might be easier said than done!

Toshiro is shaken after being transported to an impossible world.

CHARACTERS:

There are more than a few similarities between this title and the Persona Q games that came out for the 3DS. One of the biggest is that the Phantom Thieves are essentially "guest characters" in their own game. The real focus is on the new characters, Toshiro and Erina. They have full character arcs, and both of them gain considerable depth as the story progresses.

By contrast, the Phantom Thieves are basically "present." There are parallels between some of Toshiro's and Erina's issues and problems that some of the Thieves went through during Persona 5, notably Futaba and Haru. But the Phantom Thieves are static characters. They observe the events happening to Toshiro and Erina, they react to those events, and they protect the pair - but in the end, this isn't their story.

Setting up a devastating Triple Threat - this
game's version of the series' All Out Attack.

GAMEPLAY:

The gameplay segments of Tactica represent a very basic tactical RPG. If you've played any Fire Emblem, or Suikoden, or X-Com, the grid-based maps will be entirely familiar. Also, if you've played any of those, the difficulty will seem downright laughable by comparison, even on the hardest setting. I managed to botch parts of the fight with the first Kingdom's boss, with my characters getting literally run over and scattered about the map like ragdolls... and not only was I able to salvage the level, my units didn't even take that much damage! Call this "Baby's First Tactics Game."

There are a few neat curveballs. If your character manages to score a critical hit (easy to set up once you know how), that character gets an additional turn. Exploit it properly, and you can stretch one turn into several offensive actions. Also, once you get a "One More!", you can position your characters in a triangle around enemies and perform an All Out Attack. Yes, all of this makes an easy game even easier... but I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel satisfying to pull off.

There is some difficulty. Not in the main story missions, but optional "Quests" will test your ability to exploit the game's mechanics in bite-sized encounters that have strict conditions for victory. Some of these get repetitive, though, particularly the altogether too many "defeat all enemies in one turn" quests.

Erina plants the flag symbolizing her rebellion as she and
the Phantom Thieves take their fight to the Tyrant, Marie.

THOUGHTS:

Persona 5 Tactica might as well be titled Persona Q: Tactics. Yes, the Etrian Odyssey-inspired mapmaking has been replaced with tactical grid maps. In all other respects, though, this is essentially a Persona Q title. The cast gets whisked into a fantasy world, where they act as protectors for the actual focal characters while traversing four dungeons related to the new arrivals' arcs. There's a base, where character development occurs through optional conversations. All the characters get to equip sub-Personas, just like in the 3DS games. Oh, and it utilizes a Chibi art style.

I will say that I enjoyed it more than the second Persona Q game, though I didn't think it's as creative as the first one. That said, for a current gen game, there's little if anything here that couldn't have been accomplished on the 3DS. The maps are mostly small; even the boss levels have less elaborate maps than some of what was seen in the 3DS Fire Emblem games. It's also quite short. You can blow through the main story and all Quests in about 30 hours.

I enjoyed it on its own terms, but I can't deny that it feels... well, small. I think I'd be a lot more forgiving of its limitations if not for one thing: the price point. This looks and plays like a $30 game, but it was released at a full $60. Tactica ended up with soft sales compared to most Persona offshoots, and I strongly suspect the asking price had a lot to do with that.

The story starts out poorly, with clunky dialogue that makes it even harder to adjust to the art style. Futaba gets some particularly bad lines. Yes, she's a techie, a hacker, and a gamer; but in the first part of the story, practically every word she utters is a gaming reference. The main game's Futaba was working through severe issues related to grieving, guilt, and anxiety, but she still did her best to connect with and help her friends. I liked that Futaba. This game's version? Well, not for the first time in a Persona 5 spinoff, she's been flattened into someone I would find unbearable in real life.

Thankfully, the writing improves as the story progresses. The dialogue improves, even if many of the conversations are a bit repetitive. Toshiro and Erina grow from one-dimensional ciphers into genuinely engaging characters. Oh, and it's a Persona game, so it goes without saying that there's a terrific soundtrack, though my personal favorite track ended up coming from the DLC campaign.

Joker teams up with Akechi and Kasumi for
the Repaint Your Heart DLC campaign.

DLC: REPAINT YOUR HEART:

Yes, the game has a DLC campaign - Day One DLC, no less.

Repaint Your Heart is a fully separate story, set during the "Sae's Palace" segment of the original game. The story teams Joker with Akechi and Kasumi as they're drawn into a street artist's nightmare world. It's actually a lot of fun, with both your characters and the enemies having to "paint" areas of the map to gain tactical advantages (Persona: Splatoon!), and it benefits from some excellent voice acting, particularly by veteran voice actress Susanne Blakeslee as the villain.

