Persona 4: Dancing All Night

Persona 4: Dancing All Night continues the increasingly long story of the Persona 4 franchise through the power of dance. While on paper the two games are completely different, Dancing All Night actually shares notable similarities with the first spin-off Persona 4 game, Persona 4 Arena. It is a game that is in an entirely different genre than the original game's RPG and seems odd to even exist, but the developers take the time to actually justify why the cast of Persona 4 is spending their time dancing through a decently sized visual novel and then bring the visuals and gameplay to back the concept up.

Unfortunately, for me the biggest disappoint with Dancing All Night is the story mode. Also similar to Persona 4 Arena's delivery, the game shifts from 3D models, where you play as a more or less silent protagonist, to only focusing on the character portraits talking in front of static backgrounds and have long strings of text from a person's internal monologue, to describing the scene in front of them, and plenty of exposition. Honestly, if you haven't played either Persona 4 or Persona 4 Golden, this story probably isn't for you. The characters are relatable and there are funny moments throughout, but the game is set up as yet another sequel to Persona 4. So when Dancing All Night talks about Rise Kujikawa making a comeback, they might not fully get the context of why she stopped performing as an idol, her connection with the other characters in Persona 4, and why she's going back into showbiz. Not that they wouldn't understand who she is or why her upcoming performance is important, but I have my doubts how many people will really care. On the flip side for the people who had finished Persona 4, get ready for random side notes explaining what the Midnight Channel is and scrolling through long blocks of text which weren't in the original game.

While I will say the story is worthwhile seeing for fans of the series, it felt like a slog getting through. The story at times overstays its welcome. Between some of the repetition problems that appeared in the previous Persona 4 games, how certain scenes or subplots are too drawn out, and clicking in X to get through the walls of text separating the otherwise enjoyable conversations, I kept thinking "Get on with it!" which is something I never felt while playing the original Persona 4 and only rarely thought about while playing the previous Persona 4 Arena spinoff.

In the end, I skipped over almost all of the text blocks. While I got tired of reading through them (I'm a pretty slow reader) and thought it was slowing down the pace of the story, the main reason was because I thought the game didn't need most of them. I can tell from the dialogue, character portraits, and sound effects that somebody entered the scene. I can tell a group of Shadows appeared just by seeing the image of the group of Shadows. I can tell somebody is sad by listening to the voice acting and hearing the character on screen talking about how she is sad. I did this for over half of the story and I didn't feel like I was missing anything. The characters and the plot still made sense and when I finished the story, it didn't feel like I missed out on anything or lacked context for a scene.

That said, the story itself is actually pretty good considering there is a narrative reason why everybody is dancing. While the story begins with the Persona 4 crew helping Rise with her comeback by training to become her backup dancers for an upcoming music festival (sure, why not), the bulk of the story is around another strange occurrence; this time involving missing idols, a rumor similar to the original Midnight Channel rumor, and another...uh, another world called the Midnight Stage. While the gang is exploring the Midnight Stage, a mysterious place both similar and different to the Midnight Channel, they come to realize the rules of this world prevent people from harming one another. Therefore, the characters have to express themselves and show the Shadows how they really feel...through the power of dance. In case you are wondering, yes, this is kind of silly. It is a weird premise for any video game, and I'm not sure it being set in the Persona 4 universe makes things better or worse. That said, a pretty good reason is certainly a better justification than P Studio saying "I don't know, what if you could dance with Chie?!?" and leaving it at that. The story is enjoyable and has some good intrigue between decent funny lines of dialogue and a few fan service type moments and callbacks. Also, it's just goofy hearing hearing somebody give an impassioned speech about how we will overcome whatever challenges they may face in life through dancing. It's a fine story, but I still wish it was trimmed around the edges.

Of course, the bulk of Persona 4: Dancing All Night is the rhythm gameplay set to the backdrop of the Persona 4 cast and music, and thankfully this is where the game truly shines. The recent Persona games have plenty of catchy and memorable tunes and a good number of them appear in Dancing All Night. However, this is a Persona 4 game, so unfortunately there are no tunes from Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3. The game features a mix of the original songs as well as remix versions of these songs. A big plus to the music is the how songs are recorded or remixed. While the original songs in Persona 4 were great, they were primarily intended to play on a 60 to 90 second loop. Now each song is 3 to 4 minutes long, includes new instrumentation, and contains a second verse or chorus. So not only are the songs still great, sometimes they even sound better and some of the song's length have been doubled for the best. Also, the Junes theme has lyrics, so there's that.

On the other hand, there are only so many songs between the previous Persona 4 and Persona 4 Arena games. As a result, about half of the song list contains remixes of the same songs. Thankfully a vast majority of these remixes are incredible to listen to and range from rap to EDM. I still wish there were more unique songs or more original songs for the game, but the selection is still solid if you are a fan of the Persona 4 soundtrack. It is also worth noting that there are more songs, but they are being sold as DLC. So if you want the Hatsune Miku song, you actually need to pay $5.00 for it. (I paid $5.00 for the Hatsune Miku song. That said, if you were to buy any of the DLC, I would recommend Tohru Adachi's song, since that song is so damn fun. By the way, there are some songs cheaper, if the $5.00 per song is more than what you want to pay.)

The biggest plus for me is the actual dancing part. Between the lovely animated 3D models, the game's style, and the effects happening in the background, Dancing All Night might be the best looking Playstation Vita game on the market. I can easily see this being ported to either the PS3 or PS4 and the eye catching visuals will pop just as much. On top of that, the character animation is expressive of the characters, who each have their own unique style of dance. Chie Satonaka is more peppy and her dances contain a lot of jumping around with the occasional kicks and punches. Kanji Tatsumi has a more aggressive movements and sometimes looks like he is kind of out of control. Naoto Shirogane is cool and has a smooth style. In other words, the dances they pull off are unique to their characters and they are usually the only people who could pull it off anyways.

The actual dancing is similar to how the rhythm gameplay worked in games like Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F. While I have enjoyed games in the Project Diva f series, Dancing All Night is both more user friendly and simply more fun to play. Without going into the nuances with those games, I hit a barrier pretty hard with the Hatsune Miku games. I could wrap my head around what I had to do, but I would never be fast enough to hit all of the notes or I would consistently break my combo, get a poor score, and fail to pass a song. To me, Dancing All Night doesn't have those issues, yet it still remains challenging in a way that feels more accessible for a more average person like myself, especially when you crank up the difficult to Hard or Dancing All Night. As corny as it sounds, the more I got into the rhythm of the game, the more it felt like I was dancing. (Grant, with my hands...yeah, told you that was going to sound corny) Hatsune Miku, while still good games I would recommend to someone, sometimes feels more like button mashing and doesn't capture the best sense of movement or flow as seen in Dancing All Night.

Ultimately the most important thing about Persona 4: Dancing All Night is it is a blast to play. Once I got the hang of the systems and cleared all of the tracks on Normal and then Hard, I felt like I was moving along with those classic tunes and catchy remixes. Actually playing the game, while listening to those songs and seeing the cast of Persona 4 perform neat looking dances as a visual spectacle is happening around them, is good old fashioned fun. The story itself isn't executed as well in my opinion, but it is still a pretty good Persona 4 side story to see at least once for the fans of the series. While Dancing All Night isn't perfect, it is still in many ways a complete package through the sum of its parts.