Yo. I recently picked up a 3DS for the first time for the release of Persona Q. Here's my thoughts so far!
From the opening sequence, the P Studio has nailed making a Persona game in appearance and aesthetic; from the rocking intro to the serene start screen, everything looks and feels like a main numbered title. So far, the art style has been delightful, as familiar characters have been made into smaller, cuter models that still retain their original attitudes and facial expressions. In the first few cutscenes, the new voice acting is slightly different, but just like Golden and Arena, Atlus has chosen perfect new talent to cover the dubs. In my review for Ultimax, I made a note of criticizing the corners that the characters from both games were written into, becoming a bit flat given the different medium. In an RPG like PQ however, everything you know and love about these characters is able to be fleshed out; plenty of pitch perfect interactions and reactions from Junpei, Aigis and new to the series Ren & Zei flavor the cut scenes and in-game dialogue like a classic Persona game (For this review, I chose the Persona 3 side for the intro, however, at some point the 3 & 4 cast will collide and make one story line). From what I’ve seen, even the dungeons and enemies are borrowed and tooled towards 3 a little more, with plenty of classic Shadows returning, albeit tuned more for this battle system.
The dungeon crawling and map making lifted from the Etrian Odyssey series work amazingly well, and for a series rookie like myself, are easy enough to learn and use. I had worried about having to maintain the map and how different the dungeons would feel, but the combat reminds me enough of old MegaTen games, and works well for me. The one thing of note about this round of dungeons, either because of me or the size of the layout, it has taken me 3-4 hours to get to the third floor of the dungeon. Compared to the relatively fast nature of mainline Persona games, this is a snail’s pace. But, combat is engaging enough and there’s plenty on the map, from shortcuts to traps to treasure to ensure this by no means a boring long haul. FOEs (again, borrowed from EO) act more like the Shadows we are used to, being visible on the map and in constant motion, but keep a set path and are extremely, butt-clinching hard. Most will be able to kill party members in one swing, so avoid them at the beginning.
In my few hours, the item shop and Velvet Room have returned as primary sources for items and Persona respectively, and a for-profit clinic run by Elizabeth has been set up to heal and restore SP. A good mix of familiar elements and new mechanics means I am able to balance healing, item synthesis and purchase, and Persona fusion in a similar manner to my usual method.
Persona usage, in fact has been changed for this title, allowing all party members to carry a sub-Persona tacked on to their prime Persona. This eschews the usual battle method of relying on your main characters 12 slots of Persona switching and spreads that responsibility to the whole team. It’s been interesting and fun to try to get the perfect team of Persona matched to my party members, in order to cover weaknesses, add more elements to my repertoire, and try new moves and strategies. It’s also been a pain in the ass to try and remember to equip new Persona each time I fuse new ones or receive them in the field, but that’s more to blame on my slept deprived brain than anything.
I’m gonna check back in when the two parties collide (spoilers, I suppose), which may be anywhere from a few hours to a few days depending on how much more this first dungeon will take me. All I know is, if I had to review this game for scale, I’d be a little late out of the gate, even if I got a review copy! And that’s not a bad thing in my books.
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