The story is engaging, and the element of "tactical paint" suits the narrative while improving upon the main game's gameplay. Character interactions are well-written, sometimes more so than in this game's main campaign, with several exchanges playing on the secrets kept by both Akechi and Kasumi. It does feel like a missed opportunity that Yusuke, the artist member of the Phantom Thieves, is completely absent for a story centered around art, but that's really my only complaint about the story.

If it was $10, I'd recommend it without reservation. As with the main game, though, I think it's a bit overpriced. This DLC lists at $19.99, and it lasts all of four hours. Yes, you get some challenge levels after you beat it, and you unlock Akechi and Kasumi for your next playthrough of the main game. But it's hard to see this trifle, enjoyable though it is, as something that's worth the asking price.

The Phantom Thieves find themselves in
a bizarre fantasy world. It must be Tuesday.

OVERALL:

Persona 5 Tactica is too small scale to justify its price. It's a Playstation 5 game that feels like it should be a mobile or handheld title, a sense not helped by it being so strongly reminiscent of the 3DS Persona Q spinoffs.

It is enjoyable, as its DLC campaign. I don't think it's worth full price, but I'm not going to deny that I had fun playing it. Catch it on sale at a decent discount, and I'd say it's worth giving a go. But at its list price, it costs about double what it actually merits.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

Previous Game: Persona 5 Strikers

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Persona 5 Strikers.

Aka, Persona 5 Scramble (Japanese title). Original Release: Playstation 4, Nintendo Swittch, 2020. Version Reviewed: Playstation 4, 2020.


THE PLOT:

It's summer vacation, and Joker has returned to Tokyo to reunite with his old friends, the group formerly known as "The Phantom Thieves." With the defeat of both Shido and the God of Control, there's no more need for heroics, and the friends plan to relax and spend the month just enjoying each other's company.

But life intervenes.  A wave of "changes of heart" has left the police suspecting the Phantom Thieves are once again active.  Zenkichi Hasegawa, a police inspector, thinks otherwise. He approaches the group and makes a deal to shield them from arrest - if they can unravel these new incidents and find the real culprit behind them!

A police inspector approaches the Phantom
Thieves with an offer they can't refuse..,

CHARACTERS:

Spinoffs Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight and Persona Q2 reduced the rich cast to two-dimensional caricatures... Which makes it all the more joyous to see the cast back in form in this sequel. Each of the main characters gets a moment in the spotlight, thanks to a structure which connects each of them with one of the game's mini-bosses. This adds additional depth, even the ones the original game sometimes overlooked. Haru in particular gets more focus than in Persona 5, emerging as a surprisingly strong character. Meanwhile, Ryuji - generally just comedy relief - receives a strong dramatic moment midway through that's in-character while still acting as an effective contrast to his usual antics.

The new characters are also engaging. Zenkichi originally seems to be just a replacement for the earlier game's Akechi: the detective whom the characters are forced to work with to stay out of jail. As the story unfolds, he becomes such a well-developed character that I wouldn't mind seeing him return in another title. Friendly AI Sophia is possibly a bit too anime-tropey for my personal tastes, but she also receives several good moments - and all of the various mini-bosses are three dimensional characters whose pasts are explored by the narrative.

Voice acting is terrific across the board. In the original Persona 5, I didn't much care for Xanthe Huynh's overly-breathy Haru. Either the actress has toned it down or the improved material she's received has boosted her performance, but she's not only good here: She's arguably one of the game's standouts.

One of the game's boss battles. 
Yes, the enemies are still pretty weird...

GAMEPLAY:

Like earlier Persona titles, gameplay is divided into two segments: the real world, and the fantasy world (here known as "the Metaverse"). Real world gameplay is similar to earlier titles. You control Joker, exploring bits of various Japanese cities while listening in on conversations and interacting with your companions and assorted NPCs.

In the fantasy world, however, Persona 5 Strikers is very different. The game is a crossover of sorts with the popular Dynasty Warriors series, and it replaces Persona's usual turn-based combat for real-time "hack-and-slash" battles against large groups of enemies. I'll admit that this made me wary of the game, despite its many good reviews. I'm not fond of hack-and-slash combat; and I had previously been left completely unengaged by Fire Emblem Warriors, a Warriors crossover with another of my favorite series.

Happily, once I adjusted to the hectic pace of combat, I was surprised by how intuitive and enjoyable this game's combat became. Persona battle tactics have been carefully merged with the frenetic Warriors "Musou" style, and the results succeed in feeling like Persona combat that's simply achieved in a different way. The basic rules still apply: You do extra damage for successfully ambushing enemies, but are at a disadvantage if they ambush you. Enemies have weaknesses that you can target and exploit, often resulting in battle-ending "All-Out Attacks." Baton Passes can be done at the press of a directional button. It's all accomplished so artfully that, long before the end, I stopped even thinking of it as being different.

The Phantom Thieves rise again.

THOUGHTS:

Persona 5 Strikers is not just another Persona spinoff. This is no minor side title like the Arena or Persona Dancing games. This is a proper sequel, with a storyline that builds on Persona 5's while taking concepts and characters in new directions.

The story follows the structure of a road trip, with the group traveling in an RV from city to city. The result is a tour of some major Japanese locations, including Tokyo, Sapporo, Okinawa, Kyoto, and Osaka. It's no open world game - You only get to explore a few sections of each city. But those sections are meticulously recreated, as side-by-side photos of the game's locations vs. their real-world counterparts attest.

The "tour of Japan" aspect carries over to the "Jails," this game's dungeons. Each Jail is tied to a specific city, meaning that the fantasy world provides a distorted recreation of those same locations, merged with the Jail's theme. For example, after touring Sapporo's parks and shopping district, you enter its Jail... and go through those same locations, only now reinvented as an ice-covered winter wonderland. The effect is visually striking, and simultaneously eerie and engaging.

Persona 5 already boasted my favorite soundtrack of a series that's become known for its splendid soundtracks. The core songs from the earlier game return at appropriate moments: notably Life Will Change after the sending of Calling Cards and Rivers in the Desert for a key boss fight. Several new tracks have also been commissioned. They are in the same jazz/rock style, and a few of them are every bit as good as the original game's songs.

The script intelligently explores significant issues, from the effects of bullying to government corruption. Many of the game's villains are people who actually wanted to do good, or who were themselves victims of abuse or mistreatment, which makes the Phantom Thieves' adversaries more than the usual "Eeeviill" video game bosses. When the Shadow of one such character - a mayor who has been mistreating her staff - falls, she frets, "What kind of monster will... (take my place)?" Given the backstory we've already learned by this point, her cry is not without some justification.

Unfortunately, the series' tendency toward heavy-handedness remains in evidence. I was involved by the story throughout... but I'd be lying if I didn't admit to rolling my eyes at a few of the late-game monologues. Also, some of the series' overused elements are dutifully trotted out again here. Every significant female character seems to be in love with, or at least expresses interest in, Joker. Running gags have a tendency to run out. And yes, the group visits a hot spring for another round of the same allegedly hilarious hijinks that became tired long ago.

For Persona 6, I hope some of these elements are retired. I'd love for at least a couple members of the opposite sex to be romantically uninterested in the protagonist. I'd be very happy if the exploration of moral and sociological issues didn't have to end with After School Special style speeches. And I would be positively delighted if all future Persona games declared a moratorium on sitcom-level misunderstandings at hot springs!

Still, these are minor pet peeves that apply to the series as a whole.  While they are no less annoying in this game than in previous ones, they are also no worse. Like frustrating mini games in Final Fantasy titles, these just seem to be blemishes that must be accepted when picking up a Persona game.

Joker returns, his flair for the dramatic fully intact.

OVERALL:

I approached Persona 5 Strikers with wariness, after being underwhelmed by previous Persona 5 spinoffs and by previous Warriors crossovers. To my delight, it ended up being a full sequel that at all times felt like a proper Persona title, even while using a radically different combat style.

In its way, this is almost as good a game as Persona 5; and I would rate it every bit as much a part of the "core series" as any of the numbered entries.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Game: Persona Q2 - New Cinema Labyrinth
Next Game: Persona 5 Tactica

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Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth.

Original Release: Nintendo 3DS, 2018. Version Reviewed: Nintendo 3DS, 2018.


THE PLOT:

During the period in which the Phantom Thieves have struck an uneasy alliance with "Detective Prince" Goro Akechi, the group decides to train in Mementos. However, something feels off, and they soon find themselves ejected into a bizarre world dominated by a superhero known as "Kamoshidaman" - who looks exactly like the gym teacher who so badly tormented Ann and Ryushi.

They discover that they are inside a movie, one that is rife with Shadows.  They are able to escape into a movie theater, but are unable to exit to the outside world. There are only two people inside: Nagi, the theater's manager, and Hikari, a painfully shy teen girl who is the only customer. Also present is "Doe," a mysterious creature who shows movies - films that are "wrong," showing stories about giving into authority and conforming to groups regardless of personal beliefs.

To escape this strange place, the Phantom Thieves will need to enter these movies and change them for the better. And as they do so, they learn that they are not the only group that has been brought here...

The Persona casts set out to "fix" a series of bizarre movies.

THE LANGUAGE ISSUE

Persona Q2 was the final 3DS game to receive a physical release in the West. By the time it came out, the 3DS was already effectively a dead system. As such, it's really no surprise that Atlus did not pour money into doing an English dub featuring three full casts made up of some heavily sought-after voice actors. Instead, they subtitled the dialogue while retaining the Japanese audio.

I honestly had no problem with this, and even found some fun in comparing the Japanese and English voices. I'm certainly not going to blame Atlus for refusing to throw a large amount of extra money to dub a large-cast release on an already obsolete system. That said, if you have difficulty with subtitled movies, this game probably won't be for you.

In the movie theater, which acts as the home base and quest hub.

CHARACTERS:

Persona Q2's most interesting character ends up being its most surprising inclusion: the female protagonist from Persona 3 Portable. When she is reunited with the Persona 3 cast, she finds that these familiar faces don't recognize her at all - because they are from the male protagonist's Persona 3. This creates some nice character moments, as she insists on acting cheerful even while privately feeling that she doesn't belong.

The game combines the casts of Personas 3 - 5. The first Persona Q, Shadow of the Labyrinth, did a decent job balancing two casts... but even there the strain showed, with many characters reduced to simply one or two traits. With three full casts to deal with, the sequel has trouble finding anything interesting for most of them to do. Futaba has an effective strand that spans the game's first half, with the painfully shy Hikari reminding her too much of how she was before meeting the Phantom Thieves. Aegis and Akechi get a few decent bits, and Teddie receives just enough prominence to make clear that his Japanese-language voice is even more aggravating than his English-language one. The rest of the supporting characters might as well not be there.

This situation is made worse by a change to the first game's format. In the first Persona Q, the characters interacted with each other through "Strolls," while you got additional bits of interaction and experience through optional side quests. This game eliminates the strolls, moving all its character asides to the quests. A poor decision, as character interactions are now brief and broken up by long stretches of wandering and random encounters.  Also, since these quests are entirely optional, no character arcs build for the Persona casts. As a result, the only substantial character development belongs to Hikari, while the characters actually used to sell the game are left all but entirely static.

Persona 3 Portable's female protagonist meets the Phantom Thieves.

GAMEPLAY:

Core gameplay is identical to the first Persona Q game. The movies the characters enter are dungeons, each designed around a theme: an urban superhero movie, a dinosaur-themed theme park, a sci-fi dystopia, and a brightly colored children's musical. You map each dungeon as you explore, fighting turn-based random encounters and exploiting enemy weaknesses. A boss waits at the bottom of each labyrinth, and you will need to employ careful strategies to defeat each boss.

As with the earlier title, all of this proves addictive. There's something very satisfying about putting the pieces of the maps into place, and the combat is well-designed and enjoyably challenging. Optional side missions give you a chance to level up further, with short explorations of dungeons you've already defeated. The gameplay is generally well-balanced, with bosses providing enough of a challenge to engage without being difficult enough to frustrate... though for masochists, higher difficulty levels are available.

The film-obsessed Hikari watches wide-eyed as
the theater's oppressive movies are made better.

THOUGHTS:

Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth makes a strong first impression. The first hour of the game offers up a jaunty opening cutscene and a strong introduction to the basic scenario. The next few hours are also enjoyable, as you figure out (or, if you played the first game, are refreshed on) the mechanics while exploring a first dungeon that is terrific fun. When the heroes finally confront Kamoshidaman, there's even a Persona 5-like Calling Card delivery, complete with the instrumental for Life Will Change. At ten hours in, I fully anticipated delivering a glowing review.

Unfortunately, the spell fades in the subsequent dungeons. The second and third labyrinths do almost nothing to advance the plot, save for hammering some obvious and repetitive themes. They mainly serve to introduce more Persona casts to the increasingly bloated ensemble, while the main story basically stands still.

It isn't until the fourth (of five total) dungeons that the story actually comes into focus. There are some effective scenes once that happens... but by that point, most of my emotional investment had faded, and so even these well-written moments didn't hit as strongly as they should have.

As with the first Persona Q, the story is centered around Q2's original character - Zen and Rei in the earlier game, Hikari in this one. The first game made Zen and Rei playable characters, which increased player connection to them. In this game, Hikari is an NPC (you do act as her once - but even then, it's in entirely scripted encounters), and so we are never as connected to her as we were to Zen and Rei.

Even with regard to gameplay, which is this title's strongest point, it just isn't as good a title as its predecessor. The maps are simpler, with relatively few creative puzzles or curveballs. The final boss is tedious, an otherwise straightforward boss battle but with an aggravating "Retake" move that requires you to periodically redo a turn. This is an utterly pointless bit of business that doesn't make the battle more challenging in any way; it simply makes it take longer.

The Phantom Thieves in "Kamo City,"
their introduction to this bizarre world.

OVERALL:

Persona Q2 disappointed me, which may be why I'm focusing so much on the negatives. Let me emphasize, then, that this remains an enjoyable game overall, with engaging combat and mapmaking mechanics. But after an excellent first Act, the story stalls for much of the running time - likely in part because it's overburdened by cramming in the full casts of all three "modern" Persona games.

This is not a bad game. But even the things it does well were done better by the previous Persona Q, which is also more widely available. Given that, for all but die hard completists I would recommend playing Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, and giving New Cinema Labyrinth a pass.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Previous Game: Persona 5 - Dancing in Starlight
Next Game: Persona 5 Strikers

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Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight.

Original Release: Playstation 4, 2018. Version Reviewed: Playstation 4, 2018.


THE PLOT:

The Phantom Thieves have won. The corrupt politician Shido has been defeated, as has the demon Yaldabaoth, and the Velvet Room has been restored.

So why have the Thieves suddenly all found themselves in a transformed version of the Velvet Room, redubbed as dance spot "Club Velvet"? Twin Velvet Room attendants Caroline and Justine inform the confused teens that they are to participate in a dance-off against their unseen sister's "guests," a competition that will be held in painstaking recreations of familiar settings, from the street of Tokyo to the various Palaces they have infiltrated to the depths of Mementos itself!

The Phantom Thieves are enlisted for a dancing competition.

CHARACTERS:

Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight was developed jointly with Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight... and given how much I liked that title, this one is extremely disappointing by comparison. The Persona 3 dancing game captured those characters beautifully - I'd argue, better than any of the other spinoffs that have featured them - while also finding ways to deepen the already strong original characterizations. This was one of many reasons why I found that dancing spinoff a surprise joy to play, and why I was genuinely looking forward to this one.

Sadly, with the exceptions of a couple good moments, the Persona 5 dancing game offers only one-note versions of these characters. Futaba ends up with the worst of it. In Persona 5, she was painfully uncomfortable with social interactions, but she was never deliberately rude or mean; even when she nicknamed Yusuke "Inari" after an anime villain, it quickly developed into a sort of semi-fond nickname. In Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, Futaba is... obnoxious. When she is on the sidelines, she snaps at Yusuke to "shut your mouth hole!" - with a sharp, non-joking line delivery, and usually in response to perfectly innocuous comments. When she's onstage, she constantly chants, "Hype! Hype! Hype!"  In short, a character who was likable in the main game has been turned into an active irritant.

The rest of the cast is more or less in character, but each Phantom Thief is reduced to just one or two traits. Morgana has a self-delusional crush on Ann; Makoto is a control freak; Ann is an airhead; and so on. An occasional moment will slip through that rings true, but these are too few and too far between.

Persona 5 protagonist Ren shares the stage with Ann.

GAMEPLAY:

Gameplay here is identical to the other Persona dancing titles, which turns out to be this game's saving grace. As I observed in my reviews of Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 4: Dancing All Night, these games benefit from a remarkably intuitive interface. While the characters dance in rotoscoped animations, symbols float toward a ring at the edges of the screen. Some call for quick button prompts, others for holding a button in a slide, still others for moving one of the analog sticks to create a record scratch noise (this last can be reconfigured to be read by a press of the shoulder button instead). The simplicity does not negate a challenge; on higher difficulties, the variations in tempo and rapidly changing prompts will test your dexterity. It just means that the controls don't get in the way of you playing the game - and the core gameplay remains as addictive as it was in the other two dancing titles.


THOUGHTS:

I have been consistently impressed with the quality of the Persona series' various spinoffs. Even the ones I haven't liked have felt like legitimate expansions of the series rather than the cynical cash-ins I half-expected.

That trend had to break at some point, though. Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight is the first Persona spinoff that really feels like a cash grab. Sure, the gameplay is fun. But while the Persona 3 dancing game shone with love in its character interactions, this game... doesn't. Only a very few Social Links are actually interesting or effective, with the rest just feeling like hastily-scripted skits. Nothing is added to the characters or their relationships with each other, and few of the conversations are as enjoyable as the ones in the actual main game.

Added to that are the slim track offerings. Because this game was rushed out after Persona 5 proved to be a hit, it only features tracks and remixes of tracks from the core game. Nothing from Royal, or Q2, or Strikers. I like Life Will Change and Rivers in the Desert... but there are only so many variations on those that I'm actually interested in listening to. And while DLC tracks are available, most of them are taken from earlier games in the franchise.

I think this game fell victim to a rush to release. With the Persona 3 dancing game, more than a decade had passed since the release of even Persona 3 FES, and I think the creative team had new reflections on that set of characters. Here, Atlus had just released a 100+ hour game featuring the Persona 5 cast. With no distance between that game and this one, they can hardly be blamed for having nothing new to say about the characters.  I strongly suspect this would be a stronger title altogether had they just waited a few more years.

The Phantom Thieves celebrate their bonds,

OVERALL:

For all of my issues, Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight is not a bad game. The actual rhythm gameplay is as fun as ever; and while I wish there was a greater variety of Persona 5-specific tracks, I do like most of the music that's presented. Still, given how much I enjoyed the other two dancing spinoffs, I can't help but feel disappointed about how bland this one ends up. Since this was developed jointly with the Persona 3 dancing game, it seems clear that - likely unintentionally - the developers put more heart and effort into that game than they did into this one.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Game: Persona 5
Next Game: Persona Q2 - New Cinema Labyrinth

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Persona 5.

Original Release: Playstation 3, Playstation 4, 2016. Version Reviewed: Playstation 4 "Royal" Version, 2019.


THE PLOT:

After being falsely accused of assault, a young man transfers to Tokyo's Shujin Academy for his year-long probation. He is instantly regarded as a troublemaker by the adults at his new school, and is warned by his wary guardian that he is exactly one problem away from being sent to juvenile detention.

After he discovers a new app on his phone, he is transported to an alternate reality: the cognitive "Palace" of volleyball coach Kamoshida, a former gold medalist who is physically and sexually abusing students. There, he and his new friend Ryuji meet Morgana - a strange being who appears to be a talking cat. Morgana informs them that they have the power to change the evil teacher's heart if they can battle their way through this cognitive world to the "treasure" that has corrupted his worldview.

With help from Ann, a student being pressured and harassed by Kamoshida, they succeed in this mission. But after seeing that their strange power can result in changes to corrupt adults, they decide to pursue other targets as "The Phantom Thieves" - attracting the attention of the authorities in the process!

Igor we1comes a new guest to the Velvet Room...

CHARACTERS:

As far back as the first game, the Persona series has benefited from likeable protagonists. Each new entry introduces a new set of characters whom you just plain enjoy spending time with. Persona 5 is no exception, with an ensemble of characters who slowly evolve from anime tropes into full-blooded human beings. This time, I ended up liking all the party members. Even the talking cat/mascot character, Morgana, manages to avoid being either overly cutesy or creepy (traps that rather firmly ensnared Persona 4's Teddie). The main character is perhaps a bit too much of a blank slate for my tastes, but the rest of the group makes up for it.

My pick for the game's strongest character, at least in the updated Persona 5 Royal, would be "Detective Prince" Goro Akechi, who is essentially this game's answer to Persona 4's popular Naoto, but with a couple twists thrown into the mix. Akechi suspects the main group from early on, and finds excuses to insinuate himself ever further into the protagonist's life. As we get to know him through his Social Link, however, he turns out to be very different than he first appears. Particularly strong is the scene in which he reveals his actual feelings in a well-written encounter which is superbly played by English language voice actor Robbie Daymond; in the space of one scene, all preconceptions about the character are upended. It should be noted, however, that much of Akechi's best material was apparently added for Royal, and that he was noticeably less well-received in the game's initial version.

The game's first real boss battle. 
Yes, this series is just as weird as ever.

GAMEPLAY:

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Persona 3 reinvented the series' format by splitting players' time between daily life, focused heavily on developing relationships with other characters, and dungeon crawling. Persona 4 refined this split, expanding daytime activities and making the dungeon crawling more varied and enjoyable.

Persona 5 moves even further with those improvements. The dungeons are now "Palaces," reflecting the mental state of each target. A corrupt painter's Palace, for example, is an art museum; a jaded prosecutor's, a rigged casino in which the only thing that matters is winning. Oh, and the demon negotiation that was a major part of the Playstation 1 Persona games? It's back, and I couldn't be happier about that.

If I have one quibble with the game play, it's the difficulty. Unfortunately, one area in which the PS1 titles have outstripped all of the modern Personas has been in difficulty balance, with the early games being neither too easy nor too hard; the modern Persona games have either been frustrating and arbitrary or ridiculously easy.  Persona 5 actually made me double-check that I wasn't accidentally playing on "Easy" mode! Only two boss battles provide a real challenge: one around the game's midpoint, one at the very end of Royal's new content.  Both of these were added for Royal, and they actually seem too difficult... mainly because their difficulty is so out-of-whack with the rest of the game!  One hopes they manage to balance it out a bit better come the next installment.

The second Palace: a corrupt artist's private museum.

THOUGHTS:

Persona 5 is a gorgeously designed, highly immersive experience. Save for the Persona series' usual "on rails" beginning (which is itself less tedious than the opening hours of its two predecessors), the entire package is designed to draw you into the game's world and make you want to keep playing to just one more save point, or one more social link, or...

So yes, as a game, Persona 5 is absolutely addictive. It is also unabashedly political. The main character is socially stigmatized by his unjust conviction, just the first of many broadsides the game aims at Japan's legal and political systems. The first villain is gym teacher/former Olympian Kamoshida, who is physically and sexually harassing students; the school's administration is aware, but is silently complicit because the man's profile boosts the school's athletics program. This is the game's most emotionally effective arc, because Kamoshida feels largely believable in his style of evil... and impression chillingly reinforced when a bit of research shows that he was based on Hajime Komura, a real-life coach whose abuse led to a pupil's suicide.

The game's ultimate villain is corrupt politician Masyoshi Shido, a career politican who sabotages the current government to advance his ambitions of becoming Prime Minister. Some US gamers became either upset or delighted when they decided the game was bashing Donald Trump. It almost certainly wasn't; Shido bears no resemblance to Trump in either speech patterns or background, and all the rest of the game's targets are entirely specific to Japan.  Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - at the time of the game's release, in his third term in office - seems by far the most likely model for Shido. 

Tackling such material does result in a story that isn't nearly as light-hearted as Persona 4. Even so, the game retains a considerable sense of charm and humor, and never approaches the darkness of parts of Persona 3, let alone that of the PS1 entries. 

The game's weakest aspect is the overall conspiracy theory surrounding Shido. By the end of the main narrative, Persona 5 has made Shido responsible for more or less everything we've seen, attempting to connect him to all the various sub-villains. It breaks the game's internal credibility, and I would have preferred more of those secondary villains to have simply been abusing the system all on their own. Still, it ends with a pair of pretty decent boss fights and a nice overall wrap-up, leaving me with few serious complaints about the base game.

Oh, and the soundtrack is absolutely fantastic, to the point that I find myself seriously considering purchasing a video game soundtrack. The jazz/rock hybrid proves a perfect complement to both gameplay and visual style, with track ranging from stirring and exciting (Life Will Change) to mournful (Throw Away Your Mask).

Whisked from the streets of Tokyo to a literal Palace!

ROYAL ADDITIONS

Persona 5 Royal was the enhanced 2019 re-release of Persona 5. Basically, it's this game's Persona 3 FES or Persona 4 Golden: an enhanced experience with a boatload of additional content.

Royal is the only edition I've played.  Still, based on what I have read, most of the new content helps the game. Dungeons have been streamlined. The Batman-like grappling hook, which is frequently used to advance in Royal's dungeons, was evidently not part of the original release - and given how enjoyable and generally cool it is to use, that hook may in itself justify Royal's existence. A genuinely difficult boss battle was added to one dungeon, and Akechi's character was reinvented by restructuring and expanding his social link.

The most significant additions are two characters: School psychologist Maruki and honor's student/gymnast Kasumi. Their Social Links are basically required if you want to unlock the all-new "third semester," but this should not be seen as drudge work. Both characters are engaging, and I looked forward to my character's conversations with them.

My reaction is more mixed when it comes to the extra semester. It offers up an interesting story in itself, but by the time I was infiltrating the (very long) final palace, I couldn't quite suppress the sense that the game was insisting on continuing after the story had ended. In my opinion, this extra material (which is, in itself, quite good) would have benefited by being presented as a sequel campaign, much like Persona 3's The Answer was. By bolting it onto the main game, it just felt like extra innings.

The Phantom Thieves prepare for another infiltration.

OVERALL:

Persona 5 is yet another excellent entry in what has emerged as one of my favorite video game franchises. Given the capabilities of the Playstation 4 versus the Playstation 2 (the original home of Persona 3 and 4), it's no surprise that this is the most visually stylish entry to date; and for most of its 120+ hours, it is thoroughly addictive.

If pressed, I don't think it's quite as good as Persona 4, let alone the Persona 2 duology. There are a few story issues, with the conspiracy plot stretching a bit too thin, and I feel that a few of Royal's additions extended the narrative past its natural end point. Even so, Persona 5 is great fun, and all signs point to this 25 year old franchise still having a lot of life left in it.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Game: Persona 4 - Dancing All Night
Next Game: Persona 5 - Dancing in Starlight

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Persona 4: Dancing All Night.

Original Release: Playstation Vita, 2015. Version Reviewed: Playstation 4, 2018.


THE PLOT:

Rise is making her comeback as an idol, participating in the Love Meet Bonds (LMB) festival with fellow idol Kanami Mashita. As part of her performance, she has enlisted her friends in the Investigation Team to perform as backup dancers, much to the annoyance of LMB producer Kyoka Ochimizu.

Shortly before the performance, the members of Kanami's group disappear, leading Investigation Team leader Yu Narakami to call the full group to the studio. The next day, they observe giant ribbons descending from nowhere to try to pluck Kanami from the studio. Both the Investigation Team members and Miss Ochimizu intervene at the same time, saving Kanami - but getting dragged in themselves.

They find themselves on The Midnight Stage, where a mysterious voice is trying to brainwash the performers it has kidnapped into surrendering their individuality and becoming living embodiments of their fans' perceptions of them. With violence impossible in this strange world, the Investigation Team members have only one way to free the kidnapped idols: By asserting their own individuality through dance!

Naoto dances on the Midnight Stage.

CHARACTERS:

Busy voice actress Laura Bailey, the English language voice of Rise in all the other games and even the anime, was unavailable for this recording. Thus, Rise is played by Ashly Burch. Burch is a capable voice actress, but I have to admit that her Rise felt "off."  A particular shame, as the story mode is so Rise-centric.

The middle of the game gives a fairly substantial amount of material to Dojima, the main character's uncle. We actually get to see him genuinely investigating, while at the same time acting as a father figure to the game's major guest character, Kanami. I'm afraid I didn't enjoy Kanami at all. She's hardly the series' first walking anime trope, but she lacks any particular dimension beyond being a trope, and I found her every appearance tiresome.

Finally, it should be noted that Teddie's lecherous tendencies have been toned down, likely because attitudes in 2015 were already much less tolerant of such behavior than when Persona 4 came out. Whatever the reason, a less obnoxious Teddie is greatly welcome.

Most of story mode is a visual
novel, with limited interactivity.

GAMEPLAY:

The story mode closely replicates the format of the Arena titles.  The story is almost entirely a non-interactive visual novel, with only a few (fairly meaningless) dialogue options at various points. The only actual gameplay comes through the dance sequences. At least, unlike the Arena games, these sequences last for several minutes each, meaning that you get about an hour of actual gameplay across the roughly 10 hour story mode.

Thankfully, the game also has a free dance mode, allowing you to select different tracks for the characters to dance to. This was the first of the Persona rhythm games, and it's interesting to compare with the Persona 3 dancing game. It's near-identical in gameplay, but less refined. Both the note structure and the dances themselves are more repetitive than in the later game. Also, the backgrounds are occasionally distracting, making it easy to miss notes simply by not seeing them - though this may be partially a function of my playing the Playstation 4 version of a game that was originally made for the Playstation Vita.

Chie and Yosuke share the stage.

THOUGHTS:

Though the rhythm gameplay is a less polished version of the gameplay from Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight (and, I would guess, the Persona 5 dancing game as well), I find even this first variant of the gameplay to be addictive. Matching buttons to notes is intuitive and enjoyable, and the Persona 4 soundtrack has enough gems to make this worthwhile - though, as with the later dancing titles, some of the best tracks are locked behind DLC walls.

While I give this game credit for having a full story mode, I have to confess that the story ended up being by far my least favorite part. It's initially intriguing, but it all dissolves into a repetition of the "power of friendship!" tropes that I was already wearying of by Arena Ultimax. And while it may be fun spending more time with the characters, at this point they've all been pretty thoroughly explored.

I think the later Persona rhythm games were smart to discard the story mode in favor of a simple narrative frame with unlockable conversations. The story mode may be more ambitious, but the result can occasionally be a slog to get through - with very long stretches offering no interactivity at all.

The "Free Dance" mode, however, is a joy, with dances gradually unlocking new characters, costumes, and tracks. Favorite tracks can be played repeatedly, mixing it up with new characters and costumes (leading to different dialogue snatches); tracks that are less interesting can be ignored after one playthrough.

The story gets off to an eerie start...

OVERALL:

I ultimately did not pour as many hours into Persona 4: Dancing All Night as I did into Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight. I found the story mode less engaging than the later game's unlockable conversations, and by comparison it feels like a rough draft. Still, the actual rhythm gameplay is addictive, and the tracks provide an aural highlight reel of the Persona 4 series (and with this many spinoffs, I feel justified in calling Persona 4 a series in its own right).

A game worth playing for fans - but probably only worth buying at a reasonable price point.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

Previous Game: Persona Q - Shadow of the Labyrinth
Next Game: Persona 5 

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